by Kwame Mbalia
“Sooo,” I started to say, but I stopped when the globe pulsed sharply. It was reacting to my voice. I looked at it, then up at the plat-eyes, then back at the orb. “No way,” I muttered. The sphere transformed into Anansi’s face, and he winked at me before it immediately reverted to the globe. “Fine.”
I took a long, deep breath and stepped off the stage and down to the dance floor. Slowly, and I mean very, very slowly, I walked over to the two plat-eyes. They stamped their hooves nervously and snorted giant spouts of steam, but they didn’t attack. I edged closer and held out the phone.
“Okay,” I said, looking between the two of them. “I’m here. I’m listening. What are you trying to tell me?”
The golden sphere contorted and expanded as the plat-eyes in oxen form began to snort and stamp and bellow. The icon stretched and unfolded, and shapes appeared from the tangled mess. The shapes became houses and trees, people and creatures, and I watched as MidPass came to life on the screen. This is the story the plat-eyes told:
Once a brother and sister lived with their father on a small farm. When their father traveled for work, they did as most children are wont to do when their parents are away—they played games, sang songs, and tried not to make too big of a mess. Every day, the father would come home and sweep them into his giant arms and march around the farm telling them stories and tickling them until they thought their sides would split. It was a wonderful time, but such times must always come to an end.
The brother and sister had an uncle—a close friend of their father’s, really, but he was always around, so that’s what they called him. He and their father were pals from way back, the kind of friends who knew what the other was thinking without it ever being said. The two friends would sit on the front porch of the farmhouse long after the brother and sister were supposed to be in bed, and talk in low voices about the state of the world and the trouble on the horizon. They would make plans, emergency steps they hoped would never be necessary, and sit quietly afterward until Uncle flashed a gentle smile, clapped their father on the back, and headed off into the forest.
Brother and Sister thought nothing of it. They played games beneath the forest canopy, sang songs by the stream, and tried not to make too big of a mess.
One afternoon Brother thought he heard screams coming from deep in the forest.
One morning Sister thought she smelled smoke drifting through the trees.
They never told their father about these things, because they didn’t want to worry him. They wanted his stories and his laugh and his threats of tickles, not his fear and sorrow. So they ignored the growing unease in the forest and did what children do.
They played games.
They sang songs.
They tried not to make too big of a mess.
Then Uncle stopped coming around. Brother and Sister missed his easy smile, the way he let them ride his reddish-gray tail as he marched around pretending to look for them. Their father missed him, too. He grew moody and distant, and at night he would stand on the porch and stare into the darkness. Brother and Sister tried to cheer him up by playing and singing, but each day it took more and more to pull their father out of his depression.
He left one morning as he always did, off to search for something. He never found it, but he was always looking. Brother and Sister didn’t know what it was exactly, only that it was special, precious, and something a lot of people were after.
The fires swept through the forest that afternoon.
And with them came the monsters.
When the smoke cleared, Brother and Sister waited and waited for their father to come home. They wanted him to sweep them up in his giant furry arms and tickle them with his massive paws. They wanted to play and to sing, but for some reason they couldn’t.
Father finally came home, tired and hoarse from shouting, his shaggy fur smoking and his eyes watering. Brother and Sister tried to talk to him, but he couldn’t see them. His eyes passed right over them. He couldn’t hear them, either, no matter how loud they shouted. His paws brushed right through them. What was the matter? Why couldn’t he find them?
They watched him sit and shed tear after tear, and Brother and Sister cried with him, though he couldn’t hear their sniffles. They watched day after day as he searched for them, calling their names, even though they were right there.
Father started talking to himself. Muttering about a boy who could talk to spirits, a boy who saw the living and the dead. A boy who ripped a hole in the sky, who made friends with gods and enemies of evil. A boy who brought the monsters to the forest, and who’d taken everything. He wanted to find that boy, to shout and scream and ask him why, why couldn’t he find his children.
Brother and Sister wanted to find the boy, too.
He could help them talk to their father.
I let the arm holding the SBP drop to my side and stared at the plat-eyes. They were…they had to be the brother and sister in the story. They’d suffered so much. Lost so much. And they’d been trying so long just to get their father to see them, to understand that though they were spirits, they were still here. That was their mission, their reason for hanging around.
And I could help them accomplish it.
There were just two big problems standing in my way. First, their father blamed me for their loss. To be honest, I could understand why. I did punch a hole in the sky, letting a haint into Alke, and riling up the iron monsters and the Maafa that controlled them. Yes, I had fixed my mistake (with help from others), but it had cost a lot of people dearly.
The second problem was I knew who their father was—the Shamble Man. But you saw that coming. What you probably didn’t see coming is that I knew who was underneath the mask. And from the way Anansi’s adinkra was burning my wrist, he was on his way. In fact, any second now—
BOOM!
The back of the juke joint shook as something massive landed on the roof. The plat-eyes vanished, the frightened expressions on their faces the last thing I saw. Giant footsteps shook the foundation as they marched toward the front of the building. A heavy thump sounded just outside the door. I took a step forward and tried to calm my nerves in preparation to meet my nemesis.
See, I’d recognized someone in the plat-eye siblings’ story. I’d know that reddish-silver tail anywhere. It was Brer Fox, though when I’d met him he just went by Fox. Which meant the Shamble Man was…
WHAM!
The double doors exploded inward as a huge foot kicked them in. Junior yelped and hurled a stone, only to fling himself to the ground when a paw batted it back at him. The Shamble Man stepped through the dust. His iron-monster armor had the fading glow of cooling coals. I barely noticed. Instead, I studied the profile of the villain who’d kidnapped Nana, kidnapped Mami Wata, and stolen the weapons of the gods to do who knows what. How could I not have recognized him before? His hood had been pulled low, sure, and his fur was missing in patches. The armor covered up a lot, but now that I had seen the story, his demeanor seemed unmistakable.
“Little hero, grum grum. We meet again.”
I squared my shoulders and looked straight into the twisted amber mask, and the bloodshot eyes behind it.
“Hello, Brer Bear.”
IN NANA’S STORIES, BRER BEAR WAS A HULKING ANTAGONIST TO Brer Rabbit. He was the muscle for Fox’s conniving plans, the one who stood in the background and growled or gnashed his teeth as needed. He never really acted of his own free will. An enforcer, that’s what he was. And, like all the larger foes that Brer Rabbit faced, Bear often ended up on the wrong side of the story.
Most of the time Nana would end the stories with Brer Rabbit escaping, Fox and Bear made to look like fools once again. But sometimes—and I loved when this happened—she would raise her hand before I could move from my seat at the foot of her rocking chair. My parents had bought that chair just for her visits, and the creak, creak, creak of the wood as she rocked to and fro was like music to my ears. She’d lean forward, hand raised, and a look wo
uld cross her face.
“Just a minute now, boy,” she’d say. “I ain’t finished just yet. There’s more to this here tale.”
And so I’d stay, and Nana would stare off at nothing and gather her thoughts, pulling them together just as her knitting needles pulled yarn into a growing blanket.
After one tale about Brer Rabbit, Fox, and Bear, she said, “You ain’t always gonna be able to outwit everyone who wants to take you down a peg. Can’t talk your way out of everything, can’t outsmart everybody. One day, someone bigger, stronger, and faster is gonna test your limits. You hear me, child?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her needles clicked and her rocking chair creaked. “You’d better. Because right or wrong, you gonna be tried and tried again, and the Brer Bears of the world will hound you from one corner of the earth to the other. They have the power and the strength and the stamina to do it. Whether it’s with laws or water hoses, they will do it. Never forget that.”
I remember watching Nana, her eyes trained on something long past, before she turned to me and said fiercely, “Do you know how to fight against somethin’ like that, somethin’ that knocks you down and tells you to stay down if you know what’s good for you? Do you know how to beat that?”
I shook my head, silent.
Her golden quilting needle pointed at me, and Nana leaned forward.
“You get. Back. Up.”
Boom tiss boom tiss rat-a-tat-tat
Boom tiss boom tiss rat-a-tat-tat
The enchanted drumsticks tapped out a soft rhythm as the confrontation unfolded. Background music to a showdown that scared the living daylights out of me. Dust still drifted in slow swirls from the destroyed doorway, and the lights flickered every couple of seconds. I stood on one side of the dance floor, Ayanna and Junior on either side of me, and Bear loomed over us even from across the room. Moonlight spilled around his frame to give him an otherworldly glow. At least he hadn’t brought John Henry’s hammer.
He took a step forward out of the light, and his lopsided amber mask shifted.
Bear was smiling.
“Clever little hero. Thinks he figured it all out. Give him a medal, grum grum.” He brought his massive paws together twice in feigned applause, and I swallowed as light glinted off his claws. Each was the size of one of my fingers and looked frighteningly sharp.
“I don’t want to fight you,” I said slowly. I was proud of the way my voice didn’t quaver. “I know what you’re looking for. Let me help you. You don’t have to do whatever it is you’re thinking about. We can work together and—”
Bear’s laugh boomed around the room, nearly shaking the floor. His fetterling armor rattled and clanked as he grabbed his stomach and threw back his head. I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists.
“Just stop this!” I shouted. “I know you’re looking for your two chil—”
“Move, fool!” yelled Gum Baby.
If she hadn’t warned me, I would’ve been pulverized. Bear’s movements were lightning fast, unfair for a creature of his size. With a lunge I only saw in a blur, he crossed the dance floor with a loud snarl. A single shaggy paw, with hullbeast armor fitted around his arm, crashed into the floor where I’d been standing moments ago. I guess he didn’t need the hammer. I dove to the right, rolling over several times and knocking over chairs in the process, my heart in my throat.
Gum Baby flipped into the air, hurling sap ball after sap ball at the mask, but Bear batted them away easily with the backs of his paws, where the fetterling armor was thickest. She tried to scamper away, but she’d gotten too close to him. Bear kicked her across the room and she bounced twice and skidded out through the broken doorway. Then, with both front paws, he slapped the floor again in rage.
“YOU WILL NOT SPEAK OF THEM!” Bear roared.
My chest pounded as I rolled to my feet, my fingers itching to curl and bring forth the akofena shadow gloves. But he didn’t press the attack. The hulking giant slowly stood on his hind paws again, bits of the splintered wooden floor sprinkling the ground as he did. His mask rippled as a black shadow swam across it, catching my eye and making me pause. There was something familiar….
“Do not,” he said slowly, wresting my attention away from the mask, “speak of them. You do not have that right. You may have deceived the others, grum grum, but I know what you truly are.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“Tristan…” Junior said in warning. I looked at him, and he made a Calm down motion. But I wasn’t the one attacking people! I began to tell him that, but Bear cut me off.
“You’re a coward,” Bear sneered. “A traitor. A betrayer.”
I shook my head, anger pushing its way past the fear in my chest. “Says a god of MidPass. I’m not the one who attacked his friends and is kidnapping others in this world and outside of it! You’re the traitor. Do you know what you did to John Henry? He is dying!”
A small sob sounded. Ayanna had both hands covering her mouth as she stared at me in disbelief. She turned to Junior, who nodded slowly. “What do you mean, dying?” She looked at Bear, tears welling up in her eyes. “You attacked your friend?”
“Everything I do is for the good of Alke.” There was a note of sadness in Bear’s voice, but it was soon drowned out as he thumped the hullbeast chest plate, the echo of it syncing eerily with the enchanted drums. “I carry her enemies so she doesn’t have to shoulder the burden.”
“I defeated those enemies!”
“You cowered in fear as your friends were attacked mercilessly,” Bear said. He leaned forward. “Was it you who defeated this creature, or was it a magical ax? When flames devoured MidPass, did you carry the weak and the sick across the Burning Sea? Who enraged the monsters in the first place? Where were you when MidPass needed you most? Hmm? WHERE?”
His questions ate away at my core, robbing me of my anger and leaving me shaken. “I tried—”
“You failed.” Bear spat the words out like poison. “And we all suffered as a result.”
A soft groan floated in from outside. Gum Baby? I wanted to check on her, but I couldn’t see a way to get around the armored god. And neither Anansi nor the SBP were going to be of any help now. Unless…
An idea sprang into my head. The SBP was in the pocket of my shorts, and I let my left hand drop to tap the phone through the fabric. In response, I heard a couple of muffled words I probably shouldn’t repeat.
“When the other gods catch you,” I said loudly, raising my fists, “you’ll suffer some more. It’s only a matter of time.”
Bear scoffed. “Those fools are too busy holding a pointless summit, squabbling over who is in charge of what, like mice over crumbs. Without his hammer John Henry is toothless and dying the slow death of the forgotten. Your crow-loving bumpkin High John has disappeared again, and even if he were here, he wouldn’t lift a finger to help an Alkean—he and Nyame argue all day long. And I will pluck your winged goddesses clean if they so much as flap a feather in my direction. No, little hero, you’re on your own, grum grum.”
“He’s not alone,” Ayanna said, raising her staff.
Junior groaned and muttered, “Here we go again,” but still he withdrew two stones from his satchel, one in each hand. They stood shoulder to shoulder with me. At that moment it didn’t matter if my wrist was injured, if I couldn’t use all the adinkra charms, or even if the odds were against us. They had my back and I had theirs. That’s what mattered.
Then Bear turned to look at Junior.
The boy wouldn’t meet his eyes. Junior held his stones at the ready, but he kept shifting his weight, bouncing first on one foot and then the other, as if he were nervous. As if he didn’t want to look at Bear full-on out of fear. Fear that—
“I know you,” Bear rumbled. The mask tilted as Bear studied Junior. “Yesss, I believe I do.”
I took a step forward. “Leave him alone. You’re dealing with me right now.”
The mask turned to me, then back to Junior, and�
�to my surprise—Bear started to laugh. “He doesn’t know. The little hero, grum grum, the know-it-all, has no idea. Even with the eyes of the gods, he can’t see what’s plain in front of his face. Oh, well. Soon it won’t matter at all.”
What was he talking about? I looked at Junior for a clue, but he avoided my gaze, too.
Frustration and anger spiked through me, and I pointed at the hulking god-turned-traitor. “We’ve stopped all your flunkies. Kulture Vulture. Big Big. We can stop you, too.”
Instead of shouting like I thought he would, Bear sighed. “I came here hoping you would. Your grandmother said as much to me.”
I froze.
Nana.
“She had such high hopes for you. But if you cannot discern enemies from friends, I see she was mistaken. We all were. You are a boy pretending to be a man, waving around the powers of the gods with no idea of what to do next. So it is. So it shall remain.” Bear started to pivot to exit the juke joint.
Stung, I clenched both fists, not caring about the pain in my wrist. “That’s it? You’re just going to turn your back on all the damage you did, just like before? You don’t care about anyone but yourself! Did you even mourn Fox? Or Brer Rabbit?”
He stopped in his tracks.
The SBP vibrated against my thigh. Anansi understood what I was trying to do. Now all I had to do was stall. If I could keep Bear talking, maybe, just maybe, the other gods would come and help take down one of their own. From the look Bear turned on me, a baleful scowl practically glowing from behind the mask he wore, stalling might be my last resort.
“What did you say?” His voice, though soft, rumbled like a muscle car getting ready to accelerate. “What…did you just say?”
“I said, what about Brer Rabbit and Fox? Your friends. You all used to—”
The giant grizzly exploded across the dance floor, one massive paw lifting me off the ground by the throat and slamming me against the wall behind me, driving the breath out of my lungs and causing pain to shoot through the back of my skull. Ayanna screamed, and Junior was knocked aside by Bear’s other paw. The enchanted drum set toppled over at the impact and the furniture shuddered, as if unwilling to witness what was about to happen next.