“At church. She left you some pork and plantains in the icebox, though. What you boys get up to this evenin’ that kept you out past suppertime?”
Isaiah looked to Memphis, who shook his head. “Just went to play ball with Shrimpy here,” Memphis said.
“That so? How’d you do, little man?”
Isaiah was uncharacteristically quiet. “I, uh, I threw real good,” he said after a moment’s pause.
The pause told the old man all he needed to know: The Campbell boys had a secret. Bill could just make out the dim shapes of them moving through the endless gray cloud of his vision. But even that tiny slice of sight would fade soon unless he did something about it.
“Well,” Bill said at last. “Good. Good.”
Later, after the boys had eaten their fill of Octavia’s spicy pork scooped up with buttery corn bread, Memphis left for the Hotsy Totsy, to work for Papa Charles and meet up with that girl he was seeing, the girl he didn’t bring ’round to the house. “Don’t you worry. I’ll look after little man,” Bill assured Memphis on his way out. “I got the spoon handy in case he has one of his fits.”
“That happens, you send Brother Julius upstairs over to the club for me.”
“Of course,” Bill said, smiling.
Now Blind Bill sat on the settee with Isaiah listening to a radio show. The show was funny. Two bumbling men chasing after a goat they couldn’t seem to tie up. Isaiah laughed and laughed.
“Say, little man, you really go play ball this afternoon?” Bill asked when the announcer came on to praise the sponsor, the Parker Dental System—Don’t your teeth deserve the very best?
“Mm-hmm,” Isaiah said, but he sounded nervous. Memphis had surely warned his little brother not to say anything about where they’d been.
“I know you’re lying, Isaiah.”
Isaiah’s voice was small. “Memphis told me not to tell.”
“That so? Well, that ain’t fair he done that to you. Run off and made you be the liar to your old pal Bill. Ain’t right.”
“I’m not a liar,” Isaiah grumbled. There was guilt in it, though.
“Sure do hope Memphis ain’t gettin’ you mixed up in something bad.” Bill let that land. Then he shook his head slowly, like a disappointed father. “And here I thought we was friends. Good friends, too. But I guess if you don’t trust your uncle Bill, well…” Bill took his arm away. There was no greater bartering tool with a child than love or the threat of its absence.
“We saw Sister Walker!” Isaiah blurted.
There it was. The Walker woman. And if she was involved, it meant one thing: Diviners. Powers. She was working with them again.
“Don’t tell Auntie. Please.”
“No. I won’t. ’Course I won’t! Who’s your best friend in this world?”
“Memphis. And you.”
“Mm-hmm. It’s just… What that woman want with you?”
Another pause. Being blind had taught Bill to read silences. This one was big.
“Gonna work on my powers.”
Confirmation.
“Didn’t old Bill tell you the same thing? Wasn’t I working with you good?”
“Yes, sir. But…”
“But what?”
“She says it’s not just about me. We gotta keep the country safe.”