Sister Mine

by Nalo Hopkinson

  Naima and Winston, wide-eyed, watched as Uncle Jack hefted Dad’s urn and transported it into its grave inside the hole where the hoodoo tree had been. The hands of the shades that existed below the tree, like wreaths of mist, reached out to stroke the coffin and welcome it to its new home. The hole would be sealed afterwards by having concrete poured into it. I asked Granny Pearl, “Are you shades all right with having Dad’s urn in there with you?”

  “We don’t need a lot of space. Could store us all in less than a teacup.”

  “Is Mom coming?”

  Granny Pearl shook her head. “She would come to mourn your father’s soul, not his body.”

  Glad she was so clear on the distinction.

  Lars and Abby sang a eulogy. “Pastora Divina,” a parang song that Dad had loved. Did love. I tried to imagine what it must be like for Abby to keep her voice under control in these circumstances. I failed. I couldn’t even imagine why she thought she needed to be all stoic. I’d already cried my way through two boxes of tissues and was working on a third.

  It was my turn. My heart pounding, I went to the centre of the crowd. Poured a circle of overproof white rum on the ground and laid Daddy’s bull’s horn in the centre of it. I lit the circle of spirits on fire and stepped back. We all waited. Uncle murmured, “Come on, Boysie. Come back.”

  I craned my neck, hoping for a glimpse of side-winding kudzu. Nothing. When I looked back, Hunter had materialized beside Uncle Jack, in SWAT black with false sympathy plastered all over his face and a short-range rifle tucked under one arm. The non-celestials had all bowed the knee at Uncle Hunter’s appearance, even the dead ones. I made haste to do the same. My head swam with the quick change of position. I muttered at Granny Pearl, “Who invited him?”

  “Ssh. Don’t draw his attention.”

  I looked up. Uncle Jack had gone all death’s-head. He would put on his skull-face aspect when he wanted to hide his emotions. I bet he was pissed as hell that Hunter had presumed to appear the way he had.

  Hunter gestured for us to rise, and then there was nothing to do but end the proceedings. Dad and Quashee probably weren’t going to show up with Hunter around. Aunt Suze waved us all inside. For those of us who ate there was fried chicken, cornbread, and potato salad. I hung back a bit to wander about the yard. The Bejis had blasted that tree but good. There were silk-cotton thorns and matchstick-sized bits of wood scattered everywhere on the ground, and even the occasional dried-out kudzu leaf. I picked up one of the sprigs, a couple of desiccated leaves with a half-dead purplish blossom. The flower gave off a faint whiff of grape candy.

  “Playing the tracker, Niece? That’s my job.”

  I froze. Uncle Hunter reached from behind me and took the leaf out of my hand. Even his hunting gloves were a deadly matte black. He sniffed the leaf, then, smiling, crushed it in his hand. He opened the hand to show me the brittle green crumbled bits, like so much tea. “Don’t worry,” he said. “If your crazed daddy shows up, I’ll protect you.”

  I managed to squeak out, “From what?”

  Again that thin, eagle-eyed smile. “Oh, I think you know what. You hold the thing he needs most. Sure, you’re his beloved daughter, but he isn’t quite himself right now, is he? He might have forgotten who you are. He might only remember what you are.” While I was still digesting that terrible thought, he said, “And have you seen your other friend lately? Your, what d’you call it? Your haint? Cute name for something so deadly. But I gather you have some sort of weapon against it?” He smirked and patted his rifle. “Now this baby, she can drop a stag dead in its tracks at two hundred feet. But if you feel a dollar-store water gun is adequate…” He pointedly slung the rifle over his shoulder.

  Beji’s voice said, “Uncle? So glad you came to honour your brother.” He came and slid his hand into mine. “Did Mama Ocean send you? Please do join the rest of us inside. Suze has outdone herself.” He calmly faced down the glowering Hunter while I wondered why I kept thinking of the Bejis as youths. Youthful, yes. But millennia older than me and Abby. In this moment Beji was every bit the celestial, and he was making sure that Hunter recognized him as an equal.

  Uncle Hunter scowled. “Can’t stay. Must be about my brother’s business.”

  Beji nodded. “It is, you know. Your brother’s business.”

  “If he ever comes back.”

  Beji had no answer to that. Uncle Hunter turned to walk away. Turned back. “The thing is, burrito,” he said to me, “I really am glad to see you’re still feeling well.” He began walking backwards. “The longer you hang on to Boysie’s mojo, the longer I get to keep this job. Imagine the trophies I could bag!”

  Beji squeezed my hand. I let my world shrink to that; the gentle pressure of a single loving touch.

  Hunter faded from sight. When he was invisible, Beji said, “Don’t let it get to you. He treats everything as though he’s flushing prey from a thicket.”

  “He did not just fucking call me donkey.”

  “In Spanish. Yes. ’Cause it’s just so much classier that way, don’t you think?”

  His words surprised a snort of laughter from me. I slid my arm around his waist, and we headed to the house. “I’m female, so shouldn’t it be burrita?”

  “My ass.”

  I swatted him playfully upside the head. He grinned, took my swatting hand and made to put it to his lips. Suddenly shy, I pulled away from him. “Thank you,” I said.

  “No worries.”

  When we got inside, Abby asked us, “Is he gone?”

  I nodded. “For now.”

  The living room was full of people and the smell of food and drink, which, frankly, was making me a bit queasy. Aunt Suze was sitting at the living room table with her uneaten meal beside her and two armsful of Winston. I pulled up a chair. “Here, let me take him so you can have a bite.”

  “Sure.”

  “Hey, Wheeds; come to Cousin Makeda?”

  Wheedle cooed as I put him on my lap, drooled a drop of spittle on my dress, and made an eagle-eyed beeline for a handful of my plaits. By then, Aunt Suze had already downed a forkful of potato salad. She took a sip of juice. “Well,” she said, “I’m glad that woman didn’t show.”

  “Who?”

  “The one that messed with Cora.”

  “You mean Grandma Ocean?”

  “Yeah, that beeyotch. Oops,” she said, with something halfway between a smile and a tear, “that’s five cents in the kitty!”

  “Say again?”

  “Oh, it’s just this thing I’m always on about. I sometimes wish I could fine people every time they use black street slang to prove how hip they are.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  “Just charge them a residual. White people, Chinese people; even those boho Obamanegroes with their braided hemp necklaces, you understand me?”

  I opened my mouth to reply that I didn’t exactly, but Aunt Suze was on a roll.

  “I’m not prejudiced, shit. Fine all their asses, fine myself, even; everyone who isn’t actually black, American, and street. It wouldn’t have to be a lot of money. If everyone dropped a nickel in the kitty every time they slang-copped black street talk, think how fast that’d add up.”

  “I—”

  “Except for dirt-poor white people surviving the life in some hood somewhere. And those Filipino prisoners you see on YouTube dancing to Michael Jackson songs. I figure those guys have earned the right to drop the occasional “homie” now and then. And maybe those queeny fags that grew up poorer’n shit and had to claw and fight every step of the way. Or Roma people. Or hejiras. Maybe I wouldn’t charge people like that. But fucking everyone else. It’d be like a royalty to black people. And I wouldn’t keep it all for myself, hell no. Invest it in every black community all over the world. It’d be black Wallstreet on the rise again, only this time as a multinational. Globalize us and we’ll globalize your asses right back.”

  “Yes, Aunt Suze.” “Obamanegroes” was a nice touch.


  “You would think she would have let Cora at least attend Boysie’s funeral.”

  “It’s only a funeral when someone is dead. Dad’s still out there somewhere.”

  “I haven’t seen Cora since that woman did what she did to her.”

  “I haven’t seen Mom ever. It’s like I don’t have one.”

  “Hmph.” She had a few more bites, then said, “Has Mister Cross told you what he plans for us? Me and Roger and the kids, I mean?”

  I was confused. “Why would he have any special plans for you?”

  She stared down at her plate.

  “Aunt Suze, are you crying?”

  She met my eyes. Sure enough, hers were damp. “I was just hoping.” She swallowed. “Since the hoodoo tree doesn’t need so much tending to now, you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “I thought maybe he’d free us. Not even me and Roger so much, but the next generation. I thought maybe he’d let Naima go.” A tear rolled down her face. She wiped it away on her sleeve.

  “But you’re not slaves, or anything!”

  She gave a hard, short laugh. “You’ve never even thought about this, have you? Girl, to you it may be the lightest of bondage, but we are the help, and there’s no escaping it.” She saw my face. “Never mind. I shouldn’t be talking about it when we’re putting your father in the ground.”

  “It’s all right,” I murmured. But was it? She was right; I’d never thought about it. Always figured I was the only unhappy one in the family. I bounced Wheedle on my knee. He grinned. A blurp sound emanated from somewhere in the vicinity of his diaper, and then a distinctly poopy smell.

  “Whoops,” said Aunt Suze, “there he goes.” She quickly wiped her mouth and stood. “Here, give him to me.”

  I gladly handed him over. She baby-talked at him, “It’s time to go change the stinky baby, isn’t it? Yes, it is.” Wheedle laughed uproariously as his mum took him in the direction of the bedroom.

  “It’s so strange,” said Beji, making me jump.

  “Whoa. Didn’t see you there.”

  Beji shrugged. “Many don’t. We’re used to it.”

  “What’s strange?”

  “All this sadness, all this grief, but in the middle of it, people are making jokes and changing their babies.”

  The other Beji said, “I even heard a couple people making dates to hook up.”

  “OK, I’ve never been brave enough to ask, whose brilliant idea was it to give you two exactly the same name?”

  Beji quirked a smile. “It was our idea.”

  Beji said, “Do we need separate names?”

  It was true. Beji almost never went anywhere without Beji. They pretty much finished each others’ sentences. “I guess not. It’s just kinda weird, you know?”

  “Everything’s weird.” Beji looked over to where Naima and Uncle were sitting on the floor and playing tea party with Naima’s dolls. Uncle had folded his wings tightly around himself so that they wouldn’t be in the way. Butter rolled around on the floor between them, occasionally batting a plastic teacup away.

  I used to think that I could tell the Bejis apart because one was a he-Beji and one was a she-Beji, but when they and Abs and I had a regular booty-call thing going for a few months that time, they’d showed us that they switched that up whenever they got bored with it.

  “I would hate it if people thought of me and Abby as one person split into two separate bodies.”

  “That’s very human of you,” Beji replied.

  “Besides,” added Beji, “so many people will think of you as one person, no matter what you do.”

  I sighed. “ ’S true. How do you guys handle it?”

  They looked at each other as though they were trying to decide whether or not to say something. Then together, they replied, “Who cares what they think?”

  “Huh. That’s very celestial of you.”

  Beji said, “Listen, we’re sorry we screwed up by letting your dad’s soul out of the tree.”

  Abby had joined us. “How come you didn’t tell Uncle Jack what was going down? Let him decide?”

  They looked over to where Uncle, Naima, and Butter were playing. “Maybe you shouldn’t be quite so trusting of him.”

  I burst out, “Aw, come on! First Hunter tells me to be scared of Dad, and now you’re telling us to be scared of Uncle Jack?”

  Abby threw me a puzzled look. I said, “I’ll tell you later.”

  Beji sighed. “Have you ever asked Uncle Jack for the real story of your birth?”

  Abby replied, “He told her a few days ago.”

  “Yeah, and I’m still pissed at him.”

  “Have you ever asked him what happened to your mojo?”

  My skin got all prickly. “I don’t have any.”

  “True, you don’t. It was pretty rudimentary, the little blobby thing he tore out of you.”

  The word “tore” gave me a small, psychic ache, unplaceable anywhere in my physical body.

  “A healthy mojo organ is muscular, like a heart. Adamantine. Solid and lacy. Coruscating and matte.”

  “Still and restless. Infinite and infinitesimal.”

  Weakly, I joked, “All that at once, huh?”

  “We were there, spying on him when he operated on you and on Uncle Boysie. He threw your mojo away. I picked it up.”

  Abby was agog. “You did? Do you still have it?”

  “No, I lost it,” replied Beji, crestfallen.

  I stared at her. “All these years. We’ve known each other all this time, and you never told me?”

  She looked puzzled. “It was a useless flap of protoplasm.”

  “It was a part of me!” I was standing. Everyone was looking at me. I pointed at Beji. At both of them. “You two, I never want to speak to you ever again. Do you hear me?”

  They nodded.

  I turned to Abby. “I’m leaving. You gonna give me a lift home?”

  “Maka, are you sure? Is this really such a big deal?”

  She saw me jerk my arm in towards my body. I could see in her face that she knew I’d just fought my own impulse to slap her. Her eyes widened. “OK, then. If you’re going to get all crazy. Let me just get Butter and tell Lars.”

  “I’ll be in the car,” I growled.

  “Where’s Lars?” I’d looked behind us as we drove along the highway, but he wasn’t there.

  “He’s got marking to do.”

  “Marking what? Time?”

  Abby pressed her lips together. “Papers.”

  “As in teaching? Lars teaches?”

  “Uh-huh. How’d you think I met him?”

  “At work? Lars has a job? But he doesn’t need money for anything. Doesn’t eat physical food. Doesn’t need a roof over his head. He can just decorporealize.”

  “Need money, no. But he might want. For instance, an expensive hog. Took money to buy that bike, takes money to maintain it. Where did you think we’d met?”

  I threw my hands up. “Think? Aw, Abs, I dunno. At some mighty magic mojo shindig where Shiny beings stand around in shiny clothes and listen to the heavenly chorus?”

  She rolled her eyes. “That’s the problem with you. You think that just because you don’t have mojo, you’ve been denied access to some kind of sublime life that the rest of us are living.”

  “Well, haven’t I?”

  “Makeda, take a look around you! You’re living that life! You know many claypickens that have a demigod and a lake monster for parents?”

  “No,” I mumbled.

  “So get the fuck over it already. Would you really have hit me back there?” There were tears in her eyes again. Had been on and off since she’d gotten into the car to drive me home from Dad’s interment.

  “No, probably not. It was touch-and-go for a second, though.”

  She sniffed. “That’s not like you.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I’ve been pretty edgy.”

  “Like I haven’t been under a lot of st
ress, too? And this last tantrum of yours was over… what? A piece of offal?” She shook her head. “Thank heaven you never had your appendix out.”

  I hung my head. “Yeah, I know that was over the top. I’ve been feeling weird, too. Headaches, food smelling off.”

  “You have, huh?” She turned off the highway.

  Something wasn’t right. I checked to see which exit we’d taken. “Hey, this is taking us back to your place!”

  “Well, you yourself just said you weren’t feeling well. Don’t you think that a night at home would do you good? Just one night?”

  “Will you stop trying to manage me!” It took a lot of shouting for me to get her to head towards my new place instead. She said some things, I said some things, just the way those kinds of fights go. Upshot of it was that I made her let me out of the car so I could make my own way home. Who the rass did she think she was, trying to tell me what to do?

  I headed down the steps to the subway. A woman coming up the stairs widened her eyes in alarm when she saw me, and ran the rest of the way up the stairs. She flinched away from me as she passed me. “What?” I called up to her. I sounded as cranky as I felt. She didn’t answer, just kept going to street level. Then she scurried away.

  I thought about it. The giant black water gun could look kinda like a machine gun to people who didn’t know. And I, toting it, looked exactly like the glowering black woman I was. I didn’t feel like putting the glower away anytime soon. And I was about to get onto a subway train with a bunch of claypickens, many of whom would see their fears, not me.

  But I didn’t dare toss the Super Soaker away, lest my haint show up again. My mind shied away from the thought of the damage it could do in a closed subway car full of people. So, with a sigh, I ended up walking in the biting cold as the day darkened gloomily towards evening. More than one passerby twitched at the sight of the Super Soaker. One guy actually yelped. I growled, “Water gun, man. Big, scary water gun.” I strode away from him while he was still stammering out some lame excuse. I started to watch out for cop cars as I walked. In gun-controlled Toronto, it was mostly the cops you could count on to have real guns. And the same fears as the people who blanched at the sight of me.