Sister Mine

by Nalo Hopkinson

  Knitting. Right. The sweater sticking out of that box used to be my favourite. Aunt Suze had made it for me, the only one like it, just for me. No identical one for Abby in a different colour. I’d worn it to pieces. It was unravelling at the back hem. But I couldn’t bear to throw it away.

  I went and pulled it out of the box. I hefted it in one hand. It was a thick, soft cotton, and it was a washed denim blue, not puce. I turned it inside out. Yep, I could see that Suze had made it well; knitted each individual piece, shaping it as she went. Then she’d tacked the pieces together by hand. That meant no raw ends; each piece was made of one long, unbroken length of yarn. I rummaged around in my dented, thigh-high red metal tool cabinet. Found a pair of scissors I kept for junk jobs, the cheap aluminum kind with the moulded plastic handles. I sat on the mango-yellow floor. Wouldn’t want to get snippets of yarn all over my bed. I spent a few minutes snipping apart the stitches that held the sweater seams together, then cut the knot at the top of the big piece that had formed the back. The yarn began ravelling free pretty easily. I joined the end to the loose end of the puce monstrosity. Then I smoothed out the pattern sheet and had a look. What the hell did “Knit bar from Row 1” mean? I must have figured it out before, to have gotten this far. Already frustrated, I dumped the yarn beside me.

  Someone knocked on my door. I opened it. It was Brie. I smiled. “I’d forgotten that you said you’d see me when I got back.”

  “Forgotten so soon! I’m cut to the quick!” He brought a six-pack of beer out from behind his back. “Welcome to the building. I got some good stuff, not the kind I usually sell at my gigs.”

  He looked so earnest, standing there with his six-pack of Steam Whistle. This was perfect. A drink or two, he’d be more relaxed, then I could ask him about his mojo. I stepped away from the door. “Come on in.”

  “Thanks.” He craned his neck and had a good look into the unit before he stepped inside. “You don’t have company or anything?”

  “No one here but us chickens.”

  “Chickens?” He took a half-step backwards.

  “Yup. Where does that expression come from, anyway? ‘Nobody here but us chickens’?” I followed him in and plumped myself down onto the floor, beside the bed. “Let’s have a couple of those beers, all right? You can put the rest in the fridge.”

  He knelt to open the fridge door. I glanced at the knitting instructions. Oh, wait; I knew what that instruction meant now! I picked up the knitting and the needles and began working the loose yarn from my sweater into the piece. It was a little less bulky than the puce. I decided not to wonder about what that would do to the shape of the afghan. Knit one, purl one across… w—

  “Uh, Makeda?”

  “What?” I was frowning at the instructions.

  “Why do you have a pair of panties in your freezer?”

  “Two pair, actually. Each one in its own ziplock bag.” Oh, right. I had company. I put the knitting down. “See how hot it is in here already? This place is going to be a bugger come summer, right?”

  “Right.” He closed the fridge door, brought two beers over, gave me one. He sat on the floor and leaned his back against the bed. “And this is relevant how to panties in the freezer in spring?”

  “You know how stupid-hot and muggy Toronto summers get?”

  “God, yes. Days when you feel like you can’t even sweat the heat out, because the air already has all the moisture it can hold?”

  “Ooh, and he’s good with a turn of phrase, too!”

  He smiled teasingly. “It’s what I do. So. It’s hot in summer. What next?”

  “Half a mo. Can you reach me my handbag, please? It’s on the bed behind you.” I took the bag from him and got my medicine out of it. “My uncle told once me that nights when it’s too hot to breathe, much less think, if you keep a couple of clean panties stored in the freezer, you can just slip into a crisp, chilly pair.”

  Brie burst out laughing. “And nothing cools a body down faster than a cold shock to the gonads!”

  “Exactly. And this is my first chance to try it out. My sis’s place has air-conditioning. When it starts getting hot in here, I want to be ready.” I used the beer to wash away the taste of the vile stuff. I wasn’t supposed to mix it with alcohol, but it was better than not taking it at all.

  “How’d your uncle come by this handy little piece of fashion advice?”

  My eyes were sliding back to the knitting. Absently, I replied, “I didn’t ask him how he’d learned it. I figured the answer’d either have something to do with his profession, or with his amatory escapades, and either way, it’d be TMI.”

  “And what’s your uncle do, exactly?”

  I shook my head. “And here I was the one who wanted to start in with the questions.”

  He had the oddest look on his face. “Earlier today,” he said, “you were fighting with some kind of creature out in the street.”

  Now he had my attention. I had a sip of beer to buy myself some time. The fizzy bittersweetness tickled my nose.

  Brie looked sheepish. “Never mind, I’m kidding. Day after a performance, you know. You’re tired, sometimes you kinda see things. Just forget it. OK.”

  “You saw my haint.”

  “I wasn’t imagining it?” he asked warily.

  “I knew it! I knew that you were Shiny! What are you? Whose were you?” I chuckled. “Abby’s gonna hate this. She’s not the only one that can have cool inspirited friends, so there.”

  Brie was holding up warding hands. “Whoa, whoa.” His smile was tentative. “You lost me somewhere around… I saw your what?”

  This was exciting! “We’ll get to that. You’re Shiny. How come?”

  “Shiny? Does that mean good-looking, or talented, or something?” His smile had taken on a tinge of puzzlement.

  “No, silly. Though you are. But Shiny is Shiny. Happens if you’re one of the Family, or if you’ve been rubbing up against brilliance daily for a very long time. And I know you’re not one of the Family.”

  “Rubbing up against brilliance? As in I don’t have any of my own?”

  “Well, no, that’s not what I mean at all. Some of the old guys on Dad’s side of the Family think that way, but I don’t. Though in the beginning, you probably didn’t have a mind of your own, right? Before you became a person? What were you before that, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Makeda, if this is some kind of extended metaphor for artistic talent, you lost me way back. What are you really asking me?”

  “Huh? You can’t be serious.”

  “If one of us is joking, it’s sure as hell not me.”

  Incredulous, I glanced over at him. His posture had gone stiff and defensive, his expression wary. Could he possibly not know what he was? “Brie, when you and Soul Chain play, people get stoned. I seriously tripped out at your show the other night, came to hours later to find myself wandering down by the Spit. You’re the only one in your band with the kind of Shine that can do something like that.”

  “Wow, that sounds awful,” he said, all concern. “Holy shit! Maybe someone roofied you?”

  “No, ’cause it didn’t happen only to me. That whole crowd was high, including the rest of the band. And most of us were drinking beer. Sealed bottles. Pretty hard to dose those. So that leaves the other thing, doesn’t it?” My arm came all over little prickles. I’d seen the green flash again, just now when he turned his head. I knew I was right. Which meant he could probably see that I wasn’t exactly human, either, so why in the world were we playing out this charade? I said, “You can drop the act, you know. I can see the green flash. What is it, some kind of special talent with music?” I could feel the tiny blossom of familiar jealousy blooming in me.

  “That’s right, talent. Some people do have it. So I’m good at what I do. So what? I’m sorry that something creepy happened to you at our gig. But don’t go making it into some kind of woo-woo psychic whammy bullshit so that you can blame it on us. Fucking groupies.” He go
t up and put his empty bottle on top of the fridge. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, messing with my head. Don’t know what you tricked me into seeing a few hours ago.”

  “But—”

  “But, nothing. Just keep it to yourself, OK? I don’t have any patience for that kind of shit.”

  He stalked out of my unit, leaving me completely confused. What in the world had I said to get him so upset?

  Wait. Suppose he was like me and Abby, a celestial’s by-blow? I could see why he’d want to hide that from one of the Family. And he had mojo, too, like Abby. I tried not to feel envious. I think I almost succeeded.

  Screw it. I’d scored a copy of a new consentacle last week. I’d just take it over to the rest home and watch it…

  … with Dad.

  Turns out that tears of anger and tears of grief aren’t so different from one another.

  Next morning when I stepped out of Cheerful Rest, uncomfortable in a plain black skirt and sweater and chilly in my dress boots and coat, the wooden car was waiting for me. Abby sat behind the wheel, looking simultaneously tired and disapproving.

  An icy breeze ran up under the hem of my coat and skirt, pimpling my thighs. Frost rimmed the edges of the grass blades on the sidewalk verge. The windows of the cars whooshing by on the already-busy street were ringed with icy, crystalline teeth. Hands in my pockets, I walked over to the driver’s-side window. “Butter tattled on me, didn’t she? Told you where to find me?” I peered into the backseat and sure enough, there was Butter, in her plastic-sided carry case, looking smug. “You see what you get for telling tales?” I asked her. “Locked into in a box.”

  Abby said, “Oh, get in already.” When she saw my hesitation, she said, irritably, “I’m just giving you a lift to the funeral. It’s not like I’m going to try to kidnap you.”

  I went over to the passenger side and got in. “Why’d you bring her?”

  “Had to. She couldn’t exactly tell me your street address. She had to take the cattish route. It involved far too many back alley garbage cans for my liking. Besides, she liked Dad.”

  “You’ve told her what’s going on? She understands the concept of burying the body of someone who’s no longer in it?”

  Abby took a jerky breath in and out. “She understands the concept of putting rotting meat into the earth.”

  Something unhappy fluttered in my rib cage. “Oh.” Now I was going to have to sit with that thought for the rest of the drive, if not longer.

  Abby reached into the backseat of the car and handed me a giant water cannon, much like mine, except this one was black plastic. “I thought it’d be more appropriate. It’s already filled.”

  I took it from her. “I could have thought of that on my own, you know.”

  “Point is, you didn’t.” She checked her mirror and pulled out into traffic.

  “You really think I’d be in danger with so many people around?”

  “Butter says it seems to be getting more vicious.”

  I turned to Butter and bared my teeth. I could speak that much carnivore, at least. Butter drew back into a corner of her cage.

  Abby began, “Maka, I—”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it. I said, “Remember that time you didn’t come home from school, and Dad thought maybe something had happened to you?”

  Abby cracked a tiny, sad smile. “Yeah. And his bicycle had a flat tyre, only he didn’t know how to fix it. Plus he could have just called me. I had my cell on vibrate.” Dad could make an apple tree bear lemons, but had never really gotten the hang of most mechanical things. “I’d lost track of the time, is all. I mean, I was singing. What’d he expect?”

  She’d been in the choir, rehearsing for the school’s annual year-end concert. I chuckled. “He was so freaked out. But no way would he just drive, or take the TTC, like a normal person.” Dad hated being cooped up in buses, surrounded by right angles, metal, and engines. He used the car as little as possible, and he sure as shootin’ wasn’t going to get on the subway and ride underground in a hurtling metal tube.

  Abby was full-on grinning now. “Last thing I expected was for him to canter up to the school doors on a freaking horse! In the middle of the city! Where’d he find a horse?”

  “He’s Dad. He called, and it came.”

  “Melody Kitchin’s eyes when she saw it! She kept saying, ‘But he’s a stallion!’ I guess that was a big deal for some reason. You’d think she’d never seen a male horse before, even though little Miss Rich Bitch was always boasting about going to her parents’ farm every weekend and riding her very own pony.”

  “I never told you the funniest part.”

  “What?”

  “I had a look at that horse’s tack later on. It had the OPP logo sewn into it.”

  Abby risked a startled, amused glance at me. “Makeda, you lie! Daddy stole a police horse?”

  “Not stole, asked a favour of. You know that’s what he would have said. He didn’t make that horse do anything against its will.”

  “How you figure it got free to come when he called?”

  “I don’t know. But I’ve always imagined it rearing and throwing some surprised cop onto his blue serge ass, then galloping off to come and be Dad’s steed for a couple hours.”

  “It was so cool, riding home on the back of a horse! It moved like…” She made a rhythmic percussion in her throat, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel for accent. “And Dad sat on it like he was part of it. Something that big, moving with the grace of all its limbs… look, I’m not going to try to get you to come back.”

  “What? OK, I guess.” And here I’d been braced for a fight.

  “I just want you to know that if you need anything, you can ask me.”

  I was touched. “Thanks, Abs.”

  “You may have abandoned me, but I haven’t abandoned you.”

  “Aaand, thanks for nothing,” I bit out. “Let’s please just get through this. We can resume our regularly scheduled bickering afterwards.”

  Abby sighed and took the exit to Aunt Suze and Uncle Roger’s place. I looked back and saw that Lars was behind us on his bike.

  Given the uniqueness of our kin, the funeral was a private affair, just a few family members from both sides. Uncle Jack came to meet Abby and me as we pulled up in the driveway of Roger and Aunt Suze’s house. The Bejis were with him, two solemn-looking brown bookend youths in funereal black suits. Lars pulled in on his motorbike and eased it into a sliver of space beside Abby’s car.

  Uncle opened Abby’s door for her and gave her his arm. He ignored Lars, who’d walked up beside the car. I was beginning to get the feeling that Uncle wasn’t too sanguine, either, with the notion of Abby dating the help. The Bejis and I followed them. Uncle said to Abby, “I’m so excited! You know, I’ve never been to an actual funeral before. Plenty of births, but no burials.”

  Abby replied, “How come?”

  “By the time you ’uns are planting the body, my work is long over. But this will be good practice for when you girls kick it.” He half-turned to address me. “I decided to appear in this aspect. Leave little Naima free to be here as herself. Besides, it’s more tasteful than my undertaker shtick, don’t you think?”

  “And more grand,” one Beji whispered in my ear. “Convenient, that,” muttered the other.

  I pointedly didn’t respond to Uncle. Whereas Lars looked at the ground, his lips working to try and hide his mirth. Uncle was all Angel of Death this morning; night-black, easily seven feet tall, with majestic black-feathered wings twice his height that arched protectively above us.

  Beji said, “And by the way, Maka? Nice gun.” She nodded at my Super Soaker.

  I stuck my tongue out at her. She kissed me on the cheek and put her arm around me. On my other side, her sib took my hand.

  Aunt Suze and Roger were waiting for us at the front door of their house. Roger cradled baby Winston in his arms. A shy Naima in a cute bell-shaped black dress and matching hair ribbons clung
to the back of Aunt Suze’s thigh. So then it was hugs all round, blowing raspberries on Winston’s tummy, and Naima-you’ve-gotten-so-bigs, and how’s-by-yous. All the stuff that people say and do at family gatherings. And woven all through it, the sad knowledge of what we were about to witness in the backyard.

  Once everyone was present who was coming, we all trooped out back. I didn’t know how the Family had managed to work it so that it would be OK to bury Dad in someone’s backyard in the suburbs. I didn’t know how the Family did a lot of things.

  The ragged hole in the earth where the hoodoo tree used to be was a shock. Roger leaned over and said, “I cut the wood into kindling, but I’m kind of afraid to burn it. You never know what’ll happen when you mess with hoodoo.”

  Granny Pearl had the answer for that. “Don’t be silly, Rog. It’s wood. It’ll burn, is all.”

  Granny Pearl was there! In fact, a bunch of Aunt Suze’s dead relatives that even she didn’t know. There was a black girl, looked maybe fourteen, with her hair in two plaits, wearing an old-timey navy dress, sleeveless, with pleats in the skirt. An old man with reddish-tan skin, long black hair, what looked like deerskin pants, tunic, moccasins. White-looking guy, grey fedora, matching suit. Real haints, not like the horror that had been pursuing me for much of my life. They milled around, looking mostly solid unless the light caught them a particular way or you tried to shake their hands when they introduced themselves. Good thing Abby had brought all the white rum I’d purchased. Perfect haint food.

  We gathered around the hole in the earth. The next part was a blur of words that didn’t make sense being said to try to alleviate the mean, implacable horribleness that was the death of someone you loved and the sealing away of their carcass. No matter what Uncle had said, I couldn’t see this any other way. Of tears. Of people murmuring the same old platitudes, because what is there really to say about something like that? Uncle’s smile appeared thin, painted on. For all that he knew that Dad’s noncorporeal self hadn’t crossed the border to the other world, he had to admit that this was an awful business; this and everything that had led to it. Uncle’s eyes held all the sorrow that he couldn’t let out, lest the force of the centuries of it that he was holding back burst the dam and overwhelm us all. Abby held my hand so tightly that she squeezed it cold and bloodless.