The Sanctuary

There is a place called bank, not like the creek bank, but a building where they keep small papers called monies you can use for tradin’. You can give monies for almost anythin’ – food, shoes, warm coats, but you can’t go crazy now. Monies is precious and you need to be real wise ‘cause people will be lookin’ to take your monies.

Outside, it aint so bad if you’re real careful. You find an ol’ woman, someone with kind eyes and snowflake hair, and you tell her you need a place for you and the chil’ren to stay. You tell her you can get some monies, but you don’t be tellin’ her how much monies you got now.

Ruth been whisperin’ these monies stories at night for two whole moons now. She wait ‘til the chil’ren all asleep and the big house is all dark then she starts. Sometimes I’m so sleepy my eyes are fightin’ to be open and I only wake when her big ol’ cough starts, makin’ her whole body shake ‘til she got no breath and the blood starts sprayin’ on her kerchief.

She been drinking her herbs but they aint workin’, anyone can see, and she tells the chil’ren she’s fine but when she whispers at night, it’s like she’s trying to put everythin’ in her head into mine. I said to her one night, “Ruth, are you goin’ away?” and she said, “No, my child, you are.”

Well, that’s crazy. Everyone knows the devil gets you if you leave the Sanctuary. Saul and Miss Alice, with her hair a-droppin’, got taken by the devil not so long ago. He’s stole so many Sisters and Brothers, oh, he has, because he just waitin’ at the gate and that’s why you never, ever set a toe outside it. Leonard built that fence a long time ago to keep him out and God tol’ him to do it because God speaks to him every day. One day, we all goin’ to God but now we live in Heaven on Earth because we are chosen.

“Ruth,” I whispered, “I can’t go away. What about the devil?”

She looked real sad, sadder than normal, and she said, “You hungry, child?”

Truth is I was hungry. I tried not to be because God give us everythin’ we need and by wantin’ more, we aint honourin’ him, but I was hungry. Leonard says the devil made the crops fail and the Brothers and the Sisters who left are weak and we have to work harder because of them.

But chil’ren can’t work as hard as grown-ups, plus they go eatin’ the crops straight from the dirt and cryin’ they’re hungry and I have to tell them to be real quiet because if Leonard hears, he’s gonna get real mad.

I seen Ruth writin’ in that black book of hers, even though she has to stop if she hears Leonard a-stompin’ or the coughin’ takes her. She used to do ledger books when Leonard was tradin’ the crops and all the Brothers and Sisters praised God by doing his work. But this aint no ledger because it’s full of letters and not numbers. I used to like letters.

One night, I asked her, real quiet, “What you writin’ in there, Ruth?” and she didn’t care that I was watchin’.

“Everything that’s important,” she said.

“Can I read it?” I asked. I hadn’t read anythin’ for a long time since the lessons stopped.

She said, “You can when the time is right.”

I guess that time came when the moon grew big again and we all had warm grits with a spoon splash of milk for supper. The chil’ren were real sleepy but Ruth told them not to put their mats down but get dressed in their warmest clothes because God had a plan for us.

That’s when I seen that black book again. Mother Ruth put it in a chaff bag along with some hard ryebread and a saddle sack of water. We sat quiet ‘til we waited for the lights in the big house to go out, the chil’ren wonderin’ what God had in his mind and sensin’ it might be different to what Leonard was thinkin’.

Ruth gave me the sack and told me just like Moses, I was leadin’ the chil’ren to the Promised Land and God would protect us if we was real quiet and just followed the black road. I could see by the chil’ren’s eyes, they was real scared of goin’ out that gate. My stomach was a-tumblin’ but I could see Ruth givin’ me a look. All that stuff she put in my head was a-stirrin’.

There was 20,000 monies in the bank for us, she said. Everythin’ we needed to know was in that book and I’d remember my letters again if I thought real hard because I used to be good at letters.

Ruth been makin’ that plan with God for a long, long time but she was too old for walkin’ now, with her slow legs and her terrible coughin’, but she knew for sure God would be watchin’ over us.

We stepped into the night, the big moon lookin’ down like God himself. The chil’ren were real good at bein’ quiet and you couldn’t hear but a stone turn as we crept our way down the hill, watchin’ out for the yellow eyes of the devil. Watchin’ out for lights in the big house.

The gate was big and white, like the gate to heaven itself, ‘cept it was hangin’ clean off its hinges. We all stepped right over it to put our feet on the other side where the devil weren’t waitin’ right away and the air filled our bodies a little lighter.