An excerpt from

The Sea of Dead Souls 

A novella,

By 

Nina Louise

I Spring 1940

The sea carries with it many myths surrounding the bodies of people whose journey has taken them across these waters where the ghosts of the seas are hard to ignore. The Greeks believed the goddess Amphitrite, wife of Poseidon, nurtured their oceans. The dragon god Ryūjin, was the tutelary deity of the sea in Japanese mythology. She symbolized the power of the ocean, known to have a large mouth which could take human form. Yemaya is the African mother goddess of the living seas who came to life through the African diaspora by way of the Transatlantic Slave Trades. She is known to comfort and cleanse her children of sorrow.  

No wonder then, Naomi Gatson of Shreveport, Louisiana—raised on stories of the African goddess, Oshun—wished to escape the life of a farmer, to flee to the sea and rest at the bottom of  the ocean with her ancestors. She was almost certain had it not been for men she had known since birth, the afterlife would have called on her long ago. 

On this Spring day, the year the Japanese would bomb Pearl Harbor and the week after her twenty-sixth birthday, the heavens called on her Ma. The family huddled under the Japanese maple tree Pa had planted for her on their tenth anniversary. The gardener in town insisted Pa try something new.

He said, “Miss Ella gonna love dis here tree. It don’t grow much but it gonna shade the house sum, just like you want it ta.” 

At the time, Pa's oldests, Abe and Aaron, known everywhere as 'the brothers,' as they rarely saw one without seeing the other, suggested he plant the tree at least ten feet from the house. Just in case the local gardener with the seed shop, Mr. Gardner — yes, that was indeed his name and everyone in town made fun of it—was wrong. Mr. Gardner had suggested six feet. If he were wrong, then Pa would have plenty of land to give the Japanese maple tree space to spread its wings. And spread it did. Within a year, the tree grew ten feet tall and eight inches wide. The dark pink, almost purple hued leaves blew onto Ma’s lap, into her sweet tea and across damn near half the porch every doggone day. Pa took pride in being smarter than Mr. Gardner gave him credit. He planted the tree eight feet from the house instead of the recommended six. That was ten years ago and now the tree they call Ella, named after Ma, stood fifteen feet tall and lifted part of the house off its foundation due to its proximity. 

Naomi used to laugh at her Ma and her walks around the tree, inhaling at every turn. The wind picked up and the chlorophyll soaked grassy dirt filled the area with a sweet after taste. This sweetness would stick in your mouth long after the honey-baked bun left your tongue, easing down your throat like water off the bone.

“What you smellin Ma?”

“Sweet buns, pies, cakes, heaven. Yes, heaven is what it is.”

It would be the last time Ma walked her tree. The last time she walked at all.

As Pa tacked on the remaining hopes and desires for his children in prayer, Naomi’s eyes  stared into the supple heart-shaped leaves. She had no tears to shed. She could hear Ma giving thanks to God for a safe passage. She told Naomi to close her eyes and Naomi watched as Ma ventured with spirits full of light and a body void of dread. Naomi was angry and frustrated, not sad or depressed like her brothers and Pa. Circling the tree as Ma had done several times over, Naomi was reminded of two memories, Ma’s confession of nearly kissing the Sheriff days before she married Pa and Kang. Zhang Wei Li was the older brother of Cho Lin Wei Li. Everyone called them Kang and Lin and they were one of just a handful of Chinese families in the south. They moved to town after the incident with Sara. Lin latched on quickly, but Kang, at least in public, treated Naomi like a bug he needed to squash every chance he could. Until his confession under this very tree. When they moved, Naomi had no one to call a friend. 

Then she recalled Jacob’s best friend Lewis. “Where is Lewis? He too busy to pay his respect?” 

Her younger brother by nine years kept his head down, “Pa told me...” 

Pa squeezed Jacob’s arm, “...I told him to tell no one. The less people know the better.” 

A low-brow scowl painted Naomi’s ashy face orange as she turned toward the tree and away from the grave. She realized it was better for Lewis to send his respects via postage. He flirted with Naomi too much, despite his childhood relationship with Jacob. As Naomi saw it, they practically grew up together, Lewis was family. Lewis was Jacob’s twin in every way imaginable.

Pa began his prayer.  

Naomi had come to terms with God long ago. If there was a God, the incident at the train station would have never happened. At least that is what Naomi told her nine year old self. No one spoke about that day. Although all one needed to do was watch Pa wobble on his good leg with cane in hand, to know the Gastons were beaten. When they returned home that day, Naomi repeated in her head, “We ain’t dead. We ain’t dead. WE AIN’T DEAD.” Until the words creased her pillows.

No one in the Gatson family settled on dying with the exception of Naomi, and she was not entirely sure death would bring her what she sought the most: peace of mind. Each year that passed after the horrible incident on the train platform, the incident that damaged her Pa in more ways than Naomi could count, each year squeezed her by the neck, the rope twisting, stretching, piercing deep into her skin. If she stayed here, she would die like Sara had, but if she fled, if she could get away, she could die any way she chose. 

The Gatson men were wired different, as they would have it, there was too much life to be had, too much living awaiting them. Each one of them had a dream. Pa wanted to play trumpet in a jazz club in Harlem. The brothers wanted to see Europe via the Army and Jacob wanted to play in the Negro baseball league. Too full of life and too full of themselves, Naomi told them once, “No man whose body is at constant risk should ever dream so big.”  Yet, Naomi knew—sooner or later, the disease of joy and dreams would catch a hold of her pitiless soul and one day she would arise to a word she dreaded more than life, hope. 

“Dear Lord, thank you for granting a secure journey for Miss Ella to the afterlife.”  Naomi’s Pa held his head to the ground, shifting his  body to the rhythm of the wind, picking up a  robust movement like they had never seen before. “We ask that we get these here children off  safely too, until ain’t no one left here.” Naomi’s eyes darted from Pa to her brothers. She could tell Pa’s pupils were looking up to heaven by the way his eyelids fluttered, lifting off the rim.  “We all gonna get outta here sooner or lata. All of us.” 

“Amen,” Abe said. 

“Amen and Amen,” added Aaron. Like Pa, he swayed back and forth too, though not  because of a bad knee, he had a nervous tick about him. Aaron could not sit or stand still for long  periods of time. Naomi wondered how he would survive basic training camp should the brothers get called to enlist in the Army soon.

Jacob, 17 going on 30, like Naomi, was never one for prayers, biblical quotes, or Sunday school service. Yet, this morning he held one hand to the heavens and the other to Pa’s back to keep him from falling over. Pa made everyone go to church no matter what they felt deep down in their hearts. Like or dislike for God, it didn’t bother him none. If you was his child, you was gonna go to church and he made sure they knew this when he unlatched his belt.

He said, “I plan on seeing every damn one of y'all in the afterlife, whether you wanna  be there or not.” And he meant it. Pa swore too much, but it was all the sinning he had left in him.  

When Pa opened his eyes they were dry as Ma’s cornbread battered by the sun. Naomi  returned his gaze. He would not smile and neither would she. The brothers wept their way back into the crooked white farmhouse. Its wooden steps led to a huge chestnut door so thick even the  Sheriff could not knock the door down if he tried. 

“Come on gal, let’s eat.” Naomi hated her nickname. Only Pa got away with calling her gal. The Sheriff tried on several occasions but the fire steaming from Naomi’s cheeks curbed his tongue. Still, if he could get away with it he would. The Sheriff had a habit of being either wholly sour or wholly sweet and neither personality suited Naomi much. Nor could she understand the constant attention all the ladies around town and the girls at school showed him. He is a handsome man, she gave him that, but it was his personality or lack thereof which turned her off to his crude remarks and ill-temper. Naomi had come to realize there was a side of the Sheriff only those who said ‘no’ to him knew. 

Pa limped down the burial mole hill. Ma lay on the other side of the house where she would neither be disturbed nor disturb the living. Naomi eventually knew her Ma’s flesh would decompose, water evaporating from the skin, leaving every single body part her Ma possessed dried out, turning her bones dark as ash. Naomi could imagine the roots of the Japanese Maple tree intertwining with her remains, sprouting new life while brightening the purple hues into a  soft pink, Ma’s favorite.  

The wind attacked Naomi’s thin arms, the leaves and dead broken branches scrapped against her plump legs. A crackle in the sky shining white hit the earth with a thunderous roar. The drizzle started slow. Naomi touched the tree at its heart. Had it not been for her ample figure, the wind would have swept her away.

“Fittin Ma, very fittin.” She remembered the other goddess Ma would tell her stories  about before she rested her eyes. The story of the African rain goddess of the sea, Mujaji who  poured down her love to her children using her power to gently cleanse the believer’s spirit  through rain and restoration. If Ma wasn’t telling her stories about goddesses, she was telling Naomi about the Sheriff and their romance that never was. Naomi pictured a young Ma and a young Sheriff huddled under a tree like Ella, his lips near hers before Pa came running up the hill and around the corner to save them from the torrential rains. Naomi shook the story Ma had told her long ago from her head. 

Almost within an instant, Lin’s brother, Kang popped in. If she had ever had a young love, a first love, it was Kang. In public he hated her, acted like she was the scum of the earth and though those hateful events scarred her, it was a similar moment, under a tree, during a rainstorm where she came close, real close to inhaling the scent of heaven.

“Naomi! Get in this here damn house, ya hear?” 

Naomi snapped to her father’s bellowing voice. She leaned into the tree and kissed Miss  Ella goodbye and scurried off before Pa had another heart attack. She removed her shoes at the  door, and peered back at the tree as if it spoke to her. Mr. Gardner had called the tree seeds  “Anshin Shite.” He said in Japanese it means to be at peace. She whispered, “Be at peace Ma.”  

By the time she reached the screen door, Jacob held it open. She  gazed at the tree one final time, the branches, the falling leaves around the stump became Ma. She knew it would not be long now before she never saw it again.

He tugged on her arm, “Come on now.” 

She closed the screen door carefully, it latched tight to its base. A storm’s coming, Ma and not the goddess of the sea or the goddess of the rain can prevent the dying of the Gastons, if it is going to be anyone else, then it might as well be me.