The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman Page A

people.”
    “Momi know everything there is about everything,” said Canny. “Momi a two-headed woman.”
    “Huh?”
    “A two-headed woman. Sometimes, when she bring the babies and tend to folks and make
gris-gris,
she not just herself, but the other one, too.”
    “The other one?” Sophie remembered the velvety face in her dream. “You mean Yemaya?”
    “Shush — that name a special secret. Maybe Momi tell you about it by and by.” She made a face. “Maybe she tell me, too. Now drink up you soup, and I tell you a story. You ever heard how come snakes got poison in they mouth and nothing else ain’t got it?”
    “No,” said Sophie.
    “Don’t they tell no stories in New Orleans?”
    “They tell lots of stories. Just not that one.”
    Canny settled down cross-legged at the foot of the bed. “When God make the snake, he put him in the bushes to ornament the ground. But things didn’t suit the snake, so one day he get on a ladder and go up to see God.”
    Sophie finished the fragrant chicken broth, took off her glasses, and listened sleepily as the snake complained to God about getting stomped on and God gave him poison to protect himself. Canny described how, when the snake got a little carried away with his gift, the other animals climbed the heavenly ladder to complain in their turn. Sophie’s eyes grew heavier and heavier. About the time God was coming up with an answer to their complaints, she fell asleep.

First thing next morning, along with a basket containing broth and
ashcakes and sassafras tea, Canny brought a skinny girl called Tibet and a lively, round-faced boy called Young Guam and Sophie’s education on plantation life began.
    At first, Sophie was too shy to open her mouth. Tibet and Young Guam were closer to her age than Canny, maybe eleven or twelve. They were dark and dusty and ragged, and their talk was full of words she didn’t know, like billets and crushers and black moss, and how lazy white folks were, making other folks do things anybody with gumption would know how to do for themselves. Sophie couldn’t help wondering if Lily and Ofelia said the same things about Mama and Aunt Enid — about Sophie herself, come to that.
    If the children of Oak River didn’t think much of the Fairchilds, they purely hated Mr. Akins. “He ugly as a ’gator,” Tibet said, “and twice as mean. He catch you sucking on a tee-niny piece of cane, he whup you bloody.”
    “Worth it, though,” Young Guam said. “I sure do love me some sugar cane. You ever chewed cane, Sophie?”
    Sophie, who had never seen sugar that didn’t come in a bowl, shook her head.
    “’Course she ain’t,” Tibet scoffed. “City girls don’t got no call to chew cane. City girls eats white sugar, double refined.”
    “I’d chew cane, if I could get it,” Sophie said shyly. “I wouldn’t want to get whipped, though.”
    All three children hooted, even Canny, and started in boasting about how many whippings they’d had and how long it had been before they could sit down afterward, with each teller outdoing the last and laughing like a beating was the funniest joke in the world.
    Sophie didn’t know whether she was supposed to laugh along or feel sorry for them.
    Tibet gave her a measuring look. “Hush up you mouth, Young Guam. Sophie here ain’t well enough for this kind of talk.”
    “What kind of talk she well enough for, then?”
    Canny poked Young Guam in the shoulder. “I told you! You supposed to tell her ’bout Oak River!”
    “Oak River a big place,” Young Guam said. “What you want to know?”
    “Everything,” said Sophie. “I’ve never lived on a plantation, you see.”
    “We ain’t never even been to New Orleans,” Tibet said wistfully. “I hear it a mighty fine place.”
    Canny brightened. “Why don’t we tell Sophie ’bout Oak River and she tell us ’bout New Orleans, turn and turn, like hoeing cane?”
    Everyone agreed that this seemed fair and then looked at Sophie, waiting for