Battle Hill Bolero

by Daniel José Older

  I frown at him. “Why would we?”

  “Ha!” He turns back around. The cigarette still sits unlit in his mouth—Baba Eddie’s big on savoring every little moment of his singular vice. “Why indeed.” He raises the lighter, flicks it once, twice, a third time, and finally touches the flame to the tip, inhales.

  “What’s a iyawo anywa—” Jimmy doesn’t finish cuz I bap him on the shoulder. My translucent hand slides through his warm flesh, bone, and blood and he shudders.

  “Not on the first drag, man, you know that.”

  Jimmy shuts up.

  We hear the whisper of the kerosene, the embers crinkling, turning black like Baba Eddie’s lungs must be, the slosh of cars driving through muddy snow, wet flakes from the sky slapping against the windows.

  Baba Eddie lets out a sigh, his eyes closed.

  “We going by Mama Esther’s first, right?” Rohan says when it seems like the moment has passed.

  The santero nods, eyes still closed. “Supersecret pre-meeting to prepare for the less-secret meeting.”

  Rohan grunts. “This is it, huh? We doin’ it.”

  Baba Eddie chuckles wearily. “We doin’ it. After this, there’s no turning back. You got that, youngens?”

  We nod.

  “No turning back,” he says again. Then he reaches his arm across the front seat and turns to face us. “A iyawo is a brand-new baby santero. Or in this case, santera. She just got made a few weeks ago, right after she got back from Brazil, in fact.”

  “Got made,” I say. “Like in the mafia?”

  “Heh, kinda,” Baba Eddie chuckles. “But nicer. Usually. Anyway, her name is Kia, but for the next year, her name is Iyawo.”

  “Year?” Jimmy and I say together.

  “And she will only wear white. She won’t be going out at night, going to parties, drinking . . . none of that.”

  “Damn,” Jimmy says. “Shut the whole thing down, huh?”

  Baba Eddie shrugs. “She’s brand-new and wide-open, spiritually speaking. Reborn.”

  “That’s why she can’t touch people?” I ask, trying to pretend like my whole entire shit isn’t crumbling before my eyes. I wonder if I could wait a year. I wonder if Ki—the Iyawo could love a dead girl. Or any girl.

  “Right,” Baba Eddie says. “And that’s why you won’t be falling in love with her.” He shoots a sharp look at Jimmy, who raises both hands and tries to look innocent. “Or making her fall in love with you.” He glares at me.

  I just shrug and look out the window.

  “She’s married to orisha,” Baba Eddie says, turning back around. “‘Iyawo’ means wife. And orisha always wins.”

  Rohan just chuckles.

  —

  You can’t feel lonely in Mama Esther’s house. Trust me, I’ve tried. That ill emptiness starts to rise up, and then all that warm Mama Esther essence just lifts it and disperses it across the atmosphere like so many swirling dust motes. It’s not that she lives in a brownstone on Franklin Avenue—Mama Esther is a brownstone on Franklin Avenue. She’s a house ghost, which means she’s like the cumulative spiritual energies of however many generations of women who lived there plus the actual building itself. She’s gigantic and usually keeps to the top floor, where stacks and stacks of ancient and not-so-ancient books form some kind of epic spiritual library. I asked her once if she could ever leave, like just take off and go somewhere else, and she shook her head. “Not unless I take the house with me.” That’s what being a grounded ghost means, she told me: you a part of the place on a whole other level.

  Mama Esther’s smile always has a hint of sadness—that’s how you know it’s real.

  The pre-meeting meeting is on the third floor, in an old wood-paneled room that’s empty except for a huge claw-footed table surrounded by a bunch of foldout chairs and all the people, alive and dead, that I love the most in this world, except Carlos.

  “Where’s Carlos?” Riley asks when we walk in. He’s a burly, bald-headed, brown-skinned former soulcatcher; he went AWOL when he cut down an ancient plantation-master ghost who the Council had designated a protected entity. He and C are best friends.

  “Thought he was with you,” Baba Eddie says.

  I pull up a chair next to Riley. Jimmy sits beside me. “Probably got held up on some Council shit,” I tell them. “They sent him and a new guy to handle some situation on a bridge this morning.”

  Big Cane sits on the other side of Riley—he’s pretty much one of my favorite people, dead or alive. He’s huge and white, which I guess explains why they call him that, and always knows when to shut the fuck up, which is why we’re cool. We exchange a nod and smile. Across the table are Cyrus Langley, an old-time conjurer from the way-back-when days of New York, and his great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson Damian.

  “And where’s Gordo?” Riley demands. “Shit is too real right now for folks to just be playin’ hooky.”

  “He had to babysit,” Damian says. Damian’s tiny, a child ghost, and it still bothers me a little, thinking of him dying so young and stuck in this little translucent, glowing form. He never told me how he went, and I never asked.

  Everyone gets quiet after that, because the whole thing with Carlos having kids that he doesn’t even see hasn’t sat well with anyone since we found out a few months ago.

  “You were waiting for me?” a great big voice says. “How sweet!” Mama Esther’s gigantic head appears above the table, smiling that smile of hers. “Now let’s get right down to it.”

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout,” Riley says.

  Cyrus Langley floats up out of his seat and leans forward on the table. His old, weathered face usually has a grandfatherly smile ready to shine out on the world, but today the conjureman is somber. “My people, we find ourselves at a crossroads.”

  “Amen,” Mama Esther says.

  “We been agitatin’ and causing some mild mayhem for the Council for a few months now. They’re down one chairman and there’ve been minor skirmishes in six of the remaining ten Remote Districts. The Council has begun to take notice, and they’re vexed, my friends.”

  “A beautiful thing,” Riley says.

  The Remote Districts are small autonomous communities around the city that outright reject Council rule. “Crossroads moments are about crisis,” Cyrus continues. “But the way I see it, we been in crisis for a minute now, just a very slow, painful one.”

  General mutters of assent from around the table.

  “Now, we have three reliable folks inside the Council”—that’d be Carlos, Big Cane, and myself—“and the fools upstairs been beating us all down with their regulations, brutality, and corruption for long as anyone can remember. We’ve lost more souls than we can count. We’ve petitioned for change and demanded change and in reply they spat in our faces, ransacked our communities, murdered our living relatives. Should be no surprise that more than half the Remote Districts stand ready to bring havoc. We have played by their rules long enough.” The room gets very quiet. I’m pretty sure we all knew this was coming, but still, it’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for for a while now. “It’s time, I think, that we brought the crisis to the Council.”

  There’s a pause.

  “Fuck yeah,” I say. Then everybody laughs and cheers.

  Cyrus clears his throat. “Which brings us to the meeting we’re about to attend.”

  “Yeah, about that,” Riley says.

  Cyrus nods at him to take over, and Riley stands. “The six Remote Districts that have been causing trouble—that’d be RDs 4, 5, 7, 12, 15, and 17—have called for a coordination meeting. They want to organize a unified protest, basically send a message to the Council that they’re not going anywhere and not here for no COD bullshit etcetera, etcetera.”

  “But?” Baba Eddie says.

  Riley scowls. “We’re pretty s
ure the Council’s gotten to at least one of ’em.”

  “Wouldn’t they tell Big Cane or Krys if they were trying to sabotage the RDs?” Jimmy asks.

  I shake my head. “Nah, man. They know we cool with Carlos, and Carlos been getting the Council stink-eye since Riley defected. We’re all suspect, far as they’re concerned.”

  “They still giving you the big guns though, right?” Riley asks.

  I flash a winning smile. “They haven’t given me any new toys in a few, but they ain’t asked for the old ones back either.” In Soulcatcher Academy, I pretty much killed it—no pun—the whole way through; no one could handle phantom ballistics like ya girl Krys. So they tried a pilot program on me, handing over all the good weaponry so I can test it out. “Anyway, they don’t have much of a choice at this point, since no one else knows how to use the shit like I do.”

  “Excellent,” Cyrus says, finally showing us that shiny smile that’s somehow loving and menacing at the same time.

  “More than being concerned about a mole, though,” Damian says. “We’re worried about a massacre.”

  “Ah,” Baba Eddie says, and the room gets quiet.

  Finally, Big Cane pipes up. He talks slow; it must take a while for the words to make their way through all the hugeness that encompasses him. “Thing is,” he drawls, “I know the Council’s foul much as any of us, but a massacre? Would they go that far before they even have a true rebellion on their hands? Seems unlikely. Risky, I mean, on their part. Let’s say they slaughter a bunch of Remote District ghosts and then spurn a whole other uprising on the strength of that event, ya know?”

  Some grumbles, and then Riley: “I wouldn’t put it past ’em. They’re tone deaf and bloodthirsty. Dangerous combination. And like Cyrus said, they’re vexed. ’Specially now that they lost one of the Seven.”

  “Either way,” Cyrus says. “We’re proceeding with caution here. No warmbodies out in the field. I want Baba Eddie, Jimmy, and Rohan to hang back.”

  “Aw, man,” Jimmy huffs. Baba Eddie looks relieved.

  Cyrus continues. “Riley, Damian, and I will be in the meet. Council already knows who we are anyway. No one is to speak of any larger plan beyond the coordinated protest. We just there to listen and let everyone else play their cards so we can see what we can see. And none of our Council insiders are to make a showing, especially not Carlos—if he ever shows up.”

  Riley snorts.

  “So Big Cane, you and Krys and Rohan will post up in the woods around the field where we meet. Any sign of trouble, you all are the backup. Extract our folks and get the hell out, yes?”

  Big Cane and I nod.

  “Good.” Cyrus pounds the table one time. “We meet at the park in one hour.”

  “What about me?” Mama Esther says. “You want me to come, Cy?”

  Cyrus flashes her his biggest smile yet. “I need you to stick around, Miss Esther, so I know I’ll have that pretty face here to greet me when we come out of this mess alive.”

  I think the whole room gapes at the same time. Did Cyrus Langley just . . . flirt? We’re all packing up to leave and snickering with each other when Mama Esther calls me over.

  “Meet me upstairs,” she says, her whisper warm and mischievous.

  —

  I devoured books when I was alive. Ate my way through whatever chapter books my parents bought me as a kid, then their bookshelves, top to bottom. My dad was a history professor, and Mom had a thing for sci-fi, so between the two of ’em I was set for a little while. Then I hit my early teens and started building my own little library, a kind of hybrid monster of them both, plus some brand-new titles that were all me: bell hooks and Alice Walker; all the Song of Ice and Fire books and everything by Baldwin; Stephen King and Amiri Baraka, side by side.

  That was one shelf. There were eight others, equally outrageous and fantastical, and I was dreaming of so many more when I got sick. My grandma usedta read to me from her grandma’s Bible while I lay there, dying. It was boring as hell—she favored the ain’t-shit-going-on books like Numbers and boring-ass Deuteronomy—but the sound of her deep, old voice, rich and full and black and true, brought me peace. Anyway, the chemo made my vision blurry, and then I just didn’t have it in me to lift my head, and then I was gone.

  So up here—in Mama Esther’s sacred temple of the written word—I am home.

  There’s a comfort in knowing I could never, ever read all these books. They’re huge, first of all—most of ’em great unwieldy leather-bound tomes; some even have old, rusty locks sealing them shut. And beyond that, the stacks seem to go on forever.

  Or, they used to. Today, Mama Esther’s library looks a little thinned out.

  “What’s up?” I ask, plopping my translucent ass in one of her plush easy chairs.

  “You tell me,” Mama Esther says.

  “Mama E, you asked me up here.”

  “And then I asked you what’s up. So what’s up?”

  “Actually, I as—”

  “Don’t you actually me, girl.” She’s kidding—I know she’s kidding. But it comes out sharp. My face must’ve registered some surprise, because she immediately softens. “Sorry, Krys. It’s been . . . it’s a rough time, this one.”

  I purse my lips and nod my head a few times. “Rougher than what Cyrus was talking about just now?”

  Mama Esther points her gaze toward the darkening sky out the window. “I think so, child. Yes.”

  “What’s up with you two, anyway?”

  She lets out a soft chuckle. “As little Damian would say: Noneya.”

  “Fine.”

  “What about you, Krys? Who is he?”

  “The hell you talking about, woman?”

  She directs a long stare at me and I crumple. “She.”

  “Oh! My apologies. I’ve clung to some archaic habits in my old age.”

  I shrug it off. “S’fine. I just . . . to be honest, there are at least three great reasons why it couldn’t happen, but I’m here focused on the one dumb one.”

  “Which is?”

  “I feel . . . fat.”

  Mama Esther busts out laughing.

  “I know, I know, shut up.”

  “No . . . It’s just . . .” She tries to collect herself, fails. Throws her head back again. The whole building shakes with her silent chuckle.

  “No, I get it. I’m a ghost. I don’t even have weight. I literally weigh nothing. And like . . . so what if I am fat, right? I get that too. I mean, shit, I was fine as fuck, excuse me, fine as shit. Dammit, I was fine when I was alive. I’m still fine.”

  Mama Esther’s eyes are still squeezed shut, and great ghostly tears slide down her face, around her wide smile. I don’t even think she’s listening.

  “But this girl, she’s just so lithe and slender. She’s like a fuckin’ antelope. Grace just lives in her body. She could trip over her own feet and it’d be a ballet, Mama Esther. I feel huge beside her. Huge.”

  Mama Esther wipes her eyes with giant, glowing hands. “You think you big,” she says. “Bitch, I’m a house.” She cackles. “Literally!”

  Old ghosts are so weird.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She collects herself, wipes her eyes again. “I’ve always wanted to say that. I’m good. Listen, Krys, babychild. You beautiful. You more than fine—you reinvent grace. Trust me. It’s on another level. And yes, there’s so much of you to love. God just kept giving and giving, bless him. Embrace it. Please. It’s all yours.”

  I sigh. I’ve told myself as much before, believed it too, but it’s different coming from Mama Esther. “Thanks,” I say, real quiet.

  “Whenever you worried about being bigger than this li’l thing you interested in, just think about how much bigger I am than ol’ Cyrus Langley.”

  “Whoa.”

  “And believe me when I tell you that
doesn’t stop him from loving the hell outta me, and loving me right.”

  “Jesus, Mama E, what happened to noneya?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Just remember.”

  “Is that what you brought me up here to talk about?”

  She coughs out the last little bit of laughter and straightens her face. “No, actually, that was just because you looked like you had someone on your mind. I wanted to give you these.” She nods toward a small stack of books on the reading table.

  “Give? Me? Wha—why?”

  “Don’t act like I’m miserly with the book now, Krys. Carlos probably has half my library tucked away in that little apartment of his. Borrowed.” She makes little bunny ears with her fingers.

  “Not half, though.”

  “Not by a long shot, no.” She winks. “Anyway, take ’em. Call it an expansion.”

  “How so?”

  “This way there’ll be little satellite branches of the Mama Esther library all over the city.”

  “Okay,” I say, putting the books in my bag. They’re old and musty. I can’t wait to dig in.

  A morose silence settles over us, broken only by the shuttle train rumbling past. “You’re worried, aren’t you?” I say.

  She nods, turning away. “Run along now, little dancer. They’ll be waiting for you.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sasha

  The first face I saw when I came back to life was Trevor’s. A thick ache swarmed my muscles and bones, and sharp flicks of pain danced up and down my sides like each nerve was exploding horribly back to life.

  We were both crying; neither of us knew why. We didn’t know anything, in fact. Memory wiped clean; all that was left was pain. So we sobbed, two newborn babies in full-grown bodies, lost and terrified. All we knew was that something was missing.

  We were too weak to stand at first, so we lay there, sliding in and out of sleep and waking with bursts of terror, then sorrow. Trying to comfort each other. The walls were bare, no windows, so his breath and slow heartbeat became the only song I knew, my clock and compass.

  And I knew he was my brother before I knew where we were or what had happened. It was never a question: this man beside me had grown up there. Later, when we saw ourselves in a mirror together for the first time, the unmistakable likeness wasn’t even a surprise. We already knew.