by Yaba Badoe
I stayed by her side that night. And to keep her warm crawled into her narrow bed and slept with my arm wrapped around her bony shoulder. While Pa worked over the stove in the centre of the ger, making a balm of juniper to ease the pain in Grandma’s joints, I slipped in and out of sleep.
In those moments betwixt and between, when I was not fully awake and yet not quite asleep, my mind revealed images that had eluded me in the day’s drama. That haze of dust on the horizon; dust like a shimmer of silk on the leaves of plants. How could I have missed it?
If it hadn’t been for my grandmother, I would have woken up and mentioned the dust to Pa there and then. I’d have talked about the trucks I’d seen that afternoon and the explosion in the mountains. If I hadn’t been preoccupied, willing Grandma to live and listening for gaps in her breathing, Pa and I would have talked about how best to protect the Sleeping Giant.
I was focused on Grandma alone. Would she survive the night? And if she did, how many more days before her spirit took flight?
I recalled what I’d said to Linet at the prospect of Nana Merrimore’s death. I’d used Grandma’s words, Grandma’s wisdom. Those words came to me again in the voice I knew so well: ‘What a baby chick sees in the nest it repeats when it grows up.’
I understood Linet’s reaction better now. Even though I had family around me and would never be as isolated as she was, I too wanted my grandmother to live. I wanted her here. Present. Always.
Pa often said that every living thing is spirit in earthly form, and in the end each and every one of us returns to the home we came from. I knew this and believed it. And yet the mere thought of Grandma’s death rendered me breathless.
I placed my face close to hers and with my hand on her chest followed the pit-patter of her heart. Our breath mingled, the rise and fall of my lungs moved in rhythm with hers until exhausted, I fell asleep.
*
I dreamed that night that I was a baby swaddled in my grandmother’s arms. Grandma, her dark mane of hair flecked with grey, gently rocked me as she sang a lullaby:
‘Little winter wolf,
Stay warm, grow strong.
When the moon shines in the afternoon sky and wolf-light is nigh,
We turn to wolfish ways and stay in the long grasses of the steppes.
Follow me, my grey-eyed cub,
Come and play with our sister wolves today.’
Grandma sang, and her face held me transfixed. I luxuriated in it, drinking it in. Her head tilted tenderly towards me as the red embers of the stove danced in her eyes. Love radiated from them. Love, which I guzzled like a thirsty horse does water.
Grandma sang her song to me and in the blink of an eyelid we were outside in wolf-light. My hands and feet became paws, the hair on my skin grew matted, enfolding my body in a blanket of fur – the dazzling white fur of a winter wolf. Grandma turned into a huge she-wolf while my ears, nose, mouth and teeth changed into those of a young adult. With her nose nuzzling mine, our bodies lurched and twisted while we danced in the late afternoon sun.
A feather tickled my memory. ‘Grandma, this has happened before, hasn’t it?’ I said.
‘All the time,’ came her reply.
‘I remember fragments as in a dream.’
Grandma licked a space on my forehead just above my eyes in the place Pa says my third eye resides. She touched it with her tongue and all at once I saw and remembered not just snatches of our time together in wolf-light but everything: moonlit summer evenings spent running with the wind; early mornings chasing my tail in dew-drenched grass and hunting – the joy of the pack.
Memories flooded through me and I lapped them up: the deft manoeuvring of the chase, the heady rush of capture, and finally the kill. Fangs in fur, a sharp shake to break the neck, then a feast of meat and blood. My grey eyes flashed diamond at the thrill of it.
‘This is who you are, Zula,’ Grandma said. ‘This is part of the gift you’ve always had: this, and your love for the man in the mountains, the Sleeping Giant. Tell your sisters, my winter wolf, that until the three of you use every morsel of what’s inside you, we shall never defeat today’s skin-walkers.’
Shadows lengthened in the dream, bringing a new scent that Grandma picked up: the odour of a fleet-footed hare. Eager to pursue it, she said: ‘Come with me, Zula, on this my last hunt. Follow me.’
I ran after my grandmother. She rocketed ahead and stopped. When she turned, a hare dangled in her mouth. This she gave me and as I tore its flesh into pieces and wolfed it down, Grandma spoke in the lilting voice I loved:
‘Be brave, Zula. Be fierce and have no mercy on those who would harm us and obliterate the sacred places we revere. I see with my wolf’s eyes that changes are already in motion to destroy you and your sisters. First they will annihilate your mentors, teachers and guides. They’ve done for me, for it is their dust that has hastened my end. They will come for your father. Be vigilant, my winter wolf. Farewell.’
‘Wait, Grandma! Wait.’ I wanted the dream never to end. I wanted her voice to continue talking, singing, laughing. ‘Another lullaby, Grandma,’ I pleaded. ‘Sing to me.’
I tried to keep her with me, tried to grab her and hold her close so that she wouldn’t go. But dreams have their own magic, their own rhythm and purpose. I knew, even as I begged Grandma to stay a while longer, that when I woke, her body next to mine would be cold.
14
Linet
A blanket of heat shrouds thorn bush and scrub, sucking moisture from soil.
The haze thickens, but before a drop of rain falls, a breeze blows it to sea.
Parched earth cracks and hardens. Woodland and forest wither. Rivers shrivel and die, even as mansions spring up to touch the sky. The sun scorches until a moment comes when tinder sparks.
Flames crackle, torching trees while embers whipped by wind spill over canyons, bounding from hill to hill on to the roofs of houses. Buildings ablaze, those covered in skin, feather or fur burn.
Turkey vultures, hyenas of the heavens, hover, their hisses smothered by the rumble of thunderclouds. The sea swells, the earth sizzles on fire.
In a faraway forest a leopard dances to the moon. While on the moor, as soon as the plume of a bird tumbles into a girl’s hand, an invisible wing flexes.
*
‘No one said life would be easy, did they?’ This is what Nana Merrimore has taken to saying.
She said it when I told her about Zula’s grandma, how devastated Zula is by her death, how unhappy I am at losing a teacher.
‘Nana, Zula almost died in that explosion!’
I got the usual response.
Only last night when we’d talked about the carnage at Adoma’s forest haven and I described how the sacred river running through it is now bloated with floating fish, Nana faithfully repeated those words. ‘No one said life would be easy, did they?’
It’s her method of conveying that not only is she as hard as Cornish rock cake, she’s mighty tough as well. Merrimore tough: a proud descendant of the first woman in our parish to be drowned in the lake, a woman whose gift of a purple stone, I now wear around my neck.
And so what if I’ve seen Old Hester’s ghost and have made her token my talisman? Is Nana Merrimore spooked? Of course not! She’s already put it behind her. She’s as wiry and resilient as an old bristle hairbrush is Nana. Or so she pretends to be. And me? I’m old enough to play along with her, see. To look the other way when she touches my charm and says: ‘Old Hester’s telling me it’s time I went home, Linet. Time for the blossom to give way to the fruit and return to the womb I came from.’
I look somewhere else as she pulls out her Tarot cards, and after the Hanged Man crops up again and again, she turns to the I Ching.
I pretend not to notice when she can’t catch her breath, and wonders if breathlessness is a sign of a dreadful something growing inside her. I’ve learned to pander to her pride by averting my eyes. Nana knows this. Even so, now my mother’s tears no longer frighten m
e, she hasn’t been able to be honest with me.
While I wait for Nana to unburden herself, I’ve taken to truth telling by the lake, Bracken curled on my lap. In drizzle-mist and wolf-light, I fondle the stone and ask the lake and those she shelters for help in teasing out my thoughts. Thoughts I’m wary of because of what’s inside me. I feel it, hear it: a beak snipping at the cage of thorns around my heart, a bird eager to fly. It wriggles, tickling as it pecks a way out. There’s the bird; then there’s Lance.
This morning my cheeks flush as Old Hester reaches me in a voice soggy with peat and water: ‘First you must learn to trust what’s inside you,’ she says. ‘Learn how to talk to it and own it. Then sheath the mischief at the tip of your tongue and talk to your Lancelot. You can’t stay scrumped up like a hedgehog for ever.’ She laughs and a gurgling of bubbles surges from the depth of the lake. ‘Give your gift a try, petal. You’ve nothing to lose!’
Later that afternoon I make my way across the heath. High on the moor are Cairns, stone burial grounds from long ago. A zephyr wind blows from them, reminding me as I walk below of the mumbling of ghosts and the rustling of trees that once stood there. Warm flurries spin about me whipping my hair with the remnants of leaves and twigs.
Between one step and the next, there’s a chill in the air. The wind bites in a cold snap. I shiver. Feathers. I need a cloak of feathers to shield me from gusts meaner than winter on the moor. The thought seizes me and straight away I feel them: feathers down the length of my back, feathers around and about me until I’m swaddled warm.
I make my way, the squelch of peat underfoot, to a woodland grove in the dip of the valley by Crow’s Nest. There, from bushes sheltered by trees, I pick blackberries, eating some before storing what’s left in a blue bowl in my basket, a bowl pale as a bird’s egg. Tongue stained purple, I follow the route I took days before.
‘How be my sister-friend?’ Adoma murmurs, tickling my mind.
‘I’m fine,’ I tell her. ‘Just fine, see.’
‘Are you on your way to see him?’
I nod, smiling.
‘Aba! Your lips and tongue are stained black, my sister. Go home and wash! Brush your teeth. Is that a cloak of feathers you’re wearing?’
‘Can you see it?’
‘Of course, I see it.’
‘I wonder if Lance can…’
Adoma laughs: ‘If he spies those feathers on your back, he’ll run away faster than a flea from a slap!’
‘That isn’t funny, Adoma!’
Adoma chuckles, then disappears.
A swoop of swallows trawling in the wind’s caul streams overhead. They hail me at the start of their crossing to Africa, or so it seems, for my heart quickens as I hear cries of: ‘Linet-girl! Linet-girl! Help us travel faster!’
My right hand in the air, I assist them with the beginnings of a gale that rushes from my fingers. My hand wafts in the direction they’re heading and they’re away!
‘Between blood and bone, breath and feather,’ I call to them, ‘travel well, my friends, to your journeys’ end.’
When I arrive at Crow’s Nest all is still. There’s not a whisper of a breeze to disperse the scent of mulch and peat. I open the gate. It snarls, startling starlings on a pylon nearby. They take flight in a dance that unravels like a never-ending scarf. They swoop and retreat in welcoming chatter. Loop to peer at me, then swing their wings in a whirl that curls up into the sky until tumbling down they perch on the roof.
I knock. No one answers. I’m about to place Nana’s bowl on the step, when the door opens and there she is: Mrs Gribble, my old babysitter. Eyes black as a raven’s, her brow furrows, puzzled.
‘How you’ve grown, Linet! Come in! Come in!’
I remember to smile just in time. ‘This is for you, Mrs Gribble. I was passing…’ I hand her Nana’s bowl full of blackberries.
‘Well, thank you! How are you and your nana, these days? Won’t you come in?’
‘Maybe next time. Say “hi” to Lance for me. And Arthur…’ I add.
‘I will,’ she replies.
I turn tail and run, my cloak of feathers lifting me off the ground.
*
Next day there’s a knock at Carbilly and I know it’s him. I heard his footfall as he walked to the door, his cough before a scent of blackberries seeped in.
‘I’ll get it, Nana!’
I race to the door. Pull it open.
Lance is taller than me, and blushes as soon as he sees me. My cheeks flush in reply. In his hands is Nana’s bowl filled with eggs. Chicken eggs.
I should call Nana.
I want to bolt. I bite my lip instead and stand tall; so tall I’m able to thank him before I place the bowl on the kitchen table.
As I turn, he says: ‘I thought you were a ghost when I saw you in our yard. A ghost lost in mist.’ His smile licks my skin once again, warming me inside and out. Wings outstretched, the bird in my chest flutters, singing.
‘Do you have a bike?’
I nod.
‘Fancy a ride up a tor and down again? I’ll race you.’
I grab my bike from behind the shed, and we’re off.
15
Linet
On my return to Carbilly, I’m so dizzy with the fizz of blackberries on my tongue that my skin’s humming. Body and soul are strumming so much that, about to open the front door, I pause, fill my lungs with air and as my heart soars, squeeze my eyes tight.
Inside I hear voices. They dip and disappear. An American drawl, clipped English rush, nipping and chasing until Nana interrupts.
Nana’s tone is hushed, her voice low. So low, in fact, that I have to strain to hear her.
‘Be discreet,’ Nana says. ‘I’ve notified my lawyer and she’ll be in touch with you. I want everything signed and sealed in case we’re forced to prepare for the worst.’
Nana pauses. I hear her draw breath, hold it, and then exhale.
Breath control – a technique she uses to keep her emotions in check. I imagine her clasping her hands, fingers and thumbs leaving indentations on her skin. Something’s wrong, seriously wrong.
‘Does the girl appreciate what’s happening?’ asks the American.
‘You’ll have to talk to her,’ the woman says.
‘I want to, but it’s difficult. She’s a child at heart. All of them are. Don’t misunderstand me,’ Nana continues, ‘the three of them are exceptionally gifted. They’ve learned fast and mastered key elements of the craft already. They’ve acquired a sensitivity to touch, sight and smell that few possess. But in truth, we simply don’t have the time to prepare them for what’s coming.’
The American laughs: ‘Zelda, sweetheart, is anyone ever completely prepared for what lies ahead? I doubt it.’
Grizelda is Nana’s Christian name. Only her oldest, dearest friends call her Zelda. These strangers aren’t clients then. Not only that, I’ve never heard anyone call her sweetheart before. I lean in and tiny follicles in my ears twitch.
‘Nowadays, whenever I bother to take in the news,’ the American goes on, ‘I’m reminded of my father reading from the Book of Revelations. What I hear is a litany of fire and pestilence, drought and famine. And floods. Never-ending floods! It doesn’t take much to connect the dots, sweetheart.’
‘That may be so,’ Nana replies, ‘but now that it’s down to us and the young ones we’ve guided, I discover I’m paralysed. I can scarcely breathe at times.’ Nana thumps her chest.
The hairs on my neck sizzle as the palms of my hands moisten with sweat.
‘Zelda, how can we help?’ asks the English woman. ‘What can we do? Tell us and we’ll do it!’
Nana replies and her panic, rising from deep in her throat, bleeds into me: ‘There’s a mighty storm coming our way and it’s going to affect all of us. Much as I appreciate your willingness, dear, sticking a finger in the air isn’t going to stop it.’
As if sheer determination alone can drag Nana away from an abyss she’s staring into, the w
oman repeats her offer, only louder this time: ‘If there’s anything – anything at all you’d like from us – you’ve got it. What else can we do?’
Nana tries to talk but ends up moaning instead. Stutters and then pushes words into the open: ‘What they’re doing has already killed Zula’s grandmother. Her father or Okomfo Gran-pa is likely to be next. Then it’ll be my turn.’
This must be Nana the diviner speaking. I told you she’s been leafing through the I Ching and reading Tarot cards to peep into the future.
‘Are you sure?’ The American again.
By now my ear’s clamped to the front door. I’m desperate to hear Nana’s reply, when Bracken, inside, rumbles me. She snuffles up my scent and meows. She scratches at the door, leaving me with no alternative but to barge in pretending I’ve just got back from my ride.
What I see in Nana’s sitting room fills in the blank spaces of a picture I’ve painted in my mind. I’d hoped that the strangers were clients. Indeed, I want them to be. Anything but this confirmation from Nana’s lips, of what Zula’s grandmother foretold. Grandma said that she would be the first to go, then one by one our teachers would follow: Zula’s father, Okomfo Gran-pa. Not Nana. Anyone but her!
I look away from my grandmother and take a deep breath in which I drain every trace of emotion from my face before I say ‘hallo’ to her friends.
Peering at me is a tall, giant of a woman with the dark, pebbled eyes of a crow. A smile flutters her lips.
‘Hallo, Linet,’ she replies.
The woman’s skin is tanned leathery brown and her black hair, piled high on her head, is coiled in a mess that resembles a bale of fraying rope.
The American beside her is even taller. Dapper yet angular, his long limbs are folded and looped in Nana’s largest armchair.
‘Hallo,’ says Nana. ‘I thought you’d be out longer.’
‘So did I, Nana.’
I’d wanted to run in and tell her, before I was waylaid at the door, that I’d made a friend. Tell her his name and then shout it out to the lake and the moor. Now, overwhelmed by what I’ve heard, I recognise the paralysis Nana spoke of as a combination of numbness and awkwardness creeps through my limbs. It immobilises me, until I finger the stone around my neck.