by Rena Barron
Really good structural engineers got to travel the world, and Papa was the best. Architects drew up plans for buildings, and structural engineers made sure their designs were safe. Papa once checked the cables supporting a bridge three thousand feet above a raging river full of piranhas in Belize. If that kind of structure failed, then you’d become fish bait. Papa’s job was to make sure it didn’t.
Waiting was torture, so after dinner I stomped upstairs to my room and plopped down on the bed with my laptop. I searched for stories of the sky turning gray, black lightning, and people freezing in time. Most of the stuff I found was wacky and straight out of some science fiction magazine.
“I can’t be the only one who’s seen something like this,” I said, slamming the laptop shut.
The curtains ruffled in the breeze at my window. They matched the gold and green headscarf Oya wore in volume 44, when she snuck into the evil Dr. Z’s top-secret lair. After she discovered his army of super soldiers, she whipped off her scarf, revealing hair made of flames that shot out to destroy the bad guys.
“What would she do?” I wondered aloud.
Oya wasn’t like most superheroes. She wasn’t from another planet, and she didn’t have fancy gadgets. She was a spirit goddess, an orisha. She controlled wind, lightning, and storms, and never lost a fight. Dr. Z and his cronies called her that meddling Warrior Goddess. I knew one thing for sure: she would get to the bottom of whatever was going on. I planned to do the same.
Before getting ready for bed, I peeked out the window. Night settled over the city, and the streetlights sparked to life. There was no sign of color bleeding from the world as people parked their cars after getting off work. The cranky Johnston twins, Miss Ida and Miss Lucille, had come out for their evening stroll.
The twins stooped over matching wood canes and wore matching pink bonnets. Both had deep brown skin and eyes the color of new pennies. They fussed at kids so much that their faces were matching scowls, too.
All of a sudden, they looked straight at me like my thoughts had projected into their minds. Light reflected in their coppery, catlike eyes and made my heart leap against my chest. There was something so strange about them that I could never put my finger on. One of them (I think Miss Ida, but it was hard to tell this far away) waved at me, her mouth set in a hard line. Heat rushed to my cheeks as I waved back. I’d been caught red-handed spying on my neighbors.
I drew the curtains shut in a hurry. Disappointed that Papa hadn’t come home, I climbed into bed and stared at the Oya poster on the wall. A tornado circled her body, and instead of flames for hair, she had long black braids that flew in the wind of her storm.
The sinking feeling in my stomach only grew worse. I was too lazy to get up and turn off the light, so I buried my head under my pillow. Right before falling asleep, I grumbled that the light should turn itself off, and it did. At the time, I didn’t think much about it. Maybe Papa had come home and switched it off. Or maybe Eli was right about our whole neighborhood being a hotspot for ghosts.
That night I dreamt that I was standing in the middle of the street in front of my house. It was a perfect sunny day, except there was a strange man at the end of the block. He wasn’t a man, really; he was a thing of ribbons darker than the darkest night. Sunlight bent around his body, leaving him shrouded in shadows. His skin was the color of the moon, and his pale violet eyes glowed. His ribbons wriggled like a bed of snakes. When they settled around him in waves of black and purple silk, his full body came into view. He was tall, at least ten feet, and I stumbled back a few steps. Besides his appearance, something else was off about him, and he made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
The color bled from everything around him. The houses, the trees, the grass, the cars, even the pavement. It all washed away like melting snow. Instead of running down the gutters, it gathered at his feet in a pool and his ribbons drank it. It sounded like someone slurping up noodles but one hundred times worse.
I stood opposite him with my hands balled into fists. My whole body shook. Deep down I wanted to run away, but a fire burned inside me. He was draining the life out of my neighborhood, and I couldn’t let him.
“Stop doing that!” I shouted.
The man tilted his head to one side and wagged his finger at me.
“Come closer, child.” His voice was cold and sent chills down my spine. But even though he scared me, something in the smoothness of his words reminded me of when Papa sang. “Let me get a good look at you.”
“No!” I tried to sound brave. “You don’t belong here.”
When he stepped closer, the space between us stretched so that I was farther away from him. He smiled at this and shook his head with a gleam in his eyes, like he was scheming up something bad. “Some people never learn.”
“Who . . . who are you?” I asked, my voice trembling. “What are you?”
“He can’t hide you forever,” the man said as his ribbons began to wriggle again. “I will find you, and then I will put an end to your miserable little life.”
I bolted up in bed in the middle of the night in a puddle of sweat. My breath came out hard and fast as I switched on the lamp.
“It was just a dream,” I whispered to myself.
But as I sat there shivering in the dark, it felt real.
Three
Maybe things aren’t really so bad
The next morning the smell of pancakes and warm blueberry marmalade lured me from my deep sleep. My head felt foggy, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was forgetting something important. Something about the lights in my room shutting off, and a man made of shadows. I pushed the thought away as I shoved my feet into my slippers, glad it was finally the weekend.
Pancakes and blueberry marmalade could only mean one thing. I tiptoed out of my room and down the stairs to not wake Mama. A soft whistling filled the hallway. Not the sharp kind that made you wish you had earplugs; this was like sweet birdsong. It stopped when I walked into the kitchen.
Papa stood by the table with a bowl of pancake batter tucked beneath his arm. His locs hung halfway down his back. My hair wasn’t as long as his yet, but it was getting close. I spotted flour on his cheek and forehead and forced back a snicker. He always made such a mess.
I ran across the kitchen and wrapped my arms around him. The sinking feeling in my stomach from last night melted away. Papa laughed as he juggled the bowl to the table.
“I’m the luckiest father in the world to receive such a welcome.” He dropped to one knee, so his face was level with mine. His expression turned serious, but the twinkle in his dark eyes told me that he was about to say something silly. “Did you keep the banshees out of the house while I was away?”
“Papa!” I rolled my eyes. “Banshees aren’t real.”
Usually, I would play along for a little while, but I wasn’t in the mood after yesterday. You won’t believe what happened! I almost said. The world turned gray, my math teacher froze like a Popsicle, then everything went back to normal. In hindsight, that didn’t exactly sound newsworthy or as interesting as any of his stories.
Papa raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong, Maya?”
“You’re late.” I crossed my arms. “I was worried.”
“Sometimes my work takes longer than I expect,” Papa said.
“Why can’t you find a job in Chicago?” I asked. “Then you wouldn’t have to go away.”
“If we shun our responsibilities, who will make sure that the work gets done?” Papa answered, coming to his feet. “You’re still too young to understand, Maya, but I have a very important job that no one else can do.”
“Papa, I’m twelve,” I said. “I’m not too young to understand.”
“You’re like a hatchling, so new to the world.” He ruffled my hair. “Are you hungry?”
I let out a frustrated sigh because (a) he didn’t take my question seriously and (b) he compared me to a hatchling. Who called their kid a hatchling? But the pancakes were, in fact, cal
ling my name. My stomach growled as I plopped down at the table.
Papa set a plate of pancakes smothered in blueberry marmalade in front of me. As I started to dig in, he put another batch on the griddle and winked. “For Mama when she gets up.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, smearing more flour on his dark skin, and I laughed. I couldn’t be mad at him for long. “I have a surprise for you.”
When he said surprise, my heart rate doubled. He reached in the front pocket of his apron and handed me two pieces of paper. I stared down at them, not believing my eyes.
“Comic-Con tickets?” I almost yelped but lowered my voice to not wake Mama.
“It’s about time I take you,” Papa said, beaming. “You’re old enough now.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that kids younger than me went to cons all the time.
“Thank you, Papa.” I bounced on my chair. I begged him for tickets last year, but he said that he would take me when I was older. I thought he meant much older, not a year later older. “Why did you change your mind?”
“It wasn’t an easy decision,” he said, his face a little sad. “But you’re growing up fast, and you’re not going to stay my little girl forever.”
Papa ruffled my hair again as I stuffed pancakes into my mouth. I wondered which of my Oya costumes I would wear to Comic-Con. The black one with the gold studs down the sleeves, or the red one with the matching cape? Or I could get a new one. I had almost a month to decide. “How was your trip?” I asked.
“I could have done without mosquitos the size of bats in South America.” Papa shuddered. “You have to sleep under a net in the jungle and wear repellent made from the slime of a Peruvian slug to ward them off.”
I frowned. “Why were you in the jungle?”
Papa shrugged, sticking out his lips. “I was patching up an old dam.”
“In the jungle?” I laced my voice with sarcasm. “Are there dams in the middle of nowhere?”
“A jungle isn’t the middle of nowhere,” Papa retorted. “Besides, I soon found out that the mosquitos were the least of my worries.” He put Mama’s pancakes in the microwave for later, then sat down across from me. His face looked tired, and he had dark circles under his eyes. “I was minding my own business, setting up my tent for the night, when I heard a sound on the wind.”
“Is this another story about the impundulu?” I said through a mouthful of pancakes. They were magical giant birds that had sharp spikes like fishbones on their bellies. They hardly ever flew, but when they did, their wings sounded like helicopter blades.
He shook his head. “That’s another story for another time.”
Papa loved telling stories. Impundulu, kishi, werehyenas, the time he beat LeBron James one-on-one. Or when he paraglided over Mont Blanc in France and ended up at Buckingham Palace in England. No twelve-year-old believed stories like that—not with the internet to debunk them. His stories were no more real than the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot, but they always made me want to see more of the world.
I swallowed down my pancakes, then asked, “What sort of sound did you hear?”
“Bells like the sweet melodies from my youth.” Papa got a dreamy look before he cleared his throat. “But these bells lulled me into a deep trance, and before I knew it, I was walking from camp barefooted. I tumbled through the bush, cringing at the howls of dangerous creatures in the night. All I could think about was those little bells.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Where did they come from?”
Papa stared into space, his face blank. He always did that when telling a story, and no matter how many times he did, my heart sped up waiting for his next words. I was such a sucker.
His voice dropped low, and a shiver crawled down my spine. “I got this creepy feeling that I was being watched, but it was too dark to see anything. All I knew was that the bells had bewitched me and, no matter how much I fought, I couldn’t break their spell.”
“What happened?” I asked, on the edge of my seat.
“I saw the elokos in a clearing,” Papa said, his voice dropping even lower.
“What are elokos?” I frowned.
“They’re dangerous forest folk with an appetite for human flesh,” Papa said.
I squinted at him. “What do these elokos look like?”
“Hmm, they’re about this tall.” He motioned his hand to the height of a fourth grader. “And they have razor-sharp teeth, pointy ears, and scaly green skin. They communicate with each other through thoughts.”
“Like telepaths?” I had learned the word in school.
Papa nodded. “I didn’t come out of my trance until they stopped ringing their bells, but by then, they had strung me up between two trees and lit a fire. They were preparing to cook me with my clothes and all. No matter how much I pleaded, they wouldn’t let me go. Knowing that I was going to die, I decided to sing. I needed something to keep my mind off the fire about to roast me alive.”
I put my fork aside, waiting for him to tell me it was all a joke. But then Papa started to sing at the table. His usual deep voice dropped into a familiar lullaby.
From the morning’s glow to the evening’s low
There’s much work to do and many places to go
But no matter how far I travel or the people I see
There’s nowhere in the whole world I’d rather be
For though I must fight to hold the beasts at bay
No mountain or storm or foe will keep me away
For I’ll cross raging rivers and bend hyperspace
Just to see a smile on my sweet baby girl’s face
I couldn’t hold back my smile. If I thought Papa’s voice was magical when he told stories, it was mesmerizing when he sang.
“The elokos stopped what they were doing and stood like statues,” Papa said. “My song had hypnotized them the same as their bells had done to me. The fire still hadn’t reached my backside, so I wiggled my way free. All through my singing, the elokos didn’t move a muscle. I knew if I stopped, my spell over them would break and I’d be in big trouble again. So I ran back to camp and kept singing the whole way. Thankfully, my voice lasted until morning and by then the elokos had disappeared.”
“Papa.” I glanced down at the smear of marmalade left on my empty plate. “I know there aren’t really any elokos and you’re just making up this story.”
“Oh, is that so?” His eyebrows shot up like he was surprised. “How do you know?”
I took a deep breath. He’d been telling such wild stories for so long that even seeing the color bleed from the world seemed ordinary. I really should have told him about what happened at school, but as silly as it sounded, it felt good to have a secret of my own. “Maybe some of it is true,” I said. “Like maybe you really were in the jungle.”
Papa shifted in his chair, his face turning serious. “I admit that I may embellish my stories a little, but I tell them for a reason, Maya. The world isn’t always what it seems. You understand that, don’t you?”
I sat a little straighter and looked him square in the eyes. “Yes, Papa, I understand,” I said, even though I really didn’t.
Four
When shadows turn
into writhing snakes
I stood across from Papa with my staff ready to strike. Our neighbors’ dog, Lucky, poked his nose through the fence separating our backyards. His tail wagged as he looked back and forth between Papa and me. With all the treats I’d given him, Lucky should have been on my side. But ever since Papa brought him that peanut butter and jelly bone, he’d defected.
“Traitor,” I hissed at him.
The golden retriever stuck out his tongue, leaving no doubt whose side he was on.
Narrowing my eyes, I turned my attention back to the match. Papa circled my position. Maybe other kids liked to spend their Saturday afternoons hanging out with their friends or playing video games, but this was my favorite time with Papa. We’d been practicing staff play since fourth grade, and I’d gotten a l
ot better at figuring out his next move. He always got a twinkle in his eyes when he was about to try some fancy footwork. When he went for a straightforward strike, he usually had a silly grin like now.
I shifted the staff so that it was alongside my body with my arm tucked in close. It was almost as long as I was tall and made of smooth oak, with knots where the tree limbs had once been. The wood was reddish-brown and polished, and easy to handle. Papa’s staff was a head taller than me and as black as night, with white writing painted on it. When I was little, he used to point out the symbols and tell me what they meant.
Unlike with alphabets, each symbol had several meanings. A leopard with raised paws had a different meaning than a leopard leaping or one sitting. To make things more complicated, the exact meaning depended on the symbols around it.
So the symbols for the sun, tree with leaves, and a leopard with raised paws meant I walk with courage. Like the leopard, a tree had different meanings too, depending on if it had leaves or not. A tree with leaves represented movement. A tree without leaves meant to stay in one place. There were hundreds of symbols on the staff, and I couldn’t remember what they all meant.
Lucky barked, catching my attention for a split second, and Papa attacked. I almost didn’t have time to block. Going on the defense like he taught me, I ducked, sweeping my staff in a long arc, and slipped behind him. But Papa was too quick as he twisted around and struck twice more. I parried right, then left, but caught a tap on my shoulder for moving too slow.
“You’re distracted today, Maya,” he said as our staffs connected a fourth time.
He was right. I couldn’t stop thinking about yesterday. To make matters worse, I kept remembering the man in shadows from my dream. His slippery smile taunted me.
I took the offense with a one-two-three strike combo. Learning how to handle a staff was Papa’s idea. After I’d begged him to sign me up for the dojo down the street, he insisted on teaching me how to use a staff. He said that he learned when he was young, and he was so excited about teaching me that I couldn’t say no. Even if it wasn’t exactly self-defense, I was learning how to be quick on my feet and dodge attacks. So instead of taking normal classes like a normal kid, I got to spar with my father in my backyard. Not that I was complaining. I liked having a staff of my own, and it was fun.