by Kwame Mbalia
I WOKE TO THE SMELL OF PANCAKES AND BACON.
I don’t know why, but that fact made me angry. Those smells were for normal people. Ordinary kids could wake up and grab a plate while avoiding adults who were chatting and laughing and pouring their coffee, then sneak their way to the couch to watch Saturday morning cartoons.
Not me.
Bzzzt bzzzt
The SBP vibrated on the nightstand next to me, but I ignored it.
I rolled over on the mattress only to stop and let out a grunt of pain when my heavily bandaged ribs protested the change. I opened my eyes, glared at the bright sunlight spearing in through the bedroom window, and shoved my head under the pillow.
Someone knocked on the doorframe. “Heard you moving around. You all right?”
Granddad.
I removed the pillow. He wore his traditional work clothes—denim overalls with a cotton T-shirt underneath, and, sticking out of a side pocket, a faded brown bandanna for mopping his forehead. But there were new additions as well. His head was bandaged, as was his left arm, and he walked with a wince and a limp. He had a plate balanced in each hand, one heaped high with pancakes and the other holding a couple of slices of cantaloupe and a mug.
“Yeah. I mean, yes, sir. I’m all right.”
He nodded, though his eyes lingered on my bandages as I carefully sat up and pushed back the covers. “Good. Was gonna bring your breakfast in, but if you’re up, I’ll leave it on the kitchen table for you.” He turned to go.
“Hey, Granddad?”
He looked back at me.
“How is she? Nana, I mean. Is she…?”
I stopped talking when Granddad’s shoulders slumped a bit. He didn’t answer for a second, then turned his head away. I could still see one eye glistening. “No change, really. Made her favorite breakfast. I’m gonna sit with her for a while.”
Bzzzt bzzzt
His eyes dropped to the phone, then looked at me, and I braced for a lecture about it. But…Granddad didn’t say anything except “Come on out when you’re ready” as he moved on.
“Okay,” I said. I slumped back onto the bed, staring at the magical phone, but my mind was elsewhere.
Two days had passed since we’d come through. My plan had partially worked. The keelboat had crashed into my world, landing in the middle of the Bottle Tree forest on the edge of Granddad and Nana’s farm. Good thing it had happened after midnight and there weren’t any neighbors within a ten-mile radius. The sudden appearance of a heavily damaged wooden boat straight out of the early twentieth century miiight have turned a few heads.
And the good news was there were only a few injuries. My ribs were one. Nana had sprained her knee, and after her previous collapse, the doctor had confined her to the bedroom for the foreseeable future. As for the others—
Bzzzt bzzzt
“Boy, if you don’t check your messages,” came Anansi’s voice, “I will make your ringtone ‘The Ballad of Gum Baby.’”
I looked over at the phone. The spider god, hollow-eyed and gaunt, sat in the corner of the screen. He hadn’t moved from that spot since our return. Everyone had lost their home in Alke. But many, like Anansi, had lost something far more important: family and dear friends.
Bzzzt bzzzt
“Oh, for the love of—” I reached over, ignoring the pain in my side, and snatched up the phone. There was a golden dot in the corner of the Diaspor-app. I frowned. After a moment’s hesitation, I tapped the icon.
Three pictures filled the screen. Captions scrolled beneath them, and I read the first one aloud.
“‘Story fragment detected. Show location?’”
I squinted.
My eyes grew wide and I shot out of bed. “No way! Anansi, are you seeing this?”
He took a peek, then stood up suddenly and gripped the edge of one of the pictures, his voice raw and desperate. “Tell me this isn’t a joke.”
“I don’t joke.” I threw on a pair of basketball shorts and a T-shirt and sprinted out of my room. “Back in a minute, Granddad!” I shouted as I ran out the door.
The sun barely peeked over the canopy of the Bottle Tree forest. The heat wave had broken and the air smelled sweet, the aftermath of the storm that had poured in through the rip. My bare feet squelched in muddy puddles and then pounded the damp path that circled the farm’s cornfield. A stitch in my side nearly doubled me over, but I forced myself to keep running. The SBP was in one hand and the other pumped through the air as if the information I needed would save my life.
And then I was there.
I skidded to a stop in front of the gnarled sentinel trees that guarded the Bottle Tree. I hesitated, but a gust of wind swirled around me and the leafy branches seemed to sway to the side, allowing me entrance. I bowed my head in thanks, then forced myself to walk calmly into the dim forest. A thick quiet covered the place, as if all noise stopped at the path outside out of respect.
The first time I’d entered the forest had been at night. Everything had looked scary back then, when the landscape was unfamiliar and I was chasing after a tiny terror.
The Bottle Tree stood in the center of the clearing, bright blue ornamental bottles hanging from the small weeping myrtle’s stiff, straight branches. My eyes didn’t linger on it long. Instead, I looked up, searching for something else. A new addition to the forest.
Near the top of the canopy, an oblong shape blocked the rest of the sun. I marched over to the tree that was holding it up and cupped my hands over my mouth. “It’s me! Let me up.”
A rope dropped down, a loop tied at the end. Gingerly, I stepped onto it and held on for dear life as I was yanked up twenty feet in the air. Gulping, I stepped off the rope…and onto Keelboat Annie’s boat.
Well, I guess it was a tree house now.
Inside, a small group of exhausted and bedraggled Alkeans stared at me. Nyame. Bear. Annie. Lady Night and Mami Wata. A few assorted citizens of the Golden Crescent. And, finally, Brer Rabbit lay on a homemade cot at the back of the boat. John Henry rested on the floor next to the large rabbit, bandages covering his legs, a rough woolen blanket in his lap.
So few here. So many lost, scattered across the country to who knows where.
Gum Baby.
Ayanna.
Miss Sarah and Miss Rose.
High John and Thandiwe.
Before I could tell anyone about what I’d seen on the SBP, Mami Wata stood. Her face was grim as she studied something in her hands. Actually, as I surveyed the deck, everybody’s expression was wavering between fear and defeat. No one—not even Nyame—wanted to meet my eyes. I stopped, confused. I knew their situation was dire, but this was something else.
Something bigger, it looked like.
“What is it?” I finally asked. “Tell me.”
But Mami Wata didn’t speak. Instead, she walked toward me, her pantsuit shimmering as she moved, her hair corralled into a loose bun. She held up the object, and when I saw what it was, my pulse quickened.
A piece of King Cotton’s mask.
“I found it this morning, at dawn,” she said.
I took the shard of hardened sap in my hand and held it up to the sunlight. There was no more sign of the inky shadow inside. “Maybe it…he’s gone.”
“That’s not all.” Mami Wata looked down over the hull. “There were shards of glass on the ground as well.”
I stared at her, then sprinted to the edge of the boat. What I saw made my heart fall and land at the foot of the Bottle Tree below. Even from up here I could see the empty branches, the broken blue glass sparkling on the forest floor like gems.
Someone had broken almost half the bottles that had held trapped haints and evil spirits. And with King Cotton no longer imprisoned in his mask, I had a strong idea about who was responsible.
I squeezed the SBP tight, and it vibrated in response. Anansi peered at me out of the screen and nodded. He knew exactly what I was thinking. Now we had two jobs to do: tracking down the haints that had escaped into t
his world, and keeping the promise I’d made before we’d gone through the hole in the sky.
I was determined to keep that promise. And maybe I could start at that very second. I held up the phone, the pictures blown up on the screen. Everyone’s eyes went wide.
“I hope you’re all rested up,” I said, “because we have work ahead of us. We’re going to find King Cotton, bring him back to this forest, and recapture every single haint he freed. And that’s not all. We have friends and relatives out there, and I don’t know about you, but I plan on finding them, too. Starting with these three.”
A brown-skinned Black girl was walking out of a gas station, a backpack slung over her shoulder. Her dark brown curls were tinted red at the tips, the sides of her head were shaved, and there was a zigzag part on one side. She wore a black leather jacket, skinny jeans, and gold flats. A golden baseball bat was strapped to her back, a glaring face painted on the barrel. In this world she looked completely different, but I recognized the Alkean pilot instantly.
A boy followed her, his dark brown skin gleaming from the camera’s flash. He was in the middle of blowing a bubble with chewing gum, and he wore a sleeveless tank top with jogging pants, and multiple beaded bracelets on both wrists. Hanging on his shoulder was a cross-body satchel.
Anansi let out a ragged sob of relief.
But there was one more picture. Peeking over the boy’s opposite shoulder was a tiny, sticky brown face I never thought I’d be so happy to see.
I looked around the room and let out a fierce grin. “Let’s go get our friends.”
Do you understand now?
I’m coming for you.
I’ve got the SBP alerting me each time it spots another Alkean here in the United States. It pings me whenever a haint shows its evil face. It’s on, King Cotton. The final round. I’ve got powerful folks in my corner and a rhythm in my fists. And don’t think we’re limited to Alabama. Ha, nope! That’d be too easy. I’m going to find you, and I’m going to find them. Please believe, I will bring every single one of them back to their family.
Because Alke wasn’t…isn’t just another realm.
Alke is a story.
Each of us carries parts of it—chapters, scenes, even just a few words. And when we come together? That magical world is brought to life. And as long as we continue to pass on the story of its existence to others, it can never be completely destroyed. Maybe, just maybe, word by word and line by line, we can rebuild that special place we call our own.
So…keep your eyes peeled.
And if you’re Alkean—from MidPass, the Golden Crescent, the Grasslands, wherever—remember this:
I’m coming to find you and bring you home.
This book wouldn’t have been possible without the help, support, encouragement, existence, persistence, strength, and tireless advocacy of the women and gender-nonconforming people in and around my life. There’s a saying that goes: “Behind every strong man is a strong woman.” What it should say is: “In front of every strong man are three stronger women, maybe more, so let’s start with their story.”
To my mother, carrying the torch alone and yet not alone.
To my wife, relentless in her passion for our children (your children, my children, the world’s children) and their ability to learn without restriction.
To Jendayi and Carol, both leaders, examples, and sisters.
To Lauren and Nikki and Wobby, pillars of support in our family.
To Shani, Kylie, Kendi, Maddy, Nia, Aminah, and Zuri, who will take over what we have left them and reshape the world.
To my aunts, my cousins, my grandmothers, my branches and roots on the family tree. Without you I couldn’t grow.
To Dhonielle, Sona, Patrice, and Steph, thanks for believing in me.
To Nina, thank you for the songs “Four Women” and “Sinnerman,” which helped inspire this story.
To her, she, they, them, and you…thank you.
KWAME MBALIA is the New York Times best-selling author of Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, for which he received a Coretta Scott King Author Honor award from the American Library Association. He lives with his wife and children in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he is currently working on the third book in the Tristan Strong trilogy. Follow Kwame on Twitter @KSekouM.
RICK RIORDAN, dubbed “storyteller of the gods” by Publishers Weekly, is the author of five New York Times #1 best-selling series, including Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which brings Greek mythology to life for contemporary readers. Millions of fans across the globe have enjoyed his fast-paced and funny quest adventures. The goal of Rick Riordan Presents is to publish highly entertaining books by authors from underrepresented cultures and backgrounds, to allow them to tell their own stories inspired by the mythology, folklore, and culture of their heritage. Rick’s Twitter handle is @RickRiordan.