The Darkness of Sugar, (a ghost story)

The rustling of the sugarcane leaves is a strange and unsettling noise. It does not sound like corn stalks. It’s heavier, darker and markedly lonely. It moves seemingly from the middle out. Often you can not see where the movement starts in the field, you can be right in front of the rows and hear it but never see it. The cane in the front rows holds steady, vigilant, protecting what moves within. Sometimes you can see the cane breathing and hear nothing. Gentle, distinct movements that you can not hear. The fields change your senses. Most people around them know this, but it is not talked about.

I was told not to play in them, and I never wanted to. There were all kinds of animals in there that one did not want to cross, and the leaves could be sharp if you were not careful. In all honesty though, it was the noise, I hated the noise. There was something about it that set my teeth on edge and chills up my arms. I had a strong urge to stay as far away as I could. For some reason though, it got harder as I got older.

There seemed to be a strange pull that came from the field behind the house that I cleaned with my grandmother. The house was only a short walk and a twenty minute bus ride, but it was a different planet in comparison to where I lived. Ornate iron gates, wrap around porches, working shutters and a huge double door that we never went through greeted us twice a week. We walked around magnolia trees, creeping vines and huge rose bushes to the back of the house. The screen door was always open to the mudroom before the kitchen. I would find my eyes drifting toward the backyard, the rolling lawn and the fields beyond. There was a distinction, a border really between all that was groomed and secure and predictable and the fields. They sent a strange sensation through my stomach and I grew to look forward to that feeling. The tingling pull of the unknown had always appealed to me, but now it seemed to take on a life of its own. So even though it scared me, it also drew me in. In the morning, the cane appeared almost pink, and in the evening, almost blue. The quality of the light changed the field as much as it changed the person in front of it. I never went close while I was working, there were only certain places I could go, certain rooms and floors and garden were off limits. These were spoken of only once, but I knew my place. As I worked through the list that was set before me, I glanced when ever I could out the windows to the back. On cooler days we opened the windows to air out the rooms, gauzy curtains caught the wind billowing ghostly shapes. I loved watching them flutter and fill. It was calming and beautiful. But beyond the dance of white gauze and satin, the fields waited and breathed and sighed.

One evening in early November, I went to work at that house alone. I left two hours early because I had twice the work to do. I would have to stay late too, but figured I could still make the 9pm bus home. There was no opening of windows that day, the sky was steel grey and it had been raining on and off all day. Still glancing out the windows when ever I could, I sat down at the table in the kitchen with my coffee for a much needed break. Something outside caught my eye, a small movement it seemed. I looked out the window and strained to see through the rain soaked window. I stared as hard as I could out the window, and saw nothing. I opened the screen door and stood just under the awning so I would not get wet. My coffee steamed in the chilly air as I looked over the yard, scanning from left to right. I caught that movement again, this time it was right on the border of the field. I stepped closer, rain dripping into my almost forgotten coffee. Another larger movement and a sound had me stock still. A figure stood staring at me, right at me, from the border of the field. A quick movement and a flash of light and the figure was gone, stepping deftly backward into the field. The field moaned and shook at his presence. I do not know how long I stood there, or how long he stared at me. I did start to notice I was wet and cold. I began to shiver and went back inside as quickly as I could.

I was still shaking when I reached in the linen closet for a towel. My hands fumbled with unfolding the fabric. I left my shoes in the kitchen on a towel so I would not have to mop again. My bare feet padded along the great wooden floored halls as I made my way to the guest bathroom to hang up the towel to dry. I had three more rooms to dust and a roast to get in the oven. I went about my work as quick as I could, wanting nothing more than to get out of there. My hands eventually stopped shaking, my breathing evened out as the afternoon wore on. It was just getting dark as I put the timer on for an hour and closed the oven door their supper. I remember the kitchen timer had toadstools and flowers around the bottom and you could always hear the bell vibrating as you set it. The warm light of the kitchen cast long shadows in the yard, seemingly reaching for the field. I decided to get to the bus stop as fast as I could, as my nerves crackled with a sensation akin to fear.

My shoes and jacket were on as a grabbed my bag with a slight tremble in my hands.” I am out!”, I thought as I started to walk as quickly as I could around the yard. But then, the noise..the strange noise that the fields make swept over me in a way that had made me unable to walk further. I stood, frozen to the spot. My back ached from tension and cold. The pull I had been experiencing now completely enveloped my being. I had no choice, I had to go. I moved toward the noise, half pulled toward the edge of the yard and to the cane fields just beyond.

I stood in front of the rows, listening to the rain pattering on the leaves, not making it to the ground. The intense smell of earth and iron assaulted me, I almost covered my nose and then thought better of it. There were sounds now, breaking like waves among the rows that I did not recognise. There were flashes now, of white in and out of the rows, white and deeper browns played across the fields in front of me in a pattern I could not follow. The cane started its movement then, from the center out. It breathed and pulled and writhed in a way that seemed to twist and shake the rows. I wanted to run, but I stood there, hypnotized. A hand reached out as if to part the cane, and it took me a moment to see it as my own. I parted the can because I had no choice. I stepped in because there was something else, pulling me. As I stepped in, my eyes adjusted to the dark.

Another overwhelming smell, this time of sweat, washed over me, made me dizzy with the heaviness of it. I realized then that it was silent in there. Not a sound, no insect or wind could be heard. The darkness was again broken by flashes of white and sudden movements that were hard to track. I walked further in, hearing only my own footsteps and my bag disturbing the rows. I wanted out, but kept moving in. I stopped as fear gripped me with a more powerful hand than I had felt up until that point in my life. The flashes slowed down and began to blink in the dark. I heard breath, but did not know if it was my own. Realization dawned on me slowly that evening. White flashes slowed and stilled and met my gaze. They were eyes staring at me, and teeth grimacing and flashing in the dark. Eyes and eyes and eyes all around me, towering over me, behind me and below me. Light palms flashed as they moved the stalks, teeth glinted as their darkness blended and swirled with the night. I heard them then, a sound that would cause my heart to burst with the agony of knowing. There was a collective moan, and sighs that rose and fell with my heartbeat. There was a pain there, a groaning of sickness and hatred that lodged in my throat bringing hot bile. The sugar trade brought with it generations of slaves that bleed and suffered and toiled and died without so much as a single flower offered to their absence. Lifetimes of chains and whips and amputations all for sugar, to sweeten the tea of the white folks I worked for, to build an economy of blood and shipping taxes. To distill the rum which would dull the senses of the upper class and made it easier to rape. Babies ripped away from mothers and mothers killing infants so they never had to hurt like this, with a pain so deep and jarring it broke a person into bits. The waste of potential and knowledge and love, all buried in these fields. My ancestors, my kin, meant nothing to anyone and so were pillaged and raped and murdered for generations. Maybe this is why I have been beaten, rapped and used over and over again. A stain on the soul perhaps that only monsters can see? The souls of these beings cried out to be seen. And that night, I saw them. I have seen them ever since.

I do not know how I got to the bus, or how I made it all the way inside before I fell to pieces. I ran the water in the bathroom so I would not get in trouble for crying. I understood now what the noise of the cane fields really were. I have never forgotten.

I was no longer scared of the fields, but terrified of the pain within. I saw the ghosts, I heard them, I smelled them. I ached for them, unafraid for myself, but afraid of the terror that poured into me when I was with them.

From that day on, when I worked at that house, I left an offering on the border. Apples, honey, bread, tobacco, coffee with cream and sugar. All in the hopes that the sweetness of sugar can somehow combat its darkness.