A plane flew high, buzzing loudly over the open South Carolina fields below. A little girl named Shadow ran as fast as her little legs could take her between rows of corn, ignoring the rough, scratchy leaves to find her mother and great-grandmother.

“Mama, where are they going?” Shadow asked, pointing wildly toward the disappearing plane in the cloudless sky above.

“Oh, they could be going anywhere,” her mother answered wiping her brow with the back of her hand, then squinching as a few grains of dirt fell into her already itchy eyes.

Shadow squinched, too, as if she were experiencing the same irritation as her mother. She reached out and tried to lift her mother’s worn pink apron to help wipe her face, but Marianne smiled and gently waved away her helpful little hand. If it hadn’t been so dirty, she would have kissed it. Her daughter seemed to have an innate ability to feel what others were feeling, so she was always trying to reach out and help.

“Maybe they are going to New York City for a vacation, or to Florida to go home, or California to go to work. Like I said, they could be going anywhere. And we,” Marianne pointed toward the rows of ripening vegetables, “are going to finish picking these beans.”

Sighing heavily, Shadow picked up her little white plastic bucket that once had been part of a toy set, then plopped herself down in the dark red soil next to a dense bush of beans in a large section of the field. Picking them laboriously, one by one, she couldn’t stop thinking about that plane. She wished she and her mother could be doing anything except picking those beans.

           “Mama, can I go one day?” Shadow knew there were a lot of people doing a lot of other things besides picking beans, especially her friends like Sue Ellen, her “vanilla” friend. Sue Ellen’s family did not pick vegetables. They didn’t even have a garden. They bought all their food already picked. Shadow smiled as she thought of Sue Ellen. The two of them had played together since they were babies. Sue Ellen was white, and Shadow was colored. But Sue Ellen’s daddy had nicknamed the two of them Chocolate and Vanilla because, when they had ice cream, Shadow always wanted chocolate and Sue Ellen always wanted vanilla. For some reason, he thought that was funny. But Mama had said that was okay as long as he was always nice to Shadow. And he was, he always made her smile.

Her daydreams continued to cloud her mind as she yanked bean after bean off the vine. Maybe she and Sue Ellen could take a plane together somewhere, someday. Maybe that plane would take them to a place where they could do things besides visit each other’s houses, like go to the same school or church together, or even go to the county fair on the same day of the week where it wasn’t a big deal about whether you were colored or white.

“Where would you go, Shadow?” Marianne saw the wistful look on her daughter’s face.

“Anywhere. Just on a plane. I want to go on a plane. I want to go somewhere and do special things like they do on TV. Can I do that one day? I mean, I won’t have to grow up to pick beans like you, will I?”

Marianne chuckled. This wasn’t what she had planned to do with her life either, having dreamed of becoming a teacher. She stood up and looked in the direction the plane had gone.

“Shadow, my love, this is 1968. You can do anything you want to do. You are living in a new time. Nothing can stop you. Not our history, not your present. As long as you learn everything you can to prepare for your future, you can fly that plane if you want to. Right, Granny?”

Shadow jumped up with joy, then sat back down in the dirt. “Mama, will I get to go to school with Sue Ellen, too? Her school takes trips everywhere.”

Marianne didn’t know how to answer that question, so she turned to look for a distraction and Granny Rachel was good at distracting Shadow. In that moment, Marianne was happy she hadn’t convinced her old Granny not to follow them into the field. She had been worried this morning, though, that it was too hot for any of them to be out there, but those beans weren’t going to last another day on the vines. And Marianne knew Granny was going to be more help than Shadow. Suddenly, feeling concerned that her Granny was not only out of sight but had been quiet for a long while, Marianne anxiously pushed back a few stalks of corn, looking for the woman who had raised her from a child when she was no older than Shadow.

“Granny, are you alright?” Marianne found her grandmother as she shielded her eyes from the bright sun. She had hoped the tall stalks of corn would have provided a bit of shade, but no such luck. Her poor grandmother looked as if she was withering away in front of her eyes as she found her on the other side of the corn.        

“I’m fine, chile. I’m just an old woman dat’s been out here in da heat too long. Dis a real hot day, hotter than I can ‘member and I’m close to a hunnert.”

“Is she close to a hundred, Mama?”

“No, well, maybe.” Both women laughed. Marianne put her arm through her grandmother’s arm and helped her back up the dirt path toward the old, grayed clapboard house. A freshly painted swing and two wooden rocking chairs greeted them from the porch.

“You know, you gonna have to start explaining stuff to Shadow,” Granny Rachel whispered to Marianne as Shadow walked behind them swinging her half-filled bucket. “She’s a smart chile. Don’t think she ain’t noticing what’s what in dis town.”

Marianne nodded but didn’t answer her, still letting an answer to Shadow’s question hang void in the air.

“Just help me up dere, honey,” Granny said. “I think I’ll just sit a spell. Catch my breath. Enjoy de cool shade.”

“Sounds good, Granny. I’m going back down in the field to pick some more beans. Shadow, keep Granny company, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll keep her real good company,” Shadow gave her mother a big, wide grin, her dark eyes twinkling with the pleasure of the responsibility. She climbed into the big, blue porch swing while her mother helped Granny Rachel settle into one of the sparkling, polished red rockers.

“Go get me some cold water and a fan, chile.” Granny waved her hands in front of her face trying to generate a breeze in the close, humid country heat. Sweat poured down her as if she had been sitting in a cloud burst; she was wet from head to toe.

And she was tired, too tired to be walking in that heat and trying to stoop in a bean patch. Rachel had had enough stooping for a lifetime and more than enough of farming. It was almost the 1970s and she was ready to retire, retire from everything. She had seen enough pain and, Lord knows, enough fields of labor.

“Here, Granny.” Shadow had put ice water in Granny’s favorite blue tin tumbler and brought her a fan picked up at the last funeral. It had Dr. Martin Luther King’s picture on it. Granny looked at it a minute and thought, he was such a good man, the best I’ve had seen in my whole lifetime. Then she turned the fan in her long, spidery fingers now lined with big, blue veins and a little arthritis. She fanned hard between sips of the refreshing, cool liquid.

Shadow climbed back up in the big swing and tried to pick up some speed.

“You be careful dere, chile. You gone get sick from all dat swinging.” Granny kept the fan going as fast as she could to dry up some of that sweat.

“I’m alright, Granny. I like that sick feeling.” Shadow pushed off the enamel gray wooden porch floor hard with her little feet, which barely reached the floor.

“You som’ing else, chile. Som’ing else.”

“Are you alright, Granny?” Shadow looked at the old, soaked woman. 

“I’s fine. Just a little bit overheated, I think. I just needs to sit a spell. Why don’t you go play some place?”

“Mama told me to keep you company. So, I’m keeping you company.”

“You most certainly are, wit yo li’l fast self. Slow down in that swing.”

At its highest point, Shadow jumped out of the swing and landed hard on both feet, causing Rachel to flinch. Shadow ran to Granny and took charge of the fan. For once, Rachel didn’t protest. She just watched her great-grand dive into her responsibilities. Shadow was like that, unafraid and always first to raise her hand to help. She could only hope that wouldn’t be her baby’s downfall one day. On the other hand, maybe she could become a leader like Dr. King. Either way, Shadow was going to go at it heart first, head second. It was that heart that worried Granny so much.

“I’ll fan you, Granny.” The rapid little breezes that Shadow made in the same little rhythms were calming. Rachel began to cool off and relax as she looked at the forest of trees before her. Those pines stood tall as giants, and they smelled so good in the dusty heat. But, Rachel’s mind and her soul meshed with her surroundings for only a few quiet moments.

“Granny Rachel, how come you so old?”

Rachel sighed and wondered why she thought she could have had a moment of peace. Had she not taken into consideration that Shadow was there, as always? “Well, I was feeling kinda relaxed, chile. Why don’t you be quiet for awhile?”

“Okay.” Shadow stared glumly at Granny. Rachel tried to ignore the child, but Shadow was a hard child to pretend wasn’t there. And she was there alright, her lips pinned together firmly as she continued hanging over Rachel with the fan.

“Gimme that back,” Granny protested, “you git back up on that swing now.”

Shadow’s smile returned to her sweet chocolate face. She hopped back on the swing and began pushing hard against the floor again for momentum.

“Granny Rachel…” Shadow was staring at her again.

“What now?” Rachel’s fanning slowed. She had cooled off and had caught her breath. She just wanted to sit and relax and be cared for, not take care of everybody else. That’s what she wanted: to be cared for. The thought, that feeling popped up again in the back of Rachel’s mind, unassumingly innocent.

“How come…”

“Oh, here we go with dem questions.”

“How come you’re white?”

Granny turned her whole body around to look at the little girl. “I’s what?”

“White. That’s what the kids at school say. They say my granny is white.”

“Dem chillun don’t know nothing. I’m colored, just like you.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I is.”

“But you got gray eyes, straight white hair that’s longer than anybody’s I know and your skin, is, is…”

“They call it high yellow. And I ain’t white. I’m just lighter than you, Miss Chocolate Thang.”

“How come?”

“Cuz I was born that way. That’s how come.” Granny started fanning fast again. MLK’s face was becoming a blur.

“Was you a slave, Granny Rachel?”

“And where did you get an idea like that, chile?”

“Daddy says you are old as Methuselah. And when I start to study history in school all I have to do is ask you. He says you seen everything.”

“Your daddy ain’t got the good sense he was born with. Wait till I see that little nappy headed black man.” Granny laughed to herself.

“Ooh,” Shadow whined, “I’m gone tell. You called Daddy black.”

“Oh, chile, coloreds come in all colors. My skin is pale and light. Yours is the color of milk chocolate. Your mama’s like a piece of golden-brown toast and your daddy, well, let’s face it your daddy is as black as tar. I say your daddy still got all his African blood.”

“And we don’t?”

“No, baby. Most coloreds don’t have dat luxury no more. Knowing who we really are, what tribes we from, what country. Most coloreds don’t have a clue no more.”

“Do you?”

“Not by much, no.”

“Weren’t you a slave, though, that come directly from Africa?”

Rachel shifted again in that rocking chair. “Do me a favor, don’t listen to nothing your daddy got to say about me, you hear?”

“Were you or weren’t you a slave?” Shadow pressed her legs in and out, while the chains of the swing squeaked louder and louder.

“You are a smart little girl, Shadow. And I think you are old enough to hear some family history. Your Mama so worried about integrating you into dem white schools that she tries to keep our ugly history out of your way. It’s only been 100 years yet since we’s been freed and I have to tell you, it’s only been recently dat it looked like we’s making some progress. And ‘member, I said look like. Cuz I’s afraid we gone start losing each other when we get all’s our freedom that we want.”

“What you mean, Granny?” Shadow wanted to know why things were different for different people. And, why they talked about it in church, but not at home.

“Never mind, chile. I’m just an old woman still clinging to old ways I guess. I has to remember it’s 1968 already. And there’s some of us out dere dat want to be called Black. I see you dancing to dat James Brown song. Yo Mama and Daddy like dat stuff,” Rachel said, still shocked that they were letting that song about being black and proud play on the radio, especially in South Carolina. Maybe things were changing. Or maybe it was the Nashville station she was hearing, but she had heard it playing a lot these days.

“So, were you a slave, Granny?” Shadow was twisting her tight, little brown braid sticking straight out from the side of her head.

“Lord, chile. No. Granny Rachel was not a slave, but my Granny was, and my Mama was born a slave, but she don’t remember nothing about it.” Rachel dropped the fan and looked off at the pines.

“Did you know your Granny?”

“Yeah, baby, I knew Hattie.” Granny’s eyes watered.

“Her real name was Hattie?” Shadow had stopped the swing.

“Her given name was Harriet Mitchell. I don’t know what her real name was.”

“What do you mean her real name?” Shadow was edging off the swing and moving toward Rachel, partly because she was interested in the story, she knew she was about to hear, and partly because her stomach had had enough of that swing.

“I mean, your Great, Great, Great Grandma Harriet,” Rachel counted the generations on her fingers, “was from someplace off da continent of Dark Africa.”

“Where?” Shadow sat on the porch floor, looking up at Rachel’s pale skin and long, flowing white hair.

“I don’t know. All I know is Hattie Mitchell’s English wasn’t dat good. Mama knew what she was saying, but I didn’t. I couldn’t understands her too much. All I know is dat she would have crying spells. She was old when she died, and she spent most of her last years crying.”

Shadow could hear sadness in Granny’s voice, and it made her little heart feel heavy. “Why was she crying?”

“She was mourning, baby. She was mourning de loss of many chilluns.”

“How did she lose ‘em?” Shadow wondered if she had misplaced them like her Mama had done with the car keys last Sunday.

“She was sold away from dem, two times. My mama and her brothers was de third set of kids.” Granny started fanning again at top speed.

“What do you mean sold from them, Granny?” Shadow got up off the floor and backed into the swing but sat perfectly still, waiting for the answer. But somehow, she just knew that with what little she knew of slavery, Granny Hattie wasn’t ever able to find her kids like her Mama found her keys. Shadow started pulling at the little pink cotton tee shirt just above her heart as if she was trying to lift the weight of what she was about to hear. Granny was quiet. Shadow could hear the bumblebees buzzing as they sampled the myriad of colorful flowers bordering the porch and the yard of the old clapboard house.

“I means,” Granny sighed and looked at the tops of those tall pines across the driveway. “I means she had two families before she was sold to South Care Lina. She started out some where’s in Virginny with several chillun and den she was sold someplace else in Virginny where she had some more chillun, and after dat Mr. Mitchell bought her and brought her to Union County and dis where she died.”

“You mean when they sold her, they wouldn’t let her bring her kids?” Tears rimmed around the edges of Shadow’s eyes, not wanting to believe something like that could really happen.

“No, dey wouldn’t let her bring her kids. Dey wuz mean, downright mean,” Granny said, as if reading little Shadow’s mind. “You see, being a slave meant dat you were nothing more dan a farm animal. You know how your daddy took dem little pigs and sold dem off from dey mama? Dat’s how dey treated slaves, like dey wuz nothing. And de white man still want to treat you like dat. Don’t you forget dat. Dey still haven’t gotten over letting us go and dis is 1968. You see what dey did to Reverend King last spring?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Shadow placed her delicate brown hand over her heart. It was the saddest it had ever been, and all for Granny Hattie. She couldn’t imagine her Mama leaving her and never coming back. No wonder Granny Hattie died crying.

“What was she like, though, Granny Rachel?” Shadow asked.

“I’s told you I didn’t know her dat well. She talked fast and it sounded like mumbles. She was dark, like your daddy, and her hair was nappy and stark white,” Rachel said, balling her fist trying to quell the anger that thinking about her Granny’s tribulations made her feel. “I guess, in her own way, she was pretty ̶ or had been when she was younger. But I was young and even den I knew looking light meant more privileges den looking dark.”

“More privileges?” Shadow wasn’t sure what that meant.

“Yes, baby, you’re young and haven’t come across it yet. I guess most seven-year-olds have better things on dey minds these days, at least I hope they do. But light-skinned coloreds were always treated a little bit better dan darkies. Even de light-skinned ones was still too colored for de white man. Niggers are niggers, you know.”

“Oooh, Granny Rachel,” said Shadow, shocked at the language. “Daddy and Mama said we should never use that word and that you should never associate with people who do.”

“Shush, chile. Yo mama and daddy ain’t gone be able to protect you from dat word no matter how hard dey try. Some of our own people use dat word all de time. It’s like every other word dat falls from dey lips.” Rachel shook her head. “You would think dey’d want to bury dat word with de past. But our past is based on evil acts and it’s hard to shed dat kind of history.”

Shadow jumped out of the swing again and curled up on the porch floor next to Granny. Granny was a long, tall woman. Shadow admired her great-grandmother even though in the summertime she wore cotton stockings rolled down around her ankles.

“What kind of evil acts, Granny?” asked Shadow.

“Well, don’t bother yourself wit dat, chile. You got a wonderful future ahead of ya. You just keep up de learning and you gone do just fine.” Granny put down the fan again. She wanted out of this conversation. Lord knows Marianne is going to have a fit when Shadow started repeating it.

But Shadow persisted, “What was it like, Granny? Living like a slave?” A yellow swallowtail butterfly flew awfully close, and Shadow reached for it, mid-question, missing it by a hair.

“Let me tell you a little story my Mama tole me, her Mama tole her, and so on. It was about dis house slave. He grew up in dis house with his masta and de masta’s family. He had use of everything in da house, just de way dey did. He got along wit everybody real well. But dat didn’t stop him from wanting his freedom. It don’t matter if you treated bad or treated good, if you don’t belong to yourself, it don’t feel good. You can’t come and go when you want to. You just can’t take care of yourself de way you see fit for yourself. So, he was always looking for an opportunity to escape or buy his freedom with whatever it took. Whatever it took.” Granny took the last sip of her water. It had lost its coolness, but it still quenched her dry throat.

“One day, the young missus got sick. Real sick and she just laid down and died.”

“She died?” Anybody dying made Shadow sad, even the slave owner lady.

“Well, yeah. She just up and died. Da whole family was sad, real sad. But dey realized dey had to say goodbye. So, dey dressed her in her best and put all her valuable jewelry on her. I couldn’t tell ya what kind of jewels, just things dey paid a pretty penny for,” Granny added, trying to head off any questions from Shadow for more details.

“Like a diamond?” Shadow had shifted locations back again to the swing. Staying still in one place was not one of her best traits.

“Yeah, like diamonds and rubies and such. She was decked out. All laid out pretty in all dat expensive jewelry. And dat’s how dey buried her, in de box, in de ground, with all dem diamonds and rubies.”

“Wow!” Shadow was imagining a young, white girl in pretty clothes and jewelry, her hands folded across her chest, being lowered into the ground.

“Well, dat night, after everyone had finished dey mourning and drinking and gone to bed, da house slave got to thinking about all dem jewels and how much dey wuz worth. He got to thinking about his freedom and how easy it would be to sell dem jewels piece by piece if he could get far enough north. Back den, folks buried dey dead right dere on dey own property. And dat’s where dey had buried dat girl.”

“Did he dig her up?”

“You too smart, Shadow. Dat’s what he did – after he got up de nerve. He snuck out in the middle of de night. Got hi’self a shovel and started digging. He didn’t have to dig too far cause dey hadn’t completely filled de grave. De slaves hadn’t got to finish filling in de dirt cuz dey still had the evening chores to complete. So, dey were given permission to finish in de morning.

Anyhow’s, de grave was only a couple feet or so under de dirt. Maybe not even dat. Didn’t take too long ‘til de house slave saw de wooden box. He climbed down dere and pried it open. And dere she was. Laying real still. Cuz she was dead, right?”

“Right, Granny. You said she was dead,” Shadow was feeling queasy again from the swing, and was wondering if Granny’s mind was getting queasy too. “Didn’t you say, that, Granny?”

“Yes ma’am. She was dead. And dere she lay with all dem jewels on dat cold, cold body.”

“And?” Shadow pressed, totally absorbed in the story and the motion of the swing.

“And suddenly,” Granny Rachel turned her whole body toward Shadow and the swing, “suddenly, he lost his balance. It was like a hand just pushed him and he fell on dat hard, cold body. His knee hit her chest with a loud sickening thud.”

“Eeew,” Shadow covered her ears as if she had heard the sickening sound.

“And you know what happened?” Granny Rachel was looking at Shadow and shaking her head sadly.

“No,” Shadow answered anxiously.

“Dat white girl jumped up out of dat box and beat dat slave back to de house. He was yelling and so was she.” Granny started to laugh, and so did Shadow. 

“He was so scared; he didn’t realize he’d run back into de house until everybody was woke up. And den, he could only imagine dat he was going to be de next one buried in dat box.”

Rightfully afraid now for the house slave, Shadow asked, “Is that what happened?”

“No, baby. Thank, God. Dat’s not what happened. For a change, it was a slave story with a good ending.”

“Really?”

“Well, dat girl’s family was so happy dey gave him his freedom. Turned out, she had a condition dat made her look like she was dead. You need to remember dat chile: things ain’t always what dey appear to be. One of these days, ask your Uncle Jade about dat. Now go play and let yo old Granny just sit here a spell.”