Calvin. Again he kept intruding in her thoughts. Something about Calvin. What? He can’t heal himself, so what is he good for?

For something that he does know how to do.

Margaret got up from her prayer and rushed to Gullah Joe. “You’ve done this before, Gullah Joe. I’ve heard the stories, I’ve seen them in the slaves’ memories, legends of the zombi, the walking dead.”

“I no do that,” said Gullah Joe.

“I know, you don’t do it on purpose, but there he is, dead but alive. There must be something you have, something in your tools, your powders, that can wake him up. Just for a little while.”

“Wake him up, then he die faster,” said Gullah Joe.

“I need him. To save the people he did this to.”

“He no heal him own body,” said Gullah Joe scornfully.

“Because he doesn’t know how. But he can do something.”

Gullah Joe got up and went to his jars. Soon he had a mixture—a dangerous one, to judge from the way he never let any of the powders touch his skin and looked away when mixing so as not to breathe in any of the dust. When it was mixed, he poured it through a hole in a small bellows, then plugged the hole tightly. Even at that, he wetted down cloths for the rest of them to breathe through, in case any dust got loose in the air.

Then he took the bellows, put the end in one of Calvin’s nostrils, then waxed the other nostril closed. “You,” he said to Denmark. “Hold him mouth closed.”

“No,” said Denmark. “I can’t do that. That too much like drowning him.”

“I’ll do it,” said Margaret.

“What you tell husband then, this go bad?”

“It’s my fault anyway,” said Margaret. “I told you to do it.”

“I do it, ma’am,” said Fishy. “I do this.”

Margaret stepped back. Fishy got one hand under Calvin’s jaw and the other atop his head.

“I say go, you close him tight the mouth,” said Gullah Joe.

Fishy nodded.

“Go.”

She clamped Calvin’s mouth shut. Calvin feebly resisted, desperate for breath. Nothing came in except a thin stream of air around the nipple of the bellows. Gullah Joe slammed the bellows together just as Calvin inhaled desperately. A cloud of dust emerged from around the bellows. Gullah Joe was ready for it. He picked up a bucket of water and doused Calvin with it, catching and settling the dust at the same time.

Calvin jerked and twitched violently. Then he sat up, pulling away from Fishy’s grip, tearing the bellows and the wax out of his nostrils. Then he choked and coughed, trying to clear his lungs.

He looked no healthier. Indeed, patches of his skin were sloughing off, sliding like rotten fruit thrown against a window. But he was alert.

“Calvin, listen to me,” Margaret said.

Calvin only choked and gasped.

“The slaves are about to revolt. It has to be stopped. Alvin’s too far away, I need your help!”