What the Roots Remember

[Recording begins. Wind. Something dragging through dry grass.]

They called me a healer when the fever came. They called me a witch when it left. That is how it goes with people.

My name is Agnes Blackwell. This was my family’s land. Blackwell Farm, and the cattle company after it. They hanged me at the edge of it, and they buried me where the roots could reach.

Roots remember. That’s all a root is.

Roots remember. That’s all a root is: a memory of where the water was.

Three autumns ago, the fields stood up. The straw men came out of the ground at harvest, and everyone who walked the rows learned what this soil was fed on.

Two autumns ago, they came to my grave and read my name off the stone. Engraved, they said. As if a name cut in stone were the end of a thing.

Now there is a doctor asking questions. He wants to know if the dead dream. We don’t, doctor. We remember. And every memory you drag up out of the dark comes up with its roots on.

[Recording ends.]