This story is by Susanna Blagrove and was part of our 2024 Spring Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.
Sweat burned the fresh cut on my hand as the shovel slipped from my fingers for the fourth time in as many minutes, the trembling digits useless with the heavy tool. I heaved air into my burning lungs, tasting the fear and exhaustion that threatened to stifle me. The moon shone bright, full, peaceful, and silver onto the T junction and all the holes I had frantically dug.
With each midnight trek, I dug more holes than the night before and had found nothing to save my sister. My heart thumped wildly at the thought of the listless, apathetic girl, saying less and fading each day. The sister who needed me and who I’d promised to help, knowing that if people caught me here, covered in dirt and surrounded by holes as I was, they would have wondered if I too had lost her mind. If I told them what brought me there and why I was doing all this, they would have committed me to the hospital for the mentally challenged.
Maybe my parents would understand. After all, it was their hushed voices and Amoy’s report card that started all this.
“She fail every single ting, Steve,” my mother had whispered, tearfully. “Dat possible?” Her drag of air sounded punishing. “Ah mean everything. How somebody fail P-E?!”
“Just no go?” My father had deadpanned, and she retorted with a loud sigh.
“Dis a no joke, Steve,” Mother whisper-whined. “She go school every day. She no skip no-ting.”
There was shuffling paper. “Look ‘ere,” Mom said.
There was silence for a beat, then my father read: “Amoy seems to have lost focus this term and it shows in her grades. She seems less interested in everything and does not answer questions anymore.”
“Me worried, Steve,” my mother breathed.
“She a just eight, Jen,” my father said, resigned. “She ‘ave time.”
My mother left the room then, with a hiss of her teeth, grumbling about my father taking everything for a joke.
That night had been so cold, I had wrapped my blanket tightly around my feet but couldn’t rid myself of the bone-deep chill. So, I was only half asleep when the familiar distant voice called my name. When my eyes flitted open, unfamiliar, overgrown grass surrounded me, shining silver green in the moonlight. The tallest trees, and the blue-black, star-speckled sky hung overhead.
“Erica!” The voice was closer now.
“Mama?” I asked in wonder. The face that looked back at me was as familiar as my own and younger than the last time I saw it in this life. “Mama, a you dat?”
“Yes, chail. Is me.” My grandmother reached out her arms, and I folded into her wiry embrace. She smelled like clothes pulled from the always cold barrel in our humid countryside, and like her. She pushed me from her gently and I sniffed, and self consciously pulled from her arms altogether. I knew this was impossible, her being here, but she was here, solid.
“Hush no, pickney. Me know. Me know.” It had been almost four months, but her funeral garb still looked new. “Hush,” she whispered, lengthening the last consonant to soothe me. “Me come fi help Amoy.” I perked up at those words, at the strength and conviction in them.
“How, Mama?” I asked, thinking of the small girl asleep in her bed, her intermittent sleep noises joining the frogs’ strange ones. Many nights, I’d counted the seconds between those breaths to fall asleep myself.
“Come wid me,” my grandmother held out her hand.
My blood ran cold. I could not go with her. Mommy said we could not go where our grandmother had gone. It was not a place for the living. It was a private room, with only her name on the door.
“Mama, no. Me can’t go where you going.” My hands trembled and my voice was unrecognizable.
“Cho gyal,” Mama said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Ah won’t carry you way wid me. Couldn’t do it even if me did want to. Just waa show you something.” She held out her hand again and this time I took it. Helping Amoy was what I’d gone to bed wishing for. Her fingers curled around mine. Once again, fear rushed through my veins at the unfamiliar coldness of her fingers, a reminder that she was otherworldly.
We walked through the unfamiliar bush for a bit, the dry grass crunching under my feet, while my grandmother seemed to glide by. Despite her moving feet, she made no sounds. We walked so long my feet should have started hurting, but they didn’t. The sky stayed blue black and the silence discomforting.
“Where you take me, Mama?” I whispered when we stopped, because it felt like I should not be talking too loudly here.The route we took should not have brought us to this familiar clearing. Also, there were supposed to be wooden houses and trees around us, but as I stood looking around, there was only the clearing.
“You know dis place, Erica. Is where they cutting the new road. Right here so is where the old road and di new road meet up.” She pointed toward the paved road that had numbered my steps all my life, gesturing to the new road with its freshly cut stones and dirt exposed to the night air.
“If you walk on the road from Miss Mercy to Big Shop, you will get to it.” Mama’s voice was clear. “Right here so, right ina di middle of the roads, this crossroads, somebody plan evil for Amoy.”
My heart sped up. “Wa kinda evil?”
“Memba when dey dig the road bout 5 months a back? Dey gonna cut everything down before they come back and do the rest a tings. You know, pave it and so.” Mama looked around, then added, “Tomorrow come back here so, Erica. Come back ina di night and dig till the shovel neck cover up bout half way. If you don’t find anything, you have to dig another hole. You ave to dig till you find it under there.”
“What?” Even I heard the skepticism in my voice. “Wat me goin to find? Gold?” I scoffed.
“Just do what Ah say Erica,” Mama’s voice was tired. “Come back here in di night and dig. If you reach di length and you no find anyting, dig anoder one. You ave to make sure you fill up back di holes before you leave cause nobody mus know you out here digging. If dey find out, you goin to be in danger too.”
I should come back here by myself in the middle of the night to dig holes? She was mad. But then Amoy’s lifeless eyes came before me. My little sister was slowly fading away.
“Okay,” I said. “I will try anything. But wat me looking for, Mama?”
Mama nodded as if she was proud of my question. “You lookin for someting dey planted, someting dat belong to your sister. Maybe a book or a hair clip. Dig it out. Dat is what you do. Dig it out to save your sister.” Mama looked me straight in the eye then, her own dark brown ones as clear as I remembered them.
Something tightened my stomach as I gathered my courage. I nodded at my grandmother. “Okay.”
“Good,” my grandmother said in a breath. She did not think I would do it, I realized, watching the concern float on her face. “Dat’s good, Erica. Rememba, be careful. Nobody can see you.” She whispered desperately. “Whoever do dis mean to destroy your sister and maybe di rest a di family. Dey buried it here for some demon. So don’t let dem know you know.”
“I will be careful, Mama,” I whispered back, straightening my 13-year-old spine to carry the weight.
“One more ting, Erica,” Mama added, taking my hand in her cold one. I looked up at her grave face. “You ave to find it before dey pave di road. If dey pave, it will all be ova.”
That was two weeks and a million holes ago. Every day, I lived with a film of dirt in my hair and under my nails and these waking dream about holes and salvation. I must have dug and refilled holes in every inch of the junction, each attempt gradually deeper than my grandmother had instructed. There couldn’t be any more space to dig. I looked around frantically, seeing a spot that looked untouched. Was that where Mama had actually pointed? Maybe. Or was it at the far edge?
My breaths were choppy as hysteria threatened. Unseeing, I grasped the shovel with bloody, shaking hands and stumbled toward the spot. Please, help me, I asked God and my grandmother, as I positioned the shovel and tried to breathe, and Amoy. We were almost out of hope and space. And, the pavement was coming.
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