by Yaba Badoe
Weightless, I danced with my father, twisting and turning to the beat of his drum, whirling around the mirrors of his shaman’s smock. I danced, and between one step and the next, others appeared alongside us: my sisters and their teachers.
My heart leaped, for I felt I’d always known them. Adoma, an Ashanti: dark-eyed, skin the purple-black of a juniper berry, hair cropped short, tinged russet-red like an apple. In her shadow, I glimpsed a faint feline form, lithe and poised, and looming above her the lanky frame of her grandfather.
Linet, hair the colour of night, tawny of eye, rosy-cheeked; a Celt from Cornwall. On her shoulder, a glint of a black-feathered bird, red-beaked with matching red feet. Behind her, an old woman with a shiny, round face. In a blink of an eye, my grandmother appeared.
It was then I felt a creature curl around my ankle nibbling my toes. I saw a flicker of white – a wolf cub’s tail. One moment it was there, then the cub vanished. And of our teachers, only Pa remained.
Yet somehow, though I couldn’t quite see them, those shadowy creatures that adorned us existed as our pride of three stared at each other, revelling in the mystery we were a part of. We stared, then guided by instinct formed a circle around Pa.
As soon as our fingers touched, we remembered. Fragments, then smouldering tales of the past flamed. Memories, long suppressed, flowed through our veins reminding us of vows taken before we were born and all that had happened since we drew breath. Our thoughts flew from one to the other replaying our early steps, our favourite games, sharing the faces of those we loved best. We untangled knotted secrets, until Pa, having sung a song to creation from the back of his throat, gave us our mission.
‘We live in dangerous times,’ he said, ‘when the balance between our worlds has broken. Mother Earth is on fire, Father Sky weeps tears of blood. We live at a time when money is more powerful than human life and skin-walkers stalk the earth trampling all in their path: trees, rivers, mountains, forests – even the mightiest of oceans and everything within them – are their prey these days. But with our craft, my daughters, we can defeat those who live for money alone without thought of the future; those who destroy whatever they touch because they live without heart.’
Eyes ablaze, Pa fixed his gaze on us. ‘This is what I ask of you: that you outwit and sabotage skin-walkers everywhere to protect our sacred sites from their scourge.’
In a heartbeat my sisters and I agreed.
‘Very good,’ Pa replied: ‘Now you must choose a word; a word with the power to transport you into star time the moment you say it.’
Adoma turned to me; Linet did too as I recalled a sound, the cry of a huntress to her eagle.
‘Let us use the hunter’s call,’ I suggested. ‘At any hint of danger, or if we want to talk, we’ll use it as a signal.’
Pa nodded.
‘Hukaa!’ I hollered. ‘Hukaa!’ My voice rang over the Giant’s mouth, and my sisters echoed me.
At last, when dark fingers of night had all but smothered wolf-light, Pa pressed his thumb on the inside of my wrist. Pain darted down my fingers. I flexed them. The throbbing eased and while Pa did the same to my sisters, I examined the patch of skin over my pulse. Bit by bit a tattoo of an eight-pronged star set in deepest blue emerged: a star with a hole in the middle.
Adoma looked at an identical mark on her wrist. ‘My grandfather’s shown me this sign before,’ she said. ‘It’s adinkra, from Ghana.’
‘Yes,’ Pa replied. ‘Nsoromma, a symbol of guardianship. You three are now children of the sky and guardians of the earth. Connected by stardust, you will hear the earth’s call and become attuned to her pain and joy. All you have to do is say the word you’ve chosen when you touch your tattoo, and you’ll be able to talk to each other in star time and in shadow. Better still, align yourselves with nsoromma and your gifts will grow.’
Moonlight flickered on our faces. We murmured, ‘Nsoromma,’ and a word new to my tongue settled on it with the ease of an old friend.
I touched Pa’s hand. His smile gathered me in.
‘Zula, my daughter,’ he said. ‘I named you for your radiance. In time your gift of sight will help you dazzle our foes with a blink of your eyes.’
I rubbed the star and sensed the shine in me deepen as the world about me glowed.
‘You, Adoma,’ Pa continued, ‘are named for your grace and strength of spirit. As your spirit grows so too will your mastery of what is unseen to the human eye. Should skin-walkers venture within seven paces of you, use what is hidden to assail them.’
‘And you, Little Linet,’ said Pa to my sister who was not little at all, but a full head taller than Adoma and I. ‘You are a truth-teller named after your element, water. Your gift, mocked in your country as a scold’s tongue, is one that probes to uncover what is hidden. Before long you’ll see that the lake of tears within you, the lake that moistens your tongue and fingertips, is a blessing to Mother Earth.’
Pa closed his eyes, and smoothing his right hand over our wrists said, ‘Unless you choose otherwise, these tattoos bind you, and by entwining your thoughts make them as clear as water to each of you. No one else can see them but members of our craft.’
‘We don’t have much time,’ he added. ‘From what I’ve glimpsed, the odds are against us. Learn what you have to quickly and be brave, for your teachers and I won’t always be with you.’
Pa paused.
‘May you pursue a righteous path.
May the earth always nourish you.
May your gifts grow with your years.
May no skin-walker escape your grasp.
And may nsoromma keep you safe
As you sing your heart’s song.’
Pa tapped our wrists with his shaman’s drum. One tap, two; on the third, my sisters disappeared.
2
Linet
Next morning we begin learning the craft. Nana’s been teaching me since my thumb was as small as the toe of a frog, but after meeting my sisters and becoming one of three, a star on my wrist, I crave the craft.
‘That’s sister-magic,’ Nana Merrimore says. ‘Those girls are filling a hole in your heart. Must be, because now not only are you swimming in water, you’re jumping when you hit the ground as well.’
That’s Nana for you. Talks in picture-book language. Baby talk. Talks too much, sometimes, if you ask me. Not that you’d have asked my opinion back then. I was still a child, see.
I’m Linet, the middle sister of three, Nana Merrimore’s water baby, the granddaughter she caught as I slid into the world. Nana’s fingers were the first I clasped in my birthing pool. And when my mother abandoned me soon after, Nana raised me and made me her own.
The lake I’m named after, a drowning pool for witches in days gone by, looms into view from my window. The first thing I see when I wake and the last before I sleep is the lake I care for.
We start by having our lessons in star time, by the Linet Lake, far from prying eyes. Star time’s everywhere if you know how to find it. Nana says that once you do, it’s easy as pie to step in and out of. It’s all about breath, see. About finding a calm space within that allows your spirit to slip through a crease in time to the heart of creation.
Before dinosaurs, before we crawled out of the sea, there was star time. If you can’t find a crinkle to sneak through, often nature takes you there. Hold her hand, climb a mountain. Walk by the sea, by the river where Adoma’s shrine is. In forest, woodland, desert or moor, star time rolls you between her palms until you’re winnowed clean.
Nana introduces our first lesson half-singing, swaying:
‘Soft now and listen.
Hear what I say
And let it stay.’
She pauses. Eyes fastened on her, our minds hooked, she chants, hauling us in:
‘Magic comes naturally
Sight, sound, taste and touch,
It’s in our senses.
Earth, sky, wind, fire
And water.
There are no secre
ts to uncover in our craft,
No spells to cast.
Once you know who you are
Magic flows.
Learn to listen and be still.
Put your ear on a tree
Hear it grow.
See that adder on a rock?
Imagine you’re its shadow,
And as your minds lock
Feel the sun on your skin
Let it tow you in.
Touch, tease, learn to freeze
Above all breathe
Hear creatures great and small
Whisper in song and story
Hearts beat in magic glory.’
Zula, Adoma and I, hungry as chicks in the nest, swallow Nana’s rhyme whole. My sisters’ hands brush against mine and I chuckle, murmuring: ‘Easy peasy.’
‘Koko!’ Adoma whispers. Easy as corn-meal porridge!
Between the three of us, we believe we already understand what Nana’s saying. Nonetheless, she repeats the rhyme encouraging us to recite it with her as she points to her senses and the elements we work with: earth, sky, fire and water. The more we say the words, the more we’re convinced they were engrained in us long ago. So, without any prompting, I take my sisters to a grove of oak trees by the Linet Lake. In real time the trees are hobbled, blasted by wind and age. Today, they’re young and sturdy, branches stretching to touch the sun.
We press our ears to a trunk. We focus; hear the rise and trickle of sap. Bark crackles and creaks. Roots creep and tickle as they suck and seek. The tree sighs. Leaves rustle and bit-by-bit, those sheltering within reveal themselves. First a blackbird, then an exaltation of skylarks sing, splashing us with song until the blackbird, piqued by our interest, swoops.
We settle in its shadow. Head cocked, the bird hops closer. Eyes gleaming, it pecks at smatterings of moss that grow by the lake. Its orange beak digs and neck flung back, the bird swallows a grub.
It’s then, when our minds lock, that I feel it. My sisters do too, because the three of us gasp as a quiver of bird-life flits through us.
The blade of orange strikes again. Before it jabs a third time it’s not only the bird, that blazing inside us, but the moss, the lake, purple-blue irises at the lake’s edge. Beyond, on a gentle slope of moor, fern and heather, even patches of stubble grass sing so loudly, we can’t help but hear.
Zula smiles: ‘Music,’ she says. ‘All around is music!’
Nose scrunched in surprise, Adoma asks: ‘Have you heard the grass sing before?’
Zula nods and we inch closer.
Zula fingers the midnight brightness of my hair. I smooth a palm over her silver hair, while with the other I stroke Adoma’s russet crown. Our heads tilt, our foreheads touch, and as Zula’s curl tickles my brow, a forgotten memory unpeels.
I’m a toddler sitting on the floor of Nana’s kitchen. Mrs Gribble, Nana’s helper, is washing pans in the sink. Her two sons are with us: Lance and Arthur. Arthur, older than me, runs round the kitchen while Lance, as uncertain on his feet as I am, waddles close by.
When I stick my tongue out at him, Lance totters towards me, and following my lead we touch tongues. Arthur, not to be left out, joins in our feast of slurps and licks before Mrs Gribble turns.
‘Stop that,’ she hisses. ‘That girl’s a Merrimore and they’re trouble, I tell you! Trouble!’
Language is beyond me, but the ferocity in Mrs Gribble’s hiss burns and I flinch as the toddler I once was cries.
‘Is there a problem out there?’ Nana’s voice drifts in from next door.
‘We’re fine,’ says Mrs Gribble. She pulls us apart and scooping me up from the floor, pats my back.
I’m like a hen trapped in a coop, a fox on the prowl, whenever Mrs Gribble’s around. Even so, in star time, the taste of her boys’ tongues lingers on mine; a taste of blackberries dipped in cream: luscious.
Tongue drenched, another memory clutches my throat. I shake my head, try to push it away, but like a leaping frog, it slips through and I gag. Above me are ripples of water through which I see my mother’s face as her tears splash the Linet Lake. Her tears flow through me and I sob.
‘Linet, are you all right? Girls!’
Trembling, I tell Nana I’m fine. ‘Zula, how do you do it?’ I whisper.
Zula places a palm on my brow and the hurt disappears.
‘How?’ Adoma echoes, for she saw the Gribbles too and felt the throb of my mother’s heartache.
‘I’m a shaman’s daughter,’ Zula replies.
‘And I’m a Merrimore! We’re water witches, we are! We’re born in water and return to it when we die!’ My eyes narrow as grey ones burrow into mine.
Zula blinks, then explains: ‘In the same way that the grass sings, so do we. Everything’s connected, especially us three.’
‘So?’ I say.
‘Don’t you want to hear your heart’s song?’ she asks.
Adoma nods. I do too, even though neither of us is sure what Zula means.
‘If you want to sing your song fully,’ she goes on, ‘you have to know yourself and remember good as well as bad things that have happened to you.’
‘I don’t want to remember everything,’ I reply. ‘Not the bad bits at any rate.’
Adoma shrugs. ‘I know the bad already. Ask me and I’ll tell you plain-plain: my mother and her okra mouth!’
Zula laughs.
I giggle, a peal that flips into a squeal of terror. ‘What if the bad things are so bad, it’s best not to know?’
‘Then your gift won’t grow,’ Zula claims.
‘Oh, but it will. With us beside you it will,’ says Adoma. She takes my hand and strokes it, caressing my fingers. ‘If it wasn’t for my gran-pa and my one, true friend, Kofi, I wouldn’t be as you see me here. Gran-pa-love and Kofi-love make me happy.’
Adoma grins: a grin so mighty, I can’t help but confide.
‘My mother left me before I had memories to remember her by. All I have of her are Nana’s photographs, yet Nana won’t talk about her.’
Adoma lifts my hand and rubbing it against her cheek, folds it in hers. She smiles, a smile that steals into me covering the hole in my heart. My lips twitch and before I know it, I’m smiling as well.
*
‘Linet, my child, you should do everything with intent. What’s your intent now, this very moment?’
Three years have passed and Adoma’s grandfather – Okomfo Gran-pa – is teaching us the rudiments of fire magic. We’re at the shrine he looks after with Adoma. Beside a river, in the middle of a forest near their home, the glade of hardwood trees, graced with mangos and guavas, winks in wolf-light. Even in star time, dusk comes quickly here. It says ‘hallo’, then leaves with a hasty ‘goodbye’ within half an hour. Yet as soon as it arrives at the end of a humid day, it throws a golden sheen over orchids, pineapples and palms, soothing the ache behind eyes as tired as mine.
‘Linet, did you hear me?’
‘I did Gran-pa. It’s just that…’ I flex my fingers, flick them, and then palm open, raise my hand. Nothing happens.
‘Try again, child.’
Once again, nothing. I’m gnarled and knotted, an ignoramus, a waste of space not even I would talk to.
A bead of sweat dribbles down the side of my face. Fingers moisten, become clammy. Why can’t I do what I’m supposed to with a simple flick of my wrist as my sisters have done?
‘Relax, Little Linet,’ Gran-pa says.
‘How can I relax when I can’t do it?’
‘Yes you can!’ Adoma replies. ‘Chill, my sister! Chill, big-time!’
In the boughs of a mahogany tree opposite, a pair of laughing doves cackles.
Tears prick my eyes. I clench my jaw and through gritted teeth, snap: ‘How am I supposed to chill when I’m sweating so much, even the birds are laughing at me!’
Adoma chuckles, while Zula says: ‘Steady yourself, Linet. Now, think of everything we’ve learned so far. Remember how quickly you mastered sky magic?’
Gran-pa smiles, nodding in approval as I recall how Zula’s pa and grandma took us step by step through the rigours of sky magic: how we learned to rustle wind through the tips of our fingers; how we galvanised clouds and soothed storms by tending our sacred places.
‘Everything you do for Mother Earth and Father Sky,’ said Grandma, ‘everything, no matter how small, helps balance the world and maintain the flow of energy between this realm and another glazed with spirit.’ Wrinkled brown as a walnut, Grandma grinned, revealing gaps in her teeth, mischief in cloudy eyes. ‘And when I say “you” that includes you, Little Linet.’
‘Remember how you excelled in water magic, animal and herb-lore,’ Zula continues.
I nod.
I remember the squelch of mud between our toes as we followed Nana Merrimore into the Linet Lake: ‘Water has memory,’ she told us. ‘You may not know it yet, girls, but in the same way that every bit of you needs and relishes water, so water remembers you.’
My sisters thrilled at the Linet Lake’s kiss. I did too. But before I surrendered to it, I felt the sting of my mother’s tears and shuddered.
We dangled our fingers in the lake, fondled the tug of its current as it drew us to a whirl of water at its centre – the drowning pool.
‘You must promise never to go anywhere near it,’ Nana warned us.
We promised.
‘You remember?’ asks Zula.
‘I do,’ I reply.
‘Now, think of something, anything, you’d like to set alight,’ she says.
‘And while you’re at it,’ Gran-pa adds, ‘direct your fingers to the earth. Sense the heat at its centre and let it flow through your palm!’
I do what they tell me, but again not even a puff of smoke or a spark appears.
I try once more, only this time I imagine Mrs Gribble’s face and hear the scorching rage in her voice from way back when. Merrimore girls are trouble are we? Well, here’s trouble and it’s coming right at you, hag!
Every cell in my body flares. Heat surges through my fingers as a tongue of fire darts from my palm. The forest floor flickers and flames, lighting creepers that clamber up the mahogany tree. A flock of doves soars from its branches. The tree shrieks. I scream. A teardrop salts my eye and as it falls, from the same palm from which fire flamed, a torrent of water gushes, quenching everything in its path.