Temper

by Nicky Drayden

  The knots in my stomach untwist, my nerves steady. It’s like Kasim is here, except instead of my lechery being tempered, it presses harder. My heart knocks so loudly against my ribs, I’m sure Ruda can hear it. Maybe this is what falling in love feels like. I bite my lip, wondering if I should make my move, but my finger is already tracing over lips first claimed by my own brother. Ruda smiles, looks down bashfully.

  My hand moves slowly, almost on its own, until it finds the curve of Ruda’s breast, and in the dim light, her nipples pucker through the rainbow leotard. I inhale her spicy sweetness, and a chill fog rolls over my mind, through my body, numbing me to everything except the hard ache in my mouth. I move to kiss her, but her forehead blocks me, catches me right in the bridge of my nose.

  “Oof,” I say. I blink away the pain, and turn, suddenly fixated with detangling the long scraggly black tail jutting out from the ass-end of three-fourths of a wooden donkey. “Sorry about that. I sort of thought . . .”

  “No, I’m sorry. I just have a weird thing about kissing.”

  I’m about to confront her, to call her on her lie. She hadn’t had this “weird thing” with Kasim, but then the back of her hand grazes my chest, works its way down. My mind fogs up again, and on the next strong pump of my heart, I hear the strain of my leotards, crotch fabric suddenly pushed beyond reasonable limits.

  I press Ruda down onto her back. I am not gentle. She laughs nervously, not knowing what I am capable of, and at this point, I’m not so certain what I’m capable of either. My nails scratch like claws against her tights. They break open, revealing smooth brown skin beneath. She flinches as my hand slips into the tear, nervous, eager.

  Saliva pools in my mouth, sharp, acidic.

  “Auben—you’re drooling. All over the place.” I think she’s concerned, but all I can see are those lips. Full, pink, chapped.

  Kiss her, the voice commands, digging harder into my mind than it ever has before.

  “Auben, I’m flattered. Really.” She pushes futilely against my chest. “But this was a bad idea.”

  “If your lips go numb, and your tongue does, too. If your breath freezes over, and a shiver runs through . . .” My cool whisper slips into her ear and gives her gooseflesh all over, the old schoolyard rhyme rushing to the front of my mind, one I haven’t heard in years.

  “This isn’t funny, Auben.” She peers into my eyes. I do not know what she sees, but I can tell it wasn’t what she was looking for.

  “If your body aches with chills, but doctors don’t know what to do. And if your heart stops cold, then you’ve been kissed by Icy Blue.”

  She slaps me. Hard. My mind clears, ever so briefly.

  “Don’t,” I yell at Icy Blue. But he is back upon me in no time, riding me so hard. My muscles strain. It’s impossible to deny him. Ruda screams so loud, Daughter Sarr’s own hollers would pale in comparison. All I need is a couple seconds, enough to let Ruda escape. I reach for the glass shards I keep in my pocket, but I touch only the smoothness of my nylon-covered thigh. Shit. My pants are in the dressing room, along with any hope of driving these urges back into the icy depths. My lips move ever closer to Ruda’s.

  KISS HER.

  I spy a bent nail near a pile of dust-covered props. I move my hand, inch by inch, against the strain. My fingertips touch it.

  Give her what she deserves.

  I clench the nail in my hand, point digging into the skin of my palm. I press hard, until I feel my flesh pierce. The fog recedes to the shadows and the blood rushes back to my head. My heart strikes my chest a million times a minute. I ease off Ruda. She looks as terrified as I am, but we both manage to pull nervous smiles from the dark pits of denial. Icy Blue laughs from within.

  “You totally believed that, didn’t you?” I say, holding my bloodied hand behind me, and helping her up with the other. I brace myself as the knot in my stomach returns with a vengeance, and press through it. “Oh! Look at me! I’m Icy Blue.”

  “That was intense, Auben. Too intense. Next time give me a heads-up first.” She tugs against the gap in her nylons and laughs, but only to give the impression that she is no longer afraid of me. “We can start tomorrow if you’d like. Quick and dirty and done with.” Done with me, she means.

  She hadn’t resisted. Not at first. She was as much into me as I was into her, but all of that is gone now. I’ve got a bad feeling that we’re dealing with more than a simple exorcism. Icy Blue is growing stronger with my every breath, and soon he’ll be capable of much worse than putting an end to an already awkward and ill-advised love quartet.

  “Yeah, tomorrow would be great,” I say. “The sooner, the better.”

  Act Two, Scene One: Akerele Gets Cursed by a Wu Witch

  With a wu mystic on every busy street in the comfy, the new one on the corner of Qukeza and Jeso doesn’t stir suspicion. He opens his thick woven cloak to us as we near. Bottles and vials and dolls and sticks and bags of dried herbs are tucked neatly into dozens of little pockets.

  “An offer of wu for you and you?” the mystic calls to us. His beard is thick and matted, his face painted with kohl markings, his eyes are wild and an unsettling blue.

  “No, thanks,” Kasim and I say together, as we always do.

  “Tik and tuc, half off for willing hearts,” the mystic’s head cocks, his too-white smile inviting. “A little cheer in the new year?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Perhaps a stick or two of incense fine? Cherry adder, agapanthus, sandalwood?” the mystic presses, practically in Kasim’s face.

  “We said no thanks!” I give Kasim a hard nudge. He bumps into the mystic, who stumbles backward and lands hard upon the sidewalk.

  Kasim stands next to me, visibly shaken. “What did you do?”

  The mystic slowly stands while growling a barely audible incantation, interspersed by loud and sudden claps and the stamping of worn boots.

  “I think he’s vexing us,” Kasim whispers to me, a raspy tremble.

  “They’re just words,” I say, pushing Kasim along. “Words can’t hurt us.”

  Act Two, Scene Two: The Curse of the Insipid Tongue

  Braised Sheep Stew, Kasim’s favorite meal, is the perfect way to see off one of the last cool nights of the narrow season. Mother left the pot in the icebox for us to heat up, upon my request. I’d slyly slipped a half container of salt into the flavorful stew before placing it upon the burner. I give it a stir, and watch the root vegetables comingle until steam rises off my concoction.

  The smell is divine, and lures Kasim out of his funk. He gives me a half smile. “Finally, something is going my way,” he says, unable to keep the saliva in his mouth.

  I serve a bowl to each of us, then we sit across from each other, alone in our dining hutch as usual. “Still rattled by that wu mystic?” I dip my spoon into my stew and take a long, luxurious sip. It takes all my effort to bite back the saltiness and not let it show on my face.

  “Nah. You’re right. They were just words, and wu isn’t real anyway.” Kasim laughs, then takes his own taste and immediately spits it back out. “This is disgusting!” He scrapes the remnants off his tongue with his spoon.

  “A few too many potatoes for my liking, but it’s warm and will fill my belly fine.” However briefly. I’ve got a date with a porcelain goddess tonight. I take another spoonful, and shrug.

  “It tastes like ocean water. How can you stand to eat this stuff?”

  “Mother spent a long time on this, and meat isn’t cheap. The least you can do is eat it.”

  Kasim squints at me, looking for lies that I have not told. He then dips his spoon into my bowl, and takes a taste. Lips pucker. He sighs, then goes for a loaf of bread.

  “Good idea, some bread to cleanse the palate.”

  “I’m making a sandwich.”

  “But you’ll waste the stew.”

  “Then you eat it.”

  I do. With gusto. Kasim throws a frustrated look my way, then takes a bite of stale bread with
a smattering of currant jelly.

  Act Two, Scene Three: The Curse of the Scentless Gardenia

  At the center of every sibling relationship is the fight for bathroom time while getting ready for school. I wake up early to claim the first spot, take a twenty-minute shower, and then sit upon the toilet, making not-so-subtle grunting and groaning noises and dropping soft chunks of boiled yam into the toilet bowl with satisfying plunks. Kasim is beyond annoyed. He’ll only have five minutes to get ready before we need to go. Plus, maybe I’ve been known to have bowel movements that don’t exactly smell of roses, shall we say. Though, lately, things have been so acidic I’ve had to find elsewhere to do my business, or else risk further damage to the bowl’s finish.

  When Kasim knocks for the third time, I hastily flush, watching the yam bits swirl away. “Phew!” I say, opening the door, fanning my face. “Sooo sorry. Maybe you were right. Something about that stew didn’t sit well.”

  Kasim cringes, expecting a fecal-scented back draft, but surprisingly nothing comes. He takes a timid step in.

  I wash my hands. “Here, a little cologne couldn’t possibly make it smell any worse in here.” I select one of the colored glass bottles from my neat collection on the counter—now all filled with water—and spray liberally until I’m satisfied. “Better?”

  “It’s fine. I don’t smell anything.”

  “Well, lucky you.” I step out of the way and let Kasim in.

  The door closes promptly in my face. From this side, I hear Kasim give a cologne bottle a single spray, then he takes a futile whiff and sighs.

  Act Two, Scene Four: The Curse of the Waning Tempo

  We walk to school our usual way, nothing out of the ordinary. It’s early yet for most wu mystics, but Kasim steers clear of the ones we do see. Halfway to school, we pass a street musician, blowing breezily across the string of a goura. He keeps tempo with a tap of his foot, but the characteristic squawk of the instrument, reminiscent of the sound of a tenacious goose, does not carry over the air.

  I nod my head absentmindedly from the other side of the street, carrying on with my conversation. “So Msr. Ademola is giving a test tomorrow. Fifth day of class. Six chapters. Who does that?”

  Kasim stops me short, then turns me toward the musician. A businessman walks by and drops a coin in the musician’s upturned hat. The musician smiles and puts a little more pizzazz into his step.

  “You hear him? Playing music?” Kasim asks.

  I can’t lie, but I can parry his question. “I don’t know if I would actually go as far as calling it music, but I’ve definitely heard worse musicians.” Another man drops a few djang into the hat, and the panic builds on Kasim’s face. I place the back of my hand to his head. “You’re feeling all right, aren’t you?”

  “My senses are all out of whack. First the stew last night. Then your cologne this morning. And now this. I don’t hear him, Auben. Not a single note. I think . . .” Kasim shakes his head.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I think this might have something to do with that wu mystic from yesterday.”

  “I highly doubt it. What about your sinuses? Allergies?”

  “Not during the narrow season.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing. Come on, we’re going to be late for school.” I tug at Kasim’s arm and feel him shivering. He’s taken the bait, and now it’s time to reel him in.

  Act Two, Scene Five: The Curse of the Mislaid Baroness

  Apparently lechery was alive and well in Biobaku’s time. However, we haven’t an actor willing to fully commit to the role of the lusty baroness, and even if we had, Kasim wouldn’t be willing to engage in such an explicit act, and even if he were, there’s no way I’d want anything to do with figuring out how to numb his sensitivity in that particular area, so this scene has been abridged from our production.

  Act Two, Scene Six: The Curse of the Mirrored Eye

  We’re a few blocks away from school when the final scene starts. In the morning, the streets are lousy with students in indistinguishable dingy school cikis, walking to school or piling up by the dozen onto some poor rickshaw cabbie’s cart to share a fare. One of the bustling students knocks Kasim’s shoulder as he passes. He looks back and says a quick “Sorry, sal,” so fast, I worry Kasim won’t have time to process what he’s seen. I keep my face relaxed, no sign that anything is amiss.

  “Did you see that?” Kasim asks.

  “I know, rude, right? It’s like he did it on purpose.”

  “No.” Kasim grips my bicep. “It was the wu mystic. Neck down, it was a student. But his face . . . the matted beard, the kohl markings. The piercing eyes.”

  “Do you hear yourself right now, Kasim? We can hail a rickshaw if you think you need to see a doctor.” No one I know owns their own oryx-drawn coach here, but there are a few to hire in case you need to get somewhere fast, though they’re mostly for people with business on the other side of the wall.

  A woman pushing a stroller passes us next. She wears a long flowing dress, and her hair is pulled back into neat afro puffs. Her face is dirty with kohl markings, chin covered with a tangled beard, eyes ice blue. She pays us no mind, singing sweet lullabies to her child.

  “There. That woman,” Kasim whispers in a panic. “And that guy, and that kigen, and there—walking the dog.”

  I raise a hand into the early morning traffic. Seconds later, a coach drawn by two haggard oryx bucks with muddied hooves settles against the curb. The shabby driver greets us with a bitter purse of the lips.

  “How much to the nearest hospital?” I ask.

  “Twenty djang,” he says, looking us up and down. “You pay now.”

  “Fifteen djang, and we’ll pay when you get us there.”

  The driver scowls, then pets the knife sitting along his dash. “No funny business from you two,” he says. “Get in.”

  “There’s another one,” Kasim moans, eyes fixing on an elderly woman across the street.

  I tug him into the coach, wincing at the throbbing gash on my palm from that rusted nail. With the way it’s starting to pus, I wish we were actually headed to see a doctor.

  Kasim is so out of it, he comes without a fight. “And another. Auben, why is this happening to me?”

  “Whatever you’re seeing is not real. Just keep focused on me.” I look Kasim deep in his eyes, which are terrified, darting. With the rhythmic clop of oryx hooves, the comfy turns to the city proper. Coaches go from being unreliable transport to shiny symbols of status. Buildings go from cramped, gray, and unimaginative to massive glass displays of ingenuity. People go from poorly dressed assholes scurrying about to dapper assholes scurrying about.

  An oncoming driver honks at us behind the reins of a candy red, cloth-top Nnamari. “Share the road, asshole,” the man curses at our driver, full of road rage as he barrels past us, dressed in his clean, tailored business ciki. His face, however, bears the signature markings of the wu mystic.

  This drives Kasim over the edge. I do everything I can to keep him from jumping out of the coach. He’s screaming at me, at the world. Ranting and raving and repenting. Perhaps I’ve gone too far. “Stop the coach,” I demand of the driver. But he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t slow down even. Keeps speeding forward, dodging traffic.

  Following the script.

  I see Uncle Yeboah’s building, the early morning sunlight reflecting off foreboding golden brick columns, blue glass front blending seamlessly into the cloud-heavy sky. The finale. But Kasim is so out of his mind right now, I don’t think he can’t handle it. “Don’t turn around,” I beg the driver. “For the love of Grace, don’t turn around.”

  He does. The driver gives Kasim the nastiest smile, his face now bearded and marked with kohl. Glass contacts turn his eyes icy blue. He cackles and screeches, right up until the point Kasim screams like a holler whore and punches him in the face. The driver holds back handfuls of blood gushing from his nose? A busted lip? There’s so much of it, it’s too hard to tell. His surpris
ed eyes dart to me for explanation.

  “It’s not real, Kasim!” I say. “It’s all fake. I made this all up. Calm down.”

  But Kasim is lost to logic, and I’m sure he can’t hear me above his wailing. When I try to subdue him, he fights me off, then climbs over the driver’s seat and snatches the knife. He and the driver grapple over it for a moment, but Kasim prevails.

  “Stop haunting me,” he says to the driver. “Leave me alone. I didn’t even do anything to you!” He drives the knife into the driver’s abdomen. Over and over.

  “Kasim! Please!” I scream. Tears in my eyes.

  The driver slumps against slack reins, motionless. Finally, Kasim settles back down, wipes the blood from the blade with his fingers, and smiles viciously at me.

  “What have you done, Kasim?” What have I done? I tremble all over.

  He holds the knifepoint to his own chest, presses hard. I take a helpless breath and feel my soul slipping away. He stabs himself, again and again, laughing. No blood. No wound. Nothing. A stage knife. He slips his hand into his pocket, pulls out a piece of folded paper, and tosses it to me.

  It’s a playbill. Specifically, The Five Curses of Akerele. My lungs gasp for air, and relief rushes through me. Then anger. “How could you do this to me?” I scream. “I thought you’d—”

  “How could I plot an elaborate setup against my own brother? Is that what you really want to ask me?”

  But it’s exactly what I want to ask. I search his eyes, unable to fathom how my brother—the one so full of virtue—could be capable of such deceit. My hands shake, and my throat goes dry. I try to snap out of it, to laugh it off. But the image of Kasim sinking that knife into the driver’s body and then his own—I thought I’d lost him, and that feeling of nothingness washes over me like all of the space between the stars. I lose it right there. I can’t keep the snot in my nose, or the tears in my eyes. In the span of seconds, I’m a blubbering mess.