Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

by Kwame Mbalia

  “Enough! Iron monsters are coming back here, and they’re just the first wave. According to the Ridge’s Amagqirha, there could be a big war.” I looked at Thandiwe. “She told me the elders felt it as well.”

  Thandiwe looked troubled. “So what do we do?”

  I kept my eyes on Nyame. “We need you to restore the Story Box. Then we can lure Anansi and convince him to close the hole in the sky. That will weaken the iron monsters enough for us to be able to destroy them.”

  “And this Uncle C?” Nyame asked.

  High John stepped up to my side. “We’ll deal with him, the boy and I. Together.”

  I smiled sadly at him. “It will take more than just you, me, and Old Familiar. Or even John Henry and Miss Sarah and Miss Rose.”

  He stiffened. “I’m not going to fight with—”

  “There’s no other way,” I interrupted softly. I turned to Nyame. “We’re going to have to work together. Midfolk and Alkeans.”

  Nyame and High John eyed each other, and the sky god snorted. It was a very human thing, now that I think about it. Like two boxers who had just finished a match that ended in a draw, both knowing they’d fought a classic bout.

  “Yeah, we’ll see,” High John muttered, and I rolled my eyes.

  “So, can you fix the Story Box?” Thandiwe asked Nyame.

  He pursed his lips, then shrugged. “I can, though I can’t see what good it will do. Anansi’s trickery may prove to be the end of us all.”

  “It be your own people,” muttered Gum Baby.

  Of all the sticky things that had come out of that doll’s mouth, that may have been the stickiest.

  Nyame sighed and planted himself in front of the dais. He grabbed the lip of the pedestal, spoke a few words under his breath, and it lifted and began to spin slowly with the Story Box on top. He muttered more incantations as he reached into thin air and pulled out things I’m not sure I can describe, though I’ll try.

  He filled the cracks in the wood with a father’s pride and a mother’s belief. He wove dying rays of sunlight and a breath of fresh air together into ribbons of ivory, which he sent over to wind around the sides of the Box, and then he pulled them tight to straighten the warped planks. The glimmer of a river was molded into place on the lid, and he added the flash of a gem to the latch. I heard laughter as he reinforced the corners with glee. Finally, he outlined the top and sides of the box with gold filigree and stepped back.

  Nyame blew gently on the Story Box, and, like an artist removing shavings from a sculpture, revealed his gleaming masterpiece.

  “Holy—” High John breathed.

  “Sweet peaches,” I said.

  Gum Baby clapped.

  The gold-and-ivory box was almost too pretty to look at, and the longer I stared at it, the more I was drawn to it. Deep inside me, I heard the power Nyame had called upon, and I—

  High John grabbed my wrist. “Easy there.”

  I frowned. “What—?” I began, then stopped. I’d started walking forward without realizing it and was inches away from plucking the Story Box off the pedestal.

  I swallowed and took three giant steps back. “No wonder everyone wants it.”

  Nyame looked proud. “I do good work.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Gum Baby said, crossing her arms. “Gum Baby will give you a sticker. Now where’s Anansi? Gum Baby got some questions that need answering, quick, fast, and in a hurry.”

  Nyame eyed her for a second, then shook his head and headed for the door to the rooftop gardens. The floating pedestal with the Story Box on top trailed him, still spinning. Gum Baby made a face at the sky god’s back, and we all followed.

  In the gardens upstairs, Nyame settled the pedestal near the front edge of the palace roof, overlooking the marina and the bay. The sky god studied its placement for several seconds and made some small adjustments. Thandiwe looked at me and I shrugged impatiently. I wanted this to be over with. I wanted Chestnutt back with us. I wanted to check on Ayanna, to see if she had been healed.

  The world may have been in trouble, but friends are friends, and I wanted them close by.

  “Tristan,” Nyame called. He pointed to the Story Box. “It’s time. Open it.”

  I nodded, then wiped my palms on my shorts. This was it. The moment we’d fought, struggled, cried, and worked so hard for. Gum Baby patted my head, and Thandiwe saluted me with her fist. High John grinned and winked. I took a deep breath, then stepped in front of the pedestal.

  “Find the thread,” Nyame said before he stepped back.

  The thread.

  The common story we all share, that passes from city to city, from country to country, from world to world. The story that everyone’s uncle wants to tell again and again. The story told at the watercooler. The story told around the campfire. The story told at bedtime, whether in Chicago or Alabama, the Golden Crescent or MidPass.

  I closed my eyes.

  Music.

  Drumbeats.

  Clapping.

  Laughter.

  Calls.

  Responses.

  And there, beneath it all, hanging by a silver strand of childlike anticipation, I saw it.

  “Let’s say there was a land where the People once lived. A land of story, of dreams, of heroes and of gods. A land born of pain and joy, for all stories contain both. Let’s say this land was called…Alke.”

  The rhythm gathered beneath my skin, and my palms itched with the need to create, to shape. I grabbed the thread with both hands and opened my eyes. The Story Box burned with light so bright it seared my vision and left behind floating dots of color. It shone like a beacon, a lighthouse of hope and joy.

  Thandiwe gasped.

  The pedestal beneath the Story Box turned into a pillar of light, and symbols blazed to life within it. In trails of copper ink guided by an invisible hand, the symbols were applied to the magnificent chest in honor of the gods of the Golden Crescent. Their adinkras blurred from reddish-gold to dazzling white as beneath them scenes from another time were depicted:

  People danced in a circle around a glowing golden box, as a man with golden eyes watched over them.

  A spider wove a web of silk that turned into words, and men and women wearing the spiderweb adinkra collected the words and marched off.

  A group of people, including a spider and a being with glowing eyes, confronted a terrifying creature rising out of the sea, their hands outstretched, preventing the evil from advancing. This last image wasn’t as bright as the rest, and that bothered me a bit, but then the splendor of the entire Story Box swept me away.

  It was glorious.

  Beautiful.

  Amazing.

  But…

  “Where’s Anansi?” Gum Baby asked. She stomped around, looking in the bushes, and splashed through the waterfalls. “Where is he?”

  I could feel the energy rolling off of the Story Box in waves. Nyame could feel it, too, I knew, because the adinkra on the hems of his robes flared with golden light, and his eyes did the same. And High John could sense it—his shadow stretched across the rooftop over flowers and statues.

  So where was Anansi?

  Nyame turned suddenly toward the west and peered out at the ocean. He stood there, frozen, for several moments. “Something is wrong,” he whispered. He turned to me. “Close the Box, quickly now!”

  A loud roar sounded in the palace below. I flinched, severing my connection with the Story Box. Leopard roared again and again, and High John frowned. Suddenly he too went stiff as he looked over the ocean. Without a word, he twisted into his shadow with a gust of wind, and in the next instant he took off into the sky on Old Familiar’s back. The giant shadow crow cawed as they soared above us.

  “What do you see?” Nyame called.

  “A burning wave, biggest I’ve ever seen!” High John shouted back. “It’s knocking aside boats like they feathers, sure it is.”

  “A wave…” Nyame muttered. He turned to me. “Tristan—”

  But I
wasn’t paying attention. My eyes were glued to the marina, where a tsunami carrying columns of fire was sweeping toward us. Boats and oversize yachts crashed into each other with noises that sounded like cannons and gunfire.

  “What’s happening?” Thandiwe shouted. Gum Baby scrambled up to her perch on my shoulder to look, and she gasped.

  Before I could answer, something rose out of the sea, and out of my nightmares, too. A dilapidated vessel, bigger and more horrifying than any bone ship, split the surface, growing larger and larger. Its masts were shattered and its grimy gray sails hung limp and torn. Holes of different sizes dotted the hull, and burning seawater flooded out like lava. Figures moved on the deck.

  Fetterlings.

  Hundreds of them.

  And with them came that familiar feeling of suffocating terror. The weight of years, decades, centuries of hate and violence—it all gathered in the air and pressed down on my shoulders. The stench of death and dying, of rot and decay, rolled over me. I knew those feelings. I knew that presence. I’d been inside that vessel. Uncle C was in that thing.

  Which meant that ship was—

  “The Maafa,” I whispered.

  “THAT’S THE MAAFA?”

  Thandiwe gripped her forebear-turned-shield tight in one hand and pointed at the massive ship with the other. It vomited fire and fetterlings as it cut through the burning waves. Anything in its path was crushed beneath its hull or charred beyond recognition as it entered the bay. Gray mist and black smoke followed in its wake, while smashed wreckage floated in front of it.

  Nyame whirled on me in fury. “You said my people still lived in that thing. Look at it! Tell me how anything could survive in that!”

  “I saw them!” I protested, but a sinking feeling grew in the pit of my stomach.

  How could anything live in that?

  The sky god turned away in disgust and paced the edge of the palace roof. The leviathan of fire and iron pushed its way into the shallow harbor. The golden spire shuddered as boat after damaged boat was thrown against its base. Nyame fumed, his robes flapping in the ash-flecked wind.

  “First my people. Now my land? I cannot allow it.” The sky god pointed at the Story Box. “We did just what this uncle of yours wanted. The beasts will come for it, and we must not let them take it. Otherwise, this”—he gestured at the bay that slowly burned—“will only be the beginning.” His eyes pierced mine. “Your world will be next.”

  And with that totally not-ominous statement, Nyame stepped off the roof. As he dropped out of sight, a flare of bright light exploded and streaked through the sky like a missile. It arced high—so high it appeared like a second sun, or the start of a second rip—before dropping down behind a cluster of palaces. I lost sight of it for a second, but the fifty-foot wave that raced toward the invading ship, dousing fire spouts and drowning fetterlings, let me know he had landed in the marina.

  And it was because my gaze followed the path of Nyame’s flight that I noticed a group of familiar faces.

  Gum Baby spotted them, too. “Look!” she shouted. “It’s John Henry! And Miss Sarah and Miss Rose! They made it out!”

  Thandiwe grinned. “MidPass lives, Tristan. They live.”

  My knees went weak, but it was a good feeling, like I’d just been declared the winner of a match. John Henry waded through the bay, knocking debris out of his way with a swipe of his glowing hammer. He held a rope in his other hand, and he was pulling several rafts full of people and animals. In the air above, Miss Sarah and Miss Rose carried a large basket of additional refugees between them as they flapped to the shore. I didn’t see Brer, but the rest were a sight for sore eyes.

  “They rescued the Midfolk,” I said. “John Henry understood my message.”

  Thandiwe glanced at me. “You sent a message? When?”

  “Back when High John took me…It’s hard to explain, but I did.”

  She looked skeptical, but instead of questioning me further, she pointed with the knob of her kierie. “Look—we’re not the only ones who’ve spotted them.”

  A group of fetterlings were swimming across the bay toward the Midfolk. They looked like sharks as they cruised around the burning wreckage, silent and unseen.

  Gum Baby pounded a fist into her other hand. “They’re not going to make it.”

  Thandiwe placed her forebear on the ground and stepped on it, then looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “I can reach them. Can you protect the Story Box?”

  “I can, but how are you going to get there in time? I thought your forebear only—”

  “You think too much about the wrong things,” Thandiwe said. “Do you know why we call them forebears? Because our ancestors are always there, lifting us and carrying us forward, and shielding us when we are vulnerable. Don’t worry about me—worry about doing your part. You sure you can hold?”

  I took stock of the scene—the flames, the fetterlings, and the Maafa, and the Midfolk fleeing them all. “I can hold,” I said. “When you reach them, send Brer if you see him—a giant rabbit with scars, talks real slick. But take the rest of them to the Mmoatia forest, to Ayanna and Chestnutt. The fairies will protect them.”

  Thandiwe nodded, and without another word, hopped off the roof while slipping the forebear beneath her feet. She landed on a curving ivory buttress and rode it like a skateboarder grinding a railing. The princess ended up in the plaza below with a full head of steam, and she carved down and around the wide paved street, using her kierie as a rudder. Soon she was out of sight, and I sighed.

  “Girl’s got skills,” Gum Baby admitted. “Gum Baby taught her well.”

  I rolled my eyes, then shielded them as a blast of wind blew dust and ash into my face. High John stood on Old Familiar’s back as the shadow crow cawed and flapped above us.

  “Tristan, you’ve got company coming!” he shouted. “I reckon you might wanna get ready.”

  “What? Where?”

  “Got some of them poison flies coming from the south, and fetterlings from the north. Must’ve slipped by in the confusion. This old crow will take care of the bugs—can you handle them chain monsters?”

  Sure enough, a dust cloud swept toward Nyame’s palace, and the faint sounds of screeching and rattling carried over the roar of the chaos in the bay. I swallowed hard, then nodded. I only had to hold them off until Brer arrived. Whenever that was. “Yeah, I got this.”

  High John studied me and Gum Baby, then nodded. “Reckon you might need this,” he said. He tossed down a sparkling, shiny piece of metal, and Gum Baby snagged it out of midair. “All them other gods giving you protection,” he said. “Might as well do my part, sure I will.”

  I pried the charm out of Gum Baby’s sticky grasp. The adinkra was two crossed swords with holes in the blades and handles, and it pulsed with dark light.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  High John smiled. “The akofena. The Swords of War. Symbol of courage and bravery. For when you need to defend several places at once.”

  Old Familiar flapped powerfully up in the air. “Take care now, you hear?” High John called. “Don’t go dying—you and me got some talking to do.” And with that, High John the Conqueror soared into the sky on his giant crow, hooting and hollering as he cut through smoke and flame to confront the swarm of brand flies racing toward us.

  As soon as I slipped the adinkra onto my bracelet, four night-black boxing gloves shimmered into view. When I made fists, one pair of gloves floated shoulder-high on either side of me, and the second pair hovered near my waist. I now had six fists ready to pummel some iron monsters. When I relaxed my hands, the gloves disappeared.

  I laughed. “Looks like we’re doing some shadow boxing!” I called back to Gum Baby.

  She let out a joyous whoop and cartwheeled across my shoulders.

  “Bring it on!” she screamed. “Ain’t nobody scared! Gum Baby got two hands eager to deal! This restaurant is open and ready to serve! Get your education for free, you thistle-heads, Gum Baby’s an e
qual-opportunity destroyer!”

  The stampede of fetterlings crashed against the base of the palace, and then the time for words was over.

  A fight is a paralyzing thing.

  When the time arrived for my first boxing match, I’d thought I was prepared. I mean, I’d trained forever, it seemed. Hit the bag. Ran the streets. Did whatever Dad and Granddad told me to. I was supposed to win.

  But in the ring, once I was inside the ropes and everybody else was outside except the kid I had to face, all that practice disappeared. I had two heavy gloves, uncomfortable boots, and the desire to be anywhere else. Who was I kidding? I wasn’t a boxer. I’d just gone along, because that’s what a kid is supposed to do, right? Make his parents happy?

  My opponent whupped me in all four corners of the ring.

  From the first bell to the last, everything moved too fast. I couldn’t keep up. My guard was too slow, my feet were too slow, my everything was just too dang slow.

  But now…

  Now I had purpose, which gave me all the energy I needed. I was Old Man Rawlins. I wasn’t gonna lose…not today, chumps.

  “Watch it!”

  Gum Baby’s warning came just in time—a rusty collar snapped shut inches from my neck as I jerked back.

  “Get the sap out, fool!” Gum Baby flipped in midair, flinging her sticky ammunition at the fetterlings swarming over the rooftop. “Gum Baby always carrying you.”

  The akofena charm tingled, and my night-gloves flashed into existence. One jab, two jabs, three, and a trio of fetterlings the color of ashy scabs tumbled over the edge in pieces. I risked a glance behind me—the Story Box was still there on the pedestal—and then turned to face another group of screeching metal creatures.

  We fought like that, Gum Baby and me, for what seemed like forever. Wave after wave of fetterlings swarmed over the rooftop gardens, and yet somehow we held them back. Gum Baby was a living terror. If she wasn’t dancing over the heads of her opponents, she was tumbling through their chain-link bodies, depositing sticky traps that rooted them to the spot. Which left me batting cleanup.