Gone Crazy in Alabama by Rita Williams-Garcia

Trotter was right there.
    Miss Trotter said, “My sister has done many a wicked thing against me out of envy. Many a wicked thing.”
    â€œMa Charles?” I asked. “Our great-grandmother?”
    â€œShe wasn’t born a great-granny,” Miss Trotter said. “She was a young, wicked, jealous girl. When Steven Hazzard courted and married me, she married Henry Charles to keep up with me. My husband understood about my father and let me keep my name and let me name our son after my father. But the wicked one couldn’t let that be. One Sunday as we strolled in town, she on one side of the street with her husband, and me with mine and my son in arms, she said, ‘Well, if it isn’tthe Trotters. Hiya, Steven Trotter.’ That was the last I seen of my husband.”
    Miss Trotter didn’t strike me to be a crying woman, but I saw her tears well up although she wouldn’t let them roll. She pointed her finger at me and said, “She wiped out every sprig of my generations—she hates me so. Wiped out each one but JimmyTrotter.”
    â€œMa Charles didn’t do any such thing. She wouldn’t.” As I held my stare with Miss Trotter I knew it didn’t matter that I didn’t believe in hexes or curses. My great-aunt did, and for that matter, so did my great-grandmother.
    Miss Trotter turned to Vonetta and put on her sweet voice. “What was that you told your sister?”
    Vonetta knew when she was being coached and ate it up. “I told her to respect her elders.”
    â€œThat’s right! Respect!” Miss Trotter cried out. “You!”—she went from sweetness to pointing and almost shouting at me—“haven’t lived as long as my toenails! You don’t know what Naomi did and didn’t do. Would or wouldn’t do. Now, if she has something to say to me, she can journey over the creek on her two feet. Her two feet.” She turned to Vonetta, her helpmate. “Go get that cane, dear one.”
    Vonetta took off like a foot soldier in Miss Trotter’s army. She returned with the wooden cane, presenting it with pride to her general.
    â€œYes, yes,” Miss Trotter said, and kissed Vonetta on herforehead. We weren’t a kissing kind of family, so Vonetta ate that right up. “She can borrow the cane she gave me to come beg my pardon.”
    When we got to the house I asked my great-grandmother, “Why won’t you talk to your sister?”
    My great-grandmother said, “I talk to her every day.”
    â€œHow is that?”
    â€œThrough prayer. I pray to the Lord for my half sister’s wicked soul.” But Ma Charles wasn’t joking with me. There was no winking or twinkle in her eyes.
    Vonetta said, “Don’t worry, Ma Charles. I didn’t believe the part about you chasing her husband out of town.”
    Ma Charles just laughed and laughed. “You tell the widow Hazzard I’m sorry for her loss.” She laughed some more.
    â€œCut it out, Vonetta,” I warned. “If you’re not going to say it right you shouldn’t say it at all.”
    â€œOh, hush,” Ma Charles said, eager for more. “What else she say?”
    â€œKnow what she said, Ma Charles?” Vonetta asked.
    I kicked Vonetta, a really good one. Then Ma Charles said, “Don’t let me see you do that again.” And Vonetta moved closer to Ma Charles and rubbed the side of her leg.
    â€œNow, what did the old cow say?”
    â€œI’m not calling her an old cow, but Miss Trotter said ifyou want to talk to her face-to-face, you have to walk on your two left feet over the creek with the cane and take the hex off her first.” Vonetta added the part about “left” feet to stir up trouble. It worked.
    Ma Charles leaped out of her chair—and she was generally slow-moving. “Oh! Oh! Spare her, Lord! Spare her, Lord! For I surely will get her! I surely will!