Sister Mine

by Nalo Hopkinson

  Mm, mm, mm, mm,

  We are lost in anyone’s home.

  He and I stared at each other, openmouthed. That had sounded good! “Was it right?” I asked him. “I don’t know from pitch.”

  “It was perfect.” He pumped his fist in the air. “Yes! I can fucking do this! Who knew?”

  “But why do you want me to sing?”

  The rattling of the dressing room door grew frenzied.

  Brie sighed. “Maybe you can get the zimzam to latch onto you permanently. I’d rather it be alive than dead, even if that means I don’t have it.”

  My eyes brimmed over without warning. “Now who’s being noble?” I hugged him.

  Someone rapped loudly on the greenroom door. “Come on, folks, let’s go! People are getting restless out here.” Finally, the actual stage manager.

  Brie grabbed my hand. In a strained voice, he said, “You can do this. I’ll be helping you, sitting right out front where you can see me.”

  “Ms. Joli!” yelled the stage manager.

  I called, “I’m on my way!” Kinda sounded like Abby. Kinda.

  Brie said, “We need to hurry. I’m not sure how much longer I can control this thing.”

  I hadn’t done this in ages, not since Abs and I were both kids. I’d grown a few inches taller than her. Her pants were too short in the crotch for me, and her shoes pinched. She walked differently nowadays, too. More strongly, and I didn’t quite have the hang of it. As I moved towards the door, I pulled my leg up a little to mimic her shorter one, tried for her characteristic gait. “No,” said Brie. “A little more limp, but a little more attitude, too. You need to work the whole diva thing. And pull your shoulders back. No singer would choke up on her diaphragm like that. At least Abby doesn’t.”

  There was polite clapping from the audience outside. The band had finished the song.

  “Showtime,” I said. “Let’s go.” I called out, “Abby, I promise this’ll work out!”

  She threw herself against the door a couple more times.

  I stepped out into the performance space, Brie behind me. My heart was a jackhammer in my chest. Head up. Shoulders back. Attitude.

  We were approaching the steps to the stage. The audience broke into applause when they saw me. I jumped about a foot at the sudden sound. And oh gods above, Beji and Beji were in the audience! They waved at me—or rather, at Abby. I felt like I was going to hurl. Brie squeezed my free hand. I concentrated on his touch, the realness of it. He leaned in close and whispered, “Don’t get too close to the mike. If this works, you could blow it out.”

  He stood beside me and gave me his arm. Huh? Right; Abby would be helped up the short, railing-free stairs. I took his arm, leaned on it like I needed it. Actually, I did. I was shaking so badly that my teeth were chattering. “Ready?” he whispered.

  “No. I mean, yes.”

  He glanced at me nervously, but escorted me up the stairs without another word. Thank heaven the audience was mostly in darkness, but for the people closest to the stage. From his place with the band, Lars looked at me suspiciously. I shrugged at him. He raised a single, elegant eyebrow. Brie escorted me to centre stage, where the stool and the mike were. He made sure I was seated. I nodded my thanks at him. He turned the mike away from us and whispered, “Wait till I get down in front. When you’re about to begin, give me a nod.”

  “Sure.” My mouth was as dry as the Sahara. Brie turned the mike back towards me and got offstage. I took a sip of water from the glass. My hands were shaking so badly that I spilled a little of it on Abby’s pants.

  I’d lost sight of Brie. Frantically, I searched the first few rows of people with my eyes until I saw him; there, a little to my left.

  There was a set list on the small table by Abby’s stool. The silence had stretched on too long. I needed to get going. I glanced at the set list, and went blank. I couldn’t make the words make sense. I closed my eyes in panic.

  “ ‘In Anyone’s Home’?” It was Lars, prompting me with his soft voice. Bless him. I nodded. They began the opening bars of the song. Crap! Was Brie ready?

  Brie’s eyes were shut. Did he know when I was supposed to come in? He opened his eyes, thank heaven, just in time for me to give him my signal. A split second late, I croaked out the first few words.

  Mm, mm, mm, mm

  In anyone’s home we are lost.

  It was frightful. Creaky, too soft, nowhere near on key. It wasn’t working! People at the front of house frowned. Frantic, I looked at Brie. He mimed, Pull your spine up straight. Keep going. I couldn’t let Abby fail. Through gonging terror, I took a gasping breath and launched into the rest:

  Mm, mm, mm, mm,

  We are lost in anyone’s home.

  My voice boomed out so loudly that the mike squealed. Feedback. But I’d been on key, just too loud. Remembering Brie’s instruction before I went onstage, I lifted the mike stand and moved the mike farther away from my face. I winked at the crowd. A few people laughed. I sang, and it was good. It was like Brie was holding me up, singing through me, but with Abby’s voice. When I ran out of air, the last note I’d sung would somehow continue until I caught my breath again. I belted. I grooved. I wailed. Once I blanked on the words to the second verse of “Women of Other Worlds,” and I freaking scatted! Just for a few seconds, but I did! My eyes adjusted to the darkened crowd enough that I could see a few people dancing. By the fifth song, I was swinging along with the band like I was one of them. I was flirting with the crowd, cracking jokes, twitching my shoulders in time to the music. I. Was. Making. Could Abby hear me? Was I doing good? Brie sure looked proud of me.

  I glanced at the set list. Sixth song was a cover, slower tempo, change of gears. A pang of sadness cut through my elation. Dad used to sing this to us and now, for the first time, I’d be able to sing it, too. I beat out the tempo against my thigh, the band started in to my direction, and I sang, sweet as honey in the rock:

  Go to sleep, you little baby,

  Go to sleep, you little baby,

  Your momma’s gone away, but your daddy’s gonna stay

  Didn’t leave nobody but the baby.

  People were swaying in time. A man down in front blinked tears out of his eyes. Dad, I pleaded silently, Come back to us!

  Go to sleep, pretty baby,

  She’s long gone with her red shoes on.

  She was gone, or she had been. Abs and I had never known a mother, just Dad and Uncle Jack, whom so many claypickens hated and misunderstood. But now we had Mom back. And most of Dad, if we could just get all the pieces together. There had to be a way.

  I knew which verse was next. Dad used to change it sometimes when he sang it for us. On the word “you,” he would point at us both. For Abby, for Uncle, for Dad, I opened my throat and sang Dad’s version:

  Don’t you weep, pretty baby,

  You and me and the devil makes four,

  Don’t need no other lovin’ baby.

  One or two people looked startled when I broke the rhyme, replacing “three” with “four.” I heard Lars say, sotto voce, “That’s right, girl.” Other than that, most people didn’t seem to notice the switch. I sang the song through to the end, then immediately leapt into the last one, a blazing version of Hendrix’s “Room Full of Mirrors.” That was a new one for Abby. She’d put it in for Lars. I’d only seen her rehearse it once. The terror pounced again. But as the band lit into the tune, Brie laughed and threw both thumbs up. He jumped to his feet. Taking his cue, so did everyone else who’d remained seated till now. Brie mouthed at me, I know this one! He began pumping his head in blissful time to the music. His lips moved, soundlessly feeding me the lyrics; I started singing, and then the whole audience was dancing, stomping, clapping, so loudly that it didn’t matter when I flubbed the occasional line. The band and I fucking rocked the house. The crowd went nuts. Holy shit, what a rush this was! Now I understood why Abby loved performing so much.

  But where was my haint? Brie looked like shit on a bun from
fighting to control it. And I couldn’t feel any sign that it had tried to come for me. What would I even feel? Brie’s description hadn’t helped. As we boogied full force towards the end of the song, I closed my eyes and sang to my haint that love would shine on my baby, then I’d know she was for me.

  That should have been the end of the set, but the crowd was calling for an encore. Sure, I could do that. Abby had a list of possible songs in case an encore was in order. I scanned the list. Ah. There was one of my favourites. I told the band “Branch Down.” They started in on the opening notes. The audience quieted in anticipation. Brie was clearly exhausted, but he squared his shoulders. I gave him the nod, he gave me the thumbs-up, and I threw myself into the song—

  —and sprawled flat on my metaphorical face. The notes came out as some unholy offspring of a squawk and a screech. I clamped my mouth shut. Brie looked about ready to collapse. He mouthed, It’s gone. Do you have it? Frantically, I shook my head. The band kept gamely playing. Brie looked thoroughly confused. He motioned me to jump back into the song. I tried, I really did. If anything, it was even worse. Then, to my abject horror, people in the audience began to boo.

  I felt the rush, like an oncoming wave. Power, of a type I’d never known before. My haint! I stood ready to receive it, not knowing whether it would bond with me or strike me down.

  And I sensed it slap against me and bounce off, repelled. Something green and growing inside me stirred, wormlike. Something not a part of me. While I carried Dad’s mojo, I had no room for my own.

  The greenroom door banged open. Abby’d managed to get free. She came out with her back to us, step-clump, holding a chair that she was using to fend off her attacker. “Get away!” she yelled at it.

  It was my haint. It was the least human-looking I’d ever seen it, like an orangutan and a snake had spawned a kid. Think furry, four-legged centipede the size of your average dog. Snarling. The people in the crowd who were nearest started hollering in fear. They tried to run, but the people who couldn’t see that there was danger were pushing in close for a better view. I jumped down off the stage to try to help Abby. My haint reared onto its hind legs and came at us. Lars barrelled towards us, holding a two-four over his head. He managed to slam it down on the haint’s skull. Glass and beer exploded from the flimsy box; Lars had used one with full bottles in it. The haint howled in pain from the liquid as the beer began to drain down through its fur. It backhanded Lars, who went down with a whuffing sound of air being pushed out of his lungs. The Bejis leapt into the fray. The haint boxed them away easily. Brie tried to get between the haint and Abby. The haint grabbed him around the middle, and they began to tussle. I rushed to Abby’s side. I took hold of the back of the chair she’d been holding. “Get out of the way!” I yelled at her. “It’s me it’s looking for!”

  Her eyes widened as she realized what her attacker was. “Then let’s both fight it!” she said. She wouldn’t let go of the chair. She shouted at the fast-dispersing crowd, “Douse it with water! It can’t stand water!”

  “Give me the damned chair!” I said.

  “No way.”

  Brie and the haint were down on the ground and rolling. Something covered in fur shouldn’t have been shaped like that, shouldn’t have been able to writhe like that. There was blood. I could see gashes on Brie’s face. “Brie!” I shouted.

  Abby released the chair to me. “Go!” she said. “I’ll get some freaking water!” I was already rushing the haint with the chair. But suppose I hit Brie? I hesitated. With an arm that seemed entirely too long, the haint reached out and grabbed a leg of the chair and pulled it easily out of my hands.

  An earsplitting guitar wail had us all crouching and covering our ears, even the haint for a second. Someone’s hand grabbed me around the middle and yanked me out of the way just as the haint leapt to where I’d been. I didn’t see it land. The music was waves of vertigo, spinning me into the giddiness of transit.

  That had to be Lars beside me, that wriggling giggle of summer-midnight black and banana-popsicle yellow. He smelled like the steam off superheated sidewalks when the first drops of rain hit. Underneath that a whiff of naphtha.

  My vision normalized. We were on some kind of open plain, Lars and I. Red dirt as far as the eye could see, in any direction. Daylight, but with no sun. Further observation would have to wait until I was done being sick onto the red dirt.

  “Sorry ’bout that,” Lars said. “Couldn’t think of another quick way to get you out of there.” He was astride his motorbike.

  I spat to get the taste out, and wiped my mouth on the sleeve of Abby’s beautiful green silk blouse. “Where’s Abby? Didn’t you bring her out, too?”

  “I guess she decided to stay.” He didn’t look too happy about it.

  “And what about Brie? And all the people in there! It’ll go after them!”

  He shook his head. “Have a feeling not. Have a hunch it’ll be coming after you, any second now.”

  Great. And me without my water gun. “So you brought us to the driest place you could find? How’s that going to keep me safe?”

  “Didn’t have time to think it through. Brought you to the first place I could get to. And I wasn’t only trying to keep you safe, but all the claypickens in that room. Hop on, wouldja?”

  “Well, thanks a whole fuck of a lot! You take me back there, right now!”

  “Can’t. I’m sort of lost. And you need to get on this bike, like, yesterday.”

  “You’re lost?!”

  “Yup. And keeping on the move might be our only chance,” he said quietly. “Look up.”

  I did. Far away, high up in the not-sky, a V-formation of angular shapes was headed towards us. “Gods fucking damn,” I muttered. I hopped on. He gunned the bike into life. We zoomed over open ground. I looked over my shoulder and up. Already, the birds were closer. A silvery needle flashed at the leading tip of each one. Needle-sharp beaks, catching the light. I knew where I’d seen those birds before. Last time I saw them, they’d been aluminum patio lights and bits of worn glass glued onto a clumsily knitted rug. Hard to tell at this distance, but the birds seemed to be feathered. I was pretty sure that all their feathers would look like the one I’d knitted into the rug. The birds’ heads had a frosty, translucent gleam, like beach glass held up to the light. What the hell had I done?

  There was a small lump on the horizon, getting larger quickly. Greenish. “Gonna head over there!” said Lars.

  “Is it the courtyard?”

  “Dunno, but there might be some shelter.”

  The birds began to angle downwards. I shaded my eyes and tried to make out the thing on the horizon. “I think it’s a woods!” I said.

  “What?” shouted Lars over his shoulder.

  “Nothing. Go faster!”

  “Giving her as much as she’s got!”

  The birds massed into formation in the airspace above us. They were manoeuvring to get between us and the trees. “Grab my lance!” yelled Lars.

  “You wish.” I was only half paying attention, mesmerized by the V-formation diving down towards us.

  The lead bird plunged, a flurry of iridescent black feathers powered by heaven knew what. Its body was the size of a badger, each wing about two feet outstretched. Its beak was definitely metal, and it was aiming for Lars’s eyes. Pinions slapped my face in its passing. Lars turned his head. The bird slammed into the side of his helmet, cranking his head to the side. He grunted. The bike slewed. I screamed his name. He canted the bike into a deep, angled circle; either deliberately or because he’d been hurt. I didn’t know which. Somehow, I managed not to fall off. The bird, built more for soaring than for quick changes of direction, missed its next strike and flopped off to one side. We spun out of the turn. Lars leaned forward and gunned ’er. He was still with me, then. We headed for the trees again. The attack had sent us backwards a few yards. The other birds were dropping down to attack now. Lars punched at them one-handed, making the bike wobble. I wasn’t wearing a he
lmet. I gripped the bike with my knees and tore at the birds with my hands. They smelled like algae-clogged lake water and sunbaked goose guano. Their claws raked our arms. “My umbrella!” yelled Lars. “Fucking get it, already!”

  “All right! Cripes.” I reached around Lars and grabbed his umbrella out of its holster. Good thing I bent my head just then, too; a claw strike missed me by centimetres.

  As I withdrew the umbrella, Lars took hold of the tip and pulled. It came away in his hands. It was a sheath. Beneath it, the end of the umbrella was a blade a good foot long; slim, sharp, and flexy. It was the rapier he’d used when he was battling Dad in the park. “You fight them off!” he said. “I’ll get us there.”

  Tentatively, I stabbed at a bird. The jolt sang its way up my arm and numbed my fingers. I gave a little scream as the bird impaled itself on the blade. Puce blood, yellow-flecked, stained the fabric of the brolly. As I tipped the blade downwards to shake the bird off, two more came at us. More from intuition than common sense, I clubbed them away with the handle. I barely managed not to gut myself or Lars with the blade. The bird slid off its tip and tumbled onto the ground, left behind us as we sped forward. From then on, I held the brolly rapier so that I could use either business end: one sharp, one thuddy. I only whacked Lars once, luckily with the thuddy end. Banged myself in the head about three or four times and put a slice across the top of one of my shoes before I got the hang of it. “Can’t you buffet them with a wall of loud music, or something?”

  “In this wide-open space? You got a Jimi-sized bank of amps? ’Cause I sure don’t!”

  We were close enough now to see that the woods were wrapped in kudzu, which was growing thicker as we watched. My heart sank. “It’s Dad!” I yelled into Lars’s ear.

  Lars only grunted. He was busy dodging raptors as they dove for us, talons outstretched. “Lars, we can’t go in there! He’ll kill us!”

  “Where, then?”

  A bird raked the back of my neck. I screamed and fought it off. A part of me could sense the gouges in my skin, feel the blood trickling past the collar of my shirt. But I was too hyped to feel any pain. Yet.