Excerpts from Tyriek White’s

We Are a Haunting

Chapter 10, “The Oyster Woman,” pg 133

“I was way too young, but my mother. . . . She died only a few years after I was born. I remember she sang to me in a language from home and when I’d be ready to be done with all of this, I’d close my eyes and hear the song in her voice. I remember the boys would herd sheep and goat, slice them open and cut ’em up for Mr. Hendrix. The farmers made a killing, ate these huge oysters, left them for us girls to toss out. The boys would till the crop, do odd fixings around the farm. Us girls were up in the house. We would clean the crop for the market or for dinner. Clean the manor, the grounds, some fieldwork. Mr. Lott let us build our own quarters. It was small, built it with the ceiling low to keep it warm. We all stayed there, about a dozen of us.

“There was a girl who was older than me, Cara. She cooked for us after service, when that church gave Black folk time to worship every month or so. She cooked a stew so good, knew how to get all the flavor from the neck bones she threw in. And she’d make these delicious cakes with caraway seed. Would always collect the oysters the big men ate. Up in the house they called her the Oyster Woman. She’d make an altar to her ancestors out of bone and hemp and the best oyster shell. She remembered her village. Could still speak her tongue. Strangest thing, every night she’d get up and leave and be back as soon as the dew hit the grass. Turns out she’d walk the half mile to this here shore. Her husband had told me, ‘Think she up and run away.’ I asked her why did she go to the shore every night and she said the ancestors called to her in a dream. They called her home.”