Caribbee

by Thomas Hoover

  *

  Shango was with her, part of her. As Serina dropped to her knees, before the drawing of the axe, she no longer knew who she was, where she was. Unnoticed, the dull glow from the open doorway grew brighter, as the fires in the cane fields beyond raged.

  "Shango, nibo l'o nlo? Shango?" She knelt mumbling, sweat soaking through her shift. The words came over and over, almost like the numbing cadence of the Christian ro­sary, blotting out all other sounds.

  She had heard nothing—not the shouts at the main house nor the ringing of the fire bell nor the dull roar of flames in the night air. But then, finally, she did sense faint voices, in Yoruba, and she knew Shango was there. But soon those voices were lost, blurred by the distant chorus of crackling sounds that seemed to murmur back her own whispered words.

  The air around her had grown dense, suffocating. Dimly, painfully she began to realize that the walls around her had turned to fire. She watched, mesmerized, as small flame-tips danced in circles of red and yellow and gold, then leapt and spun in pirouettes across the rafters of the heavy thatched roof.

  Shango had sent her a vision. It could not be real.

  Then a patch of flame plummeted onto the floor beside her, and soon chunks of burning straw were raining about her. Fee­bly, fear surging through her now, she attempted to rise.

  Her legs refused to move. She watched the flames in terror for a moment, and then she remembered the wand, still in her outstretched hand. Without thinking, she clasped it again to her pounding breast. As the room disappeared in smoke, she called out the only word she still remembered.

  “Shango!”

  The collapse of the burning thatched wall behind her masked the deep, sonorous crack that sounded over the hill­side.