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Wild Heron Plantation
Chatham County, GA
July, 1763
Coffey had finally made her decision— tonight was the night she’d become a woman.
Most girls measured change against things like shrinking dress seams or pulling stained rags and babies from between their legs, but Coffey did not consider herself to be like most girls. She’d experienced those things already— not a baby, thankfully, since the only way anyone’s seed would have found its way to her womb would be through force— and they had changed her, yes, but only on the outside. Men looked after her backside when she passed, huffing and hawing as they pulled arms of firewood or heavy sacks to their chests, just loud enough so she might notice, and some women did too, but it became keen-edged when a lover’s head turned alongside theirs. Her dresses had to be let out so that her hips could slip into them, yes, and hair now grew curled and dense on hidden parts of her body. But the outside things that concerned other people and how they saw her, they didn’t matter much. Coffey was ready to change inside herself, and after tonight, she would be transformed.
She and Lisbeth snuck as quietly as anybody could while traipsing through the forest in the dead of night, which is to say they were not very quiet at all. The two had been walking for what felt like forever, though neither could be sure of how much time had passed since they’d crept into the treeline. They had set out an hour after the lights at the Great House on the hill had been blown out and the moon was high in the sky, pouring out onto everything it could reach. Its light illuminated the ground in front of them, and when she’d occasionally look up to compare its travel with theirs, Coffey could not make sense of its path. Woods had a way of doing that, of changing time, bending it round and round ‘til it didn’t no longer exist. Still, she kept on, holding Lisbeth’s hand in hers as she led the way.
The woods were home, if such a thing could exist for a slave girl. It was like they opened up and nestled her into a hug when she’d walk its floors, especially at night. They held the rememberings of her first hunt: a racoon whose meat and fur had warmed her, and of gathering herbs for her first successful tincture. They were there for the first time her lips and tongue touched somebody else’s, and, too, for her first offering to the matope— a stolen peach and a long pour of whiskey, both for which she’d eventually pay at the tail-end of a horsewhip. More than just a place for a midnight amble, Coffey could shed her skin among the trees and join the creatures that made their home here, could melt into the dusk until she and the forest were practically indistinguishable. She could walk it with her eyes closed, if she had to—would be simple as tracing the calloused map on the inside of her palms.
Tonight would give Coffey another kind of haven, one she wouldn’t have to seek comfort in alone. She could see it so clearly, had dreamt about it often during the hardest of days: women joining hands alongside her, calling her one of their own; a flame finding its kindling and taking off inside her like wildfire, her body finally set alight with a purpose she’d chosen for herself. Coffey was going to step into the sodden ground and come out a woman with a place in the world. Goose-pimples rose on her skin every time she thought about it, and she hoped that Lisbeth— whose hand had now become clammy inside her own— would not notice.
The only thing she’d told Lisbeth when she had asked her to meet at the edge of the forest — just past the southernmost cotton-field— was that it was a religious gathering going on. She’d begged the whole day for her to come. Being fearful of anything she considered ungodly or sinful, Lisbeth was less than thrilled to find out that Coffey had different…views of the world. In fact, she ain’t like it at all. She’d been trying to convert Coffey ever since, dropping quotes from the pastor into the conversation whenever she could, all sugar-like, but Coffey was just as stubborn as she was, and all the preaching went in one ear and out the other. Lisbeth, when she finally gave in, said the only ones who ever cared about her were Coffey and God Himself, which was why she’d obliged Coffey’s request— because she was her most special friend.
Presently, the girl was stumbling behind Coffey as if the brambles they were trudging through might rise up and swallow her whole. Coffey had walked the faint dirt path many times before, but Lisbeth was not so adventurous. She startled at every crunch beneath their feet like it was the sound of a panther stalking its prey, and many times could be seen glancing back at their trail. Coffey drew her closer with a gentle squeeze, a reassurance that she was not alone. The two of them were there, making a journey together, and Coffey would never let her be harmed or left behind. Tonight would make sure of that, if they could just make it there.
Lightning bugs bobbed in the shadows around them and made the darkness shimmer. The forest’s frogs, crickets and cicadas were crooning a harmony so loud it filled Coffey’s ears like water did the nearby creek. So loud, she could hardly hear Lisbeth’s clumsy footsteps cracking all sorts of twigs and growing heavier with each step; so loud that they were able to move undetected— and it was a good thing, too. Though they’d made it miles away from the central part of the plantation, they still had to keep an eye out for night watchmen, who roamed the roads and river looking for unruly niggers to capture and beat. Being caught would mean a lashing tonight, a whipping tomorrow and extra work all week, at the least. Coffey wouldn’t hardly be able to stand it, but Lisbeth and the baby would certainly keel over dead. And the others would surely be found out.
These thoughts surged through Coffey’s calves, told her to run, but this particular night was not one for fear. She slowed down instead and climbed over the fallen tree-trunk that lay across the path, just as it always had, declaring its adjacency to the flow of the creek. Coffey knew to follow it east until she got to the big tree that was split down the middle; after that, it’d only be a mile until they reached the clearing. She hopped effortlessly over the log and turned back to help her friend. Their gazes met, idling for just a moment too long to hold less than one-hundred worries. Coffey sucked in, readied herself to beg Lisbeth to continue on, only just a little while longer, but Lisbeth heaved a sigh of exasperation, lifted the hem of her worn linen dress and swung one leg over the side of the log to sit. The shape of her belly appeared then, slightly protruding from under her breasts in a way that was different from how it usually sat. Coffey reached out to steady her. Lisbeth was a big girl, with broad shoulders, thighs and belly that made her edges soft and round. Her cheekbones pushed her eyes into a squint whenever she’d smile— probably Coffey’s favorite thing about her— and her skin bloomed indigo under moonlight. Lisbeth was the prettiest girl she had ever seen, though she refused to believe it any time Coffey told her so.
“Much longer?” she asked in Coffey’s ear, leaning onto her for balance.
“No, not much.”
Coffey reached her thumb out and wiped a bead of sweat from Lisbeth’s brow, then flashed a gap-toothed smile.
“It’s a special night for me, is all I can say. I’m glad you’ll be there for it.”
Lisbeth was fussy about the uncertainty of the situation— running around at night, there were a hundred ways to get caught. Although Coffey herself regularly slipped out past curfew and did unruly, niggerish things, Lisbeth was a model of obedience. Even more so now, since the child had changed her, made her more skittish than ever before. Lisbeth wouldn’t tell anyone who the father was, but she’d clinched up the last time Coffey’s fingers slipped inside her when they were fooling around, and that had said quite enough.
After a spell, she lifted her other leg over the side of the log and stood, brushing debris off her bottom; her fingers grazed, then linked with Coffey’s once more and they began walking.
The oaks and pines cast towering shadows that grew into giants. Coffey imagined them curiously peeking down at the girls, wondering what they were doing out so late. She told them it was her initiation, and their gasps stirred up a breeze. How did she feel, they asked, and the string running from between her breasts down to her belly button was plucked, sending flutters throughout her body. Excited? Of course she was— months of reciting chants in her head while her thumbs tore cotton from its boll, walking the forest floor until her feet could move quicker than her eyes, rising daily before the birds to pray to the matope— all her preparation, her dedication, and the night had finally come. It was like spending her life looking at others swim in the river on a sweltering hot day and then finally being told she could jump in, too. But what then…would she sink to the bottom and drown?
A light breeze filtered through the branches and a gust of damp creek air swooped down the neck of her shift gown, drying the sweat on her back and nearly giving her a chill. Coffey felt heavy with awareness then, with presence. Of something present, like someone watching her from a hidden place. Instinctively, she turned to her right and looked into the heart of the trees, which now flitted with movement. A shadow wavered under the branch of an oak up ahead, hidden only occasionally by the moss that draped down from branches and wafted back and forth like a dress out to dry. Before she could panic it lifted, and for a moment she could better see the form behind it, if she squinted hard enough. It was a man, one she knew right away by his willowy torso and broad, slanting shoulders. He’d helped her find the clearing once when she’d gotten turned around, said his name was Ngweji. Since then, she’d try to steal away little bits of yam and cornbread to leave him each time she passed through. She’d never once seen him take it, but the cloth it came wrapped in was always empty and folded neatly into a square by the time she made her way back out.
As Coffey and Lisbeth neared the tree’s drifting veil, the man came into clearer view from behind it. First were the thick beads around his neck, which gleamed, even in the night. Then came the paint that decorated his face and chest— thick lines of eggshell and blood that matched his jewelry. His neck was long, holding up an angular face with an intricate feathered headdress that perched on top. He blended into the night like he was born of it. As mysterious as Ngweje was, it had always been clear he was someone special. People of value and importance were never hard to miss, except by Lisbeth, of course, who was more focused on what ground her next step landed than anything else.
Coffey nodded hello. The veil fell, and when it rose once more, Ngweje’s attention was on her friend. He studied her, raised his brow as if to ask what Mama would think about the unexpected guest. She slowed, and Lisbeth did not stop to question— only braced her hands on her thighs while she caught her breath.
“She’s my friend,” Coffey defended.
He was not appeased.
Lisbeth picked her head up, panted in confusion.
His gaze sliced back to Coffey.
“Mama will understand,” her throat filled with bees.
Won’t she?
Lisbeth looked over her shoulders, up to the moon, through the curtain of moss up ahead. She paused.
“Coffey, who you talking to?”
Ngweje, holding a spear in one hand, pointed their way forward with the other. One last disapproving scowl, another twirling dance of the moss and he had vanished before Coffey’s eyes, leaving only moonlight in his place.
“Nobody,” she said after a while, “just thinking. Let’s keep on”
Soon the lumbering cypress tree came into view. It was split right down the middle, most believed by lightning, and its cracked trunk sprawled out in either direction. Its right side led towards the shadowy expanse where the trees disappeared: the edge of the rice fields. They went left. Through the cacophony of the wild woods, the far-off beating of a drum called. Lisbeth must have heard it too, tightening her grip on Coffey’s hand. The music pulled at them as if they were caught in a strong current. Coffey’s bones began to prickle. The light of a fire flushed the trees, which were beginning to thin out and disappear in front of them. Dancing bodies would take their place, swaying and dipping with the flames. They were close.
Lisbeth stopped in her tracks. The pull on Coffey’s arm caused her to turn around.
“Coffey, what this is?” her voice grew nails.
Lisbeth stared out at the group of women ahead. About twenty were present, gathered around a roaring bonfire. Here, among the edge of the trees stood their last awaited guest… and Lisbeth. Coffey’s breath hitched. The face of Ngweje’s disapproval bore down onto her chest. They would understand. Lisbeth would too, once she could see what it all meant.
“Come on,” Coffey said, tugging gingerly on her hand, “it’s my ceremony.”
She led Lisbeth out of the trees and into the glow of the fire.
An ensemble of women sat making music. They held wooden drums between their thighs and struck palms against the leather hides stretched atop. Coffey’s chest began to shake with its sound as they neared, and a shiver crawled up her spine.The women saw Coffey and began to cheer. She smiled. The drums beat quicker, moving from a light rain to an approaching thunderstorm. The other women followed suit, singing and dancing in response, and the fire’s flame leapt in approval.
The ceremony was about to begin.
One of the younger ones—older than Coffey and Lisbeth, but younger still than many of the elders present— stepped forward, placed her hand on Lisbeth’s shoulder and steered her away from Coffey. Her fingers struggled to stay clasped to Coffey’s sleeve. A protest sat poised on Coffey’s tongue, one that begged them to let Lisbeth stay with her. Even just one moment longer, and she could explain everything. It withered as Lisbeth’s fingers lost their grip. She looked back at Coffey and parted her lips, but the congregation absorbed her before her mouth could form sound.
All at once, Coffey was standing alone. Two lines of women formed in front of her, ten on either side. Some played the jaw-bones of an ass or a horse, grating sticks across the animal’s teeth until a hard-edged rattle sounded. Others clapped and sang. All looked on as an older woman walked down the makeshift aisle towards Coffey. She strode forward with confidence, like a woman who wasn’t never owned by a man, even though she was a slave like the rest. The fire behind her surged, and the drums quickened as if they were being controlled by her will. Her force swelled like each of her steps drew up power from the ground and propelled her forward. It radiated from her, that power.
All around the plantation she was known simply as Mama. This woman, who could heal any wound with the right herbs, the one from whom extra food grew for anyone who needed it, the one who some say killed her old master and all his children without ever lifting a finger. While Mama’s expertise was known throughout the entire county, Coffey regarded her with protectiveness. People may have called the old woman like family, but Mama was her mama, or the closest thing to one that Coffey had ever known. Coffey had arrived at Wild Heron scared and alone, having been sold to Master Harris before she knew how to speak, and was placed in Mama’s care. Mama fed and clothed her, protected her, taught her everything she’d need to know to survive. All around the plantation and yonder she was known simply as Mama, but there, in the clearing, she was the High Priestess. The woman who would guide Coffey into the process of her own special power. Mama closed the space between them and held Coffey’s stare. Her heart went thumping in her ears. Had Mama seen Lisbeth? Would she be in trouble? Had she fouled it all up? Mama pulled Coffey into her pillowy chest. She placed her warm hand over Coffey’s braids and patted.
“My child. My daughter. Are you ready? Nothing will ever be the same.”
A pause. The music churned between them. Coffey thought back to the last time a day had changed everything that followed it— the prior year’s rice season. Blistering sores from days spent ankle-deep in water. Silken mud between her toes. Coffey’s pitiful harvest, overseer’s inspection up ahead. The pretty girl with the sad eyes who plunged her hands into her own brimming basket and shoveled rice into Coffey’s. Lisbeth’s smile.
Sometimes change brought freedom.
“I’m ready, Mama.”
A wooden bowl appeared, passing from the hand of each woman until it glided into Mama’s. Hands pulled Coffey’s gown from her shoulders and whisked it away. Her neck flushed at the thought of being looked at, of being seen by anyone else but Mama and Lisbeth. Her arms twitched with the urge to cover her nakedness, but remained limp at her side. She must be seen. She must do this. Mama dipped hands into the bowl, swept a mixture of red clay and animal fat onto her two fingers. She rubbed it into Coffey’s braids and scalp, then began painting her face and body with ochre-colored symbols. This would allow the spirits to find and commune with her, she remembered. The mud was cold at first and she flinched, but then it grew warm and pulled at her skin while it dried.
“First, the offerings,” Mama said to the crowd.
Two sets of hands came forth at the other end of the aisle, each holding a flailing white chicken by its neck. Mama unsheathed a blade from her hip and placed it in the first woman’s hand. She took it, her lips moving in prayer, and she slit the chicken’s throat, its life-force spraying red and hot across her skirt. As the second woman took the blade and followed suit, the first chicken was laid in the center of a large, winding sigil carved into the earthen clay before her. Not long after, the second bird was laid next to it, and the tiny gulchfilled up like a trough. Lisbeth hated the sight of blood, and most certainly would have turned away. Where was she? Coffey searched for her face.
Before she knew it, Coffey was being ushered down the aisle, closer to the fire and the sacrifice. A flock of birds let loose in her stomach, and she grew more light-headed with each step. Would she be strong enough? Her legs were shivering leaves. What if she was turned away, what would she do then?Hands steadied her, and Mama’s gaze did the same from the other side of the path. The ground became sodden as she walked, and the dirt squelched against her toes into mud. Woman after woman met her with a smile, a prayer, a welcomeas she passed them by. She focused ahead, even as she felt the mud grab up her calves and force her to wade her way through. Coffey steeled herself, pushed Lisbeth to the back of her mind. No distractions, just like she had been instructed. Nothing but the way forward.
When Coffey reached Mama at the end of the aisle, her legs were submerged to the knee. Once she stopped moving it seemed to harden around her muscles and hold them in place. The mud was cooling, stable. Dark leaves were set aflame, passed between her legs and over her head until a light smoke encircled her body, the scent like soil after a heavy rain. Mama produced a hollowed-out gourd and lifted it to her lips. She took a swig of its contents, stopping just short of swallowing. Instead, she launched it at Coffey, spraying it into a fine mist from between her teeth. The warmth ran down her neck. Coffey shuddered. The gourd exchanged hands, and the ritual repeated down both sides of the aisle.
The music descended into a heavy rumble while Mama took another small basin from the ground. It was odd to see it lifted from solid dirt, despite Coffey’s legs being practically buried in mud. She was standing on solid ground, she realized, and her calves were free to move, even though she was unable to make them. Before she had time to make sense of it, Mama’s eyes motioned to the bowl in front of her. Inside it sat a pile of dried chips, taken and flattened from the nearby river’s clay. She took one, placed it on her tongue to chew. It was smooth and melted in her mouth like lard, growing hot as she swallowed. The ember sat in her belly, ready to erupt in a blaze with even the slightest movement.
“Now that the source is inside you, it is time to let the matope have a look at you. They will decide if you are worthy of their possession.”
The drums accelerated. Lines of women merged into a circle, dancing around her and calling down to the spirits who resided in the ground. Flames rose and fell with the beat, casting masks across their faces. The colors and shapes and sounds blended together in a tide that crashed and swelled up through her limbs. This was the moment, it roared, the one you have crossed the forest for. The matter of it filled her up, and she wanted nothing more than to hold Lisbeth and let its potency spill over into her. Do you see now, she wanted to shout through the noise, do you see that I belong here, too? When she finally found Lisbeth’s face in the crowd, it held a look of horror. She stood shrunken and away from everyone else, the tambourine she’d been given lay dead in her hands. She fidgeted, glanced nervously back and forth between the bloody ground and the scene playing out before her. The urge to go to Lisbeth tugged amid the whipping winds of the change, told Coffey to take her hand and pull her into the storm.
Coffey wanted to go to her, but a tension in her muscles held her lower body in place. Its sensation crept up Coffey’s legs, and her skin sweat and bristled in response. Then, a chill cutting into her, furrowing under her skin like the metal of a blade. She found herself both swelteringly hot and frigidly cold— every single hair on her body stiff. Awareness came flooding in, the one that told her she was not alone. Every thought, every memory felt like it was being poked at for the first time and suddenly, her mind was crowded with a consciousness other than her own. Her arms raised into the air without prompting, as if someone had stepped into her skin and grabbed onto her bones— she moved when they wanted her to, wherever they wanted her to go.
Coffey’s body began to dance. She pivoted, stepped and wound her hips in the center of the circle. She danced as the women around her did, as the people like Ngweje, born an ocean away from her, did. She moved fast now, and the circle matched her pace. She jumped, she twisted, she made her body bounce and ripple as the drums and the bonfire exploded into a climactic frenzy. Her body, now leading the ritual. Sweat streaming down her face and obscuring her vision. Lisbeth now, fading in and out. The urge again, to hold her. No, the storm howled, this is what you came for. But Lisbeth didn’t understand. It screamed, perhaps she never will. She closed her eyes then, allowing fire and ice to consume her.
The shape of a matope appeared in front of her, mirroring her movements exactly. Coffey did not have to see it with her eyes to know its visage— a tall woman with hair round as the moon. Its eyes, all white, bore into Coffey’s deepest, most private thoughts. The matope’s hands glided upwards, and thin vines sprouted from the ground and snaked around Coffey’s body on command, searing her skin. They burrowed into her nerves, poached her bones. Coffey’s scream slashed at the air like a cutlass. She was not ready to die. Tonight she was meant to be transformed. Pain burned raw through every inch of her skin. She was not ready to fail, to be refused by the matope. It twisted up into her belly. To disappoint Mama, to be so weak. She would not die. She was here, changing. No matter what.
The agony peaked, and then it was over.
In its place now was a stillness that enfolded her, took her out of herself. The air around her became frigid and damp, but she was not cold; it was the darkest of nights, but she was not scared that she could no longer see. The presence of the matope lingered nearby, but Coffey’s arms and legs and eyes were gone; her physical form was a shell that had long been cracked open and strewn aside— all that was left of her was a tiny kernel buried inside the dirt. The kernel bloated like a carcass, then, the hurt drawing out a long howl as a series of string-like roots emerged from her skin. They gave her the strength she needed to stretch, to search for her limbs, to try and wiggle her fingers, but instead of hands she found a stem shooting up through the soil before it turned green and unfurled into a leaf. The leaf reached for the sun and grew thick with bark and branches, and before she knew it she was fat and ripe and bending a bough with her lushness. Plucked away by soft hands, a pair of teeth broke through her yellow skin and her juices ran down a chin before being wiped away and tossed into the grass with her seed. She swelled then, taking root once more, this time deep into the ground, where she grazed other outstretched hands and wove her searching strands with theirs.
The roots spoke to her when she tangled with them, growing in volume and unison like a hundred voices singing at once. She followed the thread of one and became a woman with a face like the matope, who struggled to keep her shackled feet balanced atop a violently rocking boat. A murmur, a meeting of eyes, a signal. Twenty feet pounded the floorboards, hands gripped the railing, bodies hurled over the side to salvation. Arms spread out like sails, and the water smashed, then swallowed. Coffey sunk into its depths, became a droplet of salt water just as it was tugged upwards to the surface, hissing into the air. She returned as a bead of water falling during the wet season, and the freedom of a good plummet brought her delight. Her splash into a small, winding creek landed on a young girl’s shoe as she passed through the woods at night, and suddenly she was back inside herself, walking to the clearing for the first time.
Coffey opened her eyes to find her face planted in the ground, blood and dirt clinging to her skin. Mama stood over her, wiping her down with a wet cloth. Someone fanned her with the hem of their dress. The women crowded around her and gently pulled her up to clean her. She looked down at her hands, astonished to find them intact. Had anyone else witnessed it? The drums were a drizzle once more, and the matope was gone. She realized, too, that Lisbeth was as well. Coffey struggled to stand on newborn legs. She grabbed a pair of shoulders for balance. She looked at Mama in panicked question, followed her gaze to the darkness of the trees, then to the outline of a girl running towards them.
“Lisbeth, wait!” Coffey yelled after her.
She stopped, facing Coffey with a grimace that she had never seen her wear before. It was the way women looked when they woke up in the middle of the night to find Master Harris or his son standing over them: eyes brimming with water, nostrils flared, teeth grit— waiting for what was to come. Her stomach tied into a knot. She broke away from the doting hands of the women and started after her friend.
“No, child,” a stern, familiar voice fluttered inside her mind, clear as day.
Coffey stopped dead in her tracks.
“Let her go.”
She would know that voice anywhere.
Coffey spun around to find Mama’s scorching stare. But how was it inside her? She thought of the mud cast onto her legs, and the stocks that had bound her arms.
“We have work to do, Coffey. Come now,” Mama said with lips of stone.
This time, it was Coffey’s hesitation that kept her in place. She had been wanting this for as long as she could remember— to belong to a family, to learn the ways of muck magic. But Lisbeth was important to her. Her special friend. She could almost hear Lisbeth speak the words. Coffey imagined that, in a perfect world Lisbeth could forgive her, see the other side of things. That she could let go of the feelings she’d gathered up tonight, and they would never have to speak about it again. She imagined holding the softness of Lisbeth’s hips in the old barn while everyone slept. They’d laugh together, then, at the way they had almost put an end to things over a few dead chickens. Coffey would pull the hay from Lisbeth’s hair as she giggled and kiss her nose. In that world, in that moment, it would all be alright. But that world was not this one, and it fell away now, revealing a new but familiar strangeness that sat in her core.
Coffey turned just in time to see the white of Lisbeth’s clothing swallowed up by the treeline, like she had never been there at all.