The Black Rose by Tananarive Due

Jesus and promises and goodness as she watched her sister running off with Mama’s book. “Give it back!” she shrieked, and this time it was her own voice that startled her, so loud and big that she was sure she would wake people for miles. “Gimme M-Mama’s book!”
    But neither running nor screaming helped, because Louvenia was fleeing from her so fast that she seemed to be flying, even when she stumbled and nearly lost her balance. Sarah heard her sister sobbing, and she sobbed, too, realizing she couldn’t catch her no matter how fast she ran. Louvenia was growing smaller and smaller as she ran ahead, disappearing in the shadows of trees. Finally Sarah fell and tumbled to the ground, scraping her knee against a rock until it bled, and she could only watch her sister’s retreating form as she ran along the creek, her dress flying behind her. Louvenia had gone crazy, Alex had said. Maybe he was right.
    Sobbing so hard she could barely breathe, Sarah made her way back to the cabin, where it seemed like Mama and Papa should be waiting. She surveyed the things that belonged to her parents: Papa’s rocker on the porch, Mama’s churn and rusty washtubs out front, Papa’s plows leaning against the side of the cabin. Not even realizing why she was doing it, Sarah crawled behind the wagon wheel leaning against the house, smelling the sweet, dry earth, and felt around for Papa’s jug. Wasn’t it still here? She couldn’t see anything but dried-out corncobs, stones, a big ham bone, and a bent spoon. No jug. Papa must have moved it. But where?
    “Papa!” Sarah screamed, momentarily daring to believe that if goodness and promises didn’t work, then maybe Jesus would send her parents back when He saw how angry she was.
    But there was no answer except the hound’s far-off barking. Papa’s hound had run off after they didn’t have anything left to feed him. He was half wild anyway, Alex had said, but Sarah found herself wishing the dog would come loping up to her now to lick her face. No one came; not Papa, not Mama, not the hound.
    Sarah’s chest heaved and her entire frame shivered with sobs. She climbed up the porch to go inside the cabin, which was so empty it felt profane. Her eyes roved quickly around the room, looking for … something . Mr. Long had hired some Negro men to come burn the bodies up, and they’d taken Mama’s and Papa’s clothes to burn, too. They had to burn out the fever, they said, or else someone else could catch it. Nothing was left but shrunken bodies charred beyond recognition, which Alex had dug a hole for and buried. Then Missy Laura and the other croppers had come out, lit a fire near the buried bodies, and sung sad songs all night. But it wasn’t the same. Sarah had seen funerals before, and a burned body wasn’t the same as watching someone put at peace under the ground. A burned body meant they were just … gone.
    Her parents wer e gone, Sarah realized as she stood in the middle of the empty cabin. Jesus wasn’t going to send them back, no matter what she promised or how hard she worked. And Alex was gone, too, over to Vicksburg because he said they couldn’t make enough wages cropping without Mama and Papa. Mama would have been very worried about Alex over in Vicksburg, what with all the foolishness she said was going on. But he’d left anyway, and he’d visited only once so far, on Sunday, bringing them fifty cents, and he’d left at dawn on Monday morning, like he’d never been back. Sarah gasped for air as her sobs pummeled her insides.
    Then something on the shelf above the cookstove caught Sarah’s eye: Behind Mama’s near-empty jars of flour and meal and rice, there was a picture she’d seen Mama admiring before. Feeling a tiny sense of relief from her sobs, Sarah dragged a chair to the shelf, stood up on it, and reached for the photograph as carefully as she could, so she wouldn’t tip over.
    It was Papa. He was younger than Sarah had seen him look before,