Wings of Ebony

by J. Elle

  “You were raised to be a thinker,” he says. “Quick on your feet. No one gets one over on you, Rue. You’re stubborn to a fault. That is your determination. Your mother swore to me, raising you here in East Row would make you resourceful, protective, a thinker—a leader.”

  Sh-she said that?

  “And when you were ready, she’d bring you to me. Let you see your other home. Embrace your other half.”

  Embrace my other half…

  Embrace that I-I’m Ghizoni…

  The cuffs. I gasp. The cuffs started to respond when I whispered to the Ancestors that I am their daughter, their chosen.

  When I embraced all of who I am.

  “You are destined for greatness, Jelani. I tell you not to be sentimental, I tell you because it is true. Look at what your Ancestors have come through—that greatness flows in your veins.”

  I am greatness.…

  He pulls himself up on shaky elbows. His eyes are all fire. “If you remember nothing else, remember this…”

  Tears swallow my face. I don’t want my daddy to die.

  “Do not let the past chain you.” He grits his teeth, his words pained stutters as the poison sets in. “Make it your strength.”

  I am strength.…

  “You’re a warrior for your people—all of them—every little one without white skin. They look to you to guard them from those who would destroy them. They look to you to heal generations of pain. This is your destiny, child. I am just a mere step along the way.”

  “No, please stop.” I bury my face in his chest. “I can’t. I-I can’t.… Moms gone, you leaving me too? I-I can’t do this all alone.”

  “Rue, look around you. From East Row to Yiyo, you’re never alone.”

  “I can’t—”

  “You can. And you will.”

  I am unstoppable.…

  He plants a kiss on my forehead. The kiss of a father to his daughter.

  I hug his neck. The hug of a daughter to her dad.

  His grasp slacks and he trembles. “Our time is about up,” he groans, hunching over in pain. “The cuffs… before the wind blows all the remnants away. It’s a tricky spell, but I think I can do it.” He lies back.

  “N-not, yet, please. I-I’m sorry I couldn’t… didn’t forgive you sooner.” My voice cracks. “I-I’m sorry we didn’t have more time.” Tears dangle from my lashes and another tremor shakes his finger. “I-I’m scared. Underneath it all… I’m terrified. What if I screw this all up?”

  He presses a finger to my lips. “Greatness… power… strength. H-hold my head up and don’t let go.” I cradle my father’s head in my lap. His chest rises and falls, slower each time. He pulls back his sleeves and raises his hands like he’s commanding the very sky to answer him. He twists one around the other and golden ash fills the air, flocking to his hands like a swarm of locusts. He twists harder. Another twist and pieces of gold gather in his hands. Veins bulge from his arms as gold sweeps around us like a dust storm.

  The curve of metal slowly reform in his grasp and I gape in utter disbelief. Little by little the cuff’s pieces forge themselves back together. His chest quivers and he inhales deeply, but he keeps twisting, groaning, as if it hurts him. I look away, wishing I could say stop. But I know this is the only way.

  Why does life have to hurt so bad?

  Why do we have to learn through pain?

  Chimes fill the air as my bracelets crystallize fragment by fragment, piece by piece, back together before my eyes. I blink several more times and I’ve forgotten how to breathe.

  My father’s hands tremble. Up and down, his chest still rises and falls, steadily, but slower—much slower. I cry harder, ripped to shreds, a hurricane of relief and agony. The air clears as the last piece of the cuffs snap in place.

  His head falls limp.

  Everything is foggy. I take the cuffs and holding them again is like fresh oxygen to my lungs. I know what the Ancestors wanted. I know when I put them on this time it’ll be different. I slip them on and warm all over.

  “D-dad?” I feel his cheek and check his forehead. “T-talk to me…”

  His head thrashes. The curse has set in. I show him the cuffs, shiny and undamaged. He smiles, but his eyelids hang low.

  “O-one more thing,” he mumbles.

  “Anything.” I sniffle.

  He motions for my head, too weak to lift himself up. Confused, I lean over him. His breath is ragged, slow. He runs his fingers through the roots of my hair and latches on tight to my skull. Calm wraps around me like a fleece blanket on a chilly afternoon.

  The world goes dark.

  Cool drips pierce my skull like trickles of ice water, swelling behind my eyes as images—memories—flash like a slideshow in my mind.

  I see a tree on Christmas morning next to a stocking with my name. A plate with cookies and both my mother and father shoving me toward a floor full of wrapped presents.

  The scene dissolves and another appears.

  I see my little hands holding tight to covers and my father stepping into my room, book in hand. He kneels beside my bed and I throw my arms around his neck, grinning.

  And another.

  Moms is dancing in the kitchen in her favorite yellow robe. I see Daddy holding her around the waist, belting a backup tune. There I am playing my guitar mini broom.

  I see an auditorium of faces I don’t know and two I do. I’m dressed as Cleopatra and a camera flashes from the corner, my dad’s face behind it.

  Memories of a life I never knew flood my mind and I weep uncontrollably.

  He tightens his grip and I see him chase me around the room, waddling with kinky pigtails and a soggy diaper. He snatches me up and tickles me in the air. I see him fast asleep on the sofa with me wrapped up, drooling on his chest. I see him come home with a puppy. My eyes light up and Moms frowns. I see him teach me to drive and shoo boys away from the front step.

  Thousands of memories of the life he would have given me crash in a tidal wave of grief.

  He squeezes my hand. “I wish they could be real.”

  “Th-they are to me.” I squeeze back. “Please, stay. Please, don’t go. There was the one time I lost my tooth and thought it was a seed, so I planted and watered it for weeks.” I sob, words gushing from my lips. “A-and this one time I aced a really important math test and got an award.” I cry harder. “Another time, Momma took me to ride a horse. A real live horse.” I shake his shoulders. “Dad, please!” I shout, beating his chest. It barely rises, almost still. “Please—don’t go. I have so much I never got to tell you.…”

  “Alaya nah, ick e’bah,” he mumbles.

  “Grow stronger in the pain.”

  He smiles, brushing a hair out my face. “Spoken like a true Ghizoni.”

  “I am Ghizoni,” I say, and his smile deepens.

  The cuffs rattle on my wrists, gleaming. It’s happening.

  His eyes close and he exhales.

  The cuffs cinch tighter.

  His chest stills and the skin on my wrists burns, like the cuffs are piercing the marrow of my very bones.

  He shudders and his time spell dissolves, the world whirring back into motion. The sound of sirens wailing, people chattering, clamor for my attention. But I only have eyes for my dying father. He stares up at me and his eyes are as deep as the ocean, but still.

  He’s gone.

  The finality of it washes over me, when faint whispers play in my ear.

  Ancestors… I hear you.

  I am listening.

  Really listening.

  Something wiggles more violently. I’m so close, so close to this power I can feel it. I squeeze my eyes shut, urging my fury to dance with my pain, clutching my dead father’s robes.

  People stop and stare. I don’t care.

  “Ahhhh!” I cry out. My skin feels like it’s been set on fire and turned inside out. Moms’s stilled expression flashes in my mind, the Elders uprooting the trees, commanding the rain, my father’s dead stare, Bri
an’s blood everywhere… the memories wanna choke me. But instead, my anger erupts in flames.

  Both cuffs cinch tight and my arms shudder and shake.

  I don’t breathe.

  I can’t see.

  I bite back a scream as my cuffs melt, molten gold running down my arms like honey, hardening into a shell over my flesh. My arms glisten and voices chant in my ear, “Alaya nah, ick e’bah.”

  I am stronger. I am.

  Greatness… power… strength.

  I feel my magic there like a weight in the deepest part of myself. I reach for it and heat rushes from my center, snatched along like a string. I hold up my hands and release. What feels like a hundred lifetimes of stored energy rips through my hands, gushing like a blowtorch.

  The ground shudders.

  Thunder rolls.

  Lightning cracks.

  My magic is back.

  CHAPTER 33

  EAST ROW’S PICKING UP the pieces around me.

  I sent Aasim’s body back to Yiyo with a quick spell. People clear away trash piles and hug one another, crying. A few who were around when my magic blasted give me weird looks. But most ignore me. There’s so much chaos in repair, I’m a detail on the periphery.

  A fire engine and three ambulances sit sideways on the street. Men in hefty yellow suits wrap up hoses. Paramedics have IV drips out, bandaging people up, carting people off on gurneys. I think there’s still one police car. But no reporters, no media trucks or cameramen.

  My home was terrorized, but that’s not newsworthy, apparently.

  Not what the world is trying to see from the people around here.

  I run a finger under my sleeve, to the smooth metal seared to my arms. Moms said a second chance ain’t nothing to waste. That people who look like us, who come from where we come from, don’t get second chances. We gotta be twice as good from the start to get half what other people get. People everywhere waiting for us to fail.

  This is my second chance, and when I face the General again, it will be his last.

  A phone warms my ear, the gentle brrriinngg vibrating against it.

  “Rue?” Julius answers, voice laced with panic. “You aight? I freaked!”

  I haven’t seen him since Brian died in my arms. Never said goodbye or told him what’s up. Time wasn’t on my side then, and it’s still not. “Listen, Litto’s people rolled through East Row tonight, looting houses, burning people’s things. They tried to kill me.”

  “Shit, Rue! What you need? I can come through.”

  “Get a crew together from the block. I have a plan to take Litto down for good. Meet me at Ms. Leola’s. I have one stop to make first, then I’ll be there.”

  “Done. And Rue—” The worry is gone. Now it’s all anger. “We’re going to get these fools. Whatever it takes.”

  Whatever it takes.

  The line goes dead. What if my plan doesn’t work? What if I make a mistake, screw something up? I don’t have time to doubt. Gotta trust my instincts. I ain’t no dummy—far from it. I gotta think quick, but be smart and rely on the things I know.

  And one thing I learned from growing up ’round here—my misstep with Brian—is always have a crew and roll in deep. So if shit goes left, I got a plan B.

  I’ma make a way out of no way, like Moms taught me, but I’ma do it with a team.

  * * *

  I’m back in Ghizon in minutes, on the edge of the sea. The wind whips my clothes and hair every which way. Storm clouds loom far in the distance, but they’re moving fast. What time is it? Where would Jhamal be about now?

  I dart across the Ancestors’ burial ground, the pit where Jhamal trained, and hurry up the crooked path, beneath a cluster of black-bark trees. The pathways are empty. Everyone must be in for the night. Clusters of chakusas sit to my right, their grassy walls rustling in the wind.

  Someone shouts. Crying.

  Is that Bri?

  I really don’t have time for this.

  But the sentiment of what used to be a really close friendship has me nearing the door the sounds are coming from. She’s curled up on her bed, smoothing tears from her cheeks. A twig snaps under my step. Shit!

  Bri emerges from the hut, looking both ways. “Who’s there?”

  I stick to the shadows. I do not want to do this. I should walk away and deal with this later. I step out from the shade and she starts to rush toward me, but stops herself.

  “Rue? You’re back? What happened? A-are you okay?

  “No, but I will be. The General’s dawgs ran through East Row looting homes and terrorizing people. He ripped apart my block.”

  And killed my mother.

  The words are glue on the roof of my mouth. Somehow not saying them out loud makes it easier to function despite the hurt.

  “The call from Luke was a hoax. Tasha wasn’t taken at all. It was a way to draw me out. So the General’s men could get me. He wants the cuffs.”

  She gasps. “Conniving swera. Rue, I—”

  “I’ll deal with Luke later. Time’s short. I came back because I have a plan to take the General down. But I’m here to grab some help.”

  “I-I’m so sorry, Rue. Y-you wanna come in?”

  I cut a glance over both shoulders. No sight of Jhamal.

  “Sure.” Minutes. I can give this five minutes.

  “Look…,” she jumps right in. “I was wrong for what I said about the watch.”

  Hell, yes you were. “Okay?” I fold my arms.

  “I… this is just really hard for me.” She plops on the bed.

  Hard for her? Four minutes.

  “Imagine everything you grew up believing being a complete lie,” she says, eyes pleading with me.

  “Bri, I get that more than you realize.”

  She turns to me and there’s something there in her eyes—like a twinkle of hope. “I mean, what if we didn’t out everything publicly, but, like, worked to vote out the Chancellor?”

  Is she serious? Her three minutes just jumped to two.

  She studies my face and I guess she gathers what I think of her ridiculous attempt at bargaining about this. “Okay, it’s just so much to lay on people. Uprooting lives, I mean, that’s a lot to ask. What if maybe we do out the truth, but, like, maybe Old Ghizon could be here and New Ghizon there and we could, maybe, share the mag—”

  Okay, nope. Time’s up. “Stop. I don’t have a lot of time, so I’m going to tell you this quickly. You can’t see that what you’re saying is actually digging the dagger deeper?”

  She twists her head in confusion.

  “You don’t get it. I see you trying to work through it, but I can’t let you keep hurting me or anyone here in the process. Could you really look at those people out there and say that to their faces? After what they’ve been through? Think about that for a second. I get you’re sad. I get this is hard. But this isn’t about you, Bri. And if helping scares you or makes you uncomfortable, then fine. You are welcome to have dinner and go back home. No one’s forcing you to be here.”

  “Rue, I wanna be here. I wanna help. I do! I get that this is wrong. I hate that I never knew.… Now, I-I’m just not sure what to do, I guess.”

  “Well, these ideas ain’t it. I was actually just looking for Jhamal. If you really want to help, then fine, I’ll give you a shot to help.”

  “O-okay. I-I’m ready. Tell me what to do.”

  I leave her there with a minute to spare and spot Jhamal paces from the dining hall.

  “Jhamal!” I say, sounding a little too desperate, but he smiles and I don’t even care how I sound anymore. He bounds his African god–looking self over, shirtless with gilded armor, and I have to look away to remember what the heck I wanted to say.

  “Jelani?” he asks. “I thought you were gone. Is everything okay?

  “No, listen.” I set a hand on his shoulder and my sleeves raise. He gasps, gawking at my gleaming wrists, the moonlight glinting off their metallic surface.

  I smile but think of my dad and it f
ades. “I finally figured out how to get them to work. Anyway, I came back because I said I’d ask if I ever needed help. And I do.”

  Plates stacking and voices roar louder from the dining room window slit. “So, will you help?”

  “It is not even a question, my Queen.” He puffs out his chest, as beautiful and hard as ebony. “Tell me what to do.”

  I lead him back to Bri’s room and they sit, watching me pace.

  Another thing I learned back home is thinking ahead. I gotta think four, five, six steps ahead because the consequences for screwing up are higher for people who look like me. No more just reacting because I’m pissed. I gotta be sure I’ve thought this all the way through.

  I’ve run the plan in my head a million times. No second guessing. The key to taking all of them down is bringing his dirty work to light. We need evidence.

  “I need a recorder type device,” I say to their inquisitive stares. “Something that can record and play it back as a hologram.”

  “A phototrifiter,” Jhamal and Bri say at the same time. They look at each other, equally surprised.

  Bri talks first, as usual. “It’s basically a thin pin that you activate and it’ll record a 360 visual feed of everything happening in a ten-meter radius. Pretty simple to make. I have the stuff in my dorm.” She slips her glasses back on, jotting down something on a notepad. “I’d want to attach some sort of cloaking spell so—”

  “So you have them?” I interrupt.

  Jhamal bristles at her talking about using a spell. I should have warned him.

  “Or”—Jhamal cuts in way more dramatic than he needs to—“you could just take a phototrifiter from here. We make them with auto-invisibility cloaking”—he looks Bri up and down—“ourselves.”

  “Automatic cloaking?” Apparently making these things is a big deal because her mouth is wide open. “Y-you can do that?”

  Jhamal nods.

  “Wowww.” Bri’s used to being the know-it-all. Color fills her cheeks. “I-I didn’t even know those types of capabilities existed.”

  “We also have nanosynthesizers”—he says, flipping a silver gadget from his pocket—“that work by magic. We’ve warped the frequencies to emit tiny bits of transmitter spells.…”