Isaiah held his breath—you were always supposed to hold your breath walking past a graveyard; everybody knew that, too—as he ran through the first fallen leaves of autumn past the high stone-and-iron walls. He hoped his lungs would hold out. It was hard to run and hold his breath at the same time. By the time he reached the end, he was dizzy. He bumped headlong into Blind Bill Johnson and yelped.
“You scared me!”
Bill smiled. “Isaiah Campbell! Didya think I was a ghost?”
“Uh-huh. I don’t like walking past the graveyard, but if I don’t make it home in time, my aunt Octavia won’t give me supper.”
“Guess we better hurry, then. Come on, I know a shortcut.” Bill’s cane tap-tap-tapped down the sidewalk. They stopped at the corner. “Say, do you like magic tricks?”
“I guess so.”
“You guess so? What sort of answer is that?” Bill said, pretending to be put out. “You in for a treat. I been practicing my magic act. Wanna see?”
“Sure,” Isaiah said. He bounced a ball, catching it neatly each time.
“Behold! In this hand lies a rose.” Bill opened his right hand to show the boy, then closed it again. “Alakazam!” He opened his hand. “Whaddaya see?”
Isaiah squinted at the slightly squished rose. “Nothing happened.”
“Nothing?”
“Nope.”
“Lemme try this again. O great spirits of the land, gimme a frog in my right hand!” Blind Bill opened his hand again. The rose was still a rose.
Isaiah laughed. “Still ain’t no frog,” he said.
“Confound it!” Blind Bill said. “I read me a book on magic and everything. I guess I just don’t have the touch.”
Isaiah wanted to tell the old man what he could do. Memphis always said not to talk about it, but Memphis wasn’t there. He’d gone off somewhere and forgotten all about his brother. It made him feel like crying, but boys weren’t supposed to cry. Seemed there was a whole list of things Isaiah wasn’t supposed to do, and he was tired of it.
“I can do magic,” Isaiah blurted out.
“Can you, now?”
“Mm-hmm. Sister says I’m something special.” If Memphis was keeping secrets from him, then Isaiah could keep secrets from Memphis. He could tell them, too.
“Does she, now? What makes you so special?”
“Sister says I’m not supposed to tell.”
“Well, now, you can tell old Blind Bill, cain’t you? Who’m I gonna tell?”
“Sister says no.”
“Mm-hmm. I see. You gonna let a woman own you, little man?” Quick as a snake, he grabbed the ball with his left hand and held it up out of reach.
“Hey!”
“You so special, how ’bout you take it from me? Or maybe you not really special after all, is that it?”
“I am!”
“ ’At’s all right, son. We cain’t all be special.”
“I am special!” Isaiah said, so angry that the tears came.
Blind Bill gave Isaiah his ball and patted his head. “Now, now, I didn’t mean any offense, little man. ’Course you special. I can tell. Blind Bill can tell.”
“You can?”
“Yes, sir, yes, sir.”
The old man’s words settled over Isaiah like a balm. At least somebody cared about his feelings. Isaiah was tired of being small and easily dismissed. He was tired of everybody—Sister, Memphis, Octavia, his teachers, the folks at Mother AME—telling him what he could and couldn’t do. What good was it having something special if he couldn’t let anybody know about it?
“All right, then. I’ll tell you. But you have to promise to keep it a secret.”
The old man crossed his heart with a long finger. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
That was the most solemn promise Isaiah knew.
“I can see things in my mind. When Sister’s holding the cards, I can tell what shapes she’s got without even seeing ’em.”
Bill’s mouth twitched. “ ’Zat so? You’d clean up real good at poker.”
“Sister won’t let me.”
“No, I expect she wouldn’t.”
“And sometimes…” Isaiah paused.
“Yes?”
“Sometimes, I can see things that haven’t happened yet.”
A tingle started in Bill’s stomach, working its way through his blood like a hunger.
With a shaking hand, he patted the top of the boy’s head again.