Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

by Kwame Mbalia

  A section of the hull broke off behind him with a loud crack, and green seawater began to gush inside.

  “Open it!” Uncle C shouted.

  I flinched. “Okay, okay.” I took a deep breath, then reached for the Story Box, pulling on the thread that connected tales from all over the world, and the lid opened, spilling bright golden light into the flooding room.

  Uncle C started to laugh. The raspy sound grew louder and louder as the Maafa fell apart around the haint and me. “Yes! Yeessssss! Wait…What in the—?”

  He bent his head closer to the Story Box, lifting it to his face, and then jerked back when a quick flurry of sap balls flew out and smacked him in the eyes.

  “Heard you was looking for these hands,” a tiny voice shouted from inside the Story Box. “Well, here they are, and Gum Baby gonna deliver them to you free of charge. Sap attack!”

  The little loudmouth flipped out of the Story Box, light trailing off her like streams of glitter. Gum Baby jumped on top of the haint’s head and fired sap ball after sap ball into his face, until he wore a mask of sticky dark amber.

  “Return of the sap, needle-head! Don’t call it a gum-back!”

  Uncle C grunted as he struggled beneath the weight of the sap being absorbed by his cottony self.

  “That’s for Chestnutt! And that’s for Ayanna! And that’s for having the nerve to throw rocks at the throne, chump! You no good, mealy-mouthed, dandelion-faced thistle-head!”

  “Gum Baby,” I shouted, “let’s go!”

  “Snot-snorter!”

  “Gum Baby!”

  She kicked him upside the head one more time for good measure, and that last effort made the haint topple backward into the water rising around our feet. As he fell, I snatched the Story Box from his hands. After it transformed into the black-and-gold book bag, I put it on and Gum Baby scrambled on top.

  “Tristan!” Uncle C wriggled in the water, his cotton getting even heavier now, and spat sap out of his mouth. “Don’t you leave me like this, boy! I helped you! None of them folks out there lifted a finger for you before I did! I made you what you are, boy—don’t you leave me!”

  Another splintering crack echoed like a gunshot deep in the Maafa, and the ship tilted, lifting me higher while Uncle Cotton slid to the other side. Water came rushing down the passageway. There was no exiting the way we’d entered. That left the compartment behind us, where Eddie’s journal had been stashed, and I darted toward it. Maybe there was a porthole I could—

  “Tristan!” The lack of emotion in Uncle C’s voice forced my head around before I could stop myself. His head faced in my direction, his eyes still covered in sap. The bulkhead closest to him slowly broke apart. “You know this ain’t over, right? I will find you, boy. I will find you and—”

  The sea stormed in, foaming and angry, carrying broken planks and limp fetterlings, and flushed the haint away in mid-threat.

  The water hadn’t reached the little room yet, but I could feel the ship going down. Gum Baby climbed onto my shoulder. “We need to move, Bumbletongue, and fast.”

  “Yeah,” I said, staring at the maelstrom. “You’re right.”

  And I entered the next room just as the upper deck fell with a groaning smash.

  “UM…” GUM BABY WHISPERED AS the door slammed shut behind us. “This ain’t what I was thinking of when I said we needed to escape.”

  I couldn’t answer, though I happened to agree.

  The inside of a school bus stretched out in front of us.

  “About time you showed up, nimrod,” someone said from the rear. A thin boy, wearing a Malcolm X T-shirt and sporting a DIY haircut, sat up from where he’d once been sprawled by a gaping hole in the side of the bus. “You still slower than the next payday.”

  “You know this guy?” Gum Baby asked.

  I opened and closed my mouth several times, speechless. How? My wrist tingled, and I lifted the adinkra bracelet and stared at the silver bead. Commune with the spirits, the diviner had said.

  I took a deep breath, then cleared my throat. “He is…was…my best friend.”

  Eddie still looked…like Eddie. Short and skinny. He even felt real—he held out his fist as I walked closer, gripping the very real green seat backs, and after a few seconds I dapped him up, staring at him when our knuckles connected.

  “Is Cotton gone?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, he’s gone. For now.”

  “Try to contain your excitement, my guy.” Eddie pushed his glasses up on his nose. “I heard the racket from in here. Sounded like y’all put the hurt on him. The heroes in your comics would be proud.”

  Gum Baby peeked over my shoulder. “Gum Baby did the hurting, ghost nerd. Respect the sap or get clapped.”

  I rolled my eyes, but Eddie snorted. I could see the seat through him, and it weirded me out. This wasn’t a dream or a vision or even a story I’d been sucked into. My best friend was sitting right there, grinning at me. But he was dead.

  “Feels weird, huh?”

  “Yeah.” I sat down on the seat across from him, still slightly shocked. “Yeah, I guess it does.”

  “Dang straight.”

  Mist rolled around our ankles, filled the front rows, and obscured the windows. If I didn’t look around, if I kept my eyes locked on Eddie, I could imagine I was back in Chicago.

  But I wasn’t.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  Eddie leaned back against the beat-up seat and traced a name that had been scribbled on the vinyl in black marker. Finally he sighed and took off his glasses, cleaning them on his shirt. Funny that he even needed them anymore. “We’re still inside.”

  “Inside?”

  “Inside the Maafa.” He slipped his glasses back on and bounced his fists on his knees while tapping his feet. That was Eddie. Unless he was reading, he just couldn’t sit still. “Cotton, ever since he’s arrived, he’s been feeding your stories to this ship. Can you believe that? He was using your stories—and Nana’s stories—as a way to track you. Every time you did your Anansi thing, he listened in and then sent those chain monsters after you.”

  I sank back into the seat, feeling sick to my stomach. Ayanna had been right. They’d been following me. I’d led the iron monsters to MidPass, to the Golden Crescent, to Isihlangu. Everyone suffered because—

  “Oh, quit moping,” Eddie broke in. He shook his head. “None of this is your fault. The Maafa and the monsters were already here. Cotton was the one who stirred them up, not you. Well, punching the Bottle Tree was pretty bad. And I guess that did let him loose, so, if I’m being technical, it is all your fault.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I muttered, and he grinned for a second, before sighing and biting his nails.

  “What?” I asked.

  “What what?”

  “You only bite your nails when you’re nervous.”

  Eddie looked at his nails. “Even dead I can’t stop doing that.”

  “So what’s up?”

  He didn’t say anything for a few moments, then he sighed. “This is it, Tristan.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, this is it. After you leave, show’s over. No more…no more talking.”

  The implications of what he was saying slowly dawned on me, and it was like someone had pulled my heart out. Again.

  “But…but—”

  Eddie shook his head. “I’m only here because Cotton kept me here, and you needed help. Now that you’ve separated him from the Maafa, I’m taking this bus to the end of the route.”

  I hugged his journal to my chest, and he grinned. “Cheer up, man—you’re a hero! Celebrate! People are going to want you to come and tell stories. While you’re at it, put my stories in a few more ears out there. Make me famous, Anansesem. I wanna be the next person to become a legend after they die. I’ll be like Tupac and Socrates—Tupacrates!”

  He clapped and erupted in his wheezing, nasally laugh, the one that was super contagious. Sure enough,
I started chuckling too as he kept laughing. Even Gum Baby snickered in my ear.

  “Gum Baby likes him. Ask him about precoffinary measures.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Eddie stopped laughing and sighed. He checked his watch, then pushed his glasses up again. “All right, bro, it’s time to go.”

  “You?”

  “No, you. This is your stop.”

  I tried to look outside the windows but couldn’t see anything beyond the mist. Eddie pointed toward the front door of the bus.

  “Gotta go that way. And hey, as you’re leaving, check on all those folk the Maafa had stuffed in the decks and cargo hold. They’re gonna need some help getting to shore.”

  I stood and grabbed the top of the seat, trying to figure out how to say what I wanted to say.

  Eddie being Eddie, he just went ahead and said it.

  “I’ll miss you, too.” He grinned. “Maybe I’ll come back and haunt your D-twenties. Those dice are too unlucky for you.”

  He held out a fist again, and, with a small smile of my own, I bumped it. With Gum Baby on my shoulders, I walked backward toward the front of the bus, keeping him in sight. I fixed that image of him in my mind—the smiling, glasses-wearing knucklehead who’d always had my back no matter what. That’s the Eddie I chose to remember.

  “Oh hey, Tristan, I almost forgot.” Eddie’s call stopped me in mid–sentimental thought.

  “What’s up?”

  He grinned, wider and more conspiratorial, and my eyes went big.

  “No, don’t say it…” I warned.

  Impossibly, the grin grew even wider.

  “Eddie…”

  “Look in the next room! You’re talking to the wrong one!” he shouted, and then he and his cackles were swallowed by the mist.

  I sighed and faced front.

  I felt Gum Baby twist around to look back. “And Gum Baby thought you were weird. No wonder y’all were friends.”

  “Yeah,” I said, stepping out of the bus door. “No wonder.”

  We found ourselves in a different compartment, where the water came up to my ankles and I had to crouch to avoid bumping my head on the upper deck. The windowless space we had entered was about the size of the cafeteria at my school, but it wasn’t made for tall people. Either that or no one ever stood upright in here. The bulkhead and decks were all made of rough, dark planks. Fragments of wooden crates and barrels lay in piles in different corners, along with rusted metal chains.

  “Where are we?” Gum Baby asked.

  “Maybe a cargo hold? Still on the Maafa, at least.”

  We were whispering. I don’t know why, but I didn’t want to draw any more attention to us than I had to. The area felt tainted…like at any second a hundred haints just as evil as Cotton would arise out of the wood and yank our souls to somewhere painful.

  A dark lump lay on a platform sticking out of the far wall. Beside it was a door, banded in iron and bolted shut.

  Gum Baby pointed at the lump.

  “What’s that, Gum Baby don’t like it, what is it?”

  Something touched my leg, and I leaped up in fright, hitting my head on the ceiling. “Ow!”

  “Watch it!” Gum Baby shouted, slipping down to sit on top of the backpack. “You trying to kill Gum Baby?”

  “Sorry.” I held my hand over my heart. Water sloshed my ankles and I kicked off something slimy. “Looks like the ship is flooding.”

  “Well, get moving. Gum Baby ain’t liking this place too much.”

  “Me neither. I think I know what kind of cargo was held here.”

  “Oh yeah? What?”

  “People.”

  But instead of heading to the door, I angled toward the dark shape.

  “No, fool, don’t go toward the mysterious and possibly deadly trap! Head away, to the door! Oh, for the love of—”

  “Eddie said we’d find something here,” I muttered as the hairs along the back of my neck began to rise. “It’ll only take a second.”

  “Well, it’s starting to get mighty wet, and Gum Baby took a bath last month, so don’t take forever.”

  I stopped a few feet away from the dark shape.

  Gum Baby peeked over my shoulder. “What is it? Another ghost friend?”

  “No,” I said grimly, as a light switch flipped on in my head. I had an answer, but it brought more questions along with it. “You’re gonna have to get back in the Box, though. I need to carry him over my shoulders.”

  Gum Baby looked at me in confusion. “Carry who?”

  I shook my head, too angry to talk. It was time for one last confrontation.

  WHEN THE MAAFA SAID IT was returning to the depths of the Burning Sea, it meant it. A few minutes after I emerged from the door in the cargo hold and stepped onto a large floating piece of wood, I watched the giant ship sink in front of my eyes. The survivors around me—people and animals who had been trapped within its planks—cheered weakly as they clung to their own pieces of flotsam and kicked toward the shore. The giant tear in the sky bathed the beaches and coastline of the Golden Crescent in a red-orange blaze. The fires in the sea had gone out, but it looked like Nyame’s city was burning brighter than ever, and the gilded domes and shining ivory towers reflected all that light back onto the bay.

  Back onto the Maafa’s watery grave.

  And back onto me, surfing among floating debris, angry as all get-out.

  The iron-monster army had disappeared along with the Maafa. Whatever malevolent energy had been powering them was shut off, and they broke apart in screeching showers of rusty confetti. Their remains drifted down like ash onto the sand, the surface of the water, everything. Some got on me, but I couldn’t muster the energy to care.

  My blood was boiling.

  I should have felt some relief, some happiness—the iron monsters were gone. Done for. They wouldn’t be hunting Midfolk or Alkeans again.

  But no—all I felt was rage.

  Limp bodies littered the beach—more captives released from the hull and decks of the Maafa. They coughed and spluttered as they sat up drowsy and confused. Some I recognized. Others, Gum Baby said, had been missing for months.

  “There’s Old Wilkins! He went out to get some sugar and never came home.”

  “Mm,” I grunted.

  “And look! There’s one of Sis Crow’s nephews. That featherbrain owes Gum Baby some money.”

  “Mm.”

  “DON’T THINK GUM BABY FORGOT, BRITTLE BEAK! AIN’T NO IRON MONSTER TAKE YOUR WALLET! BETTER COME UP OFF OF WHAT YOU OWE GUM BABY!”

  My heart lifted at the sight of John Henry towering over everyone as he took a head count. Thandiwe waved her kierie at me. Nyame, flanked by Leopard and Python, took stock of the damage to the marina.

  A lot of folks were hurt. Miss Sarah held Miss Rose, whose right wing was bandaged to her side. The two beamed at me, though Miss Sarah’s eyes flicked back to her partner with worry every so often. Even John Henry held his right shoulder where his shirt had been torn away and a leafy bandage was wrapped in place.

  But…

  Alkeans still stood on one side, Midfolk on the other. Even after all this, the distrust was still there. If anything, from the glares being shot across the sand, the muttering, and the buzzing tension, it looked like things had only become worse.

  Because of me, yes. Because of my actions. I had to own that.

  But someone had lied to me.

  Someone had sent me to steal Nyame’s Story Box. The assignment had sown even more distrust between Midfolk and Alkeans, dividing them at a time when, if they’d worked together, they could’ve stopped the Maafa before it had gotten so strong. Before Cotton’s thorns had dug in so deep. And, just like the haint, this person had wanted the Story Box for its power.

  But the Story Box was drained and useless, and there were only two ways to refill it. The first was by stealing tales from this world and mine, whichever ones he could get his thieving hands on. That’s why he sent Gum Baby to steal Eddie’s
journal.

  The second? An Anansesem.

  All of this just so he would get all the glory and the power.

  Like John Henry and High John had both told me, stories fed the gods and heroes in Alke.

  I glared as that someone shouldered his way past John Henry and stood with his arms folded across his chest.

  Before I approached him, I hid the bundle I was carrying behind a sand dune. I mumbled out of the side of my mouth, “Gum Baby, here’s what we’re gonna do….” Then I brushed off my hands and walked over to the assembled crowd.

  “Tristan!” John Henry boomed. “I don’t know what you did, but I’m fixing to slap your back until the morning, boy. You saved us all!”

  “And look who’s all better,” said Thandiwe. “The Mmoatia worked nonstop to help them recover.” The warrior shook her head. “I’m still not exactly sure what sort of antidote they used….”

  Ayanna limped forward, cradling a bright-eyed Chestnutt. Ayanna slapped me upside the head, though at least this time she was weak. “I told you to be careful, flyboy, not to start a war.” She smiled when she said it, though.

  I gave her a gentle one-armed hug and grinned, but it didn’t last long.

  She noticed and elbowed me. “What’s wrong?”

  I didn’t answer, because right then Nyame strode forward, his golden robes absorbing the light and scattering it across the beach like a million pieces of glass. He looked better than I’d ever seen him, though the marks left by the brand-fly crown hadn’t completely faded.

  “Well done, young Strong,” Nyame said. “You—”

  “Well, kiss my wrist, I bet you think you’re hot stuff now!” High John interrupted loudly as he sauntered up to congratulate me. I couldn’t help but notice that he still held his ax. Nyame noticed it, too, and his golden eyes narrowed. Leopard growled, and High John sniffed.

  “Purr at me again, little kitty, I’ll be wearing you soon.”

  Leopard sank into a crouch, ready to pounce, and High John’s ax flared to life.

  “Enough!” I shouted.

  “Yes, that is quite enough,” another voice piped up.

  I tried not to grit my teeth as Brer Rabbit hopped forward and placed a paw on my shoulder. It was hard.