by Kwame Mbalia
Bear began to whirl the stolen hammer slowly, and the iron head started to glow a faint green as it made a figure eight in front of me. The air sizzled as the hammer passed by my face, and I flinched, stumbling backward and landing on the seat of my pants.
Bear laughed. “The great hero of MidPass! The champion of the Battle of the Bay! Scared. A coward, grum grum. Who would’ve guessed? Oh. Me. I’ve known it all along.” The hammer dropped onto the sand as he threw back his head and roared in amusement.
I flushed and scrambled to my feet. I had to get him away from Nana. Once I rescued her, the others could take on Bear.
Just so the whole lake goes looking for me…
The words echoed in my head. I fumbled with the quilt, flipping it over until I found the square representing Nyanza. The last line of Nana’s favorite spiritual was embroidered on it in spiraling golden thread.
The lake. The river goddess. Could it be?
I pulled out the phone, staring at Alke Maps while Anansi watched me incredulously. “Boy, have you lost your mind? You kids and your phones will be the death of us all.”
But I was looking for something specific. A certain island in the middle of a storm, free of the poisonous taint and clouds.
The image of the geyser of cleansing water, the storm clouds blown apart, rinsed away by the power of a goddess.
“The fountain of Mami Wata,” I whispered. “It cleared the poison from MidPass. If we can do the same here—”
“We just might have a chance of stopping Bear and his nearly invincible armor,” Anansi concluded.
Bear had finished laughing and was staring at me suspiciously. I turned and threw the SBP back toward my friends. “Gum Baby, catch!” I shouted.
Without a second of hesitation, she leaped high into the air, not bothering to catch the spinning phone with her tiny hands. Instead, she rotated so that it collided with her back, sticking to her as she went tumbling out of the sky, only to land safely in Keelboat Annie’s arms.
“Anansi knows what to do!” I shouted.
Annie nodded, then her eyes widened and she pointed behind me. I turned just in time to see a dark shape swinging at my head. I ducked, but the hammer clipped the side of my shoulder and sent me tumbling head over heels into the waves. Sand choked my nostrils and I swallowed some, coughing and rubbing my eyes with the quilt as I tried to stand back up. My arm felt numb, as if it was in so much pain my brain had simply shut down feeling so I didn’t have to deal with it.
“Tristan Strong punched a hole in the sky,” Bear sang, his voice muffled by the mask. Was it my imagination or was the mask glowing green, too? He stomped toward me. I struggled to my feet, but his paw shot out and grabbed me, squeezing my other arm so hard I cried out in pain. I dropped the quilt. “And let the evil in. Cities burned, now what did we learn?”
He turned and hurled me up the beach, and I landed hard, air forced out of my lungs with a giant whoosh. I groaned in pain as I rolled over, then froze.
Bear crouched over me, his iron-monster armor scraping together as the mask moved to within inches of my face.
“I will never,” he said softly, “let it happen again.”
His paw shot forward and grabbed me around the throat. He lifted me high in the air, then raised John Henry’s hammer as well. I kicked helplessly, holding on to his paw with both hands in a futile attempt to free myself.
“See this, little hero? This is your twice-doom. This hammer will crush you like the bug that you are, and then, as your grandmother speaks the story of Alke, it will sever your world from ours. Forever!” Lightning forked across the sky, and to my horror, it didn’t disappear. The bolts left jagged scars in the sky, like a crack spreading across glass. The sky was splintering. Alke and my world were being torn apart! If I couldn’t do something about it, and soon, Nana and I would be stuck here, and we’d slowly fade away along with the rest of Alke.
“We have…to be…united,” I gurgled. “Or we’ll all die. I can help. We…can help you.”
The mask nearly touched my face as Bear leaned in even closer, and what little breath he hadn’t squeezed out of me escaped in a gasp. His eyes were as green as the lightning, as green as the chains that had strangled the Tree of Power. The mask vibrated with poisonous energy.
I could almost hear King Cotton’s voice as Bear spoke. “I would rather die,” he growled.
He raised the glowing hammer high in the air. It was now or never. I dropped my hands and squeezed them into fists, ignoring the lingering pain in my right wrist. The akofena shadow gloves shimmered into view, and with a last-ditch effort, I swung with all my strength.
Thud, thud, thud.
A triple right hook collided with Bear’s mask, knocking it out of place and skewing his vision. It barely hurt him, but it distracted him just enough that the hammer went whistling inches away from my head and Bear’s grip loosened around my throat. I kicked off his hullbeast chest plate and slid out of his grasp, falling backward. I scrambled up and over to the quilt.
Bear growled and straightened King Cotton’s mask, then stomped forward—
And paused.
“Look!” I shouted, holding up the blanket.
A golden light covered us both. Bear took a fumbling step, an armored paw reaching out, before withdrawing.
“What is this?” he growled.
“You don’t recognize them?” I stretched my arms out wide, drawing Bear’s attention away from the beach and filling his eyesight with the image on the quilt.
“It can’t be,” he whispered.
We’d worked feverishly adding a new square to the quilt. One new scene—the goddesses infusing the fabric with as much magic as they could spare, and me relaying the story of the plat-eyes as we worked. I’m sure it wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t have to be. No story is perfect for everyone, but everyone can find the perfect story when they need it most.
On the square, two bear cubs frolicked in a field while a larger bear stood watch over them, smiling.
Bear and his two cubs.
He raised his head, looking at me, and the green in his eyes flickered, as if he was trying to fight the poisonous hatred flowing through his system.
“Help me,” Bear whispered.
I TOOK A STEP CLOSER TO BEAR.
Lightning flared in the sky, illuminating the mask of King Cotton. A dark shadow slithered within the hardened sap—
And the mask re-formed, hardening, covering Bear’s face completely.
Bear roared in pain, a muffled sound that vibrated the ground around me. He reared up, arms swinging wildly.
“No!” I shouted. We’d been so close. That mask had to come off—but it wasn’t ready to relinquish its grasp on Bear’s hatred.
I threw myself to the side, avoiding a flailing paw, and slid partway down a sand dune. When I stood, Bear’s mask was back in its original shape, with slits for eyes and a gash for a mouth. His eyes were glowing green again, and he took a step forward…straight into a humongous stream of seawater that made him stagger back as it crashed into his chest. And then came another burst. And another. Each spray blasted the rogue god, knocking him off-balance.
Bear let loose a spluttering roar. “What sort of trickery…?” But his voice trailed off as he looked to the sea and stopped in his tracks.
This was the backup plan, just in case the sight of his cubs didn’t work. We’d have to remove the armor the hard way.
Mami Wata stood thigh-deep in the sea, her eyes flashing blue-green, the flared hems of her pantsuit waving behind her like the tail of some mystical mermaid. Giant waterspouts, cyclones made of mist and vengeance, spun around her. Three, four, five of them! Her arms were spread wide as she glared at Bear. One hand flicked forward and a waterspout hurtled toward the beach, leaning until it was horizontal and striking Bear with the full force of a dozen firehoses.
Keelboat Annie had summoned her boat, and she, Lady Night, Ayanna, and Gum Baby were aboard. They raced on the back of Old Man Ri
ver, leading miniature typhoons to the beach. There the swirling water combined into an explosive spray that hammered Bear.
His earsplitting roar shook the ground.
“Enough!” Bear shouted angrily. He shielded himself with one massive paw as another waterspout blasted him. His armor hung off him in ruins. The hullbeast chest plate was soggy and rotted, and the fetterling chains dangled like dull, tattered clothing. “You can’t do this, grum grum!”
I sprinted forward and yanked off the chest plate, just as I’d ripped the wooden tub holding Mami Wata back in MidPass. Bear’s fur was matted and singed underneath, as if it had never healed properly. He reached out blindly, one waterspout still hammering him in the face, and I skipped away before I lunged forward again to rip off an arm plate.
Piece by piece I stripped Bear of his poisoned armor. The gauntlets. The greaves. The rest of the chest plate. Ducking and dodging and slipping Bear’s paws in a manner that would have made Granddad proud, I fought the round of my life. The shoulder guards. The leg greaves. All of it came off, until finally a waterlogged and weary Bear collapsed to his knees, wheezing and coughing up seawater.
The water attack ceased.
Only the mask was left.
And I hesitated to touch it. I just…Something inside made me recoil. I still felt the thorny tendrils of King Cotton’s vines snaking up my wrist. I still heard his voice in my head. It was King Cotton holding me back in my nightmares, preventing me from rescuing the ones I loved.
Bear was right. I was a coward. I’d lasted this long and couldn’t deliver the final knockout punch. I stepped back, stumbled, and fell.
I looked over and my gaze landed on Nana still sitting there, stiff as a board, but now she was staring straight at me.
Get. Back. Up.
She didn’t say the words, but she might as well have. I turned back to Bear, to the mask with its oily blackness that swirled beneath the surface. I stood up, lunged at it with a cry of fury, and yanked it off. Then I hurled it as far as I could into the bay, which made my shoulder scream with pain.
When I turned back around, a patchy-snouted, crooked-eared face met mine, the green slowly fading from the eyes, leaving behind the haunted expression of someone dealing with a lot of anguish.
I recognized that look.
It was in every mirror I passed by.
“Where am I?” Bear whispered. “What’s happening?”
I took a cautious step forward despite the hisses of warning behind me and stared him straight in the eyes.
“You’re safe,” I said.
The tension drained out of him, and his head drooped as his shoulders began to shake. I was about to offer him some comfort when I heard:
“Tristan!”
Gum Baby’s shout had me spinning around looking for another attacker. An iron monster? The Maafa again? Was a mind-poisoned mob rushing forward, ready to stomp me into the sand?
No.
It was worse.
WE WERE TOO LATE. THE STORM HAD ARRIVED.
A streak of lightning, bigger and wider than any I’d ever seen before, split the sky in two before striking one of the boats in the marina.
As we watched, sickly green lines like snakes coursed through the water and then up the beach, turning everything dark gray, as if the essence of the world was being drawn out.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
As if the poison had been injected into the veins of the city, it raced up the wide marble streets to the palaces. Everywhere it went, the world was ruined. Towers and minarets tumbled down like wave-swept sandcastles. Rivers and streams bubbled and boiled before turning into noxious steam. The ground shook as the jewel of Alke was consumed.
At this rate this entire world would fall piece by piece, and then mine, and there was nothing we could do about it.
Or was there?
John Henry’s hammer rested in the sand a short distance away. I couldn’t…. Could I?
A thundering sound filled the air. I whipped around to stare in horror as Nyame’s great palace began to collapse in on itself, disintegrating into a cloud of fading gray story fragments and green clouds. Were the gods still in there?
My lips pressed tight together. I didn’t have a choice.
I ran to where John Henry’s hammer lay and, after a moment’s hesitation, tried to wrap my hands around its giant handle. I waited for the throbbing in my wrist—but it never arrived. Finally, some good news. A tingling sensation rippled through my fingers, and I nearly let go. Before my very eyes, the hammer began to shrink, the engraved metal head morphing and the handle narrowing and shortening until it was the size of my forearm.
It reminded me of the Story Box, the way it changed shape to suit the wielder. This was a magical weapon, unique and powerful, which made what I was about to do hurt even more.
I squeezed my fists around the hammer shaft until the akofena shadow gloves appeared. I squeezed until the gloves gleamed in the air, and then I squeezed some more. I thought about the stories of Alke, the stories that belonged to this world and to my world and connected both, and I squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.
When I opened my eyes, the akofena gloves burned with a black fire that danced up and down the hammer. The giant thundercloud squatted above us, leaking poison that drifted down and seeped into the land and sea. I had to stop it.
Sometimes there ain’t no fixing something, baby. If you wanna rebuild, you gotta break it down and start all over.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I tossed the hammer into the air and cocked my right fist back as far as it could go. When the hammer began to fall back down, I hit it with the strongest uppercut I could manage. If I’d been wearing regular gloves, I would’ve broken my hand.
But these were the shadow gloves.
BAM!
John Henry’s hammer shot into the sky. It streaked through the morning like a comet, trailing shining black fire as it punctured the storm cloud.
One second passed. Then another.
BOOM!
The thunderclap that followed felt like a right hook to my ears and knocked me off my feet. Then I couldn’t hear a thing. Sand blasted my face and I squeezed my eyes shut as hurricane-force winds swept the beach. A wave slammed into me, sending me spinning farther up the dunes before it tried to drag me back. I had to claw deep furrows in the sand to hold on. Shielding my eyes, I stood and tried to find the others.
But I saw nothing but gray.
Had I made things worse? I couldn’t even see my own hands in front of me.
“Nana!” I shouted. I took a step, then another half step, before stopping. What if she or the others were trying to find me? Maybe I had to stand still. I rubbed sand out of my eyes and tried to squint around. Everything was so blurry.
I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Nana!” Nothing. If only I could see….
“Wow, Tristan,” I muttered, “you suck as a hero.” Taking a deep breath, I pinched Nyame’s adinkra and cautiously opened my eyes…
And gasped.
The power of the sky god’s charm protected my eyes from the vicious storm. But, even more important, it showed them what the poisonous winds and devastating lightning Bear had unleashed were doing to Alke.
And it was terrible.
The land was outlined in words of silver, the people in twisted braids of copper and ebony cursive writing. The water glimmered the same color as Mami Wata’s turquoise eyes in wavy handwriting, and the Golden Crescent…well, it was golden. (Not sure what you were expecting there.) Lines of golden script framed the city like a gorgeous skyline.
But the storm was ripping it all apart.
The story of Alke, the very fabric of the world, was being destroyed. Cruel winds tore apart the land and used the sea to drown it. Words, phrases, entire passages containing the origin of the realm were hurled into the sky, where they disappeared. The world was dissolving in front of my eyes.
A faint shout zipped past me. “Tristan?”
; Nana! I spun around wildly and searched for my grandmother. There. A shimmering outline farther down the beach, surrounded by a maelstrom of fragmented silver sentences, huddled on the sand, hugging herself as if she was freezing.
She was fading, too.
I needed to find that quilt. Maybe, just maybe. But where was it? Bear had made me drop it, and I hoped it hadn’t washed out to sea….
I desperately scanned the area and finally saw a faint glimmer on the sand under a big piece of driftwood. Could that be it? I sprinted toward it. Yes! The fabric was damp and caked with sand, but it was still in one piece, and the poison hadn’t leeched its colors. I shook it out to dry it a little, then raced to Nana.
More glowing forms appeared as I got closer, including a large oblong object tossed to one side. But I only had eyes for my grandmother. I raced to her and draped the quilt over her.
Instantly the whirling greenish-gray fog disappeared, and with Nyame’s adinkra I could see the quilt’s golden aura slowly drawing the poison out of my shivering grandmother. The howling wind seemed to die down a bit.
“Are you okay?” I asked, skidding down beside her. With the poison draining out of her, Nana appeared as a coil of ruby-red script, as rich and powerful as the blood that we shared, the blood of the people. Her face, with the spectacles still perched on the end of her nose, turned to me.
“I’m fine,” she said. “But this world is on its last legs if we don’t do something.”
“It’s too late,” I said mournfully. “Nana, we need to get home. Right now.”
“And leave these poor people to their fate? I know I ain’t raise a fool who raised a fool.”
“But—”
“With all the powerful folks ’round here, we can’t help those who need refuge from a silly storm? That’s mighty sad, if you ask me.”
I looked up to see other shimmering forms coming toward us. The wind, the same sickly green color as the poison, tried to batter everyone back, but they continued to push forward, and slowly I recognized them all.
