Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge (best short novels .txt) 📗

Louisa snorted. “Can’t get nothing without giving nothing. Anyone knows that.”

“They’ll raise more if it’s a celebration,” I said. “A talented duet all the way from Ohio? If it is new people in town, we can get our friends from Jersey and from outside the city to come. It will be a whole celebration. You’ll see.”

I talked so much and promised so much that I found, by the end of the night, that I had made myself out to be some sort of impresario and not a failure. I spoke and felt my mouth form these lies, my tongue wet with them. I could hear the desperation in my voice. I was certain they would doubt me.

But Louisa was smiling again, and Experience had allowed Louisa to hold her hand, and so it seemed they believed me, after all.

There was no time to feel shame. There was only the beat of blood in my ears as I spoke faster and faster.

At the Gradys’ that night, when Madeline Grady had pulled herself and her children and her husband into their bed a few feet from me, I lay on the stones that had been my resting place for nearly a year and pulled a stranger’s cotton stocking up to my mouth and screamed the song I had been trying to sing, falsely, all these months. The song of my anger and my sadness, the song that I knew I could never sing in front of the Graces—I did not want them to disown me. I sang it for myself only: a thin, high thing, ugly and satisfying. I sang till my throat was raw and dry, and white flashed before my eyes, till I was panting. And then I lay back on my stones and told myself I felt lighter.

Dear Libertie,

You have only written me of music and nothing of your studies. Miss Annie tells me that you are planning, with the ladies of the old LIS, a concert in the summer—I would wish to know about it. I hope you will tell me of it when you come to stay.

Emmanuel is eager to hear of it, as well. I fear he grows bored here, out in the country, as it is. But he does not wish to go downtown and he rarely travels to Manhattan.

I am most excited for you two to meet. I think you will find him an excellent brother in study. He is so levelheaded, so calm, so persevering, that it is impossible not to wish to work as he does.

It is strange to have someone in the house who is not you, who is not my daughter.

I am eager to welcome you here, to your home, to where you belong, before you leave me again for your studies.

I hope this is not a sign that my Libertie is leaving me behind.

Your

Mother

Di m’ sa ou renmen, epi m’ava di ou ki moun ou ye

Tell me what you love and I will tell you who you are

I had not counted on the Graces’ fear of death. By the time we reached Philadelphia on our journey back east, we had slept in the barns and sheds and church pews of smaller towns, and I’d thought they would be happy for real beds in the city, which Madame Elizabeth had promised we would find in her home.

Louisa saw the coffins first, and she reached for Experience’s hand. I think Experience would have spit at me if she could have.

Madame Elizabeth stood in the center of her shop and watched them. “I did not take you girls for being superstitious. I know you are good Christians and you know the only haint is the Holy Spirit.”

She had three coffins stacked alongside the shop’s dusty brick wall—a large one, for men, a slightly smaller one, for women, and then the smallest one, for children, stacked at the very top. The room was divided between coffins and dresses—on the left, the stacked coffins, on the right, a headless, armless torso in a long muslin skirt, horsehair blooming out of its stitched shoulders, and a table scattered with bolts of cloth.

Madame Elizabeth had us sit at the hearth that straddled both sides, to recover.

“Lord, but you must be busy,” she said to me.

“Yes, I suppose,” I said.

“A full year of studies done. I am sure you are tired.” She smiled and held my gaze.

I shook my head and looked into the fire. “But is Mama well?” I said. And then, “She seems to have aid in her new pupil—”

“Emmanuel, yes.” Madame Elizabeth nodded. “A fine boy, from a good family. He and Lucien were the best of friends, before they left for Haiti. He is very handsome, too.” She directed this to Experience, the lightest of us. I had forgotten how color-conscious Madame Elizabeth was. Experience, realizing she was the intended recipient of this information, blushed and cleared her throat.

“Yes, Emmanuel’s all right,” Lucien said. He had been sitting by the coffins, wiping one of them down with a rag, and had been watching the Graces with a smile that was not altogether kind. “I wish Emmanuel’d stayed down here with us. It would have made my life less dull.”

Madame Elizabeth laughed. “More like you would have gotten into more trouble than you already do.”

“So you see,” I said, “Mama has no need of word from me.”

“Oh, Libertie,” Madame Elizabeth said, “you’re a smart girl. You know you’d whip him in any contest. Especially after a full year at school. You do not ever have to worry of being crowded out of her affections. You are too old to be jealous of a person you’ve not even met.”

I glanced over at Louisa, who was following the whole conversation with interest. Only Experience had the thoughtfulness to look away, embarrassed. She stared at the fire, working to suppress one more yawn, then stood up suddenly. “I fear, Madame Elizabeth, that