by Kwame Mbalia
Nana nodded. “You wanna tell me what your nightmare is about?” I opened my mouth, then closed it, and she patted my hand. “It’s all right. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. But talking about it with someone might help. Isn’t that what your therapist back north said?”
I nodded. “Mr. Richardson. Yeah, I mean, yes. He said to talk about it slowly, or in pieces, if I wasn’t ready to talk about the whole thing.”
“Exactly. ’Cause it sounds like you’ve gone through some trauma.”
“Trauma?”
Nana squeezed my hand and then got up to check the rolls in the oven. “Yes, baby. Trauma. A rough patch in your life. Something that deeply distressed you. Can be physical or emotional, or a combination of the two.” She pinched off a piece of dough, rolled it between her hands until it was really long and thin, and then laid it on the flour-covered table. “Say this is how your life normally looks. Well, something traumatic can do this.” She smooshed a portion of the dough snake in the middle with her thumb, so it was flat. “Or it can do this.” She pulled a different section into a sharp spike. “And part of what makes trauma so difficult is the period afterward. Figuring out why you’re hurting, and how you can heal…. There’s no easy solution, baby. But at some point, you might have to talk about it, even if it’s to yourself. Especially if it’s to yourself. Sometimes we can be our own worst obstacles to healing. Understand?”
I studied the dough snake and nodded slowly. Sometimes I felt like that squashed part, as if the weight of the world—two worlds!—were pressing down on me. And other times were more like that spike….
“Nana,” I said slowly. “Can a whole bunch of people experience trauma at the same time?”
A sad smile crossed her face. “Of course, baby. Sometimes an evil will rock a community, strip their will and feeling right from them, until they’re raw and bleeding and hurting, inside and out. Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ferguson, Missouri. Oh yes, baby, a whole city can hurt all at once.”
“And…how does a city like that—I mean, how do they all heal?”
Nana sighed. “Well, it’s like I said, just on a larger scale. At some point, it needs to be talked about.”
I thought about the spirits in the barn. The horror on their faces. They’d fled from something—something that had affected them all. I clenched my fists. I needed to talk to them.
I was an Anansesem, after all. Finding and carrying other people’s stories was sort of my thing.
“Thanks, Nana,” I said, scooting back from the table, my jaw set with determination. “That really helped.”
“Of course, sugar. Now, before you slink away, scrub some of these dishes. Then find your grandfather and tell him he better come and help. Ain’t no maids here.” Nana raised an eyebrow and I grinned.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Grandmothers. They’re the best.
When I reached the barn, however, the motivation I’d gained by talking to Nana faded away. A few people, including Reggie and his trainer, still lingered around the boxing ring, talking. Granddad was there, too, and I hesitated. I didn’t want them to see what I planned on doing.
The tingling feeling started up again immediately after I crossed the threshold—so strong, I nearly flinched—as if imploring me to hurry up. I didn’t see any spirits, but Reggie’s eyes immediately locked with mine and a frown crossed his face.
“Ignore him,” Anansi said. His voice spoke softly through my earbuds. “Focus, boy.”
I inhaled deeply and moved to the far corner. Reggie’s gaze followed me…until his trainer tapped his shoulder. He turned around, and I took advantage of the opportunity to duck behind a stack of crates. I pulled aside a dusty burlap sack to reveal a small spade and a patch of dirt slightly darker than the surrounding packed floor.
Anansi whistled in my ear. “You were serious. You really did bury it. I’m impressed.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m impressed that a so-called hero would do so much to shirk his responsibility. Astounding.”
The comment stung, but I bit back the retort I wanted to make and instead grabbed the spade and started digging. I paused every few seconds to make sure no one was coming over. Not sure how I would explain this. Oh yeah, I just buried this jewelry I received from gods in another realm, no biggie.
THUNK!
The spade hit something solid. I widened the shallow hole, scraped away loose clods of dirt, then reached down and pulled out a cloth-covered box. When I slid the covering away, Anansi scoffed in my ear.
“Really? That was the best you could do? You receive the blessings of some of the most powerful gods in existence and you hide them, bury them, in this?”
“Hey,” I whispered in protest. “It’s all I had on such short notice. Besides, it’s waterproof.”
“But the insult. The disgrace!”
I brushed away a few specks of dirt from the multicolored plastic case and patted it gently. “You’re just jealous. You wish you had a lunch box as glorious as this one. Now hush, you’re going to get me in trouble.” I unlatched the clasp and opened the old Darkwing Duck lunch box. I’d had it for years, ever since the grandson of one of Nana’s friends had given it to me while snickering. Kids.
Inside, on top of a wadded-up towel I’d hoped Nana would never notice missing from her untouchable stack of “good linens,” lay a corded leather bracelet with several adinkra charms fastened to it. A spider’s web, representing Kwaku Anansi. It gave my stories power and also warned me when trouble was near. The crossed swords of the akofena, for when I needed to defend several places at once. Gye Nyame, the sky god’s symbol, helped me tell the difference between illusion and reality. The Amagqirha’s glimmering bead from Isihlangu enabled me to see spirits.
And flanking them all were the gloves John Henry had given to me. Fingerless, made of thin, worn brown leather, and branded with the sign of a hammer just below the knuckles, they didn’t look like much. But they were imbued with incredible strength. I pulled them on, flexed my fingers, and smiled. Then I slid on the bracelet. The tingling sensation I’d been feeling exploded into a rippling wave of electricity that washed over me. A thunderous chorus of drums erupted in my ears. The rhythm pounded my bones and shook my soul. I grinned. It felt good. But my grin quickly faded as the spirits’ rush of emotions returned even stronger. The worry. The terror. The desperation.
Please…
He’s coming!
The Shamble Man is coming.
You have to help!
I had to talk to them, and quickly, before this Shamble Man, whoever he was, hurt anyone else. But where were they?
“If you’re quite finished with your dramatic reveal, could we please hurry up to the part where we actually do something?” Anansi asked impatiently.
I got to my feet. “Says the god famous for being lazy. Besides, I can’t do anything while Reggie—”
A voice interrupted me. “Can’t do anything while Reggie what?”
“Busted,” whispered Anansi.
I turned to find Reggie towering over me, glaring, his bare hands balled into loose fists. His eyes dropped to the hole in the ground, then took in the lunch box, and a scowl crossed his face.
“You talking trash behind my back while you’re digging in the dirt and playing pretend? Some boxer. The world-famous Strong Gym, huh? Can’t believe I wasted my time coming here. Could’ve shadowboxed and done better.”
Hot anger swept aside my embarrassment at being caught with the lunch box. “I still knocked you down.”
“Luck, that’s all.”
“Yeah, losers always say that.”
Reggie’s eyes narrowed. “What did you call me?”
I started to take a step forward, but the tingling sensation swept over me again. Right. Priorities. “Look, I don’t have time for this. Why don’t you go eat—my nana cooked for everyone—and we’ll just forget we ever met.” I tried to step past him to go where the voices seemed to be coming from, but Reggie slid o
ver and blocked me.
He stuck a finger in my face. “I don’t need your grandmother’s trash cooking, and I don’t need your trash hospitality. Understand?” He poked my chest.
The barn door opened. Nana stepped inside, her quilting bag in one hand, the other hand on her hip. “Walter? Y’all gonna come set the table, or am I eating by myself? Out here jibber-jabbering. Them green beans ain’t gonna snap and sauté themselves, either. I told Tristan to come get you. Tristan! Didn’t I tell you—?”
They’re coming!
Nana suddenly stopped talking, as if she’d heard the voices as well. But I didn’t have a chance to think about that, because Reggie sneered and stabbed me one more time with his finger. “Why don’t you go eat…your mudpies,” he said with a snicker.
That did it.
I shoved the larger boy in the chest with one hand. Just one hand, I swear!
Reggie flew backward across the barn, and for the second time today, landed on his backside. This time it wasn’t at my feet, but a dozen yards away.
“The gloves,” Anansi hissed in my ear.
Sweet peaches, I was wearing John Henry’s gloves!
I stepped forward, ready to apologize, but it was too late. Reggie slammed his hands against the ground and climbed to his feet. With the look on his face, he could’ve been arrested for attempted murder. He sprinted forward with his fists up, ignoring the shouts of Tony the Trainer and Granddad. The giant boy came closer and closer until he was within striking distance, then lunged forward, his right fist arcing toward my head. I knew that if that punch connected, I was a goner. I ducked, then realized the truth.
It was a feint.
An uppercut rose through the air, aimed right at my chin.
Good-bye, world, I thought, closing my eyes and bracing for impact.
I WAITED AND WAITED, AND…
Nothing.
A cold wind swept through the room.
The noise faded away, like someone had turned down the volume knob on the world. I opened my eyes and looked around, confused, but what I saw didn’t make any sense. Nearly everything in the barn had gone completely still. Reggie was frozen in mid-lunge, a snarl etched on his face. A mosquito hovered inches above Tony the Trainer’s nose, getting ready to chow down. The man himself had his cheeks puffed out and his eyes crossed, in the middle of blowing his whistle to stop the fight after the haymaker landed. Two of the spectators were frozen in mid-laugh, both of them clutching their bellies with their heads thrown back. And one older man had his back sort of turned, shielding himself from the others, his index finger shoved so far up his nose he could probably smell his knuckle.
“What is going on?” I whispered under my breath.
Something fluttered in the corner of my eye and I sighed, thankful for some movement. It was the river spirit…. But how was I able to see her without using Anansi’s filter? Wait…the bracelet! I must have activated the spirit bead.
The girl stared directly at me, her eyes wide and her mouth working in a silent shout. She raised her arm and pointed with the universally understood signal for Behind you!
A cat stood in the middle of the ring, its tail swishing angrily from side to side. No, there were two of them! They weren’t ordinary cats, either. Each was as big as a rottweiler. Matted brown fur covered them from the tops of their ears to the tips of their tails, and two large fangs extended down from their upper jaws, making them look like saber-toothed tigers. But that wasn’t the scariest part.
I could see right through them. They were spirits, too.
The cats had the biggest, brightest white eyes I’d ever seen. I mean they were huge, like the size of my fists. At the moment, those eyes were focused on Nana, sitting on a bench behind me. She wasn’t frozen—she was…quilting?
I took a step forward. The cats whipped their heads around, and I stopped when I heard, “Don’t. Move.”
Nana’s voice cracked like a whip. She was stitching so fast it looked like she was twirling her needle like a miniature baton. The spool of thread in her lap got thinner and thinner while the quilt she was working on grew in a dazzling golden pile at her feet. The cats were mesmerized by it. Mangy tails swished, and wide, unblinking eyes followed every movement Nana made.
Wait a minute.
Nana could move? She could talk? And she could see the cats?
“Nana—” I started, but she cut me off.
“I’ll explain later, child.”
“But…”
“Later! Right now we’ve got to take care of these ole Murder Whisker twins. I can keep them distracted for now, but I’m running out of this here special thread.”
I felt Nyame’s adinkra pressing against my wrist. The sky god’s charm helped me see the stories that made up the world around us. I hadn’t used it since returning to good old Alabama, but something about Nana’s “special thread” made me think…
I closed my eyes. After a second, maybe two, I opened them.
“Sweet peaches…”
Nana’s thread blinded me with its dazzling brilliance. The spool was a blaze of copper and bronze, and she cradled her project in her arms as if she were swaddling the sun. Words moved along the stitches, but I couldn’t look at them long enough to read them, not without three pairs of sunglasses. I closed my eyes again and shook my head to clear the afterimages. I’d always known Nana was full of surprises, but—
“C’mon, child, ain’t no time for dawdlin’.” Nana stared at me over her horn-rimmed glasses. “I need your help.”
Look, when your grandmother says she needs your help, you don’t ask why or for how long. You jump to attention and get ready to go to work, no matter what she asks. That’s what grandchildren are supposed to do.
She nodded at a bucket sitting on the floor just outside the ropes of the ring. “Grab a handful of them rags when I say so. Count of three, you throw them as hard as you can at those things. You hear me?”
I looked at the faded blue bucket. Granddad used the dented plastic container to hold dirty, sweaty, funky towels that boxers and trainers discarded. It was supposed to be emptied into the washer after every training session, but in all the hype and commotion around this sparring session, I guess I’d forgotten. So it was filled to the brim with damp nastiness.
“Uh…” I said.
“Don’t fix your lips to say anything other than ‘Yes, ma’am,’” Nana warned. “Do you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Hurl funk at the felines. Got it.”
“Good. Here we go, now. One. Two. THREE!”
I took off. Head down, arms pumping. I dodged the frozen spectators, avoided Reggie, then slid next to the overflowing bucket and grabbed it. I hoisted it over my head with both hands and turned around, ready to toss the contents with all my might. I didn’t know how it was supposed to work, but if Nana wanted me to throw stinky laundry at the cats, then that’s what I was going to do.
At least, I’d planned to.
But then Nana stood up. She reached out, sewing project in her hands, and spread her arms wide. When the quilt unfurled, I felt my heart swell. The large blanket shone with a steady light. Within glimmering squares of ivory-white fabric, Nana had used her special thread to stitch a variety of magnificent patterns. When combined, they formed an entire landscape portrait of…
“Our farm,” I whispered.
The house stood in the middle, along with the barn we were standing in now. There was the cornfield behind it, a golden-brown color that seemed to shift the more I looked at it, like stalks blowing in the wind. A river of words circled the quilt’s border. Bright blue and shining silver, they rippled as I read them.
I was born in the shallows of a mighty river,
Or in the maelstrom,
Or in the hurricane,
Or in the lakes of the people.
I am—
“Tristan!” Nana’s shout dragged me back to the present, and I realized my mistake. The spirit cats had dropped into a crouch and thei
r tails swished angrily, like twin lionesses ready to pounce. You know what I mean. That thing where a cat is ready to attack and destroy your ankle and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
Except in this case the cats were monsters/haints/ghosts/all of the above, the size of attack dogs, and instead of an ankle, it looked like they wanted to maul my grandmother.
Not on my watch.
“Now, Tristan!”
The cats sprang forward and I flung the bucket at them. The balled-up towels tumbled out and I wrinkled my nose. Those things stank—the odor hit me like a sucker punch to the nostrils. And when they hit the cats, the spirits reacted like they’d been scalded with hot oil. They both jumped, each opening its mouth in a silent yowl, then starting to twitch in midair before collapsing on the ground.
I ran forward, eager to put the finishing stomp on the terrifying tabbies, but Nana’s shout stopped me in my tracks.
“Don’t, boy! This ain’t over yet.”
Too late.
A sudden peal of thunder shook the whole barn, just as the ghost cats flipped onto their paws and, as one, launched themselves at me. Their shining eyes pinned me in place. I screamed, expecting to feel a burst of pain at any moment as they clawed me to pieces.
Just when it appeared I was doomed, a golden blur zipped past me toward the cats, so bright I had to close my eyes. The scent of ozone—that lingering smell after a lightning strike or electric shock—floated beneath my nose.
“Sweet peaches,” I muttered. “I’m getting too old for this.”
I heard a groan and opened my eyes. I couldn’t believe what I saw. Nana sat on the floor near the spot where the cat spirits used to be, her quilt in tatters at her feet. That explained the blur—my grandmother must have thrown the glowing blanket over those monsters.
As the quilt dimmed slowly like a dying candle, the other people in the barn came back to life. With me out of the way, Reggie lunged at nothing and fell on his face. Tony the Trainer blew his whistle while swatting at the mosquito. The spectators finished laughing abruptly, as if they’d forgotten what was so funny.
