Saving Her Shadow

by Lutishia Lovely

  A complete stranger came up beside her, arms crossed, legs wide, looking like Okoye from Wakanda. “Whoever fights her is going to have to fight me. Who’s got next?”

  One by one the girls turned and left. “My name is Jackie,” the Okoye clone said.

  “Raina,” she’d replied.

  “It’s obvious you’re new in town,” Jackie had joked. “About to get your butt whipped cause you don’t know the rules.”

  * * *

  Raina checked the large clock on the gymnasium wall as she slipped between the double doors. Working hard to not be noticed had cost precious time. Her ride to meet Jackie and Monica would be there in less than five minutes. Their last class was study hall. As happened today, they often skipped it. She eased into a bathroom in the hallway and took the last stall. There she pulled the wool maxi over her head, revealing a tight gold sweater and black skinny jeans. She pulled a multicolored scarf out of her backpack, stuffed her dress inside, then artfully draped it around her neck. The earth tones made her brown leather boots seem less plain, especially after she pulled out a pair of wooden hoop earrings and bangles to match from the side pocket, along with a pouch holding mascara and gloss. A hard pull on the hair band freed her curls. Always a shake away from an afro, she tossed her hair forward and back, then slid the band on to keep the hair out of her face while it did its thing behind her. Easing into her coat, she glanced around to make sure nothing remained, swiped her lips with the gloss, donned a pair of sunglasses, and left the building from a side door. She hurried across the lawn, down the alley, and to the shiny black Mustang that idled two buildings down. She slid into the back seat, lay down, and exhaled. She always felt better once hidden by steel, sure she’d escaped the school grounds without anyone seeing her.

  The only thing is . . . someone had.

  “What’s up, Rainbow!”

  She loved the nickname Bryce had given her the day they’d seen one together while sneaking around in his car. But at times, like right now, instead of making her feel all gushy it grinded on her nerves.

  “Just drive, okay!”

  “What, no hug, no kiss or nothing for your boyfriend?”

  “Bryce!”

  He laughed and put the car in gear. “Okay, girl. Keep your head down, there’s someone walking in our direction.”

  Raina slid from the seat to the floor, surrounded by packages and boxes Bryce was set to deliver in his independent contracting job as a Big Box driver.

  “Dang! You’re acting like we just hit a lick. Or if your parents find out about us, they’ll kill you.”

  “There’s worse things than death,” Raina harshly whispered.

  She closed her eyes and didn’t open them again until Bryce said they were blocks from the school. She pulled herself from the floor, and once in the McFadden driveway rose out of her slouched position, pulled off her shades, and opened the door.

  “Get over here,” Bryce demanded, looking like an ad for Hip-Hop Hunks as he leaned against the car.

  Raina made to walk past him. He grabbed her and pulled her close.

  “Stop!” She wriggled out of his grasp and bounded up the stairs. Bryce’s laughter trailed her, a slow, deep chuckle of confidence dipped in swagger. Despite being frustrated by his PDA, a smile crept onto her face and refused to move. Traitor. Just as the sound of Timberlands echoed on the concrete steps, the front door opened.

  “It’s about time,” Jackie said, an iridescent crystal glistening from between her eyes.

  Raina’s comment about that was forgotten with one step inside their home. “You’ve already got Christmas!”

  Jackie delivered a dramatic eye roll. “Crazy thing, that Christmas. It comes every year.”

  “I know, but we don’t celebrate it. Lucent Rising looks the way it did in July.” She walked into the living room and stared up at the expertly decorated Douglas fir, with shiny ornaments and blinking bulbs. “It’s always so exciting to see a tree in somebody’s home.”

  She leaned forward and smelled it. “Um, just like Christmas.”

  “Yeah.” Bryce came up and hugged her from behind. “And I’m going to be your Santa Claus.”

  “Don’t make me retch,” Jackie said, heading toward the hall. “Come on, Raina. Monica’s already back here. Let’s make your stolen hour count.”

  “Half hour,” Bryce said as they both left the living room. “Those last thirty minutes are mine.”

  When it came to last night’s creative communication, Raina hadn’t been totally dishonest. There was an English project. But she’d chosen Jackie and Monica to make up her team. Extra work was required. Extra hours would be required to complete it. But they wouldn’t happen in a library, unless you counted all of the urban, YA, and romance books in Jackie’s room. The project would officially begin after the holidays. But she’d snuck over to Jackie’s several times, ever since she’d struck up a deal with the phys ed teacher who was also the basketball coach. An offhanded conversation about low grades and college eligibility for two of his best athletes led to an agreement to secretly tutor them via the internet in exchange for an A in physical education. That’s how her last class of the day sometimes moved from Chippewa High to Jackie’s house, and allowed her to spend more time with her heartthrob, Bryce Clark. After weeks of flirting during car rides, quick conversations with others around them, and innocent kisses, she’d agreed that sometime during the holiday, they could spend time alone.

  “What took you so long?” Monica asked, when Raina entered.

  Raina shimmied out of her backpack and pulled off her big down coat.

  Monica loudly reacted, then answered her own question. “That’s what took you so long,” she said, admiring Raina’s outfit.

  “This your first time seeing the transformation?” Jackie asked. “Her going from Escaping Polygamy to America’s Next Top Model?”

  Jackie high-fived Monica. They both guffawed.

  “Whatever,” Raina said, jumping on the bed and scooting between them.

  “You look so different,” Monica said, patting Raina’s hair. “Ooh, it’s soft, thick, too. That’s all you, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why don’t you wear it down all the time?”

  Raina explained her religion’s dress code, and modesty about hair.

  Monica listened, shaking her head. “All that good hair and can’t even show it off. Might as well be wearing a bonnet.”

  Jackie reached for her tablet. “Don’t give her mama no ideas.”

  “Shut up!” Raina said with a laugh. Oh, how she loved her girls.

  “So, you changed your clothes before coming over, that’s the transformation Jackie talked about?” Raina nodded. “Why? Wait . . . you’re trying to look cute for Bryce?”

  “You’re slow, girl,” Jackie said.

  “She likes Bryce and you didn’t tell me?”

  Jackie shrugged. “Not my secret, not my place.”

  “How can there be a secret when there’s nothing to tell?” Raina looked pointedly at Jackie.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “There’s not! Bryce and I are just friends.”

  Monica’s eyes slid from Raina’s hair to her boots. “That’s why you’re over here looking like a cross between Beyoncé and Tracee Ross’s mama? Somebody’s liking somebody over here. How long have y’all been dating?”

  “I could never date him, Monica. He’s an unsanctioned.”

  Monica held up her hand, cutting off further comment. “Pull up that assignment, Jackie. Let’s get some work done. This girl is on my nerves.”

  While she couldn’t always get away, Raina saw Bryce as often as possible. Which meant spending more time with Jackie, with Monica often over, too. She’d met Jackie’s mom, Valarie, and her grandmother Christine, whom Jackie called Nanny. She’d met Bryce’s cousin Larry, and the third musketeer, Steve. Every moment spent away from members of the Nation brought Raina further back into who she really was. It became harder to maintain the m
ask of Illumination and easier to realize that when it came to religion, her heart was not with that Light. It was something she’d noticed but hadn’t actually acknowledged until one night not long ago at the Illumination Center when she had been approached by Dennis Patterson, a Beam who for the past year had been trying to claim her.

  “Good evening, Light Vessel,” he’d said.

  “Good evening, Dennis,” she responded.

  He feigned being affronted as he sat down beside her, close, but not near enough to touch. “I believe the correct title is Elder.”

  “Even though I’ve known you since you played with toy trains and had a founding fathers lunch box?”

  “Hey! I still play with trains and loved that lunch box.”

  They laughed together.

  Raina decided to play along. “Good evening, Elder.”

  “How are you, Raina?”

  “Busy. You?”

  “Busy, doing what? I haven’t seen you on the nights they conduct Vessels-In-Training.”

  “I applied for and was able to get accepted into an accelerated program that starts in January and lasts twelve weeks.”

  The Vessels-In-Training program was a required course for all women in the Nation once they turned seventeen. Ostensibly, it was conducted to prepare girls for womanhood, to become healers, specialists, or other approved positions available to the “weaker sex.” Along with classes on spiritual health, spiritual humility, nutrition, and budgeting, a focus was placed on the home—home cleansing, energy healing, cooking, and childcare. Everyone knew the real reason behind the classes was to prepare Vessels for marriage. To get girls who were barely women ready to be claimed.

  “It’s interesting that you were given the fast track, given that you weren’t born into the religion. Your father is high level, though. He’s almost a master.”

  Raina almost forgot that the news shared over dinner was not yet official. She remained silent instead of spilling the beans.

  “Then again, we’re almost out of high school. After that there will be plenty of time for you to do the three-, six-, or even twelvemonth course.”

  “After high school I’m headed straight for college.”

  Dennis’s head whipped around. “You’re still on that kick?”

  “Absolutely,” Raina replied, tamping down her annoyance. “After graduating I’ll be on that kick for the next four years.”

  Dennis stood and began pacing in front of her. “Why, Raina? That’s just a waste of time that could better be used here, at the Center. We have plans to grow exponentially in the next five years. Your father is one of the leaders in this expansion, and your gifts would be greatly beneficial as well.”

  Raina listened, taken aback at Dennis’s comments. She had no idea he’d been so observant, or that he held her in this point of view. In her mind they were still the same kids that had competed against each other in noodle-eating contests, or gone camping during conferences at Tulsa Central, calling out to the angel-stars. She still remembered him playfully as Dennis the Menace. Who was this dude? His next words brought her back to the present.

  “. . . you’re a being of Light, a blessing to the Nation. You’re smart, beautiful . . .”

  Everything stopped for a minute at this declaration. It obviously took both by surprise.

  “What I mean is . . . you’re an attractive Vessel who’d make an above-adequate container for future glows. It is important that the Nation’s seed bears the mark of beauty, which is a sign of Light.”

  Had he really referred to her body with the same term used for a bottle, bucket, or jar? Yes, technically a vessel was a container, but the latter sounded crass. Raina could barely contain herself; how offensive she found his ignorant, backward, condescending comment. Was she listening to a fellow classmate, a teenager? Or was she listening to Daniel Best, the Illumination founder, who’d written the Book of Light? Dennis sat abruptly, seeming suddenly a bit at odds with himself.

  “Will you sit with me this Saturday, at the concert of gifts?”

  It was as much a request for a date as if he’d suggested dinner and a movie. For them, though, in the dating world there was no such thing as casual. Saying yes would have significant consequences. She would have set herself up to be claimed.

  “I like you, Dennis. You’re a good guy and a great elder for the church. But in May, I’m going away for four years. There’s no guarantee I’ll come back here. It’s not fair to say yes to a sitting on Saturday when it would be so meaningful.”

  “Then perhaps we could take up letters?”

  He was asking that they be pen pals, another precursor to being claimed. Basically, if you started anything within the ministry with the opposite sex, it was with the expectation that it lead to claiming.

  “I’ll be so busy,” she said with a sigh, even as she felt his mood shift beside her. “It’s difficult handling my high school class load. I can’t imagine it not being harder in college.” Trying to get back to the casual camaraderie of friendship, she continued. “How are you feeling about this last semester?”

  “Fine.”

  He was hurt. Raina understood. Rejection was never fun. “Will you go to Tulsa this summer for advanced elder classes?”

  “I like your hair.”

  She wasn’t sure what part of her question prompted his comment, but answered, “Thanks.”

  “Have you ever worn it down?” The question came from left field, asked as he peered straight ahead.

  “Every night before going to bed,” she joked. Fear tried to creep into her belly but she willed it away. There was no way Dennis knew about her traipses deep into the town of Chippewa. The path was always clear before she ran to the Mustang, and once inside she made sure no one saw her during the ride. Granted, they lived in a small town, with less than four thousand people, almost a fourth of those being members of the Nation. Eyes were everywhere and gossip spread like spilled milk on linoleum. Still, she felt sure that her secret was safe. No one in the Nation lived on the McFaddens’ side of town, which meant none of them ever had a reason to be over there.

  “Only at home, never outside?”

  “What are you asking me, Dennis? You know that’s not allowed.”

  He turned to her then, his hand inching forward, millimeters from hers. “I’d be honored if you’d sit with me Saturday night. Yes, I have plans to claim you. But we can go slow. There are online college classes. All education is not bad. It can help the Nation, help me, once I become—”

  “Dennis.”

  Without thinking, she placed a hand on his arm. He jerked away as if scorched. She pulled back, equally shaken, not believing she’d forgotten the church’s stance against touching between members of the opposite sex.

  “Forgive me, for touching you and hurting you, too. I can’t accept your invitation to claim me. I can’t promise you marriage. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “We don’t always do what’s right, though, do we?”

  Okay, this dude is tripping. Raina held on to major ’tude by a thread. “We strive to be perfect,” she said, reverting to sayings from their founder’s teaching, all found in the Book of Light. “We strive to shine, to glow. But no, we are not always successful.”

  “My invitation will remain on the table, both to the concert and to being claimed. I don’t mean to sound boastful, but your dad and mine are both in the elite. I have a bright future in the Nation, pun intended. You can be my brightest star. I hope that you change your mind.” He managed his familiar lopsided smile, his demeanor back to that of the neighbor she’d known half her life.

  “You know where to find me.”

  Raina smiled, relieved. “Just over the fence and around the bushes,” she said playfully. He left then, and Raina rose, too, and went in search of Sara and Roslyn, her Nation friends. She wanted to discuss what had just happened with someone, wanted an outlet for her jumbled feelings, one side of her clinging to the religion’s familiarity, the other screaming to get out.


  “Hello, Raina,” Sara said, her eyes shining.

  “Saw you talking to Dennis,” Roslyn said. “He’s so cute.”

  “And an Elder,” Sara added. “Oh my gosh, Raina. I think you’re about to get claimed!”

  Raina smiled, but inside any thought of talking to her friends dissipated. Sharing the conversation with her mother was out as well, and heaven forbid his interest got to her father. Ken might renege on paying her tuition for school. No, when it came to her increasingly mixed feelings about the Illumination situation, Raina would have to keep her own counsel. As for the matter of her heart currently in the hands of an unsanctioned, that was definitely something the Vessel would have to keep to herself.

  Chapter 4

  Over the next couple weeks, Raina spent more time at the Center than she did with her unsanctioned best friends, and only saw Bryce once. While the Nation did not observe Christmas, there was a holiday during this time that they recognized. The winter solstice, in the third week of December, was a very big deal. That night, there would be a huge outdoor celebration in a field near where the religion was founded—in the Kansas City, Kansas, countryside. The women were busy creating objects to be used in a variety of rituals and preparing food to feed the upwards of six thousand Midwesterners from all over Kansas who would descend on the site. But on the Wednesday before school let out for the rest of the year, Raina managed to get a couple hours away from the group. The weather had turned cold. The promise of snow hung in the air. She wore the bulky patchwork sweater that she’d left home in but had traded her maxi denim skirt for a pair of suede leggings, and released her hair from its banded jail. Instead of Bryce, it was Jackie who waited for her in the alley. She slipped into the car’s front seat and kept herself low.

  “Go!” she hissed, peeking over the rim of the window.