As I selfishly reveled in the miracles of this universe, in the delight of a new body, danger threatened at Kehinde’s back: bayonets, bullets, and a hundred furious feet. She gulped the humid air and glared back and forth between me and the watery entrance. Her deep brown flesh was torn and bleeding as her heart flooded bulging muscles with iron-rich, oxygen-dense blood. An unconscious man was balanced on the fulcrum of her shoulder. He bled from too many wounds, onto the knives, guns, water gourds, ammunition, bedroll, food, wooden stool, palm leaf umbrella, human skulls, and medicine bags that hung from a belt at her waist. She settled the man against the damp earth. She kissed his eyes, stroked his hair, and murmured to him. Foreign projectiles were lodged in his organs. He’d soon bleed himself away. Abandoning him would have improved her chances of survival, yet she had no intention of doing this. Kehinde’s spirit appealed to me at once. My body settled on a form close to hers.
She aimed a rifle at me. Later I would learn she was a sharpshooter, gbeto, an elephant huntress, a merciless killer of her enemies. In these first moments I understood the murderous device yet felt certain she would not set its lethal projectiles in motion. Too noisy, why give herself away to harm me, a naked being just coming to my senses? She could not fathom the risk I posed. Trusting me for the moment was reasonable.
I pushed her weapon aside with my still spongy cheek and bent to the suffering man. Kehinde shifted the rifle toward the cave opening and held a knife at my writhing algae hair while I ministered to him. If I knew then what I know now, I might have been able to save him. Perhaps it was better for me that I was so ignorant of human bodies. He might not have embraced a newly formed Wanderer, and Kehinde might not have become my guide. Lonely Wanderers fade back into the spaces between things or fracture incessantly until they are next to nothing.
“Kehinde,” the man groaned and reached for her. “Somso…” I covered his mouth quickly. Kehinde dripped fragrant, salty fluid onto my face, silently urging me to act, to aid the broken man. With minor core manipulations, I eased pain, calmed turmoil, and gave them a few moments to share. The man came swiftly to his senses and gripped her calf. She thrust the rifle into my hand. I grasped it clumsily and monitored the cave mouth. I doubted my resolve and my accuracy — my bones were still gooey, my muscles rock hard. She crouched down, and they passed soft sounds between them, inhaling each other’s breath. She never betrayed his last words to me, yet I’m sure he exhorted her to leave, to let him die with the hope that at least she had a chance to live. Kehinde shook her head, resisting his demand.
The people who carried her death in their minds raced again through the water outside our cave. The man heard them and clutched a blade at her belt. “Somso!” Insistent, he ground his teeth and spit this word at her, a name I would later learn. The sound made my throat ache. Someone splashed close to the entrance. Kehinde’s heart raced. The dying man nodded at her and closed his eyes.
Kehinde sucked a ragged breath. “Somso,” she said. Her hand shook as she forced her cutlass through his heart.
He did not cry out. My own heart rattled in my chest. Kehinde pressed her lips on his as blood burbled to an end. She wiped the blade on the damp ground and threw a wad of cloth toward me. Words rained down, a frothy hiss, barely audible, like steam bubbling through a hole. I understood nothing and waved the cloth at her stupidly. My new body was starving for language. I gorged on her sounds, gestures, smells; I lapped up the twists and turns of her nose and lips, swallowed the flashes of light and dark from her blinking eyes. Her expressions were tantalizing and rich, but sense would only come after more experiences. Abandoning me would have greatly improved her chances of survival. She had no intention of doing this either. I resolved to know her completely. Kehinde would be the stillpoint of my wandering on this planet.
A rash decision, but Kehinde was taking a similar foolhardy course. A storm of feet headed our way. She gripped my wrist and dragged me through the cave. We crawled on our bellies twisting and turning through a labyrinth of darkness. Kehinde hesitated at an intersection of four tunnels. She lit a lantern, whispered Somso, and chose the narrowest opening. A distant spit of light might have been illusion. Just when I thought the walls would crush us, we tumbled out into a forest.
Kehinde lurched about dropping gear: umbrella, water gourd, bedroll, and several human skulls. How she chose what to abandon and what to keep was a mystery. She explained nothing. What would I have understood? She snatched the cloth I clutched stupidly, threw it over my nakedness, and cinched it with a belt. She reconsidered abandoning two skulls and wrapped them and bags of ammunition and food around my waist on the belt. Angry voices and clanking weapons echoed in the cave. Kehinde pointed to the bright orange star sliding behind trees. I mimicked her gesture. She ran. I followed, matching her cadence, stealing some balance. Luckily a new form yields quickly to the demands of the moment, to the first experiences.
Racing through dense forest over rock-hard roots, we kept a punishing pace until the star’s bright light faded from the dome of sky. My lungs expanded, increasing their volume with each tortured breath. Indeed, my whole body strained to match the warrior woman’s. I admired the powerful limbs, muscular buttocks, and indefatigable heart that she’d had years to develop. I had a few hours of struggle and pain to match her physique. Exhaustion accumulated in my cells; torn muscles generated more strands; my feet bled new blood. The trees sang comfort to me. Birds let loose battle cries, goading me on. So many strong chemicals assaulted us. My skin, tongue, and nose burned. Dizzy, I faltered, but the rhythm of Kehinde’s breath and heart guided me through the maze of sensations. Our human pursuers could not fly across the ground as we did. Soon our sole companions were unseen animals and the wind.
We camped in cold moonlight on burnt ground. Kehinde had tools to make a fire, but resisted offering a sign of our location to her enemies, my enemies now. Nursing bloody feet, ripped muscles, and an empty stomach, I intertwined limbs under a scratchy blanket to sort and assimilate the first experiences. When Kehinde thought I was asleep, she hugged a dead tree stump and swallowed sobs. Distant creaks and rasps from the bushes made her flinch. She scanned the darkness for spies on her grief, for enemies about to attack. Pushing away from the stump, she spit and hissed, stomped intricate patterns in the dust, then obliterated them with furious swipes of a horsetail whip. She fell to her knees, threw back her head, and shuddered wordless anguish. As she forced herself back up, my eyes watered.
Spying on Kehinde felt wrong; yet, as I rehearsed her dance in the theatre of my mind, her love and anguish claimed me. I resolved to be a good witness.
My memories waiver. Coming from another dimension and manifesting in this flesh form, who would not be uncertain? This drawing is what I make of that funeral night. It was a fevered moment. Such is life on Earth.
1 The Appendix to The Chronicles offers a compendium of words and information from the Wanderer’s world for handy reference.
Guardians and Wanderers
“It wasn’t a lie,” Cinnamon whispered to the Sekou-stand-in half-smiling at her from his flower and satin fortress. “The Wanderer’s like Daddy, an artist who sorta lost his mind.”
Cinnamon stroked images of Kehinde dancing in the moonlight. The warrior woman was muscular and fierce, scary and beautiful. She was sad too, like Cinnamon, over losing someone she loved. Trees and bushes retreated from her, pulling in stalks and limbs, turning aside leaves. Animal eyes peeked from caves, nests, and prickly branches. Stars glittered above her, or perhaps a swarm of flying insects flashed fluorescent butts. Kehinde threw ample hips and brawny arms around like lethal weapons. Wide eyes were pulled into a slant by tight cornrows that covered her head in delicate swirls. Full breasts stood up on a muscular chest. Thunder thighs and big feet made a storm of dust in a rocky clearing. The drawing captured the Wanderer’s fevered vision with photographic detail but was also dreamy like those painters Sekou loved, Marc Chagall or Lois Mailou Jones. The Wanderer was a good artist
, showing how that night in old Africa had felt.
Despite the beautiful painting, it was hard to believe in an alien Wanderer writing for his life — to Sekou and now Cinnamon. Space aliens usually zoomed into big cities like New York, London, or Tokyo, and they came right now or on a distant tomorrow to conquer the world (mostly). Whoever heard of aliens going to Dahomey in 1890-something? Cinnamon looked up from the book. Opal was so embarrassed by a drug-addict son who’d maybe OD’ed on purpose that she almost didn’t have a memorial service. Cinnamon resisted doubt. Sekou always dug up cool things nobody else knew.
“Good lord, what size are you already?” Aunt Becca waved a chicken wing at Cinnamon. “You better learn to push yourself away from the table.”
“I didn’t eat much.” Cinnamon hadn’t eaten anything. Tears pounded her eyes.
Opal pulled Cinnamon aside. “Nobody wants to see that.” She scoured away tear dribble. “You promised not to be a crybaby today. Sekou wouldn’t want you crying.”
“I knew him better than you did.” Sekou wouldn’t want Cinnamon to be sad forever, still he’d appreciate a few tears. “There’s plenty he never told you.”
“Your brother was no good. That’s why he’s dead this day.” Opal poked the book. “I gotta dump that junk of his. Can’t have it around the house doing us no good.”
“The Chronicles is all true. Can’t throw truth away.” Cinnamon hugged it close. “The more I read, the truer it’ll get. Sekou got it from a weird and wonderful Wanderer.”
Opal wheezed. “Some homeless, trash-talking cokehead told Sekou that Wanderer lie ’cause —”
“No. Sekou said the Wanderer trusted him to keep several illustrated adventure, uhm, adventure journals of top, top secrets safe.”
“Don’t get wound up —”
“Can’t have it drop on somebody who doesn’t believe.” Words flooded Cinnamon’s mind from everywhere and nowhere at the speed of light, a story storm. “It’s a, a treasure, priceless. We’re talking about a Wanderer from the stars, I think, or no, wait, hold up.” The floor tilted under her feet. Her tongue tingled. “A Wanderer from another dimension, from the spaces between things, come to chronicle life here on Earth. Without me reading, the Wanderer is dust! I’m a, a life-saver.”
“Life-saver?” Opal snorted. “You wish!”
“I don’t know if the extra dimensions have stars. Anyhow we’re the Wanderer’s Mission Impossible. Only the Wanderer is like Buckaroo Banzai crossing the eighth dimension, and wait, I remember exactly: A Wanderer from different stars traveling the spaces between things. That’s it. New pages can appear anytime. Sekou made me Guardian of the Wanderer’s Earth Chronicles — if anything should happen to him.”
Opal stamped the tight-napped carpet. “Stop this motor-mouth nonsense.”
Cinnamon couldn’t stop. Consonants smashed into each other around whizzing vowels. “The Guardian should memorize The Chronicles in case the book is ever destroyed. Sekou worried about letting the ancient, marvelous Wanderer down. But, he had me as backup, with my steel-trap memory. Hear it once, remember forever.”
Opal gripped Cinnamon’s face, digging jagged nails into her cheeks. “What did I tell you ’bout lying and making up crap? You’re too old for that.”
Cinnamon slipped from Opal’s grasp. “Pages I don’t read will disappear. Sekou said we’re about to forget everything, but memory is the master of death!” Last week, standing in line for a sneak preview of a John Sayles movie, Brother from Another Planet, Sekou had handed Cinnamon The Chronicles. He didn’t say much beyond the life-and-death-Guardian bit. Cinnamon had to fill in the blanks. “The abyss beckons. Sekou said I should read to fortify my soul against Armageddon.”
“You don’t even know what Armageddon is.” Opal pressed chapped lips to Cinnamon’s ears. “Sekou was depressed and high all the time, and his baby sister was the only person dumb enough to listen to his crap.”
“I don’t see anyone from the other side of your family.” Uncle Clarence crept up on them, sniffing flowers and eyeing sympathy cards. “Sekou was no relation of theirs —”
“Sekou’s pronounced SAY-coo. And Granddaddy Aidan, Miz Redwood, and Great Aunt Iris are going to be here shortly unless they hit further delays.” Riding story-storm energy, Cinnamon lied easily. “They were supposed to come yesterday. A freak blizzard ambushed them in Massachusetts.”
Opal did a poker face; yet trial lawyer Clarence shook his head and wrinkled his nose, like lies were funky and he smelled a big one. His two grown-up sons sniggered in the corner. Their younger sister did too, and she wasn’t usually mean. Sekou claimed people got mean in a crowd, even nice people. They couldn’t help it — human beings tended to sync up with the prevailing mood. Sekou refused to hang with more than four people at a time. He hated handing his mood over to strangers. He and Cinnamon practiced throwing up shields against mob madness and other bad energy for when they might be surrounded by hostiles. Cinnamon tried to raise emergency fortifications, but sagged. Getting her shields up without Sekou was too hard. He’d left her alone, defenseless against infectious insanity.
“Miz Redwood is a hoodoo conjure woman, and she married herself an Indian medicine man.” Aunt Becca explained to her boyfriend, who was a recent conquest and not up on the family lore.
“They never got married, not in any church,” Clarence said. “Aidan is a plain ole Georgia cracker, no Indian anything —”
“Hoodoo?” the boyfriend said over him. “What? Like Voodoo?”
“Nah! Old-timey real black magic.” Becca rubbed Cinnamon’s hunched shoulders till they relaxed. “You know?”
He didn’t.
“Not Hollywood horror, not zombie black folk going buck wild.” Becca pursed her lips at Clarence and his grown kids. “They say old Miz Redwood can still lay tricks on folks who cross her.”
“Rebecca, don’t nobody believe that old-timey mess,” Opal said. “Lies and backcountry superstition.”
Cinnamon winced. Opal was syncing up with the enemy.
“When you get along to my age…” Becca’s boyfriend didn’t look old: handsome as sin, a little gray in a droopy mustache and powerful muscles pressing against the velvet shirt. “Going on strong is what you want to hear about.”
That was two on Cinnamon’s side.
“Devil worship and paganism.” Uncle Dicky took a swig from his flask. His hand was shaking. Jitters broke out everywhere in this god-fearing crowd.
Clarence wanted to hit somebody. Becca shoved a plate of chicken and gravy-soaked biscuits at him. “Eat,” she said. “Don’t nobody want to be carrying this food home.”
Opal pulled Cinnamon away. “Read your book.” She sat her in a chair by a window onto a vacant lot and hissed, “Quit telling tales.”
“Words are my shield too!” Cinnamon watched the sun head for the hills and cold fog rise off the river. A homeless man struggled with his shopping cart through dead weeds. “I know they’re trying hard to get here. Nobody better tell me they’re not.”
“Your grandparents can’t be running down to Pittsburgh for every little thing,” Opal whispered. “They’re old as the hills. You shouldn’t be calling them up and bothering them.”
“I didn’t. They just know. They’re coming to keep us company, ’cause we’re sad.”
“You’re making up what you want to happen.”
“They love us more than anybody, except Aunt Becca.” Opal didn’t deny that. “I’m their favorite grandchild.”
“Only grandchild.” Opal groaned. “How did I get stuck with a stupid optimist?” She sighed. “I’m hurting inside and out. You’re not the only Guardian swallowing a flood of tears. Sekou put a knife in my heart every day, but I miss him too.”
Cinnamon licked a bruised lip. “Sorry.”
Opal scrutinized her. “You been fighting at school again?”
“No.” Not at school. Cherrie Carswell and Patty Banks jumped her two blocks from school by the library, calling her the dyke
from the black lagoon. Cinnamon thought they wanted to be friends. They had more bruises than she did. Nobody ever wanted to be her friend.
“I better not hear about you fighting. I couldn’t take it.” Opal staggered away. “Read The Chronicles of the Great Wanderer and let me have some peace.”
“OK,” Cinnamon said.
“What is he doing out there?” The funeral director cracked a window on December chill. “Move on, man,” he shouted at the homeless man limping with his rickety cart through the next door vacant lot. “They got a shelter in East Liberty.”
“East Liberty is a long walk, Mr. Johnson,” Cinnamon said. “Specially pushing your whole life on rusty wheels. He could hobble all the way there, and the shelter might be full.”
Mr. Johnson turned from the window and scowled. Cinnamon clamped her mouth. She shouldn’t fuss at someone her mom owed piles of money to.
Mr. Johnson marched toward the casket. “The family thanks you for coming.” His voice was a soothing rumble. “Visiting hours are up in twenty-five minutes.”
“Only twenty-five? We just got here.” Clarence rolled his eyes. Opal couldn’t afford to pay for more memorial time to impress him. Nobody wanted to be here a second longer anyhow. “A budget funeral,” Clarence muttered.
“Driving a bus doesn’t pay like telling lies in court for guilty people with money to burn.” Cinnamon blurted this out fast.
Will Do Magic for Small Change Page 2
