Ship of Souls Read online

  SHIP OF SOULS

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2011 Zetta Elliott

  All rights reserved

  The poem in chapter 13, “In Flanders Fields,” was written in 1915 by John McCrae.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by AmazonEncore

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN-13: 9781612182681

  ISBN-10: 1612182682

  SHIP OF SOULS

  ZETTA ELLIOTT

  For Kodie.

  CONTENTS

  PREFACE

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  SHIP OF SOULS

  PREFACE

  I live in Brooklyn, and I believe in magic.

  For years I passed a large boulder in Prospect Park that marked the site of Battle Pass. The plaque on it explained that American and German soldiers had fought there at the start of the Revolutionary War. Sometimes when I walked by the boulder I would wonder, “What if that plaque was really a door that opened late at night?” In my mind’s eye I could see dimly lit stairs leading down into the earth—but I couldn’t see farther than that.

  On the first warm day of spring in 2010, I walked up Flatbush Avenue toward Grand Army Plaza. Through the cast iron fence on my left, I heard a rustling in the dry brown leaves that covered the ground. I assumed it was just a squirrel and so continued on my way. The rustling persisted, however, and so I stopped—and the rustling stopped. I resumed walking, and whatever small creature was following me continued as well. I stopped—it stopped. I walked on and it pursued me. I finally turned and searched the park floor but couldn’t find a chipmunk or squirrel or any other source of the sound. What I did see (in my mind’s eye) were three kids—two boys and a girl. I saw something invisible grab the youngest boy and drag him along the ground. His friends came to his aid and saved him from being dragged underground. I stored that scene in the back of my mind and walked on.

  During the summer I came across an online article about an eighteenth-century ship that was found during construction at Ground Zero. “Why would a boat be buried underground?” I wondered. Archaeologists suggested it had simply been used as landfill when lower Manhattan was being expanded in the seventeen hundreds. I had other ideas but tucked them away until November. That’s when I found a beautiful cowrie shell on the ground near my home. I assumed it had fallen off someone’s jewelry or bag and simply put it in my pocket and walked on. A week later my favorite literacy organization, Behind the Book, brought me to JHS 13 in East Harlem. Though they were studying Bird, Ms. Mayers’s sixth-grade students asked me to tell them about my latest story, and so I told them about the rustling leaves, the voices I kept hearing, and the scenes unfolding in my mind. They urged me to finish the story and return to tell them how it ended. I promised that I would.

  In December, I found a second cowrie shell—tiny, white, fragile, yet miraculously intact. Two perfect shells—once used as currency in Africa—lying on the streets of Brooklyn, waiting for me to pick them up. It had to be a sign. For years I had wanted to write about the African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan—a sacred site outside the city limits where, up until 1794, fifteen thousand free and enslaved blacks were buried. Four hundred and nineteen of those burials were uncovered in 1991 during construction of the Ted Weiss Federal Building. Community members mobilized and fought for the study and preservation of the remains, and today an impressive monument marks the resting place of those unnamed souls who built the colony that became New York City.

  A week before Christmas, I sat down and began writing Ship of Souls. For me, Christmas is a magical season filled with miraculous stories. I knew that my story would be about redemption and release. By the lights that decorated my little tree, I wrote through the blizzard that immobilized the city. I told a story of loss and loyalty, an urban fantasy woven together with fragments of the city’s history and my own contemporary reality.

  I’ve always known there was magic in this city. Or rather, I believed that magic was possible here, and so magical things have happened to me. I didn’t feel that way when I was growing up in Canada. I dedicate this book to my cousin Kodie, who lives in Canada and so may have to dream himself into existence just as I did when I was his age.

  1.

  “Walk like a man, not like a pimp.” That’s what my mother used to say. She was my best friend. That might sound weird, but my mom was all I ever had. No dad, no aunts and uncles or cousins. Mom didn’t like to talk about our family, but I knew it wasn’t normal, the way we lived. I used to tell myself that Mom must have testified against the mafia and so the FBI put us in their witness protection program. Somewhere out there was a whole other life filled with people who loved us but couldn’t be trusted with our new identities. That’s better than the other possibility, which is that my father’s some kind of psycho stalker. Or maybe he just couldn’t bother to stick around. Whenever I asked about him, Mom would say, “Don’t I love you enough?” And I wouldn’t ask any more questions after that because she did. My mother was all I needed.

  One time when I was eight, I had a really bad cold and couldn’t sleep. The light was on in the hallway, so I just left my bedroom door open a crack and got down on the floor with my pillow and my book. I must have fallen asleep after a while because I didn’t hear the intercom or the doorbell. But I woke up when I heard someone at the front door—someone my mom knew but didn’t want to let in.

  “He’s mine.”

  “He’s not yours—he’s ours.”

  “You promised, Neil. You promised you’d stay away.”

  “And I’ve kept my end of the deal. You know I have. I just want to see him.”

  “He’s sleeping.”

  “So let me watch my boy sleep. Five minutes, Irene. Five minutes with my boy.”

  For a moment Mom said nothing. I stared at her hand gripping the doorknob and willed her other hand to slide the chain off and let my dad inside. It was him—I just knew it was him.

  “I can’t. I’m sorry, Neil. I just can’t.”

  “But why—”

  “You know why!” she hissed at him. “You know damn well why we have to live this way. You made your choice.”

  “And you made yours, Irene. Why can’t the boy make up his own mind? He’s old enough now.”

  “No. He’s my child and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him safe.”

  “And what if something happens to you, Irene? Then what?”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

  “How do you know? You can’t predict the future.”

  “Predict? No. But I can plan.” Mom shook her head. “You’re not part of the plan, Neil.”

  The man pulled back from the door. “Time will tell,” I heard him say, and then Mom closed and locked the door.

  When I asked her about it the next day, Mom gave me a real funny look. Then she pressed her palm against my forehead and said the fever must have given me a crazy dream. Later, when cancer made a liar of my mom (nothing’s going to happen to me), I thought maybe the man at the door would come back for me—give me that chance
to make up my own mind. But he didn’t. Maybe it was just a dream after all.

  She was tight-lipped about my father, but when it came to other stuff, I could talk to my mom about pretty much anything. Sometimes I worried that I wasn’t “black enough.” I’m not a total geek or anything, but I’d been homeschooled for most of my life, and that meant I didn’t spend a lot of time with other kids. When Mom got sick, I had to enroll in a public school, and I didn’t exactly fit in. Kids on my block called me “reject.” Grown folks at church called me “an old soul.” One girl at school told me I talked like a white boy. But when I ask Mom about it, she just said, “You are black. And nothing you say or do or pretend to be will ever change that fact. So just be yourself, Dmitri. Be who you are.”

  I still hear her voice every day, and sometimes I even talk back. Mostly I just try to do the things I know she’d want me to do. Like keep my grades up, respect my elders, speak proper English—stuff like that.

  One of the nurses at the hospital gave me a pink ribbon pin to put on my jacket, but I put it in my pocket instead. I didn’t want to be a walking advertisement for cancer. Plus, you get a ribbon when you win some kind of contest, and this time, I didn’t win. I lost. Cancer won.

  Sometimes I push the pin into my finger just to make sure I don’t forget what losing feels like. I prick my skin and squeeze out a little blood. Feeling pain means I’m still alive, and I know Mom would want me to keep on living. Problem is, most days I just feel numb. When I’m not numb, I’m miserable. And even when I’m not miserable, I’m still alone.

  2.

  Right after Christmas a blizzard hit the city. This lady on our block went into labor, but the streets weren’t plowed, so she couldn’t get to the hospital. She tried walking through all that snow but only made it as far as our building. She had the baby right there in the lobby with the help of some of our neighbors. They called an ambulance, but it never came and the baby died. All because of a blizzard. I never told my mom. She was upstairs “dying with dignity.” At least that’s what Marva and the hospice lady said. To me, it looked like Mom was just too tired and weak to wake up.

  Marva was my mother’s best friend—her only friend, really. We mostly kept to ourselves, but Marva lived on our floor, and she was there with us at the end. When Mom passed and the hospice lady went away, Marva let me come stay with her. But ACS sent a social worker to check on me, and she said I had to go with her. Marva worked nights as a security guard, and that meant I was sleeping alone in the apartment. Marva said, “Don’t worry, baby, I got it all under control.” But Marva never came for me.

  Now I’m in the system, and I don’t really know what’s going to happen next. Jimmy, this kid in the bunk above mine, acts like he’s an expert on foster care. Mom used to tell me to make small talk when I wanted to get to know someone new. I get kind of nervous around people I don’t know. Not Jimmy—he just dives right in.

  “You a new kid, or did you get sent back?”

  “Sent back?”

  “Sure—happens all the time,” he says. “Foster parents change their mind, or you screw up and lose your shine, and next thing you know you’re right back where you started.”

  “This isn’t where I started,” I say with just a hint of attitude.

  “So you’re a new kid.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Welcome to purgatory, otherwise known as ‘limbo-land.’ This is where we wait to get pulled up to heaven or dragged down into hell.”

  I don’t know what this crazy kid is talking about, so I just take a book out of my bag and pretend to be absorbed. Jimmy hangs over the edge of the bed watching me until I think blood’s going to start pouring out of his ears. Finally he jumps down and sits on the edge of my bed. “What you reading?”

  Before I can answer, Jimmy rips the book out of my hands and looks at the picture on the cover. “Looks lame.”

  “Hand it over, then.”

  He flings the book at me and uses his heel to kick my suitcase, which is shoved under the bed. “You got a lock on this?”

  I hesitate and wonder if I should lie. Telling the truth might just encourage him to snoop around. But something tells me this kid’s a pro when it comes to lying, so I settle for telling the truth. “No. Why?”

  “Stuff gets snatched all the time around here. Caseworkers think they got us locked down with all their rules and regulations, but they don’t know half the stuff that goes down around here—especially after dark. Soon as they call lights out, all the heavyweights go to work—stealing, dealing. How old are you?”

  “Eleven.”

  Jimmy nods like that’s a good thing. “You got a year before they put you in the juvie joint.”

  “Juvie joint? What’s that?”

  “That’s where they put the kids who got records. You know—junior criminals.”

  My heart’s starting to speed up, but I keep my nose buried in my book so Jimmy won’t see the fear in my eyes. I’m hoping that if I show no interest, Jimmy will take a hint and climb up into his own bunk. But Jimmy’s not even looking at me. His eyes are fixed on the window even though there’s nothing to see through the frosted glass.

  “Yeah—group home’s no joke. I had a cousin who wound up in a group home. They messed him up pretty bad. Between the gangs and the pervs, Alfie didn’t stand a chance. The way he tells it, group home’s just like training camp for prison—a whole bunch of bad asses trying to prove who’s on top.” Jimmy smirks at me. “All I’m saying is, don’t drop the soap!” He laughs at the terror in my eyes before pulling himself back up to the top bunk.

  I lie in my own bed and will myself not to cry. Cheese and rice. Mom told me never to take the Lord’s name in vain, so even though I really need God’s help right now, I can’t bring myself to say his son’s name. So instead I say, Cheese and rice! Please don’t let me get put in a group home. Please.

  The next morning after breakfast, I get called into the caseworker’s office. There’s an old white lady sitting in the chair beside her desk, so I stand by the door. I look like a soldier standing at ease, but really I’ve got my fingers crossed behind my back. Come on, lady, I plead silently, take me home. I promise to be the perfect son you’ve always wanted.

  The caseworker stands and comes around her desk to put a hand on my shoulder. “D, this is Mrs. Martin. I’ve just been telling her a bit about you.”

  I extend my hand and say, “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Martin.”

  The old lady’s face lights up, and I know she’s impressed by my good manners. I never imagined a white person would want to adopt me, but Mom used to say beggars can’t be choosers. I decide then and there that I will beg this woman to take me home if I have to.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, D,” she says. “And I’d just like to offer you my sincere condolences on the passing of your mother.”

  I wasn’t ready for that. I never did figure out the best way to handle other folks’ sympathy. I drop my eyes and say, “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Martin looks at the caseworker and says, “Poor thing. So young to have lost so much.”

  The caseworker gives my shoulder a squeeze and says, “Why don’t I go get another chair so you two can spend some time getting to know one another?”

  “That would be lovely,” says Mrs. Martin.

  I smile and nod eagerly like there’s nothing I’d rather do than chat up this old lady. How long do I get to sell myself? Every Wednesday the weather woman on channel four features a kid who’s up for adoption. I always felt sorry for those kids, but now the shoe’s on the other foot. Should I pull out all the stops and try to dazzle her with my brilliance? Or should I stick with being humble and polite? I decide to start with some flattery.

  “I like your hat,” I say with a fake look of admiration.

  Mrs. Martin reaches up a hand to proudly stroke the tacky flowers spilling over the brim. “Thank you, D. It’s not my best—I save that one for Sunday. Was your mother active in the chu
rch?”

  Active? Mom and I sat in the same pew every week, but that sounds passive, not active. “She taught Sunday school for a few years,” I say. I decide not to tell Mrs. Martin about the Christian Singles Group. Mom always said it should have been called the Christian Spinsters Group since there were ten women for every man. She went to a few meetings and then quit. “We went to the AME church near our building,” I add.

  “Well, I’m Unitarian and I live in a house. Have you ever lived in a house before, D?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I think you’ll like it. There’s a yard out back and you’ll have your own room. I have a tenant on the top floor, but he works nights and mostly keeps to himself.”

  Mrs. Martin’s using the future tense—does that mean she’s already decided to take me home? Just then the caseworker returns with an extra chair. I thank her, sit down, and wait to see what happens next.

  “I was just telling D about my house,” Mrs. Martin says. “It’s much too large for a little old lady like me. I had hoped to foster a girl this time, but I think you’re right, Ms. Ward. D’s a sweet boy.”

  Ms. Ward turns to me. “Mrs. Martin lives near a magnet school, D, so you’ll be able to continue with your studies.” To the old lady she says, “D’s an excellent student—he’s won a number of prizes for academic achievement.”

  “Your mother must have been very proud of you,” Mrs. Martin says.

  “Yes, ma’am. She was,” I say.

  When the caseworker realizes I have nothing else to say, she speaks on my behalf. “D’s never been in any kind of trouble, and you can see how respectful he is.”