by Rena Barron
“Heka, father and mother of magic, please let this work.” The words taste rusty and bitter on my tongue. I wait for a sign, and a bird squawks above my head in the bald tree. My jaw hurts from clenching my teeth. I choose my next words with care. “Help me save Kofi.”
The ground stirs around my legs. Bits of magic caught in the wind swirl in front of my face and mist collects at my feet, snaking across my legs. It’s warm, and it makes my legs grow limp. Sweat trickles down my forehead. I wipe it away. My heartbeat thunders like drums in my ears. It’s really working. A part of me didn’t believe that it would. Magic is answering my call. I’m scared and thrilled at once after all these years of trying and failing.
The mist creeps up my thighs and torso, wrapping me in a cocoon as solid as stone. Cold stretches through my body, and ash coats my tongue as it leeches the years from my life. Years gone in a few breaths. Blisters crop up on my arms where the vines burrowed into my skin and the roots of my teeth ache. I bite the inside of my cheek to hold back the pain. It seems that magic would rather break me than heed my call.
Soil shifts beneath me as I slip into the space before unconsciousness. Neither here nor there. The place before dreams and nightmares, where darkness clings to my skin like beads of sweat. Anticipation and longing choke me as my mind splits in two.
Something or someone latches on to me, wrenching my split mind from my body. I try to resist, but the pull isn’t physical—it’s spiritual and too strong. The same was true at the Blood Moon Festival when my ka almost untethered from my body.
Suns and moons race across the sky so fast that they become brilliant sparks of gold and silver. My ka stretches, leaving the broken shell of myself behind. Unfamiliar eyes bore into me, eyes that peer across time from some future place. Eyes that glow like the green fog that descends upon the city after a thunderstorm. The serpent eyes from Grandmother’s vision. The demon. Had I been in my body, my heart would’ve quit that very moment.
“You don’t belong here,” the demon whispers in my ear.
The voice is that of a child. A very young one at that. Her magic pricks my skin. It rattles my bones like it’s trying to tear me apart at the seams. I have enough sense to be more afraid than jealous. My consciousness stretches every which way. If it stretches any farther, there will be nothing left of me to return home. The child’s magic slams into me so hard my spine stiffens against the tree—a reminder that my body awaits.
“Our time is yet to come,” she adds, voice full of mischief. “Go back and find what you seek.”
I seek the child snatcher, but if the demon’s not the one stealing children, then who is? Could Arti have been right all this time about the craven bone, and the anti-magic? That someone in the Vizier’s family was guilty?
My ka shrinks back into the night, but I don’t return to my body. A single moon settles in the sky, and I am in the present again. My ka floats high above Tamar, even higher than the three giants that watch over the city: the Almighty Temple to the north, the Almighty Palace to the west, and the Vizier’s estate to the south. To the east, idle boats crowd the harbor on the Serpent River and the docks teem with people. I descend with my will alone and glide through the streets along the scholars’ villas. Through the merchants’ row houses and the mud-brick huts along the riverbanks. My path is not linear. My ka is a tapestry rippling in the wind.
This isn’t at all what I expected from performing my very first ritual. Witchdoctors make it look so easy, but it’s like wading through a forest of twisted branches that threaten to trap you in their snare. In this state, I’m a child learning to walk for the first time.
I’m aware of my body against the tree. The bark grows new thorns that sink into my back, and the pain shoots down the tether to my ka like lightning. Yes, magic abides in me, but it’s killing me too. My ka lingers above the orphanage as if snagged on a clothesline.
“Twenty-gods, Majka,” Rudjek tells him. “What happened to your face?”
Dread sweeps through my ka as I spot them. They are both dressed in black elaras with hoods shrouding their faces. For the second time tonight, my heart almost stops. What is Rudjek doing here at this forbidden hour? I refuse to believe the worst as my mind struggles to find a plausible explanation.
“Kira is what happened,” Majka groans, rubbing his forehead.
“What did you do this time?” Rudjek laughs.
Majka shrugs. “I may have hit on her sister.”
“Be glad Kira didn’t break your arm for that.” Rudjek wags his finger. “One would think you’d be smart enough not to annoy a girl who wears a dozen daggers on her person at any given time. She has beaten you several times in the arena.”
“She’s beaten you too!” Majka retorts, incredulous.
“She beat me once,” Rudjek fires back, “and I was blindfolded.”
“Liar,” Majka hisses. “You were not blindfolded.”
“With one hand tied behind my back,” Rudjek insists.
“It’s cold and I have to piss.” Majka wraps his arms around his shoulders. “There’s no one out here. This place is as silent as the dead.”
“Stop your whining.” Rudjek frowns, then startles. “Do you feel that?”
“Feel what?” Majka jerks his head like a scared bird. “What is it?”
Rudjek’s palms slip to the hilts of his shotels. “I don’t know.”
The echo of my heart leaping in my chest travels down the tether to my ka.
Majka’s gaze darts around, his voice low. “Could Arrah be wrong about this demon?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Rudjek draws his swords. “I trust her.”
“I trust her too,” Majka grumbles under his breath. “But if she’s right, then we’re the only two standing between the demon and the orphanage right now. That does not bode well for us.”
Heat spreads through my body despite the pain of the thorns in my back. Foolish boy. Of course he would sneak out tonight to help. He’s so ridiculous to think that he could—not that I’m any better. I feel a pang of relief seeing him here.
Something tugs at my ka, dragging me away from the orphanage. It’s not the green-eyed serpent this time. I travel through the rainbow of canopies in the East Market. A grayness clings to the city, muting its bright colors. Even the drums, flutes, and harps from the street musicians sound dull. Brewed beer, pipe smoke, and spiced meats saturate the air. The sounds of unbridled laughter and conversations rush in at once. In dark alleys and corners, the market brims with those who trade in rawhide, ivory, and secrets. Night merchants who can read your heart’s desire as well as a real witchdoctor who can read bones. Even with so much fear hanging over the city, there are people who refuse to let it change their routine. They keep hope alive.
My reflection stares up at me in a puddle of water. I’m almost transparent—a shadow of my true self. People pass through my form without pause. The split between my body and ka widens to a gaping wound. Should it feel like this, or have I traveled too far? I’m both lying on cool soil beside the tree and standing in the market. Confusion fogs my mind and some grave knowledge slips through my thoughts like a secret on the wind.
A brightness amidst so much gray catches my attention. It’s amorphous, like me, but there’s a solidity that I lack. Though the patrons do not sense me, they move around the brightness as if it’s an orisha statue in their path. I follow, passing patrons gulping down mugs of beer and placing bets on cockfights. People spitting tobacco juice between their teeth and counting tallies. Children playing on the streets.
Kira and Essnai wade through the crowd, searching face after face. They walk so close that their hands brush, and their auras tangle in brilliant shades of blue. Essnai grips her staff while Kira fingers a blade sheathed against her thigh. From their body language the amas aren’t only looking for the child snatcher, they’re protecting each other too.
I’m relieved to see my friends helping. I know this is Rudjek’s doing—he’s always been good at
taking charge. The market thrives with life, and the ebb and flow of the crowd puts me at ease. I could wander through the streets all night and never see the end. Not so different from the days I come here for hours to calm my restless mind.
When the brightness molds itself into a hooded figure that moves through the crowd, I freeze. My vision shrinks and there’s only her. Everything else blurs and fades to the background. She wears a flowing green sheath that drags across the muddy ground; a matching shawl hides her identity. Her body glows with a soft light that at first glance is beautiful, but the edges are sharp as glass. If I come too close, her light will cut into my ka, and then nothing will be left of me. Yet I can’t stay away. She is the reason I’m here. She is the child snatcher, and definitely different from the green-eyed serpent. The fog clouding my mind lifts, and my purpose comes into focus again. I know why I’m here.
The child snatcher’s heavy steps vibrate in my ka, and draw sparks of magic from the sky. The woman darts this way and that. Soon it becomes clear that she’s circling the children like a vulture above carrion. The echo of my heartbeat tugs at the tether to my body.
Gray mist creeps along the dirt paths in the market. It slows my progress, but I push harder. With each step the pain that rips through my body underneath the tree is sharper than the last. Is this the child snatcher’s doing? Does she know someone’s hunting her? Or is my ka too far from my body? My teeth grit so hard that my jaw aches, but I won’t stop until I know the truth.
In this part of the market, people huddle together, and no one is without a weapon. They carry everything from shotels to butcher knives to staffs. The City Guard is out in full force too, along with a large contingent of gendars. They distract me until the woman’s scent of honey and coconut cuts across my path. She smells familiar, and that confuses me.
I push my legs with all my might, but it’s no good. My ka moves as if it’s wading through a bog. Blood coats my tongue as the tether between my body and ka stretches taut, so close to snapping. No point of wondering what will happen if it breaks. Nothing good can come of it. I try to memorize everything about the woman. She’s shorter than me, wide-hipped and fine-boned, a flash of golden eyes. My heart threatens to crack my chest open as she ducks into an alley.
Staying in the shadows, the woman follows a girl not much younger than me. The girl keeps glancing over her shoulder, as though she can sense the danger. When the moonlight catches the oval ring on the woman’s left hand, I stop breathing. My body seizes. No, it can’t be. This is a dream. Wake up, Arrah. Wake up now. The alley spins and my vision fades in and out. I’m in two places again, lying on the ground and in the market watching something horrible about to unfold. Watching the child snatcher, watching my mother.
My ka snaps back to my body. I lie in the soil beneath the bald tree, gasping for air, whole again, my bones threatening to snap in two. The moon curves into a wicked smile. What I saw can’t be real. None of it makes sense. Hot tears slide down my face as I slip into darkness.
Time to pay magic’s price.
Koré, Orisha of Moon, Twin King
Well, this is an interesting turn of events. I must admit that I didn’t see this coming.
You have been busy, haven’t you, old friend? Working your wicked magic right under my nose. We’ve been together a long time, you and I, and every day you grow stronger. It shouldn’t be possible, yet here we are. My box won’t hold your soul forever.
The War was long and bloody, and quite entertaining at times. But you couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? Our sister was gone, and all you had to do was stop eating souls, live out the rest of your unnatural life, and die. Was that so hard? Oh but no, that would be too easy. When she died, you showed your true face, the one you kept hidden beneath the surface. Perhaps it was she who suppressed your inner beast.
The two of you were always so synced in a way that I could never understand, your souls so intertwined. It was really quite lovely, had you both not been so naive. Had she not died, I do not believe for one moment that the outcome would be different.
You cannot change your nature. Even without souls, you were always destined to become a monster. Our sister only complicated matters. Looking back on it, we were fools for thinking you would just fade into the ether after she died.
It pains me that twenty of my brethren sacrificed themselves to chain you with their own kas. It was only supposed to be a temporary solution until I could find another answer, but time is tricky, isn’t it? Five thousand years is a blink of the eye in an orisha’s life. That said, anyone would turn aloof chained that long, as they have grown.
Do you think you’re the only one who’s been planning?
There is always a weakness in armor, old friend, no matter how strong.
I pledged my life to mortal kind, and I won’t let you destroy it. It was a foolish promise at the time, but they are a reflection of me—a poor one, but a reflection no less.
Enough talk for now, old friend. I must sharpen my knives.
Part II
For where she walks death follows
Her heart is black and hollow
For her love is a dangerous thing
Full of heartache and pain.
—Song of the Unnamed
Thirteen
When I was little, my father told me lots of stories. Funny stories. Sad stories. Silly stories. But out of all his tales, he only told me one love story. The memory has always stayed with me and now it comes back in my dreams.
We’re working in the courtyard on a lazy afternoon, the sun beating down our backs. Sweet honeysuckle lingers in the air. It’s the start of Su’omi—the season of rebirth—right after I’ve turned eight. “The heart is a fickle thing, Little Priestess,” my father remarks, pruning a shrub. “When magic is involved, it can grow as black as the hour of ösana. There are few things more powerful than the human heart.”
I lie on my belly in the grass with my legs fanning in the air. “Do you love Arti?”
After a long silence, he warns me, “Love is a word that we must use with care.”
Another long pause.
“Your mother . . . she is Mulani.”
He says Mulani as if her tribe explains her coldness. She spends more time in the Almighty Temple than she does at home, and she never has a kind word for anyone. Especially me. I’ve met many from her tribe and none are like her. Other Mulani strike me as standoffish, temperamental even. But my mother’s amber eyes have always been hollow when she looks at me, as though she’s never satisfied with anything I do. The more I try to latch on to her, the more she pushes me away. I can’t remember her ever smiling or being happy.
“What am I, Father?” I ask. “Am I a daughter of Tribe Aatiri or Tribe Mulani?”
“You are the daughter of my heart.” Oshhe nudges my chin.
I laugh at that, delighted by his words.
“Do you want to hear a story about love, Little Priestess?” Oshhe asks.
I nod my excitement as my father puts aside his shears and settles on the grass beside me. The sunlight makes his ebony skin glisten and his brown eyes shine. He tucks his long legs beneath him and pulls a sachet from his pocket. “We can’t have a story without candies.”
He takes a handful and passes the bag to me. I inhale the sweet vanilla and nutmeg of the milk candy, and pop two in my mouth.
“Long ago an Aatiri boy attended the Blood Moon Festival at the Temple of Heka,” Oshhe begins. “He saw a girl with the most beautiful golden eyes.”
“It’s about you and Arti?” I kick my feet faster. “It is, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s only a story.” Oshhe shakes his head, his face a little sad.
“The Aatiri boy was very shy and the Mulani girl was so very beautiful,” he continues. “Night after night the tribes gathered to celebrate the blood moon, and he wanted to ask the girl for a dance. But bigger boys would shove him aside and ask first.
“One morning when he was washing at the ri
ver, he saw the girl picking berries in the bushes. He thanked Heka for his good fortune and wasted no time approaching her. The girl was wary, but she did not run away. The boy struggled to find the right words. He wanted to make a good first impression. He thought about how the other boys called her Siren of the Valley behind her back. They said that she could steal your magic with one kiss, but he did not believe in such foolish things.
“‘You don’t look like a siren to me,’ the boy had said. Not the best first words to any girl, but instead of shooing him away, she laughed. The girl asked if he wanted to help her pick berries. They became friends and spent much time together during the Blood Moon Festival. They learned about each other’s hopes and dreams. The girl wanted to one day leave the tribal lands to see the world, while the boy loved his home with all his heart. Every year they would see each other at the festival, but the boy never told her of his feelings. Not for many years. When he finally worked up the courage, it was too late. The girl had fallen in love with a prince who could fulfill her dreams of seeing the world.”
“This is a sad love story,” I pout. “She’s not supposed to fall in love with another boy.”
“The story isn’t over.” Oshhe clucks his tongue. “The prince’s best friend was a very powerful young man looking to make his mark, and he didn’t like the girl very much. He commanded an evil witchdoctor to prove that the girl had bewitched the prince. But by the time the witchdoctor found this accusation to be false, he had stripped away her love for the prince. He didn’t stop at that, though. He took away all that was pure and kind and good in the girl. In pursuing her dreams and imagining a different life for herself, the girl had been punished.”
I stop swinging my legs and bite my lip to keep from interrupting my father again. This really was an awful story.
