denver heard mumbling and looked to the left. she stood when she saw them. they grouped,murmuring and whispering, but did not step foot in the yard. denver waved. a few waved backbut came no closer. denver sat back down wondering what was going on. a woman dropped to herknees. half of the others did likewise. denver saw lowered heads, but could not hear the leadprayer — only the earnest syllables of agreement that backed it: yes, yes, yes, oh yes. hear me.

hear me. do it, maker, do it. yes. among those not on their knees, who stood holding 124 in afixed glare, was ella, trying to see through the walls, behind the door, to what was really in there.

was it true the dead daughter come back? or a pretend? was it whipping sethe? ella had beenbeaten every way but down. she remembered the bottom teeth she had lost to the brake and thescars from the bell were thick as rope around her waist. she had delivered, but would not nurse, ahairy white thing, fathered by "the lowest yet." it lived five days never making a sound. the ideaof that pup coming back to whip her too set her jaw working, and then ella hollered.

instantly the kneelers and the standers joined her. they stopped praying and took a step back to the beginning. in the beginning there were no words. in the beginning was the sound, and they allknew what that sound sounded like.

edward bodwin drove a cart down bluestone road. it displeased him a bit because he preferredhis figure astride princess. curved over his own hands, holding the reins made him look the age hewas. but he had promised his sister a detour to pick up a new girl. he didn't have to think about theway — he was headed for the house he was born in. perhaps it was his destination that turned histhoughts to time — the way it dripped or ran. he had not seen the house for thirty years. not thebutternut in front, the stream at the rear nor the block house in between. not even the meadowacross the road. very few of the interior details did he remember because he was three years oldwhen his family moved into town. but he did remember that the cooking was done behind thehouse, the well was forbidden to play near, and that women died there: his mother, grandmother,an aunt and an older sister before he was born. the men (his father and grandfather) moved withhimself and his baby sister to court street sixty-seven years ago. the land, of course, eighty acresof it on both sides of bluestone, was the central thing, but he felt something sweeter and deeperabout the house which is why he rented it for a little something if he could get it, but it didn'ttrouble him to get no rent at all since the tenants at least kept it from the disrepair totalabandonment would permit.

there was a time when he buried things there. precious things he wanted to protect. as a childevery item he owned was available and accountable to his family. privacy was an adult indulgence,but when he got to be one, he seemed not to need it.

the horse trotted along and edward bodwin cooled his beautiful mustache with his breath. it wasgenerally agreed upon by the women in the society that, except for his hands, it was the mostattractive feature he had. dark, velvety, its beauty was enhanced by his strong clean-shaven chin.

but his hair was white, like his sister's — and had been since he was a young man. it made him themost visible and memorable person at every gathering, and cartoonists had fastened onto thetheatricality of his white hair and big black mustache whenever they depicted local politicalantagonism. twenty years ago when the society was at its height in opposing slavery, it was asthough his coloring was itself the heart of the matter. the "bleached nigger" was what his enemiescalled him, and on a trip to arkansas, some mississippi rivermen, enraged by the negro boatmenthey competed with, had caught him and shoe-blackened his face and his hair. those heady dayswere gone now; what remained was the sludge of ill will; dashed hopes and difficulties beyondrepair. a tranquil republic?

well, not in his lifetime.

even the weather was getting to be too much for him. he was either too hot or freezing, and thisday was a blister. he pressed his hat down to keep the sun from his neck, where heatstroke was areal possibility. such thoughts of mortality were not new to him (he was over seventy now), butthey still had the power to annoy. as he drew closer to the old homestead, the place that continuedto surface in his dreams, he was even more aware of the way time moved. measured by the warshe had lived through but not fought in (against the miami, the spaniards, the secessionists), it was slow. but measured by the burial of his private things it was the blink of an eye.

where, exactly, was the box of tin soldiers? the watch chain with no watch? and who was hehiding them from? his father, probably, a deeply religious man who knew what god knew andtold everybody what it was. edward bodwin thought him an odd man, in so many ways, yet he hadone clear directive: human life is holy, all of it. and that his son still believed, although he had lessand less reason to.

nothing since stimulating as the old days of letters, petitions, meetings, debates, recruitment, quarrels(was) , re(as) scue and downright sedition.

yet it had worked, more or less, and when it had not, he and his sister made themselves availableto circumvent obstacles. as they had when a runaway slavewoman lived in his homestead with hermother-in-law and got herself into a world of trouble. the society managed to turn infanticide andthe cry of savagery around, and build a further case for abolishing slavery. good years, they were,full of spit and conviction. now he just wanted to know where his soldiers were and his watchlesschain. that would be enough for this day of unbearable heat: bring back the new girl and recallexactly where his treasure lay. then home, supper, and god willing, the sun would drop once moreto give him the blessing of a good night's sleep.

the road curved like an elbow, and as he approached it he heard the singers before he saw them.

when the women assembled outside 124, sethe was breaking a lump of ice into chunks. shedropped the ice pick into her apron pocket to scoop the pieces into a basin of water. when themusic entered the window she was wringing a cool cloth to put on beloved's forehead. beloved,sweating profusely, was sprawled on the bed in the keeping room, a salt rock in her hand. bothwomen heard it at the same time and both lifted their heads. as the voices grew louder, belovedsat up, licked the salt and went into the bigger room. sethe and she exchanged glances and startedtoward the window. they saw denver sitting on the steps and beyond her, where the yard met theroad, they saw the rapt faces of thirty neighborhood women.

some had their eyes closed; others looked at the hot, cloudless sky.

sethe opened the door and reached for beloved's hand. together they stood in the doorway. forsethe it was as though the clearing had come to her with all its heat and simmering leaves, wherethe voices of women searched for the right combination, the key, the code, the sound that broke theback of words. building voice upon voice until they found it, and when they did it was a wave ofsound wide enough to sound deep water and knock the pods off chestnut trees. it broke over setheand she trembled like the baptized in its wash.

the singing women recognized sethe at once and surprised themselves by their absence of fearwhen they saw what stood next to her. the devil-child was clever, they thought. and beautiful. ithad taken the shape of a pregnant woman, naked and smiling in the heat of the afternoon sun.

thunderblack and glistening, she stood on long straight legs, her belly big and tight. vines of hairtwisted all over her head. jesus. her smile was dazzling.

sethe feels her eyes burn and it may have been to keep them clear that she looks up. the sky isblue and clear. not one touch of death in the definite green of the leaves. it is when she lowers hereyes to look again at the loving faces before her that she sees him. guiding the mare, slowingdown, his black hat wide-brimmed enough to hide his face but not his purpose. he is coming intoher yard and he is coming for her best thing. she hears wings. little hummingbirds stick needlebeaks right through her headcloth into her hair and beat their wings. and if she thinks anything, itis no. no no. nonono. she flies.

the ice pick is not in her hand; it is her hand.

standing alone on the porch, beloved is smiling. but now her hand is empty. sethe is runningaway from her, running, and she feels the emptiness in the hand sethe has been holding. now sheis running into the faces of the people out there, joining them and leaving beloved behind. alone.

again. then denver, running too.

away from her to the pile of people out there. they make a hill. a hill of black people, falling.

and above them all, rising from his place with a whip in his hand, the man without skin, looking.

he is looking at her.