Ring Shout

In Notation 25, Susannah, a formerly enslaved woman, recounts the “Adam and Eve” Shout. The lesson of this Shout is not to get involved with evil things like the snake that tricked Adam and Eve. It never turns out well.

Maryse enters the land of the Night Doctors. Once there, Maryse must rely on one Dr. Antoine Bisset. According to Maryse’s book of folklore, Bisset researched Black folklore and found that there was some basis in fact for the mythical Night Doctors. Bisset tells Maryse that there is always a price for the Night Doctors’ help; he gave his eyes. The Night Doctors consume misery and pain, and that is why they were so interested in kidnapping enslaved people, who were among the most miserable of humankind. Maryse proposes that she bring them hate made manifest—the Ku Kluxes. The Night Doctors are instead interested in Maryse’s misery, and there is plenty of it.

The Night Doctors dig the story of this pain and misery out of Maryse by cutting her open. The small girl points the Night Doctors to the worst night of Maryse’s life, the night the Ku Kluxes and Butcher Clyde killed her family.