Silence at the Lock

1 The third time’s the charm. That’s how the saying goes, right? I wish I felt charmed—even like the TV show kind. But now, this gift feels like a curse, a weight. My very own albatross around my neck. But I can bear the heft of a bird, even a big one. At least my neck isn’t holding my own weight in a noose. I really don’t have a thing to complain about. And yet, I’m tired. Weary even. Sarah would say, “The journey is long and rocky, but at least you’re moving.” It was a Tuesday in April. I had just gotten home from school, just grabbed a bowl of cheese doodles—the puffy kind, not that awful crunchy kind, and just folded my legs under me to watch The Voice on the DVR. I love the blind auditions: the way the contestants get so excited, and their families cry, and the judges banter. Blake and Adam had just started to go at it. . . . But then I was standing between two high stone walls, my jeans soaked to the knee in water. A big twist of honeysuckle climbed the wall to my left, its fragrance overwhelming in this closed-off space, and just over the wall to my right, I could hear water. Big water. Moving water. I thanked heaven that the temperature had dropped last week so the snakes were probably not in the brush around me, because I was, yet again, barefoot. (You’d think I’d have learned to just wear shoes 24-7 after the first two times this happened.) I took a few steps and climbed up out of the water onto a ledge. Now, I could hear the traffic to my left, and I recognized Highway 60. I knew exactly where I was. The Maury River was to my right, and I was standing in the old lock that had been built as part of a waterway to help get goods from Richmond up over the Appalachians. I’d come here at least twice for school field trips, and Mom and I packed a picnic on sunny days and sat by the river just behind me. The Ben Salem Lock that was part of the James and Kanawha Canal. Never thought it would be helpful that I knew that tidbit of info. At least this time, I wasn’t lost. I was miles from home without my phone or shoes, but I knew where I was, and that was better than the last time. And I still had my cheese doodles, so there was that. This time, I also knew what was happening. I knew I needed to pay attention. I knew I needed to touch something, something significant. It was my skin on something that would let me see. So I set down my cheese doodles and started wandering around and putting my hand against the big stones of the lock walls. Nothing. I wandered around the corner and touched the lower walls but still nothing. I methodically went through and put my hand on every stone there, noticing the feathering marks from where people—probably enslaved people—had chiseled the stones apart. I imagined the men cutting these huge rocks with hammers and pieces of wood jammed into hand-drilled holes. I pictured them lifting the stones into place—their dark hands rough and strong. I knew enough about this lock and about slavery to know it wasn’t white folks who had built this thing. But still, no matter what I touched, nothing. I wandered over, looked across the river, and peered up and down to see if anybody was fishing out there today. I was completely alone except for the cars whizzing by behind me. I needed to think, so I sat back against a sycamore tree by the river. It took me a few minutes to decide that my best course of action was to walk up the road to the Coffee Pot and ask if I could use their phone, and I was just about to head out when I saw them. The soles of two black feet hanging just above my head. I screamed. I jumped up and took a bunch of stumbling steps back when I almost bumped into the feet. There, hanging from the tree, was the body of a woman. Her head was tilted to one side, and her eyes were closed. I stared, I’m ashamed to say. I had never seen a dead body before, especially not dead by lynching. That’s what this was. Clearly. This woman had been lynched. As I stared, I began to see the woman more clearly. She looked young, and even though her face was distorted from her terrible death, she looked kind. She was wearing a simple burgundy dress with little pink flowers on it. Her feet were bare, and her hair was slipping loose from a bun at the back of her head. Her body was swinging slightly in the nonexistent breeze. I felt my knees give way finally, the shock setting in, and that’s when I saw another woman standing on the other side of the tree, her back to the woman hanging. Her shoulders were shaking with sobs. This was who I was here to see: this dead woman grieving another dead woman. I took a deep, steadying breath, got to my feet, and walked over to the crying woman. I laid a hand on her shoulder. She jumped back and raised her hands toward her face as if to fend off a blow. “It’s okay,” I said as softly as I could. “My name’s Mary.” All sorts of things came through my head. I wanted to say I was there to help, but help with what? I wanted to tell her it would be okay, but clearly, it wouldn’t be. A woman was hanging in a tree. So instead, I just sat down and hoped she’d sit too. Eventually she did, a few feet away, but squarely facing me as if to keep an eye on me . . . or to keep me from sneaking up on her. She took a few deep breaths and said, “You can see me?” “Yes. I can see you.” My eyes must have trailed to the tree. “You can see my mama, too?”