by Kwame Mbalia
I stood on the back of a giant bird—a crow, I think—as big as a private jet. Its wings moved up and down with long, massive flaps that swept away the clouds we were flying through. I couldn’t even see the tips of each wing. Every now and then it cawed, a loud, shrill cry that made me flinch.
“There he is, right as rain.”
I turned—slowly—to find High John watching me from near the bird’s head. His hands were in his pockets, and he smiled, all traces of his earlier anger gone. “Surprised me, boy,” he said. “Most don’t take to Old Familiar their first go-round.”
“Familiar?” I asked, while inching closer. Baby steps. Itty-bitty baby steps.
High John squatted and patted the crow’s neck feathers. “This old man right here. Been with me for…Shoot, I don’t rightly know anymore. But he’s carried more souls than there are stars in the sky, and he’s still going strong. Ain’t that right, sir?”
Familiar cawed again, and I swallowed.
“Souls? Am…am I—?”
“Shoot, no. You just stepped outside.”
“Outside?”
“Of yourself. I had to give you a little tug, but that happens.”
“What do you mean I’m outside of myself?” I asked, once Familiar leveled out. “Where are we? Last thing I remember is you getting mad and yanking my collar.”
High John’s face grew serious. “Had to do something. Some things ain’t meant to be heard by everybody. Too many people hear a thing, and that thing takes on a life of its own.”
I shook my head. “You’re not making any sense.”
High John pursed his lips. “You called me a liar. I may be many things, boy, but a liar? Not High John. No, sir.”
“I’m sorry I said that. It’s just that—”
He ignored me and kept on talking. “You the one who’s lyin’. You supposed to be a master storyteller, right? Got all these Alkeans in a fuss ’cause of some tales you can bring to life.”
“So?”
“So you know how stories can grow and change over time. Guesses can become rumors can become legends can become reality. Let a few people think there’s hope, and all of a sudden a bad situation gets worse.” High John stabbed a finger at me, then pointed down. “Them folk, all of them on MidPass, they’re done for, boy. You’ve been blessed. Several times. Got gods over here and gods over there giving you protections and charms. Well, I’m gonna give you something, too. I’m gonna give you two gifts. The first is advice: Quit living in the past. Ain’t nothing back there that you can save.”
He looked me in the eyes as he said that, and somehow it felt like he wasn’t just talking about the Midfolk. He was talking about Eddie, too. I swallowed and looked away.
“Now, for the second.”
High John waved his hand, and like fog lifting when the sun rose in the sky, the clouds faded away into nothing. He motioned me forward, and I reluctantly inched closer and looked over the side of the giant crow.
“Sweet peaches,” I gasped.
High John grinned. “Gets me every time. Welcome to Alke, boy.”
The last wispy cloud disappeared as the world of Alke emerged like a jewel beneath us.
We were high in the air—so high my heart climbed into my throat and stayed there—and yet the different lands appeared sharp and focused, like I had zoomed in on a map. I asked High John about that and he laughed.
“That’s Old Familiar. It’s amazing what you gon’ see when you step outside yourself. Old Familiar helps with the perspective, yes he do.” He pointed at a shining golden sliver of land. “See that? That’s the Golden Crescent. Now, right behind it is where we just was, the Ridge, or Isihlangu, as they say. That thang glitters like black diamonds, boy, it sure do. Now, behind that—”
“Why’d you bring me up here?” I interrupted. My eyes were glued to an island hidden beneath charcoal-gray clouds of smoke. Every so often I thought I saw flashes, like lightning jumping around during a thunderstorm.
High John grunted. “Like I said, boy, perspective.”
“Is that MidPass?” I already knew the answer, but I needed to hear it.
“Sure is.”
“Can we get closer?”
“I ain’t bring you up here to watch them folks get harassed and stripped from their homes. I brought you here ’cause you asked how I knew. You look at that and tell me that place ain’t finished.”
My fists clenched, but I forced them to relax, and as much as I wanted to snap, to point at the burning land and scream, I didn’t. It took some effort, but I did it. Mr. Richardson would’ve been proud. “You know, Nana—my grandmother—used to tell me stories about you.”
High John preened like a peacock. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. She told me that you were the strongest of all the folk heroes, and you were a man of the people. Anytime one of us suffered, you could feel it and would be there in an instant. Comforting. Helping.”
I turned and faced him, looking him in his eye. The smile froze on his face.
“So,” I asked, “why aren’t you helping them?”
“Now look, Tristan, it ain’t that simple….”
“Are you a god or aren’t you?”
“I can’t just—”
“Are you a god or aren’t you?”
“I need to be called upon. I can’t just show up like—”
“Are you. A god. Or not?”
In a blur of motion he was standing in front of me. My shirt was in his fists and I was hoisted high in the air. “Do you think I want to see my country die?” he exploded.
His voice was crashing ocean waves and shaking earth. Old trees and Mississippi suns. Auction houses and Congo landings.
I didn’t recognize any of the images and yet I knew them all.
Old Familiar cawed at the waves of energy coming off High John’s fury. I swallowed but didn’t look away. He held me there for a second longer, my feet dangling a mile above Alke, and I didn’t doubt for a second that—outside myself or not—if he dropped me, I wouldn’t be waking up again. Then something in his face changed, and High John sighed and set me down.
“Those are my friends. You think I want to see them dragged off? My home burned and desecrated? I don’t. But if I go back there as I am right now, I don’t have a burp’s chance in a whirlwind of making a difference. You know that. Those monsters want us to fight. They snatching folk up left and right, no matter how hard John Henry swings that hammer or how many Rose and Sarah try to save. They too strong.”
He gripped my shoulder and stared at me. “That’s why I need that Story Box, Tristan. With it, I could get stronger. Way stronger.”
“How?”
“The Story Box is power, Tristan. All them tales, they’re the strength of gods. They feed us, give us energy. Why do you think Nyame hoards them? Why you think them iron monsters is hauling us all back into the belly of that monster? Power, boy! It’s all about power. You control the story, you control the narrative, you control power.”
Anansi’s research flashed in my mind. The dismantled fetterlings. The notes. The diagrams. “That’s what he was looking for…” I said slowly.
“What?”
“Anansi. He—Never mind. If these Story Boxes are so powerful, why doesn’t MidPass have one?”
High John let go of me and made a disgusted noise in his throat. “’Cause we’re the new kids ’round town. ’Cause we’re different. ’Cause the sky is up, who knows? But we don’t, and now that we have the chance to get our hands on one, I’m not giving it up.”
I shook my head. “We need it to lure Anansi—”
He grunted. “Anansi? You pinning our lives on one Alkean god? What makes you think he gonna help? What has he done so far? He down there putting out flames or fighting?”
“Are you?”
“Aw, here you go. I see.” High John took a step back. “I see. Am I helping? I AM HELPING!” He pounded his chest. “I’m trying to become as strong as them iron monsters, so I can do som
e snatchin’ of my own.”
I huffed impatiently. What more could I say to convince him to do the right thing?
High John snorted. “You wanna get closer? Okay, let’s get closer. Let’s have us a little look-see, boy.”
He snarled something I didn’t quite catch to Old Familiar, and the crow cawed once and began to turn. I thought we were going to glide down, but High John grabbed my collar again, and without another word, he stepped off the crow’s back, pulling me with him.
MY STOMACH ROSE INTO MY throat to join my heart in a town house of terror, and I closed my eyes, but before I could scream, I felt solid ground beneath my feet. I opened my eyes, stumbled a little, and almost choked.
The Thicket was burning in a bonfire the size of a mountain.
We stood in the middle of the forest glade where I’d first met John Henry. But instead of peace and tranquility, chaos and mayhem greeted us. Midfolk ran screaming left and right as patches of the thorny ceiling fell to the ground in explosions of heat and sparks. A mother was fleeing with one child over her shoulder and another holding her hand, and they zigged around a burning section of grass and came right at us. Before I could shout a warning, they dashed through me like I wasn’t there and headed for an exit in the back wall.
“What…what happened?” I asked, shaken and confused.
“You ain’t really here,” High John answered. He sat atop a fallen tree that still smoldered, studying his fingernails. “Stepped outside yourself, remember? But you wanted to look, so go ahead. Get a good look.”
“Aren’t you going to help?” I asked. Misery filled me as a group of Midfolk hustled away from the flames and into the glowing night.
“I am, boy.” He pointed high above us, where flames and smoke were being drawn through a hole in the glade ceiling. “Old Familiar is sucking up them flames as we speak. But that’s about all I got. Can’t do much in this form, and I can’t step back into myself here, ’cause that would leave you untethered. You already ain’t got much time—if you humans spend too long outside yourselves, you liable to stay that way. You don’t wanna be a haint forever, do you?”
A shiver rippled down my spine. “There’s got to be something we can do to help them,” I said. I jogged over to the people and animals crowding around an exit. A little boy dropped a cloth bundle and scampered after it, and I stooped to pick it up at the same time he did. His finger slid right through mine, and he paused to look around. Someone called him, and he snatched the bundle and scampered back to his place in line.
“Everyone out the back!” A familiar voice boomed above the chaos. John Henry strode by, the ground shaking as he cut a path through the glade. His hammer pointed toward the back wall. The symbols on its handle—adinkra, I realized with a surprise—glowed almost as bright as the fire.
“Out the back and stay with your groups!”
A faint scream cut through the night.
I looked around. There were more shrieks, and I waited to see someone rush off to help them, but no one did.
“Nobody can hear them,” I whispered. I turned around and started running before I remembered my body wasn’t physically there. The cries came again, and nobody seemed to hear them but me, not over John Henry’s roars, so I kept running.
I left the glade and plunged into the winding tunnels of the Thicket. Smoke and heat didn’t bother me in my ghostly form, so I ran on. I couldn’t see, but the screams were coming faster now, from the direction of the auditorium. When I arrived, I lunged through the wide doorway and skidded to a stop.
Two rusty fetterlings, screeching and clanking, had cornered a group of older children, like foxes herding chickens. The biggest girl was valiantly trying to ward off the monsters with a straw broom while the rest of the kids cried or screamed.
One of the fetterlings dashed forward, the shackles on its arms snapping for a boy, and I shouted, “NO!”
Before I thought about what I was about to do, and if it was even possible, I was doing it. I pulled smoke and flame from outside the hallway and shaped it into a tall man. The movements were hard to do in my current condition, like trying to walk through water. Several times I thought I’d lose the thread of the story, and only sheer effort kept it going.
Once there was a prince from Africa.
The man of fire and smoke stalked forward. The kids saw him first and begin to scream even louder. The iron monsters rattled when the man got between them and the children.
His walk was rhythm and his words were pride.
The fetterlings snapped in vain at my creation. I made him point at the children, then at the door, and the letters G-O appeared in smoke above his fingertips. A few kids recognized the word, and, with some convincing, got the rest of the group up and moving. The oldest girl kept her broom up as she hustled her companions toward the door.
The fetterlings hissed in anger, and I could barely control my movements now, but I had enough energy left for one last command.
Sold into slavery, he helped those who couldn’t help themselves.
The man of fire and smoke took two large steps forward and exploded into a vortex of heat and wind. The fetterlings were swept up and carried the length of the auditorium, until they smashed against the thorny back wall.
My legs trembled beneath me, and I began to fall over sideways, and suddenly High John was there. “Time to go, stupid boy.”
“No,” I said, shivering uncontrollably. “There’s more…we can do.”
“Come on. Any longer and you fixin’ to fade away. Look.” He pointed at my hands as he dragged me out toward Old Familiar, and I watched with growing horror as their dark brown color slowly turned transparent.
And yet…
“One…more thing,” I gasped.
John Henry was still ushering people out of the burning Thicket entrance, and I concentrated as hard as I could. I needed to get this right. I needed to…
The man of fire and smoke appeared again, and several people screamed. John Henry flinched and whirled around, hammer raised. Then he paused at the sight of the apparition floating in midair. “High John,” he muttered.
The fire man pointed at an adinkra swirling out of the flames next to him—the Gye Nyame. John Henry’s eyes narrowed at the symbol, then he nodded sharply, and I let the image disappear. I hoped he’d gotten the message.
My arm was nearly invisible now. High John picked me up and climbed into the air as if on hidden stairs. Then we were back on Old Familiar. High John spoke again in that language of dancing slaves and hidden meanings, and the giant black crow cawed and flapped into the sky.
I was colder than I’d ever been, even during the most brutal Chicago winter. My shivering wouldn’t stop, and my bones rattled. I couldn’t feel my toes or my hands, and I just wanted to lie down and sleep. My eyes closed.
“Tristan?” High John called.
“Yeah?” I mumbled.
“That man you conjured out of fire and smoke…is that how I look? Is that…is that how you see me when you tell your stories?”
I tried to answer. I tried to tell him about Eddie and how he could spin a High John tale that would rival any superhero story. About fighting injustice, and doing it with a laugh and a dance. But all I could do was close my eyes.
“Tristan? Tristan!”
“I’M DISAPPOINTED IN YOU, TRISTAN.”
I was back in the dark, moldy hallway with two torches floating alongside me. My feet walked forward automatically, and a voice slinked out of the shadows.
“Real disappointed.”
“Yeah, well, get in line,” I muttered. “Disappointing people is kind of my thing.”
More victims were chained against the walls now. Midfolk and Alkeans. They were crammed against one another and, just like last time, I couldn’t stop to try to help them—my feet moved me past until finally I arrived at that same rotted wooden door.
Inside, the old lantern hissed before the flame flickered to life, just barely. More of those blurry, shriv
eled white flowers recoiled out of the thin light, rolling to the far corner, where something moved. It was like seeing something out the corner of your eye and never quite getting a good look at it. Just a shadow, and yet something more.
Uncle C.
“I told you I’d come for you,” the haint said. He almost sounded apologetic. “I told you, and you didn’t listen. Now your precious hideout is burning, and I’m gonna hunt down all your little friends and put all their miserable hides with the rest of my collection.”
His voice lowered to a hiss that merged with the lantern’s struggling flame. “I asked for one thing. One! And you trying to play me like I can’t take everything you love. You think it’s a game? Maybe I been too lenient. Maybe you need some inspiration.”
The lantern flame finally sputtered out, and darkness flooded over me, carrying the sound of rustling and the smell of death. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and an invisible rope snaked around my arms and legs. I couldn’t get away, or move at all, and a violent wind ripped past me, snatching and grabbing at my clothes. It whipped into my eyes and swirled around my head and…
An image of Eddie scribbling in his journal popped into my mind.
Another followed—this one of him laughing at some joke I’d just made.
More scenes appeared, and they swirled around my head, just like the wind, and…
And then…
They were out of reach. I could remember…something. I could feel the empty space where the memories used to be, but everything else, the specifics…they were gone.
Except for one.
A bus crash, a feeble hand reaching for help…
“What did you do?” I whispered.
“I will end you, boy,” Uncle C hissed. “But before I do, I’m gonna make you suffer. I’m gonna rip away everything you hold dear. All the memories of your little friend? Mine now. The only picture you can cling to is of you failing to be a hero. And all them friends you made, all them gods with all their powers, they ain’t gonna help you. I’m gonna pluck your recollections out, one by one, and leave you with nothing but dusssssst.”