FICTION — RESTIVE SOULS
The Tale of Shyllandrus Zulu: Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven of Part Two: magic on congregational grounds
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A Restive Souls excerpt
As told to eminent historian Emmet Bolo by the high priestess Zulu West.
Chapters 1&2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5.1
Chapter 5.2
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 12.1
Chapter 12.2
Restive Souls Part 2: Carolina Rising
Zulu’s Tale (1801–1804)
11
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I knew what I wanted to ask Margaret. By soliciting her opinion on the shape of truth, I thought it possible that she would volunteer a more accurate story regarding her husband’s demise.
Margaret was looking less regal than she had upon her arrival when she made her appearance at breakfast as dawn broke. She had already discovered that our congregational society consisted of a diverse fashion sense. Some of us decorated ourselves in sleek fabrics of multiple hues, from brilliant ochre to deep indigos, while others wore simple cotton or cowskin jerseys, pants, and vests. This was all a matter of choice, and in no way reflected one’s station in life.
Earnings within congregations were equitable. There were no scions because wealth was not concentrated within the hands of a lucky or chosen few. Would rich congregations emerge in some future version of our emerging nation, whereby every member of a congregation that rivaled the British or Dutch East India companies knew great wealth? Our society had not yet contemplated that possibility because struggle had been our primary constituent.
As a result, fashion choice was a matter of whim, not circumstance.
When Margaret appeared before me outside the teahouse, dressed quite informally in a gray blouse with no patterns and a pair of dark green kenaf trousers, I was tempted to stand up and applaud her. She had apparently quickly adapted quite well to our customs. Her only small capitulation to her sense of fashion was a black Scottish balmoral bonnet trailing two long ribbons of tiny feathers and shells as a headpiece.
Shyllandrus Zulu was prescient in her observations regarding the various issues presented by the inevitable question of congregational wealth. These issues continue in our modern world, with Joshua Brand’s African Methodist Episcopal Congregation having acquired nearly every major congregation on the East Coast, to the point where it can match the combined financial resources of several major European or African nations. Although laws preventing the accumulation of personal wealth have been successful, the AMEC’s growth has triggered concerns regarding its power, including the alleged autocratic tendencies of Brand himself.
She was accompanied by three guards, whom she dismissed upon seeing me.
I stood, not to applaud, but to take her hand. “Well,” I said, “there you are.”
“Your grace,” she said as I released her hand. She offered a curtsy. I in turn motioned for her to sit with me. She did so, removing her bonnet and placing it on the thick, square oak table, its decorated ribbons hanging over the edge, blown about by a strong wind. The bonnet appeared to be attempting to walk away, so she quickly rested one hand on it
These were trying times. It was always possible to arrive at the teahouse in the morning and leave at noon with no service.
My house was a small walk from my residence, so it required little effort to brew some tea and return with a decanter and two small cups. I had set my sights, however, on one of the fine teas from the teahouse kitchen and hoped someone would appear to unlock its doors. I stared at my small porcelain tea decanter and our two cups for a moment, wistfully hoping for someone to arrive.
“The mosquitos are usually quite wretched after a rain, but the northerly winds have provided a small respite,” I said as I opened the tea decanter and lifted the tea strainer up and down a few times. “A welcome cooling, and enough bluster to keep the awful things from alighting upon our tasty flesh.”
Margaret kept her hand on her hat. “Such cooler winds rarely reach this part of the coast during this time of year, am I right your grace?’
“Quite right. When there are late summer winds, they come from the southern Atlantic. Perhaps this foretells an early season of northern winds.”
“Well, am I not the most fortunate visitor upon these parts, then?” she smiled graciously. Her facial scars looked more pronounced in the emerging dawn than they had during our luncheon. Deep short lines crossed both cheeks, sometimes intersecting. One rather pronounced line etched diagonally across her chin, finished by a healed gouge at its end, almost as if she had fallen. I shuddered as I imagined her chin striking an unpliable surface that caused the bone to split in half.
A congregant appeared from the teahouse to ask Margaret what she wished to drink. This surprised me because when Margaret and I arrived, the doors had been locked and we had not seen anyone else.
Margaret didn’t have many choices, but when she requested a green tea with mint leaves, I knew she’d be accommodated. After I requested the same, the server took my empty teacup and turned toward the teahouse. Then, she did a most curious thing. She set the empty teacup down, approached Margaret, and asked, “May I lay my hands upon your head for just one moment?”
Margaret looked at me with some amusement but no clear smile, and said with a humoring lilt to her voice, “Tis why I removed my bonnet,” as a smile finally emerged.
The server, whom I had never seen, thanked Margaret. She placed two hands gently over Margaret’s head, closed her eyes for a moment, then repeated her thanks before disappearing into the teahouse with our two empty teacups.
“Well, wasn’t that a curious thing,” Margaret said.
“Prayer often comes at a whim from among the devoted,” I replied. “Perhaps she sensed something. Our faith here is quite strong. The Holy Spirit often leads our actions. Such is the nature of great faith. Let me ask you, governess, is there something that troubles you?”
“Oh, my dear,” she replied with a tired smile, “So many things.”
“I would like to believe that my ears have earned your trust,” I said. “But I will certainly understand your hesitation to share with me.”
“Your grace, I did not come to your interesting land for absolution, nor advice. I came here to entreat you and your new nation with the proposition of a permanent alliance, an utterance that I regret has been slow to emerge from my lips. But not out of reluctance, nor hesitation, nor even caution. Quite simply, I haven’t gotten around to it. I blather so with my stories, you see.”
“I enjoy your stories,” I said.
“Well, thank you. Thank you indeed. But I must say that now that I have become to know you in such greater depth that perhaps my mission has expanded beyond that of diplomacy into the realm of pastoral care and consultation. You see, your instincts guide you well. I am indeed a troubled soul. I will attest to that.” She looked away at that moment to the arguments of a nearby screech owl, who was offering an opinion about an urgent matter within its own world.
“Alas,” she continued, “I am quite sure that the brief time we shall have together will not be sufficient to cover the full spectrum of these troubles.”
“Again,” I said, “the choice is yours, but you may begin a conversation with me regarding your troubles at any time. And you may continue or discontinue at any time. If that means you visit me again a score of years from now to return to our conversation, then let it be so.”
“I appreciate that. I must say that your kindness fills my heart.”
“I have been called many things, but I’m not sure kind has been yet among them.” I considered myself unnecessarily stern, a character flaw that I wished to curtail.
“There are many references in the Bible of magic, are there not?” asked Margaret in a seeming digression.
“Yes, of course. Necromancy was discouraged.”
“This frequency of mention suggests that magic exists, does it not?”
“Certainly,” I replied, wondering where she was headed.
“Hmm.” At that, she was quiet for a few moments before saying, “When your teahouse server laid her hands upon my head, I heard a voice, a male voice.”
“Oh?
“It said, ‘Discuss the nature of truth.’ Such an odd thing, isn’t it?”
I had heard similar words in my head, also from a male voice, but I ignored it because it had been on my mind anyway. In my case, the voice had simply said, ‘The nature of truth is my gift to you.’”
She continued. “For one thing, my subconscious speaks to me in my voice, as does the Holy Spirit, I believe, when she speaks to me.”
“She?” I asked with curiosity.
“Well, you have said yourself that God is not a gendered entity. I believe within me, he is a she!” she laughed. “You have convinced me of this much.”
I nodded.
“But then,” she said, “This is what makes this voice I heard so interesting. It was quite distinct and clear and sent a shudder through my body. Perhaps, and I am thinking aloud here, it was the voice of an angel.”
“Very possibly. To what ends, though? Do you have any clues on what it was trying to say to you?”
The server brought out tea and set it down in two cups belonging to the teahouse. Before I had a chance to wonder about the fate of my teacups, just as the tea hit the table, I heard the same voice say, “The most powerful magic comes from God.”
I thanked the server, who nodded as she walked away.
“I do, your grace. But I fear the consequences.”
“Sometimes God asks us to do things but does not bother to remind us to not fear the very consequences he protects us from.”
“Well, in this case, those consequences could invoke a drastic punishment.”
“Does it involve your trial for the death of your husband?”
She nodded. But she seemed resolute and unafraid as she took a sip of tea.
“You’ve already been acquitted, Margaret. You cannot be tried twice for the same offense.”
“That is not my worry. I believe I may have already become a target for opposing political forces. These forces may understand the circumstances of my husband’s death better than I would wish, or that I have portrayed. I have not been as forthcoming with you as I should have been,” she said, looking down.
“About your husband’s death, I assume?”
“Yes. You see, it was not through a sudden fit of pique that he perished. I’m afraid it was quite the planned event. I do not believe I have it within me to kill another human. Goodness knows I had my opportunities. I could have bludgeoned his accursed head with a fireplace poker whilst he was asleep. I could have reached for his firearm from within his desk at least a dozen times as I attended to some accounting of one of his business pursuits. He knew this. Always he knew this. Always, he knew I was incapable of the act. I suspect this led him to even harsher treatment.
“So I hired a man to do the deed for me. And the shame I have, goodness. I can’t describe it. But I say this. It is shame not in that I hid this truth from you, and others, for that seems like a normal thing. And it isn’t for the deed itself. The shame, your grace, comes from the fact that I hadn’t the courage to do the deed myself. For the deed needed doing, in my mind, and it is thus that I feel shame. I feel shame that I led someone else into darkness.”
“I see,” I said, somewhat astounded, but surprisingly sympathetic toward her plight.
“None. None at all. My only source of shame is that in hiring this man, I could have sent someone else to the gallows for something I should have accomplished on my own.”
“Don’t worry about that,” I said, thinking of Chastain. “Anyone who would take money for this is a likely candidate for the gallows regardless of anything you may do.”
“And what of God? Surely he cannot approve.”
“Surely, he does not. Yet he loves you regardless, and any penance you pay in this earthly life ends upon your passing, after which you will still enjoy the benefits of his heavenly kingdom, and God’s unfaltering forgiveness.”
“Do you believe I deserve to pay penance for this action? In this life?”
“It is not for me to say, governess. That is God’s domain. And the laws of New England, which have spoken. But this congregation will not expose you, nor shall the Carolina Union. I shall add this: If God were to ask me, I would declare to him that you have suffered enough in this life. And I make this promise to you. Our nation will enact laws that protect women from the likes of Aaron Burr.”
“You have such influence?”
“I may be fooling myself, but I believe that I do, yes. And if I don’t, I shall acquire such influence.”
Shyllandrus Zulu was elected the Ecclesiastical Tribune of the Synod of the Carolina Union in 1841, becoming the nation’s first female head of state. She wrote in her memoirs that it was her discussion with Margaret Moncrieffe outside a tearoom on the “fringes of Christ’s Union”, then known as Charleston, that fired up her ambition to become a national leader. It was probably this discussion she referred to in those memoirs.
At that, Amina Saint Mary Magdalene, the woman normally tasked with operating the tearoom, hurriedly arrived. “Oh, your grace,” she laughed as she looked at me. “How did you?” She shook her head and unlocked the teahouse door. “You never cease to astound me,” she said as she hastily stepped inside.
She returned to us moments later, looking puzzled. “Why, your grace, you have earthenware precisely like that of the teahouse. I apologize that you had to brew tea at home to bring to our fabulous yard to enjoy. It is a wonderful view here, isn’t it?”
The tearoom sat upon the banks of the Ashley River just south of Wild Henry’s garden between the congregation’s humble, fledgling university building and the stately congregational hall.
In front of us were sprawling weeping willows stretching to the ground as if perpetually seeking silent, buried lovers. Long filaments of growth shaded somewhat lighter than their surrounding leaves dangled from wide cypress trees, seemingly in protest that they shared the same lovers as the willows. The mixture of these trees with the surrounding fauna along the banks of the river suggested ancient, lingering conspiracies being whispered by the children of ghosts.
“But, my dear, your server brought us this tea just moments ago,” I replied. “The tea cups I brought should be inside, with your server.”
I never inquired of her heritage, but she looked to my well-trained eye to perhaps be of the Fula people. Her skin was a lovely dark shade of brown. She draped her unusually tall body, with legs the width of bamboo, in an evening purple silk shawl lined with gold leaf filigree exquisitely cut from mulberry paper.
The shawl’s silk came courtesy of silkworms harvested by a small Wolof enclave off the coast of Charleston. Her hair was tightly bound in braids that looked to be permanent features of her skull as they wrapped tightly against it from her forehead to the back of her head but for a set of two long braided locks extending on each side near the front of her face and two smaller just behind the larger ones. She wore a long, drooping thick white shell necklace.
The enclave Zulu is describing consisted of Afrikers from several groups of people in addition to the Wolof, including the Baga, Fula, Kissi, Kpelle, Limba, Mandinka, Mende, Susu, Temne, and Vai peoples of Africa’s Rice Coast, as well as a variety of others from such regions and nations as Angola, Yoruba, Igbo, Calabar, the Kongo and parts of Africa’s Gold Coast.
In later years, this enclave became the Gullah Carolina Heritage Congregation, which itself grew out of Saint John’s Colleton parish. The Gullah congregation became famous for its culturally significant businesses in textiles, pottery, and housewares, as well as gourmet rice.
The congregation spread from several coastal islands to many areas along the low country of the Carolinas and Georgia before it was fully absorbed in 1837, along with Zulu’s Vanguard of Mary Congregation (and many others), by the All Saints Congregation.
Generally, when congregations merged, they remained independent from a theological and church/parish perspective. Mergers were driven by a need or desire to combine financial resources to compete with European capitalists.
“I have gotten off to a slow start this morning, your grace. I do apologize. But it was I who unlocked the teahouse doors just moments ago, as you have seen. Can you describe this person you saw?”
“No. Curiously, I cannot remember her face. I hasten to add, this earthenware I possess does not originate from my home.” I lifted my teacup into the air, then took a small sip.
“Well, who on earth was this person?” she asked in a somewhat alarmed voice.
“I cannot say I have ever seen her on congregational grounds,” I said, “But our numbers do grow daily.”
“I am the only one with this set of keys, your grace.” She shook the key chain in her hand. “The door was quite locked just now.” That she had the only set of keys wasn’t quite accurate, as Wild Henry had copies of every key on congregational grounds, but I understood her point.
I was tempted to admonish her for questioning my testimony, but I was working on my temperance. I listened to the Lord for a moment before speaking. “There is an apparent discordance here between the facts of you unlocking doors and our possession of these cups of tea,” I instead said with a forced smile. “The governess can attest to my observations.”
“I have no doubt,” she replied. She shook her head. “I also have no answer for the discrepancy. There is magic in the air this morning, your grace. This can be my only response. Now. Is there anything else I can get you? Perhaps a biscuit? I have some wonderful mulberry biscuit dough in the ice pit that I can push into the oven. It will take but moments to bake. I’ll prepare a quick maygrass and pitseed goosefoot salad, as well. Shall take but moments.”
“That would be delightful, thank you, Aminah.” Aminah returned to the teahouse with the mystery of our tea server remaining unsolved.
Aminah would later become revered and more well-known as Aminah of the Immaculate Heart, eventually becoming the Spiritual Governess of South Carolina. She was also a driving force for establishing First Settler agricultural practices at the Vanguard of Mary Congregation. The harvesting and storing of hundreds of varieties of corn and small barleys, as well as such seeds as maygrass, pitseed goosefoot, knotweed, and sumpweed, provided the Vanguard of Mary a four-year stock of food. These practices, already firmly in the First Settler tradition, were eagerly picked up by Afriker congregations.
Margaret gave me a knowing look.
“I understand you took a walk with Wild Henry yesterday eve,” I said as means of changing the subject.
“I’m afraid I don’t know of whom you speak,” she said.
“Henry Taylor. The congregational garden master. And, some say, the unofficial governor of the All Saints Congregation, when he sees fit,” I smiled.
“Oh, the charming Scotsman!” she exclaimed. “A wonderful man. A bit disheveled. But delightful. He has grand dreams. He foresees the congregational garden as becoming something people travel from around the world to see.”
Wild Henry’s garden eventually became Christ’s Union Heritage Historical Garden and Arboretum, which is today the most frequently visited arboretum in North America. He and Monticello’s Wormley Hughes became instrumental in establishing the inviolability of nature within the context of industrialization, much to the dismay of many early 20th-century congregational industrialists, who were often more interested in the potential commercial applications of the continent’s wilderness than what nature, or these two men, intended.
“I am not surprised. He devotes more hours each day to the garden than God has allotted our world.”
We remained silent for some time after that. It was not an awkward silence. It was the both of us taking in the early morning air, listening to the birds and other daylight animals change shifts with the creatures of the night.
Finally, Margaret said. “She’s right. There is magic in this land. I don’t feel such magic in the north so much.”
I smiled. “You commiserate with too many Europeans, I suspect. They have as much spirituality as chunks of metal, I am sorry to report.”
“Magic is considered as witchcraft by my kind, your grace. As much you know, I’m sure.”
This forced me into a bit of Bible-quoting: “And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover. Governess, Christ himself said these words as reported in chapter sixteen, verse seventeen of Matthew. These are powerful words. They tell us that we all have the power of God’s magic if we live by his ways.
“If I may be so bold as to say that Europeans reject magic because they understand that it is we women who have the least violence in our souls and are thus the most likely to most successfully entreat the magic that God provides all of us.”
“Yet it is embraced in the Carolinas.”
“I don’t think we give it much thought. It just is. Nobody sits at a table and thinks, ‘My, I do believe it is time to conjure up a glass of tea.’. No, we simply don’t resist magic. Who, after all, is the source of magic?”
“You don’t think it dangerous?”
I thought for a moment about my questions to Bedíàkṍ about her magic. “I do not. If God is the source of your magic, it can only be used for good, and it is more powerful than anything that someone with ill intent can manage.”
“Your words are certainly out of the ordinary to the ears of a Christian such as me.”
“For a European Christian. Nothing at all out of the ordinary for an Afriker, my dear.”
Margaret smiled at this. “Well, I do believe that the rebellion itself had puritanical underpinnings. You see, there was not a small faction of English folk who came to America motivated most strongly by their rejection of the Church of England. Why, even the Book of Common Prayer was considered a tool of the Roman popes. Kneeling during communion, for goodness sake, was considered a high crime.” Margaret laughed at her exaggeration.
“But worst of all, your grace, was the introduction into the colonial culture this idea that women were vulnerable to the devil’s touch. So perhaps, yes, these men are afraid of magic, but even more so, they are afraid of the devil.”
“They believe that the devil has earthly power but that is erroneous thinking,” I said. “He can tempt you into killing a man, and perhaps, my dear, he did. But he cannot kill that man for you. He has no magic. His access to magic was removed upon his rebellion from the legion of angels. But magic, governess, is woven into the universe as surely as threads of kenaf are woven into your clothing. If magic is called upon on God’s behalf, one is assured of victory.”
We continued our theological discussion for some time. I was happy enough with Margaret’s explanation regarding her husband’s death. I wished she had been more forthcoming, but I understood her hesitancy, particularly with someone who had been a stranger upon her first telling of the incident. I could wish that folk will by nature wish to confide in a clergywoman like myself without having to think about it, but the reality often pushes them in different directions, often far away from God.
When fear takes hold, we find ourselves suddenly in defensive positions, as if lurking behind artificial barriers. But God’s truth needs no defense. The truth of God’s directives needs no protection or defensive alignments. Fear is not part of the Creator’s intent. It is a creation of the human mind, not of God. It is the faulty dénouement of logic gone awry.
These kinds of thoughts carried me through the rest of the day when it became time for Margaret’s return to the city center and her sea voyage back to New York.
She would be accompanied by three frigates from our fledgling navy, in part to demonstrate what we hoped would become a strong alliance and partnership between our two nations. The New England Federation had sent several British frigates along with her arrival, so the addition of Carolina Union frigates upon their return would be a symbol of our aspirations.
The Synod, newly formed, had yet to offer its say in this matter. I knew I’d need to play the role of politician to some degree during these chaotic early days when the Union had not yet chosen a head of state. Technically, the King of England was our head of state, but he had given us foreign policy autonomy, albeit, I knew, with conditions. For example, a formal alliance with France was surely out of the question.
I didn’t concern myself with such matters. I was, after all, not a politician at all. I was a cleric. I knew little about France or Spain or even such British domains as India, and I did not care to learn much about them. My concerns were for the spiritual welfare of my congregation.
I told myself that I was not particularly interested in the more overarching state of the Carolina Union. But I also knew I was fooling myself with such thoughts. The Carolina Union was quickly becoming dear to me. The possibilities of a nation driven by Afriker creativity, determination, spirituality, faith, and resilience excited me.
Within the month, we would have our head of state when the Synod would sit for a formal reckoning of a constitution and framework for governance.
As I considered these things, I became even more impressed by the governess. She had displayed considerable political aptitude by making a visit to our nation. Hers was officially the first visit by an important foreign dignitary. But she wasn’t foreign. She was one of us. She was, as Diderot told me later, “An American.”
Top image credits:
Shyllandrus Zulu (middle) based on original Photo by Breston Kenya from Pexels (also appears in charcoal-style image);
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels — Bearded white guy
Photo by Collis from Pexels — Bearded man looking up and pensive
Photo by 4TH FINGERSTUDIO from Pexels — Woman next to pensive man
The paragraphs in this excerpt are reformatted to allow for more white space than the original text from the novel. This is sort of a Medium audience thing.
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