Too quickly, it seemed, they were in the grove, standing beside Remembering Rock. But when she touched the rock and closed her eyes, Celia felt comforted.

She turned to Guardian. “What do I do?”

“Just choose a seat and make yourself comfortable.”

“Does it matter which I choose?”

“Not really.”

Celia walked around the stone once, tapping it lightly as she moved. She tried the north side.

“It isn’t very comfortable,” she said.

“You can try a different direction. You might find another fits you better.”

Celia rose and tried each seat--west, south, and east.

“Ah,” she said, trying to make light of the situation. “I saved the best for last. This one is very comfortable.”

“Close your eyes.”

She obeyed.

It was 1966, She was eight years old. Daddy was taking her trick or treating for Halloween. At the end of the evening, he got out of the car so she could go out to Grandpa’s house for a last treat.

“Daddy, what’s that?” Her face was pressed against the car window. Something was hanging from the big oak tree just before the turn to Grandpa’s house.

Her father turned his head briefly to look. His face hardened. “Don’t look at it,” he said grimly.

“Why?”

“Turn your head,” he barked.

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Tears sprang into her eyes. “What did I do?”

“I’m sorry, Sugar, it isn’t you.”

He wouldn’t say any more about it, and he took a different route when he drove back home. After she went to bed, she couldn’t sleep, so she got up for a glass of water. She could hear Mama and Daddy speaking in the kitchen, and she stopped to listen.

She couldn’t make out everything, but she heard “Ku Klux Klan” and “poor boy wasn’t more than seventeen years old” before she crept back to bed. She was shocked. She knew what the words meant. She had heard of lynchings. What she saw hanging from the oak was a body. The body of a black boy. Knowing now what she had seen, she couldn’t get the horrible image out of her mind. Who would do such a thing?

Celia knew it wasn’t acceptable to mix with black folks; her parents were clear about that. But they also made it plain it was not okay to harass them or try to hurt them.

“They’re just people, like anyone else,” her mother had explained. “They think and act differently than we do, so it isn’t a good idea to spend time with them. It just doesn’t look good. But when you have to, always be polite. They can’t help what they are.”

Celia didn’t understand. If they were “just people”, why was it wrong to be friends?

“You’ll understand, Honey, when you get older.”

Apparently, she wasn’t old enough yet. She didn’t understand at all. Especially why someone would hurt a boy just because he was different.

That night she had a nightmare. The boy hanging from the tree had gotten down, but he was somehow still hanging there, too. And he was following her, crying, “Why don’t you help me? Why don’t you help me?”

Celia’s eyes popped open. She looked for Guardian and found her sitting in the grass nearby.

“I’m done,” she said.

Guardian rose and took her hand. “Not quite, but soon. Close your eyes.”

Celia tried to hold them open but could not. She whimpered, “I don’t want another.”

She woke up. Another nightmare. This time she was hanging from the tree. She had had so many nightmares now, she was afraid to go to bed. She looked at the clock. Four-thirty. Might as well get up; there was no use trying to get any more sleep.

Later that day in school, she thought she saw him go into a classroom. That was happening nearly every day, lately. She began to sweat and her heart started racing. She couldn’t breathe. A panic attack. Again. Every time she saw someone with dark skin, it seemed.

She opened her eyes to Guardian’s touch on her shoulder. Her heart really was racing, but she could breathe and she wasn’t sweating.

“Let’s go inside,” Guardian said.

“Thank you,” Celia whispered.