Aunt Ondine gives the foxiest of grins. “Why Maryse, that’s a whole other sword.”
I almost choke on the mint julep. Another sword? A hundred questions form on my tongue. But her face turns serious.
“I’m glad you taking time to rest. But I’m afraid there’s evil afoot.”
I sigh, returning to my mint julep. Naturally. Always evil a-footing.
“The enemy still at they work,” Auntie Margaret puts in.
“A new threat rises,” Auntie Ondine goes on. She leans in. “You must go on a quest! To an isle within the Province of Rhodes!”
I stop mid-sip. “You mean Providence, Rhode Island?”
She blinks. “Isn’t that what I said? The enemy has their eyes fixed there—on a man they believe can help them further infiltrate your world, open doors to worse than their Grand Cyclops. They’re inculcating him with their vileness and he appears a willing vessel. He has been named their Dark Prince and—”
“Sadie’s funeral in two days,” I interrupt. Not sure these three understand how geography works. “Rhode Island a long ways from my bootlegging routes. But Emma has contacts in New England. We can see what they know.”
“Oh,” Auntie Ondine says, regretful. “Yes, that would be helpful. How is the death ritual coming along?”
“Funeral,” I stress. “We call it a funeral. Lester organizing it. Got a big church, a choir, and everything. Uncle Will leading a Shout. Nana Jean doing the cooking. Michael George says he might name the new inn he building after her. Don’t think Macon seen the last of Sadie Watkins.”
I down the mint julep, standing up. “Well, best be going.”
“You still got a while yet,” Auntie Ondine frets. “There’s blackberry jam cake.” A tempting white-frosted cake topped by blackberries up and appears. But I shake my head.
“Time don’t pass here, but I need my rest. Got plans in the morning. Me and Chef gonna do something big for Sadie like she asked—something she’d like.”
Auntie Ondine smiles tenderly. “She’s fortunate her friends keep her memory.”
“We going to a movie house—where they showing The Birth of a Nation.”
Auntie Margaret squints over her stitching. “Mighty odd choice.”
“Not staying long. Gonna clear the theater with a smoke bomb, then blow it up.”
I pick up my sword, balancing it over one shoulder as I head back home, listening to Auntie Jadine cackling above, as I whistle a song of hunting Ku Kluxes in the end times.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This story emerged out of a diverse visual, literary, and aural synthesis. The 1930s ex-slave narratives of the WPA. Gullah-Geechee culture. Folktales of haints and root magic. A few Beyoncé videos. Some Toni Morrison. Juke (Jook) joints. Childhood memories of reading Madeline L’Engle under the shade of a cypress. Juneteenth picnics. New Orleans Bounce. A little DJ Screw. H-town that raised me. And whispered stories of Jim Crow, the Klan, and other Southern horrors. Who says all the fantasies with sword-wielding heroes and heroines have to be in Middle Earth, Westeros, or even our dreams of Africa past—“copper sun or scarlet sea?”
Maybe they can happen right here, too.
Grateful to John and Alan Lomax, Zora Neale Hurston, Lydia Parrish, and all those who worked to record and preserve the Ring Shout tradition. Praises all around to the McIntosh County Shouters whose performances and renditions help bring those archival memories to life. Props to Lupe Fiasco’s DROGAS Wave, which served as inspiration as I tried to work this thing out. If this story had a soundtrack, that’d be it. Appreciation also to Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother, which still challenges me: “I, too, am the afterlife of slavery.”
Special thanks to fellow writer Eden Royce, who was gracious and patient enough to walk me through Gullah culture and language. Thanks also to my brother from another mother Cleo Wadley Jr., who gave invaluable recommendations to earlier drafts. You got all the inside jokes. “Nd Suth Ept.” Big ups to writer, editor, and co-creator of our own personal Black Imaginarium, Troy L. Wiggins, for giving this story that Southern stamp of approval. Look where we at bruh? Thanks to the whole Tordotcom Publishing team for helping put this together, not to mention that amazing cover design. Lastly, my greatest gratitude goes to Auntie Editor Diana Pho. Because when I sat in a DC coffee shop pitching this story idea to you over the phone, you were the first person to say—“that sounds awesome!” Thanks for taking a chance on this, and so many other diverse and daring tales, when others might not have. Hope that airship takes you far.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in New York and raised moslty in Houston, P. DJÈLÍ CLARK spent the formative years of his life in the homeland of his parents, Trinidad and Tobago. He is the award-winning and Hugo- and Sturgeon-nominated author of the novellas The Black God’s Drums and The Haunting of Tram Car 015. His writings have appeared in online venues such as Tor.com, Daily Science Fiction, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Apex Magazine, Lightspeed, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and in print anthologies, including Griots, Hidden Youth, and Clockwork Cairo. His short story “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington” has earned him both a Nebula and a Locus Award. He is also a founding member of FIYAH literary magazine and an infrequent reviewer at Strange Horizons.
When not writing speculative fiction, P. Djèlí Clark works as an academic historian whose research spans comparative slavery and emancipation in the Atlantic World, or sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
RING SHOUT
Copyright © 2020 by P. Djèlí Clark
All rights reserved.
Edited by Diana Pho
Cover art and design by Henry Sene Yee
A Tordotcom Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
120 Broadway
New York, NY 10271
www.tor.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-76702-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-76701-1 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250767011
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First Edition: 2020
Ring Shout Page 13
