Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) by Gail Roughton

from point to point a lot. Most folks thought she was scatterbrained. Paul knew better. She was so smart s he frequently forgot her audience couldn’t follow the dart ing quickness of her thoughts because she never had trouble following anybody else’s , f requently before they knew where they were going themselves.
    “Chloe, you did it again. You skipped something somewhere. I don’t understand.”
    Her trilling laughter floated out under the willows.
    “Darlin’, you have been away from home for a long time. You just don’t know all the ins and outs around town anymore, that’s all.”
    “So tell me.”
    “Well, with the other Neg roes, Sadie has considerable—power. ”
    “Power?”
    “Power,” Chloe affirmed emphatically.
    “What kind of power? How do you know about it?”
    “Well, I have power of my own.”
    “I’m well aware.”
    “Not like that. I mean, I’ve got Betsy.”
    “Chloe—”
    “My maid. Betsy.”
    “I know who Betsy is, I just don’t kn ow what that’s got to with this .”
    “Well, Betsy’s better than a telegraph. And she ’s a lot more than just my maid, she’s my best friend. We practically grew up together, you know. She knows everything that goes on in town and she tells me. So I know just as much about what goes on in the Negro houses as they do. And a lot more about what goes on in the white houses than the other white folks do. Lord, I’m going to miss her!”
    “Why? She isn’t coming with you?”
    Chloe sighed. “Oh, she went and fell in love. Not that I’ve got any room to talk. But she went all calf-eyed and moony over one of the Thorpes’ tenants up at Bolingbroke and she’s getting married and turning into a farmer’s wife!”
    Paul laughed at her woebegone expression. “I’m sorry, darlin’.”
    “So am I!” declared Chloe emphatically. Betsy was much better company than any of the white society girls of Chloe’s acquaintance. And certainly far more experienced. She’d already lost a lot more than her heart to her young farmer. And shared with Chloe breathless descriptions of the franker joys of physical love. Sometimes as Chloe lay awake in the dark and counted the days until her wedding, she thought of Paul and imagined him already lying beside her. At such times, when her body raged in a fever that couldn ’t yet be slacked, she wished Betsy hadn’t been quite so informative.
    “But I still don’t understand about Sadie—”
    “Sadie knows mojos,” Chloe stated baldly.
    “Mojos?”
    “Mojos. You know, magic and love potions and things like that. The other blacks have a lot of respect for her, but they’re scared of her, too. None of them would dare cross her.”
    “I don’t believe — ”
    “Believe it. I mean, she only uses good magic, but they’re all pretty sure if they made her mad enough, she could pull out some black magic real fast, too.”
    Paul stared.
    “Did I turn green?”
    “Sadie just about raised me! She never misses a service at St. Barnabas, she hauls Joshua off every Sunday! She’s better at Episcopal liturgy than I am, and you sit there and tell me she’s the local witch woman?”
    “Well,” said Chloe, shrugging again. Facts were facts and not much changed them. “She is. Didn’t know about her and your father, either, did you?”
    “I’m beginning to think I don’t know too much about anything!” he exclaimed, and examined the delicate contours of his future bride’s features. “And not only do I not know any of this , you do! You know everything about everybody in town!”
    “Not quite,” she said modestly, “ b ut I do try hard.”
    Paul dis solved into laughter and flung his plate aside, pulling her into his arms. Even the rigid confines of the foun dation garments of 1883 didn’t dis guise the underlying softness. He pulled away, wondering suddenly if Chloe knew a lot more about a lot of things than he’d supposed. He certainly hoped so. He didn’t know what the hell Chloe’s