Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1)
Justina Ireland
A Prologue
In Which I Am Born and Someone Tries to Murder Me
The day I came squealing and squalling into the world was the first time someone tried to kill me. I guess it should have been obvious to everyone right then that I wasn’t going to have a normal life.
It was the midwife that tried to do me in. Truth be told, it wasn’t really her fault. What else is a good Christian woman going to do when a Negro comes flying out from between the legs of the richest white woman in Haller County, Kentucky?
“Is it a girl or boy, Aggie?” When my mother tells the story, this is the point where she pushed herself up on her elbows, giving the midwife’s pale, sweaty face some powerful evil eye. And then, depending what kind of mood she’s in when she’s telling it, my momma either demanded to hold me, her cooing baby, or she swooned and the villainous midwife gave me over to Auntie Aggie, who cleaned me up and put me into an ivory bassinet until one of the mammies could suckle me.
But if you ask Auntie Aggie, the woman who mostly raised me up, she would say that my mother was thrashing around on the bed, still in quite a bit of pain on account of the whole birthing thing. Aunt Aggie would say that Momma had no idea what the midwife was about, and that the realization of my near demise came much later. She was the one who, when she saw how the midwife was about to put a blanket over my face and declare me stillborn, stepped forward and held out her hands.
“Wasn’t that lady’s fault,” Aunt Aggie said as she told me the story. “Ain’t no white woman going to claim a Negro bastard, and I’m sure it wasn’t the first time the midwife seen it.” Aunt Aggie shook her head sadly, like she was thinking of all the poor little babies that didn’t make it just because they happened to come out the wrong color.
“What happened then?” I asked, because there’s nothing better than the memories of others when you’re little and have no stories of your own.
“Well, I turned right to that midwife and said, ‘I’ll take the girl and get her cleaned up right.’” That’s what Aunt Aggie says she said, and I believe her. If I close my eyes, I can imagine it, my momma’s big bedroom on the east side of the main house: the windows open to let in the evening breeze and the sounds of crickets and workers singing in the fields, the coppery stink of blood heavy in the humid summer air. The bed linens, no longer crisp and white, a crime punishable by a whipping if the mess had been caused by anyone but Momma. She would never tolerate a stain anywhere, especially not on the bedsheets of her big four-poster. I can see Aunt Aggie there, her voice calm, her dark hands outstretched, her spine straight, her gaze unwavering and stern, an island of calm amid the chaos of house girls running to and fro, bringing the midwife hot water to clean and towels to sop and a cool glass of iced tea because it’s hotter than the dickens out.
Yes, I can imagine Aunt Aggie saving me from the clutches of that well-meaning midwife. Aunt Aggie was the one that done raised me up right, despite what Momma says when she gets in one of her fits. Aunt Aggie was more my momma than my real momma, in the end.
And I suppose I might have grown up better, might have become a proper house girl or even taken Aunt Aggie’s place as House Negro. I might have been a good girl if it had been in the cards. But all of that was dashed to hell two days after I was born, when the dead rose up and started to walk on a battlefield in a small town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg.
Part One
The Civilized East
Dearest Momma,
I hope this letter finds you well. It is coming up on my third anniversary here at Miss Preston’s, and although I have not received a letter from you in quite some time, I felt that I would be remiss in letting such an important anniversary pass without acknowledgment. I only hope the fortunes and future of Rose Hill are as bright as my own. Why, I think it is more than fair to say that the teachers treat us as warmly as they would their own children, had they any. I don’t think there is a single teacher here at Miss Preston’s who isn’t completely devoted to our prospects for advancement. . . .
Chapter 1
In Which I Am Found Lacking
“All right, ladies. We shall try it again. Scythes up, and on my count. One, two, three—SLASH! One, two, three, SLASH!”
We lift the weapons up into the ready position, adjust our grips, take a breath, and slash them across the space before us in time with Miss Duncan’s count. Up, adjust, breathe, cut through an imaginary line of the undead.
Sweat pours down between my bosoms, and my arms ache from the weight of the scythe. In all of my seventeen years I ain’t never been so tired. When Miss Duncan said we’d be doing close-combat training I’d been expecting to work through some drills with the sickles, which everyone in Miss Preston’s School of Combat for Negro Girls knows is my best weapon. But instead we work with the twice-damned scythe, which is a two-handed weapon and not at all good for close combat, in my opinion.
“Jane, your grip is faltering,” Miss Duncan says, those eagle eyes locking on me. “Raise it up . . . up . . .” Her voice climbs in pitch, as if she could use it to lend strength to my overtaxed arms.
I swallow a groan and raise the scythe a few inches higher. It ain’t like my weapon is lower than anyone else’s. Miss Duncan must have just heard my dark thoughts. She’s punishing me.