The Last Warner Woman by Kei Miller

was the Original Pearline Portious. Adamine blinked and then she saw Mother Lazarus. She blinked again and could now see a whole congregation of men and women who sat or stood between the dancing Revivalists, floating in the air, a congestion of familiar spirits, each attached in some way to the dancers who were crammed into the clearing.
    Adamine saw and she saw and she didn’t stop seeing.
    She threw her vision above the clearing and could now see the many humps of dark hills rolling all the way to the Caribbean Sea; she could see patoos flying below her, the spread of their white wings, their big eyes scanning the ground for rats; she could see a few lights burning in shacks, and she could also see inside the shacks themselves: a man who was no more than fifty lay in his bed shitting himself, his eyes permanently trained to one corner of the ceiling. Two young women entered the room. One frowned. “Lawd God. Him messing up himself again, and I just change him a hour ago.”
    The other one, “It rough to see him come to this. Last year this time he was still up and hearty, wasn’t that so?”
    “Yes, yes.”
    “And he still not saying nothing?”
    “Not a sound he can make except the heavy breathing you hear him with now.”
    In another house, everyone was sleeping, except a gray cat in the kitchen, which was trying to paw the cover away from a pot of stew peas.
    At another house a young girl rested her chin on the edge of a bed and watched the sleeping figure of a boy about her age who coughed in his sleep.
    At another house an old woman walked the perimeter of the yard, a smile creasing her eyes as she sprinkled black powder around the house. At the same time, in the bedroom, another old woman was watching from behind a curtain, a smile also creasing her eyes, before she sprinkled olive oil around the circle of her bed.
    At another house Adamine saw two men. She thought they were twins, but then realized it was the same man standing beside himself. One self was in a rocking chair, but the chair was not rocking. A pipe was on the floor, the tobacco spilled out. The second self was standing, looking at the version of himself that was still in the chair. Then he looked up into Adamine’s eyes and said, “I never expect to leave like this.”
    Adamine saw and she saw and she couldn’t stop seeing.
    Her vision went out across a wet expanse of black, the sea, which in this late hour had become a part of the sky, but without stars. Her vision stung from all the salt and so returned to land. It saw a tree heavy with red Julie mangoes and parrots sleeping in its branches. Adamine’s vision traveled up a river. It saw a woman with scales for skin, and a fishtail for legs, whose hair was not so long as everyone kept on saying, but tall and majestic like Mother Lazarus. It was River Mumma of course, and she sat on a rock, her belly fat folding over onto her scales. River Mumma looked up and smiled at Adamine, and Adamine knew that the smile was a blessing. She now saw ground spirits, fallen angels, pickney duppies at the top of coconut trees, trying with their spirit hands to shake the fruit free. Then Adamine was back at the clearing and she could see that she herself had now become one of the fallen women, her legs spread wide, and that a Mother had closed her skirt for decency’s sake.
    Adamine saw and she saw and she couldn’t stop seeing.
    And then her face was being wetted, and her eyes opened suddenly, and it was the daylight of a day she did not even know, and her head was in the Bishopess’s lap, and the Bishopess did not look half so stern as she had on the night when she had been reading the scripture. There were no drums or people dancing or any table set with fruits. It was a whole other day. Adamine tried to shake the grogginess from her eyes. She realized now that Bishopess Herbert was whispering gently, almost a song, Come back, Ada, come back ya.

an installment of a testimony spoken to the