by Kwame Mbalia
I checked out the rest of them and tapped yes on the few I thought wouldn’t immediately imperil the world as we knew it. I hoped.
“There. That should do it. Now will you please help?”
Anansi flexed his fingers, stretched his six legs, and then dropped into a seated position and began pulling glimmering spiderwebs from his pants pockets. “At last, some tools. Okay, then. Let’s see what we can do.”
The camera app opened, went black, then infrared, and then bright silver. I winced and turned away. When I looked again, the searing light had faded and been replaced by a glittering cloud that drifted around the screen.
“Is that a filter?” I asked. “Like, for selfies?”
“Selkies are a different mythology.”
“Not selkies…You know what? Never mind.”
“Good. Now, show me where you heard someone,” Anansi said. His voice came through the earbuds with a musical lilt, full of laughter and mischief. It filled me with a sense of joy. I shook my head, then glared at him. Just what sort of permissions had I granted?
He flapped a hand at me, and I rolled my eyes and aimed the phone’s camera lens. The glitter on the screen drifted away, leaving a few bright outlines scattered about, and I gasped.
Anansi’s eyes widened and he gave a low whistle. “Well, I’ll be…”
“Anansi,” I asked slowly, “why are there ghosts in my grandparents’ barn?”
SEVERAL TRANSPARENT FIGURES HOVERED ABOUT. THE FIRST—a girl—might’ve been my age or a little older, but not by much. Her clothes were like nothing I’d seen before. She wore pants that billowed at the bottom with a wide flourish, ending at her bare feet. Her hair was plaited into small micro-braids that fell past her shoulders; shimmering wire had been woven into each braid, making them look like rippling waves every time she moved her head. She was by far the brightest of all the ghosts. Almost a beacon. Her eyes roamed the room, and she seemed keenly interested in everything inside the barn.
The other ghosts were an old badger whose fur would probably be just as silver without the SBP’s filter, a human mother and father standing close together, a small child hanging on to their legs, and a teenage brother and sister. All of them looked scared.
“Where did these ghosts come from?” I asked Anansi.
“Not ghosts, boy—spirits. You know better. At least I’d hoped so, but you’ve disappointed me before.” Anansi dropped into a squat on the SBP’s screen to study the first spirit more closely. “And I think—no, I know—that this one is not ordinary.”
“There are ordinary spirits?”
“Yes. Run-of-the-mill haints and spooks. Souls lingering due to unfinished business or because their deeds are keeping them from passing on, and some because they need assistance from the living. But other spirits have a greater purpose.” Anansi looked out at me. “Your friend on the bus was one of those, from what you told me.”
Eddie, my dead best friend, had consistently tried to warn me that Anansi was trying to trick us all, and he’d done it while King Cotton, an evil haint, was holding him hostage. Friends, man. How many of us have them?
I swallowed the ball of sadness trying to lodge itself in my throat and nodded at the current spirit of the day, the brightest girl. “So, you’re saying we have to figure out who she is and what brought her here?”
“Oh, I know who she is.”
“You do?”
“Of course. She’s an Alkean river spirit.”
Was it my imagination, or did the girl stiffen when Anansi said that?
I nodded. “Of course. That makes perfect sense. So, how does—WAIT, WHAT? From Alke?”
Anansi nodded. “In fact, I’d say—yes, I’m pretty positive all of them are from Alke.”
From Alke. The realm of stories where Black folk heroes and African gods coexisted—peacefully now, I hoped. The spirits were from Alke…. That statement knocked loose all my thoughts, and I tried to grab them and put them back in order. How could they be from Alke? We’d closed the hole between the worlds. Had it reopened? What else was slipping through?
Suddenly, as if my thinking about it had drawn her attention, the river spirit turned her head and looked straight at the camera. Like she knew I was there. I recognized her expression immediately. It had been on the faces of the Midfolk when they were being harassed by iron monsters in MidPass. It was on the sky god Nyame’s face when he had described watching the people of the Golden Crescent being snatched away. The same expression had crossed the faces of the people of Isihlangu when the hullbeast had crashed through the doors of their mountain fortress and sent a swarm of brand flies to hunt everyone down. Oh, I knew that expression well.
Terror.
He’s coming!
Help!
So these spirits were the ones I’d heard when I was fighting. “Anansi,” I said slowly, then paused and licked my lips. “What would send spirits fleeing from Alke to this world? And how can they even travel here? Didn’t we close the hole in the sky?”
The spider god stood and folded his arms. He looked troubled. “I’m afraid I don’t have the answers. But whatever’s driving them must be terrible indeed.”
I studied the spirits. The brother and sister clutched each other, cringing every time a living person passed through them. The badger had floated to the back of the barn, moving behind a stack of empty buckets to hide. Fear had driven them here…but fear of what?
“Tristan—” Anansi began, but I cut him off.
“Isn’t there something we can do? Call the gods in Alke? Slide into their DMs?”
The spider god shook his head. “What you’re asking…it’s not impossible, but it’s pretty close. And dangerous. Really dangerous. Once you open a connection, it stays open. And who knows who might pick up on the other end. No, I don’t think so. And even if I wanted to, which I don’t, I don’t think I have the power to do it, not while stuck in this phone, anyway. Also, what’s a DM? And why wouldn’t someone just walk into it? Is sliding necessary? Flip-flops aren’t the most athletic of footwear and, well, I have many legs, so…”
I zoomed out with the camera and as I did, another spirit materialized—a tall man. His faint outline wavered, but I could still see that he was holding a small child in his arms. I bit my lip. I had to do something. They’d all been drawn here for a reason—maybe it was the SBP or me, as an Anansesem. Whatever the case, I had to help them.
“We have to do something. Anansi, please—”
Suddenly, the camera app closed. The SBP began to vibrate, jostling Anansi off his feet and sending him falling head over six heels. Then the home screen reappeared.
A new app icon bloomed into view in the lower right of the screen: a black-and-ivory square with rounded edges and a silhouette of two people in the middle.
“‘Contacts,’” I read aloud, confused. Then the realization hit me. It was a directory. I stared at it, slightly afraid, but also excited. The phone had never done that before. It was as if it had heard my needs and instantly created an app that would help me accomplish them. I love technology.
Anansi stared at the icon suspiciously. “Tristan, I don’t think you should—”
“Too late,” I said as I tapped it. The screen shimmered and faded to black until it looked as if Anansi were standing in empty space. Words swirled across the top of the screen.
Enter the name of video call recipient.
I quickly typed in the first person who came to mind.
Anansi groaned. “Not him,” he said, but the letters were already swirling and rearranging.
I took a deep breath and propped the phone on a loose board on the ground outside the barn. After a few seconds, a grand dining hall appeared on the screen. An incredibly long table stood in the middle, surrounded by elegant wooden chairs with beautiful images engraved on the backs. Golden statues lined the walls, and I squinted to see if I recognized any of the figures, but it was dark, like nighttime.
And there, at the head of the empty t
able, sat the largest man I’d ever seen. Even sitting down he seemed to fill the screen. He wore the same overalls I remembered, but the buckles were made of beaten gold, and underneath he wore a white shirt also trimmed in gold. He was bald and his dark skin gleamed even in the low light. At his feet, leaning against the edge of the chair, rested a mighty hammer, nearly as tall as I was, with a shining metal head and a carved wooden shaft. And yet…there was something off about the whole scene.
Bags under his eyes, head propped in one hand, his other fingers tapping on the armrest of the chair.
John Henry, leader of the gods of MidPass, looked tired.
I’d just opened my mouth to greet him when—
“What do you want?” he snapped.
My jaws clamped shut. I’d never heard him like this. Had I interrupted something important? I started to apologize when I saw Anansi waving at me out the corner of my eye. He was crouched in the very bottom right of the screen, holding a finger over his lips and shaking his head. Don’t speak, he mouthed.
I frowned. I was about to ask him what was wrong when John Henry looked up.
“I said,” the giant folk hero said in his unmistakable rumble, anger coloring his voice. “What. Do. You. Want?”
Before I could stammer out a response, the screen rippled. Someone else was in the hall with him. Heavy footsteps sounded, and then a metal-covered arm entered the screen. A clawlike finger pointed at John Henry. I gulped. Waves of…wrongness radiated from that hand. I couldn’t explain it. But John Henry seemed to know whoever it was.
Then the shadowy figure spoke.
“You know what has to be done.” That voice. Something between a hiss and a roar. It was filled with pain…barely repressed, raw, and scalding. As if every word hurt. It was so awful, even John Henry winced at it.
“And I’ve told you that’s impossible. Foolish, I reckon.”
A low growl rumbled through the hall. “What is foolish, grum grum, is to let ourselves be chained like this. At any moment, what happened to us before could happen again. We need to take steps to prevent it. Already the whispers are starting. The ancestors and spirits are fleeing.”
Ancestors and spirits fleeing? I looked at the barn. Could it be?
“We must act,” the voice continued. “Unless…you’d rather see us burn again.”
CRACK!
John Henry’s massive hand had slammed down on the table. The echo filled the room and rattled my eardrums. He leaned forward, a furious expression on his face, but I also saw the exhaustion in his eyes. Wrinkles at the corners. He was dead tired, and whatever they were discussing had obviously been the source of many arguments in the past. He slid back his chair, stood up, and put his hands on his hips.
The shadowy figure came closer to the table, their cloak obscuring their features. Whoever it was, they were large. Very large. A hand reached out and touched the back of the chair where John Henry had been sitting.
The one his hammer was resting against.
An alarm sounded in my mind. I opened my mouth to yell a warning, but again Anansi held up a hand. Curiosity was written all over his face. I hesitated, then bit my lip and settled back to watch.
“You know it’s true, grum grum. The fate of our world, our very lives, was left in the hands of an impostor. A charlatan. And he did not get the job done. What happened before can happen again. And while he flew away, reaping all the glory, you and I had to fight to rebuild and keep our people together.”
Impostor? Did he mean Anansi? But we had gotten the job done. We’d closed the tear between the worlds. I looked at Anansi, but he seemed just as confused as I was.
John Henry was shaking his head. “I understand your pain, friend, truly I do. But what you’re asking…I reckon it’s not time for that. Don’t rightly know if it ever will be.” The massive folk hero turned around in a circle and scratched his scalp. “Something else has been bothering me, though….”
The shrouded figure raised one hand, as if in mock confusion. “Oh? Grum grum, what could bother the mighty John Henry? The steel-driving man, isn’t that what they call you?”
I didn’t like the tone in the growly voice, and the alarms going off inside my mind grew louder. Anansi put a finger to his lips to keep me quiet. Was he trying to identify the stranger?
“Well,” John Henry said with a drawl, “we’re on the highest floor of this here palace, protected by my powers and those of Rose and Sarah. Even old Nyame put his wards in place. Them statues? The sky god had them set up to alert me, in case something evil comes outta that sea again.” He faced the visitor. “And you know what’s strange? Ever since you stepped in here, every single one of them has been screaming in my ear.”
The folk hero leaned forward, his palms out and an odd expression on his face. Hurt? Betrayal?
“What have you done?” John Henry asked.
The other person’s hand fell, and a heavy sigh sounded. For one second I thought it was a sign of remorse.
The leader of MidPass must’ve thought the same thing, because he lifted his hands to his face, exhaustion still weighing on him.
And at that moment, the shadowy hand moved to the handle of the hammer.
That’s when I realized how wrong I was.
The only remorse that mysterious figure had was for what they were about to do.
The stranger’s hand lifted the hammer high in the air, and the cloak’s hood slipped off for the first time. I could see the head clearly…and I wished I hadn’t. What I’d thought was armor, or a metal of some sort, was even worse. I’d seen it before, in Alke. And more recently, in my nightmares. Every night.
It was the snarling head of an iron monster. A bossling.
“JOHN HENRY!” I screamed.
The giant folk hero flinched, then looked up. His eyes met mine. “Tristan?”
A growl ripped through the phone’s speaker and I realized I shouldn’t have drawn John Henry’s attention. I’d distracted him. Left him vulnerable. His head was turned, and now—
The monster swung the hammer down in a vicious arc, and the screen went black.
“TRISTAN? YOU ALL RIGHT, BABY?”
He’s coming.
Bosslings. Fetterlings. Brand flies. Hullbeasts.
He’s coming.
I couldn’t see the spirits, but their voices were still ringing in my head, swirling around my worry about John Henry. Was the big guy okay?
“Tristan?”
He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming. Beware, beware, he’s coming. The Shamble Man is coming. The Shamble Man. THE SHAMBLE MAN!
“TRISTAN!”
I looked up. Nana stood in front of me, a flour-dusted apron hanging around her neck and both hands on her hips as she waved a dough-covered spatula at me. I sat at the old wooden table in the kitchen, the SBP facedown in front of me and the smell of baking rolls in the air. A sheen of sweat gleamed on Nana’s brow from the combined heat of the oven and the summer day.
“Sorry, Nana,” I said. “What’d you say?”
“Hmph. I saaaid, are you all right? You sitting there like you done lost your puppy.” Nana squinted at me over her glasses before she turned back to the rolls rising on the counter. She checked them, then opened the oven and slid the pan next to the two other trays browning inside. The smell washed over me and my stomach grumbled. Nana snorted. “At least your appetite is acting normal. I’m over here telling you this story, and you ain’t even listening.”
I’d asked Nana to help me document more stories. You know, so I could do what I was supposed to do as an Anansesem. Whenever she thought of a good one, I’d grab a seat and turn on the Listen Chile app and record our culture. It felt good to do that, you get me? Like I was helping to keep our history alive.
Unfortunately, the events of the last hour had me shook. Literally. My hands fumbled with the phone as I tried to pause the recording app.
“I’m sorry, Nana, which one were we doing?”
My grandmother started rolli
ng out another batch of dough and pursed her lips. “Anansi and the moon. The one where his sons saved his behind after his mouth ran up a check it couldn’t cash. Trouble Seer, Road Builder, River Drinker, Skinner…Now, what were the names of those last two boys of his?”
As Nana muttered to herself, my mind wandered again. The Shamble Man. It sounded like someone straight out of my nightmares. I shuddered. Was that who had attacked John Henry…? How was I supposed to help? What could I do?
“Stone Thrower and Ground Pillow, that’s it. Hey! You woolgatherin’ again?” A piece of dough hit my forehead and I blinked. Nana was staring at me, a larger ball of the floury stuff in her hands. “What’s wrong with you? Thought my grandbaby would be happy, putting that huge boy on his behind like that. Walter sure ain’t stopped crowing about it. And if he don’t get in here and help me with this meal, I’m gonna put him on his behind.”
That brought a smile to my face. We were hosting Reggie and his team along with some of the neighbors for dinner, a friendly get-together for a (not so) friendly sparring match. Roasted chicken, rolls, vegetable lasagna for vegetarians, and Nana’s famous and award-winning key lime pie for dessert. It should have been the highlight of the day. But…
My smile faded, and the anxiety returned.
Was John Henry okay? Who was his attacker? The image of the bossling clutching the hammer in its shackle hands sent shivers down my spine. The rusted-iron color, the jagged maw…I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to slow my breathing.
The table creaked, and when I opened my eyes, Nana sat across from me, concern on her face.
“You got something you need to talk about?” she asked.
I hesitated. What could I say? The magical world that I’d brought to the brink of disaster and then saved might be in trouble again? And I felt powerless to help?
“Tristan?”
I took a deep breath. “I…I’ve been having bad dreams, Nana. Really bad. About…something that happened before, and I guess I’m scared it might happen again.” That wasn’t exactly a lie. A generalization, maybe, but it was still true.