by Edwina Fort
The little girl disappeared in the house and came back with a tray that had several clay cups on them. She handed one to each of us and I was surprised to see that there was steaming liquid inside of them. The warm clay felt good in my hands that were all but frozen because I didn’t have on any gloves.
Following both the guide and Angel’s lead, I lifted the cup and took a sip and was amazed by the flavors that exploded against my tongue.
What the hell?!
Lifting the cup, I peered into it to see if I could see what was in it. Angel closed her eyes and moaned as she savored the taste. The guide did the same. The woman studied us all as we drank her brew before she began to speak.
“When I was a little girl, Tabitha would come to see me right out here in this very garden. She used to tell me amazing stories about the world before the Watchers cut down the great trees.” She looked off into the distance and my gaze followed hers.
“The trees stood so tall that they seemed to touch the top of the expanse.”
My mouth opened as right before my eyes a vision of a huge tree grew past the mountain and continued up through the clouds.
“In that day, all of men spoke one language and understood well the gift the Ancient of Days had blessed us with.”
Everything began to change around us… but not change. I know that sh*t sound crazy but that’s what was happening. Although the plants and the herbs were still dried out from the frost, a vision of how the world used to be formed on top of everything. I reached out my hand to touch a vine that was coming to life in front of me, but there was no substance because it was just a vision.
That was good tea! She’d make a killing selling that sh*t in the hood.
“The soil was so rich that as far as the eye could see, there were fields and fields of every flower and plant that was good for the nourishment of our bodies.”
As she spoke, we became surrounded by flowers that grew on strong, healthy green vines. I wasn’t a big plant person like Rome’s little sister Journey or nothing, but I’d never seen anything like this. Even I knew that flowers this healthy and vivacious no longer existed. The vision was so vivid, I could smell the sweet fragrance coming from them.
“Wow…” I muttered, taking another peep into my teacup.
Good and caught up into the vision the old woman was weaving around us, Angel stood, overcome by the beauty, holding her hands out and turning as if she was trying to take all the flowers with her.
For a minute, the woman didn’t speak. She just sat on her stool watching Angel, who looked as if she belonged in this mystical garden. I’ve never seen my wife more beautiful than she was right now. She held her head back as she continued to turn, completely taken by the vision.
The little girl came to stand next to the woman as she too watched Angel. A feeling of sadness came over me. I was sad because I know I can never make this happen for her. No amount of money or might can bring back such beauty.
“In that day, man understood that our health was reflected in our planet. During the time of the great trees, to die at a hundred was to die young.” She reached up and took Angel’s hand pulling her back to her.
“But then, something happened. The giants came.” With tears in her eyes, she suddenly looked out across the sky just as a terrible yell ripped through the air. Walking towards the mountain was a monstrous man… No! It was no man, although its grotesque face could be that of a man, it was no man.
I knew it was just a vision and not real, but I stepped in front of Angel, ready to fight it if I had to. The old woman watched me, nodding with a knowing look in her eyes.
“The giants came and they began to consume this gift of ours from the Ancient of Days. They began to kill it…”
As her voice trailed off, visions of people screaming as they ran away from the giants could be seen in the clouds. The grotesque monsters would just lean down and pick up a bunch of them in their mighty six-fingered hands as if they were peanuts and chug them into their mouths.
“They were the beginning of the end and the more they consumed, the weaker our planet became until it could no longer sustain the great trees.” The vision changed and the giant trees began to fall.
“Hitta!” Angel cried, coming to wrap her arms around my waist as she watched the trees fall in horror through tear-filled eyes. I held her shaking body close, not believing what I was seeing. That sadness in me grew.
“Something was happening to mankind. We took on the nature of the giants and began to consume our earth. We began to destroy this gift from the Almighty Power.”
The hauntingly beautiful notes of a violin swept across the sky. The Tea Master stopped talking as she listened. Closing her eyes, she began to gently sway to the tune. The little girl that stood next to her eyes closed and she too began to sway.
My arm fell away from Angel when her body suddenly went stiff before her eyes closed and she too began to sway to the tune. I stepped back away from her astonished. The sound of the violin was real. It was not a part of the vision.
Puzzled, I turned to look at the guide for an explanation, but he only shrugged, shaking his head just as bewildered as I was.
“The earth is crying out,” the Tea Master spoke without opening her eyes. She shook her head saddened. “How could we allow this to happen to our gift? How could we be so careless with our gift?”
I continued to watch the vision of the giants and men destroying the earth. And the more I saw, the more the sadness in me faded to be replaced by rage. I’d always been an angry mutha f**ka, but never as much as I was in this moment.
I wanted to kill the giants. I wanted to destroy them for what they were doing to the earth!
“Slayer,” the Tea Master’s voice came to me, stronger than I’d heard it this whole time. I turned my head to look at her but ended up hitting my knees. The light that came from her eyes tore through me like a laser, paralyzing me. I felt so unclean in its presence I couldn’t lift my head.
Angel and the little girl still stood with their eyes closed, swaying to the tune of the violin. The guide still stared off at the vision of the giants. He didn’t see what was happening to me.
“You think you are so mighty that you will slay a giant all on your own?”
The voice that came from the woman was not human. I couldn’t look up at her, nor could I respond. The light that was coming from her eyes was traveling through my body, dissecting me down to my very cells. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being found wanting.
“Are you so mighty that you will bring down Liwiathan all by yourself?”
I bit down on my teeth, fighting tears. I didn’t feel mighty right now. For the first time in a long time, I felt helpless and didn’t like it.
“How will you do it? Will you use a hook or snare his tongue with a line which you lower? Would you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with your hook? Tell me, slayer. Will he keep pleading with you? Will he speak softly to you? Would he make a covenant with you to be taken as a servant forever? Would you play with him as with a bird or leash him for your daughter to play with? I tell you, if you put your hand on him, you’ll never live to do anything else. No one is so foolish to even wake him. Who then is able to stand against Me?”
“Tell me, slayer!”
I jumped at the raised voice. My tears felt like hot wax rolling down my cheek. I could not stand underneath this reprimand. “Who has given to Me first, that I should repay him under all the heavens that are mine? Tell me!”
I cried out as paralyzing fear shot through me.
“I would not keep silent concerning his limbs or his mighty power if it were so.” The woman stood and the light came closer to me. The closer it came, the lower I got to the ground until I was lying face down in the dirt.
“At last, your time has come and you must choose. Your brothers need you. Stand and fight with them!”
I felt the light dimming; gentle hands that smelt like chamomile touched my shoulder.
“Hitta! What happened? What’s wrong?” I turned over to my back to look up at Angel, but when I saw that light circling her irises, I gasped flinching away from her.
It was the chuckling of the old woman that drew my attention. She still sat on her little stool shaking her head at me. When she spoke, it was in her language again.
“It takes more than a strong body to be a host for the spirit of the Ancient of Days,” the guide translated for her. “Look at you; you cower in the dirt like a scared girl child.”
And then she held her head back and had a good laugh at my expense.
Chapter 21
The Honeymoon’s Over
Not Everything That Is Faced Can Be Changed, But Nothing Can Be Changed Until It Is Faced.
James Baldwin
Angel
I think that I may have made the biggest mistake of my life by marrying Hitta. And y’all, I know that’s a hell of a way to begin this chapter of my life. I wish with all my heart I didn’t have to, but it’s true; I’ve made a terrible mistake.
Hold on, let me get myself together because as I write this, I’m in tears. I can barely see the words on the screen in front of me because of it. Heartbreak is a bastard that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I feel like my whole life is over. What have I done? And now I have this baby growing in my womb that I may have to raise by myself.
You know, that old saying is true, what he did her, he’ll probably do to you. How many times had Carmen told me about Hitta’s cheating on Shantell and about how he used to stay away for days and not come home?
I guess I should feel lucky because he’s not staying away for days; he still comes home every night, but it’s always after Jessie and I go to bed. Okay, I know you guys are like, wait…what? Let me go back a few weeks and bring y’all up to speed.
Hitta came back from our honeymoon a different man. In fact, I take that back, he came down from that mountain a different man. That’s when I first noticed the change in him. It was like he was there, but he wasn’t. He was withdrawn… you know. Although he still talked to me and even joked with me from time to time, he didn’t feel like the guy that lay with me in the Blue Lagoon Garden and made love to me under the stars.
I tried to talk to him to see what was going on in his head, but he would always tell me that he was cool and that I was tripping. I started getting this bad feeling like maybe he was regretting marrying me or that he was beginning to feel trapped or something, especially now that we’d found out we were having a baby. Remember I told you guys when this first began that some men were just attracted to the chase, but once they secured the prize, they lost interest? I think that may be what's going on.
But then, I didn’t know if it was just my hormones making me feel this way because he still made love to me every night without fail. And each time, he made me feel as if he was so hungry for me and only me. Every night he held me close and still didn’t seem to mind that by morning, I somehow found my way onto his back.
It was like this weird energy fell over him when he came to bed at night, where he felt that he had to prove to himself and me that it was he who caused my body to go up into a million fires. Sometimes his lovemaking felt cruel and sadistic, not because it hurt or anything, but because of the way he would skillfully cause my body to go up in flames. Then he would wait till I was on the verge of an explosion to slow down his strokes, holding me right there on the edge.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I’d moan, sometimes on the verge of tears. He would get this look in his eye, studying me in a way that was frightening before growling, “Who do you belong to?”
“You!” I had to bite down on my bottom lip to keep from screaming at him as his proficient touch continued to hold me on that ledge.
He’d have this little wicked grin on his face, very aware of the torture he was putting me through.
“What’s my name, Angel?”
“Mmmm, Hitta…” would come from between my lips on a moan.
He’d close his eyes as my breathy words washed over him and when he opened them again, the possessiveness in them only served to heighten my pleasure as he gave me what I needed to achieve the ultimate release. And as I floated back to earth, he’d gently kiss my neck right under my ear.
“I’ll never let you go, Teacup…” he’d whisper before masterfully restoking the flames…
Ugggh! And the bad part was that I wanted to deny him for hurting me, but I just couldn’t because my own lust served as a weapon against me. Why the hell can’t I resist him? He is such an asshole!
He doesn’t even come to the shop to get his daily tea from me anymore; he sends one of his lackeys. He claims he’s gotten busy with clients, but I know it’s a lie. He has to know that he’s hurting me by staying away like he does. I refuse to believe that he can’t see that he’s tearing me apart by withdrawing from me like this. I just don’t understand what is going on with him. The mixed signals he’s sending out is driving me crazy.
When I scheduled my first doctor’s appointment, he was right there next to me. And when the doctor told us we were almost four months pregnant, he had genuine amazement in his eyes just like I did.
Oh y’all, that one threw me for a loop, it completely sucker-punched me. I did notice I had picked up a little weight in my hips and butt, but I’ve always been bottom-heavy and never really had a flat stomach anyway, so I didn’t think much of it. And according to the doc, I was one of those people that carried my weight in my hips anyway, so she wasn’t surprised that I didn’t notice.
Another reason I didn’t notice was because I’m pretty sure this last month was the first month I’d missed my period. I remember Hitta pouting at least twice since I’ve lived with him because I told him that he and I couldn’t have any fun for a few days. This was another thing the doctor says is not uncommon. She told us many women get their periods during the first trimester of their pregnancy and that we had nothing to worry about.
Then she handed us the first ultrasound of our baby and told us that we were having a boy. We both gushed over the picture amazed that we could produce a little being so perfect.
As we drove home from the hospital, we laughed at how silly we were for not realizing we were pregnant earlier and how beautiful our baby was. We laughed, we joked, and then he didn’t come home for dinner. He didn’t call or anything.
I lay in bed that night and cried because I knew that this was the beginning of the end. I wasn’t like Shantell, I couldn’t stay with him knowing that he was with other women. Now don’t get me wrong, I can’t say that this is a fact. I just know that the things he used to do, he doesn't do anymore, like be home to have dinner with Jess and me.
When he finally came in sometime after midnight, I pretended to be asleep. I didn’t want to talk to him, and I sure didn’t want him touching me anymore.
Well…
That wasn’t really true and that was the damn problem! I did want him touching me because I was horny. I was freaking horny all the time and he was taking advantage of that. But I was fed up, and I wasn’t going to put up with his sh*t anymore! At least that’s what I told myself.
But then…
He eased in the bed and wrapped his strong arm around me, pulling my stiff body against his.
“Mmmm, I missed you, shawty,” he said in my ear just before taking my lobe between his teeth and sucking on it.
I pressed my thighs together as my traitorous body began its journey of betraying me. Goodness! I don’t know if it was his scent or how good his hard muscles felt pressed against my soft skin, but I felt my defenses weakening quickly.
Angry with myself and him, I threw the covers back and his arm with it before getting out of the bed and hurried into the bathroom without looking back. I tried to slam the door, but he was right behind me.
A startled sound escaped my throat; I had not heard him get up from the bed. But I guess the three weeks’ worth of pent up frustration I was feeling because of the ho
rrible way he’s been treating me must have bubbled up and out. That startled sound turned into a growl and I tried to beat the hell out of him with that door.
“What’s wrong, Teacup?” he asked with that evil ass grin on his face as he caught the door before I could do any real damage, only frustrating me more.
“Won’t you leave me alone?!” I screeched at him, trying my best not to scream at the top of my lungs so I didn’t wake up Jessie. I was so angry with him.
He chuckled, shoving the door open. “Naw, bae. Why would I do that? I’ve been hungry for you all day.”
In a huff I leaned against the sink with my arms folded, looking straight ahead at the tub. I didn’t want to talk to him, look at him, nothing. And I felt angry tears burning the back of my eyes, which only pissed me off more because I didn’t want this asshole to think I was crying over him.
“Come on, don’t be mad at me,” he whispered, crowding my space trying to pull me into his arms.
Y’all see what I mean? That crazy energy has come over him. He’s doing this on purpose! He’s hurting my feelings on purpose!
“Let me go!” I screamed trying to shove his big self off of me.
It didn’t help that he wasn’t wearing anything but a pair of black boxer briefs and so now, I was trying not to appreciate his body while trying to hold on to my rage.
Goodness!!!
There was a chaotic blend of emotions warring inside of me and I just wanted to yell at the top of my lungs and probably would have if I didn’t think it would wake up Jessie.
“I’m sorry, Angel…” he whispered wrapping his arms around me pulling me close although I struggled with him.
Well…
At least I told myself to struggle with him, but when his hungry mouth touched my ear and then my neck…
“I’m sorry baby, don’t push me away. I need you…” His hands fell to the ribbon on my nightgown untying it, looking down at my body in that way that he does, the way that makes me feel like he sees only me. He gently palmed my breasts, letting my gown slide to my feet.