Ruby

As Ruby, Maggie, and Ephram leave Ma Tante’s shack, the old woman hands a gris-gris doll to each of the three children. A gris-gris is an amulet used in African and Caribbean folk spiritualism to protect against evil. Ruby’s doll represents several things: the ways she is failed by her community, her spirituality, and the burden of her trauma.

When Ma Tante offers the dolls to the children, she knows that they have not absorbed the necessary power to protect them. This symbolizes her inefficacy in helping Ruby. Despite knowing that Ruby is being raped and feeling sympathy for the girl, Ma Tante doesn’t dare to stand up against the “wheel of the world” (255). Ruby is failed in similar ways by everyone who finds out about her abuse. She is blamed, ignored, and re-victimized by a community whose very epicenter protects men like Reverend Jennings.

Ruby’s doll has a lodestone tied onto its back. Lodestones are naturally magnetized minerals, but the word “lodestone” can also mean anything with the power of attraction. With her unique ability to see “haints,” Ruby is a human magnet for spirits like the tarrens and the Dyboù. Her body and her home become a haven for the forgotten souls of the dead.