Mare's War Read Online Free

Does that driver think I’m gonna say, “Thank you kindly,” to the woman for finally paying her own fare? I glare at the back of her stylish head. What is wrong with white folks anyway? The driver catches my glance in his rearview mirror. I look down and stay very, very still.
    Don’t get uppity, Marey Lee
.

    I am almost late to work with that nonsense and run to tie on my oversized apron to begin the task I most dread: draining fat. Mr. Young collects pork fat in old tomato cans like it was gold. It isn’t just the families of the sharecroppers and poor whites who are scrimping and saving and planting victory gardens anymore. It’s everybody; even folks like Miss Ida say times is tough. Mr. Young uses fat to flavor greens. Don’t hardly anyone use more than a little meat.
    The clatter and the routine of the kitchen at Young’s calm me down some. Our cook, Samuel, is hollering out orders and flipping hash like his life depends on it. Betty King, an older woman from over Anniston way, is white up to her elbows, slapping down biscuits and turning them into the oven. Every once in a while, one of the other girls breezes into the back to grab some coffee. Mr. Young got no colored waiters, but we wash up and, if there’s a rush, bus tables. “Order up,” Samuel bellows, and slaps a plate of pork and greens on the deck. I slosh the last of the fat from the pan and wrestle it into the sink.
    It is eleven-thirty when I scrape down the last pot and throw my weight behind the mop to wipe up the floor. Young leaves our wages in his office every week, and I pick up my $1.75. Mama don’t understand why I got to go out and take up another job when I work enough at Miss Ida’s, but I ain’t trying to be nobody’s house girl for the rest of my life. I aim to have something of my own someday, even if it takes all my blood, sweat, and tears.
    “You ready?” Samuel jams his cap down on his head. Inod and stumble out to his truck. I climb up into the back, watching out for splinters, and pull my hat down around my ears. Samuel drops off Betty and me every night so we don’t have to wait on the bus. Back there in the wind, my face aches, but I am glad to miss the bus tonight.

    I can hear the air pushing out my sister’s throat, wet and heavy in a silent keening. Josephine cries like a five-year-old, and she is near fourteen.
    “You crying?”
    There is nothing but the wet sound of Josephine’s snuffling breaths.
    “Feen, what is the
matter
with you?”
    The floor creaks in the hallway outside our room.
    I roll my eyes. Sure, I love her, but sometimes the girl ain’t nothing but an aggravation. Feen cries at the drop of a hat. Always jerkin’ and jumpin’, scared of her own shadow.
    The floor creaks a little more, then the knob rattles. Now I understand why Feen is crying. Toby. Like a bad wolf. All teeth and tongue and eyes.
    “You scared of the dark, Feen? You know that’s all that’s out there.
Dark
. Anything else I got something for.” I raise my voice a little, letting Toby know I know he is out there.
    Toby got his nerve anyway, walking around this house at night. He got Mama doing for him, sewing up his shirts, doing his wash like he ain’t the hired man. Sister Dials think he tryin’ to be our new daddy. I ain’t studying on having no new daddy around here just yet.
    Josephine draws in a shaky breath. “Just had a dream,” she mutters. “Nothing wrong.”
    “Go to sleep, then. You got school, and I got to put up with Miss Ida in the morning.”
    There is a listening silence.
    “I can’t go to sleep,” she whispers. “He still there!”
    “I’m up,” I say.
    “What are
you
gonna do?”
    “Shut up, Feen. Go to sleep.”
    There are some long moments of silence before I hear the floor creak again. Toby went on, but it was a little while before I let my stomach loose itself. He didn’t call my bluff tonight, but what if he had? It is time to make a plan.

3.
then
    Tonight, while Mama was