Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

by Kwame Mbalia

  Pop pop

  My fists were everywhere.

  Pop pop

  Black fists in black gloves delivering black power two jabs at a time.

  Pop pop

  Finally, after the last group of fetterlings was repelled, we had a moment of rest. I looked out toward the water and tried to find everyone, to see how they were doing.

  Old Familiar dipped and swirled, snapping brand flies out of the air like they weren’t moving, the prince-turned-slave-turned-god standing atop and swinging his ax like a scythe through a field of wheat.

  Nyame, like a sun flare that leaped from spot to spot, sent iron monsters flying into the bay with blasts of white-hot energy. I couldn’t stare for long, or I’d be temporarily blinded. The sky god fought with the fury of exploding stars, and, as a lone god, he was targeted by most of the iron monsters.

  But the refugees from Midfolk fought, too, for their very right to live, though they were far from home. John Henry, the raft line wrapped around his waist so he could use both hands, swung his hammer like he was back drilling through a mountain. Left and right, up and down, the hammer fell on fetterlings with the crash of metal on metal. No flourishes, just a steady rhythm.

  Miss Sarah and Miss Rose circled and dove from above, flaying fetterlings with whiplike switches. They harried and harassed iron monsters like hawks scattering mice. As a result of everyone’s efforts, the group made their way up the winding streets of the Golden Crescent unimpeded.

  But, try as I might, I couldn’t see Brer anywhere.

  Instead, Thandiwe led the Midfolk stragglers. I don’t know where she’d met up with them, or how she’d convinced them to follow her, but the warrior girl from the Ridge battered fetterlings with grim determination. She was on the ground, her forebear looped over her back, which freed her spear to pin foes to the ground while her kierie hammered them senseless.

  Everywhere I looked, fetterlings and brand flies were being destroyed.

  Yet, despite our progress, more and more of them were being disgorged from the Maafa. The supply seemed endless. And that wasn’t all. The ship had reached the marina, and heavy troops were emerging from its fiery decks. Bosslings leaped into the waves, followed by several hullbeasts. They waded through burning waters and debris and lumbered ashore like nightmarish special forces.

  “Dang,” Gum Baby said from her perch on my shoulder. “Just…dang.”

  “I know what you mean.” The reinforcements pushed Nyame back, even as he blasted them left and right, while still more dropped from the Maafa’s decks. Suddenly my friends went from holding their ground to retreating.

  And there was still no sign of Brer.

  “Come on, Rabbit,” I muttered. “Hurry up!”

  “Tristan, look!”

  A group of iron monsters broke off from the marina fight and chased after the Midfolk. Two bosslings and a hullbeast thundered up the street, and my heart plummeted. If they caught up, everyone would suffer, gods or not.

  The remaining hullbeasts leaned back and belched forth a mass of brand flies. Shrieks filled the air as the charcoal cloud of metal bugs shot up into the air. High John and Old Familiar were quickly swarmed.

  A shrill cry of pain dragged my attention away. I spun around, heart in my throat, as I caught a glimpse of a dark shape falling from the sky, feathers fluttering down like black snow.

  Miss Rose.

  She dropped out of view just outside Nyame’s palace gates.

  “No!” I whispered.

  John Henry bellowed in pain, too, and his hammer crashed to the ground like a tree falling. He backed up the curving street, his head the only thing I could see for a moment, the rest of him obscured by flowering trees and gold-covered rooftops. Miss Sarah followed close behind, the fight forgotten as a wail left her lips. More shrieks of pain and confusion rose as the rest of the Midfolk panicked.

  A glint of metal winked in the corner of my eye, near the Mmoatia forest palace. Something waited in the trees, right at the spot John Henry and the others were rushing toward.

  An ambush!

  I had to warn them. Somehow, I had to drag the iron monsters away from Miss Rose and get the others to abandon the ambush. I needed to clear a path for High John so he could link up with the others and rescue the Midfolk.

  It was time for a distraction.

  Something that everyone, from fetterling to hullbeast, would focus on.

  I needed the Story Box.

  The restored treasure rested on the ivory column, the rose-gold symbols nearly faded away. It was closed, but I could still feel the thread of stories inside. My feet carried me over on their own, and I saw golden scenes glimmering on top of the chest.

  Hold up.

  One group of scenes, they showed…

  I leaned in closer.

  “Sweet peaches.”

  A figure standing in front of a seated group, a box strapped to his back. The same figure, his arms wide, still wearing the box, but this time it was cracked open. Symbols floating in, and symbols floating out. And finally, the figure walking away, the crowd waving, the box on his back now closed.

  Anansesem didn’t just tell stories, they collected them.

  I walked around the Box, forcing myself to move slowly despite every urge to rush, to hurry and save my friends. And when I reached the back panel, where there were two sets of gold lines, I stopped.

  They carried the stories from people to people.

  “They carried them,” I said, an idea popping into my head. “Here goes nothing.” Concentrating, I reached for the rhythm of the story thread inside, and I spoke the sentence Nana started every one of her stories with.

  They were the words of the Anansesem, uttered when traveling from village to village to spread the news.

  “Let me give you some truth, and I hope it returns back to me.”

  All noise stopped.

  The winds died, the waves calmed, and every iron monster—from brand fly to bossling—let out a harsh, rattling cry and charged toward Nyame’s palace.

  Toward me.

  But I remained focused on the spectacle right in front of me.

  The golden lines on the Box brightened and expanded until two straps extended from the glowing chest. I reached up and grabbed them, lifting the Story Box off the pedestal. I slipped an arm through one, then the other, and shook my head in wonder as the Box stretched and changed and settled against my back.

  It changed depending on who carried it.

  I looked over my shoulder and snorted at the gold-and-black book bag I was now wearing, with golden zippers and a faint hum rippling through it. It was partially open, and the thrum of a half-finished story sent tingles up my spine and down into my fingertips. Adinkra decorated the straps—Nyame’s symbol on the left, and Anansi’s on the right—and I squeezed them, as nervous as a kid on his first day of school.

  “What do we do?” Gum Baby asked.

  I stared at her, then at the Story Box, and licked my lips. Uncle C wanted the Story Box? Then we were going to bring him the Story Box.

  “Gum Baby, you’re not gonna like this.”

  A few minutes later I walked down the stairs, the Story Box on my back, to give my first official performance as Anansesem to the most dangerous audience I could ever imagine.

  I exited the palace and entered the courtyard to face a sea of fetterlings. They quivered as I approached, then parted like magic. My eyes stared straight ahead, even though I could hear them close ranks behind me, cutting off any retreat. But running away was the last thing on my mind.

  I had an appointment to keep.

  IT WAS THE LONGEST WALK of my life.

  Imagine getting called to come up to the front of the class to solve a problem, but the whiteboard is a mile away. Or going up to the auditorium stage at an all-school assembly to give a speech, and if you mess up, they might drag you out of there, never to be seen again. Or your mom comes to pick you up early and catches you clowning in the back of the classroom, a
nd now you got to walk by all of your friends as she watches you with that Oh really? look.

  Yeah.

  Matter of fact, imagine all three of those things happening at the same time.

  Throw in a little terror, a little nausea, and a little Holy moly, how am I going to survive this, and you’re halfway there.

  I didn’t look left or right, not even when I passed the Mmoatia grove. Not even when I passed John Henry straining against the grasp of several bosslings. Not even when I passed a quietly sobbing Miss Sarah, the limp and motionless body of Miss Rose lying in her arms. Nope, I didn’t meet anyone’s eyes as I placed one foot ahead of the other, following the curving street until the dented gold marina spire rose out of the bay in front of me.

  And in front of it, Nyame.

  Hundreds of destroyed fetterlings lay in mounds around him, like a fort made of defeated enemies, and yet several hundred more live ones circled him. As I approached, their heads snapped around like I was a magnet, and the god in the middle raised his head and glared at me.

  His eyes burned like a thousand red-hot coals, and if looks could kill…What am I saying? His looks probably could kill. For all I knew, he was shaving off my retirement years.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” he snarled.

  “It’s this,” I shot back, “or everyone gets dragged into that death ship over there. I’m doing the only thing I can.”

  He shook his head. “You are dooming us all.” And he turned his back on me.

  I clenched my fists, but the iron monsters around me began to get closer and closer. Yet they weren’t attacking. It was like they were urging me on. I gave Nyame my own glare, then, with a dozen fetterlings following, moved down to the shore, where a collection of rotted planks tied together with swollen, seaweed-covered ropes awaited.

  My rusty honor guard herded me to the makeshift raft.

  I turned around, saying, “No way,” then took a half step back when twelve fetterlings started clanking together, like metal rattlesnakes. “Fine, fine, I’m going.”

  I stepped onto the raft, and a wave of sadness pulled a lump into my throat. Ayanna’s raft was somewhere back in the Ridge. Lost forever, probably. I shook my head and took a deep breath. Forward, I thought. Have to move forward.

  I didn’t have a stick or an oar to propel the raft, but the rotted thing jerked into motion by itself, floating slowly at first, then picking up speed. Debris knocked against the sides, and more than one burst of flame erupted out of the water, making me jump each time. Steam hovered over the boiling sea, and a low roar lurked in the background. The tear in the sky, directly above and stretching off into the horizon, smothered everything in a thick heat that made breathing a struggle.

  The Maafa lurked just offshore, squat and ugly in the shallows like a diseased leviathan that had washed into the bay. It smelled like it looked and looked like it smelled—filthy, covered in crusty barnacles, with the rotten remains of fish caught between the splintered boards of its hull, and emitting fumes, the kind that linger in the back of your throat after you leave the gas station.

  My eyes and my stomach both wanted to vomit.

  The raft followed its invisible leash farther and farther away from shore, away from safety—wherever that was. I drifted closer and closer, until the Maafa loomed over me, and still I floated on. I gagged when I smelled the greenish-black crust that lined the hull, with its odor of old vegetables and the special Alabama grease Nana always smothered on my cuts. Fetterlings, trapped against the side, wriggled weakly in the water.

  I finally reached a jagged split in the hull and, as the raft drifted inside it, fetid water dripped down my neck. A familiar setting materialized out of the darkness.

  Two torches.

  Three steps.

  A long passageway shrouded in darkness.

  The raft came to a stop, and I gripped the straps of the Story Box (Story Bag? Story Backpack? I hadn’t figured that out yet) and stepped onto the stairs. The soggy wooden planks of the deck squelched and sagged under my feet. My breathing echoed in my ears.

  I inhaled, trying not to smell the putrid air, and then let it out.

  And that’s when the ship spoke.

  “Thought I told you stories are powerful magic?”

  I froze. The voice came from the darkness. But it wasn’t Uncle C’s, like in my nightmares.

  “Well, my boy? Fine mess you got yourself in.”

  Wait a minute.

  Wait. A. Minute.

  I knew that voice. But the last time I’d heard it, the owner was telling me—

  “Did you at least give me a good ending?”

  “Brer Fox? Is that you?”

  A wheezy coughing laugh echoed around me. “So it seems. I guess these old whiskers got one last job to do.”

  I took a step forward, then another. The darkness didn’t fade away as much as part around me. The passageway grew narrower and narrower, and when I turned around I could just make out the torches near the hole I’d entered. “I’m here to speak to the Maafa.”

  The bulkheads groaned and the deck shifted. Boards twisted and realigned, and I threw my hands out to keep my balance, nearly falling when the planks caved in at my touch. I felt something soft and hairy. And warm. I made sure my legs were steady, then glanced over. My hand had pushed through the soggy wood, and underneath—

  “Sweet peaches!”

  A face.

  No, dozens of faces. Some I recognized—Tarrypin, Sis Crow—and others I didn’t. These were the victims, the ones the iron monsters had snatched. They’d all been stuffed into the bulkheads and decks of the Maafa.

  I jumped back in horror…and their eyes followed me. They were alive, but just barely.

  “Not pretty, is it?” Brer Fox said in a strained tone.

  I pulled my eyes away from the barely breathing folk. “I came to bargain. Can you tell it that? I came to bargain!” I shouted.

  “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “I do. Now can you tell it that?”

  “It already knows. It—”

  Brer Fox’s voice cut off, and I stood in dark silence for several seconds.

  “BF? BRER FOX!”

  “Still here…just…translating.” He sounded like he was in pain, and I squeezed the Story Box’s straps. He’d gotten trapped because of me, and now he—and the others—were suffering. Just when I got worried and started to shout again, the soggy planks in the deck above my head peeled back like a banana, and Brer Fox dropped down. His limbs were tangled in chains, and a strange orange glow filled his eyes.

  “What is the bargain?” he said, and I flinched.

  That wasn’t Brer Fox’s voice. It was deeper, darker, like creaking timber and crashing waves. It was freedom denied. It was silent pain.

  It was the Maafa.

  “You think you have something we want?” the old evil asked through Fox. “You?”

  It was weird—and scary—seeing Brer Fox’s mouth move but hearing the haunting voice of the ship. But I had to push past the fear. Everything depended on this moment. Everyone depended on me.

  I forced myself to start talking again. “You’re carrying something inside of you,” I said.

  “We carry a lot of things.” The chains holding Brer Fox forced his legs to walk around me like a grotesque puppet. “The living. The dying. The fear that unites them both. It is what we do.”

  “Yeah, but you also carry a haint, and it’s using you. It’s using you to get to me and everybody else on Alke, so it can become more powerful than even you.”

  “IMPOSSIBLE!” the Maafa forced Brer Fox to snarl in my face, and I threw my arms out for balance as the ship heaved up and down in the water.

  “It’s true!” I yelled.

  The chains holding Brer Fox grew taut, and then he was hauled up into the upper deck.

  Before I could react, the planks in the bulkhead to my right split apart, and Tarrypin—his shell bundled in chains—was marched out
. His eyes were glowing orange, too, and he spoke in the same ancient voice of the Maafa. “So, we have a spirit aboard. What does—?”

  “It’s poisoning you.” I took a big risk by interrupting, but time was running out. There was no telling what was happening outside. “And it’s taking the stories your monsters hunt down and hoarding them, getting stronger. Soon it will take over and make you a victim.”

  The possessed Tarrypin shook his wrinkled head. “Your story does not impress us. Even if such a stowaway existed, it could never surpass our might. We will—”

  “It does, and it can, with this.” I shrugged off the backpack and it transformed into the golden Story Box. I held it out.

  There was a momentary pause, and then Tarrypin was yanked back into the bulkhead. A short distance down the passageway, the deck opened like a trapdoor, and a teenage girl stepped out, walking lightly despite the manacles on her ankles.

  “Netta?” I whispered. “No.”

  But the girl I’d met back in MidPass didn’t raise her blazing eyes. Instead, they stayed pinned to the Story Box.

  “You carry the words of the gods,” the Maafa said. “You are…Anansesem.” For the first time, I heard a note of concern in the voice.

  “Yes,” I said. “And like I said, I’ve come to make a bargain.”

  I could feel the Maafa’s consideration in the silence that followed. When it next spoke, the ship was almost thoughtful:

  “Why shouldn’t we just take the cursed sky god’s treasure and rule the lands as we like?”

  This I was prepared for. “Because you wouldn’t rule it for long. The haint infesting you would grow too powerful for even you to contend with, and he’d destroy you. But there’s another way.” I hesitated, then inhaled and let out a deep breath. “I will tell your story.”

  The entire ship stilled. The creaking, the rustling, the clinking chains—it all fell silent as the Maafa registered my words. Then:

  “You would tell…our story?”

  I nodded. It was a gamble, and a lot of people in Alke wouldn’t like it, but it had to be done. “People don’t speak of the Maafa anymore. They shush any mention of you. Children don’t know your name. Soon you’ll be erased from the histories of Alke entirely.”