Marie moved her mouth, without saying anything or making sound — trancing. Whoever read The Chronicles out loud teleported through the spaces between things into the story world. You were here and now and also there and then. At least that’s what Cinnamon thought happened. Being in two places at once, inhabiting the Wanderer’s body and your own, was sexy in a horror-movie way. Marie’s dark eyes were spooky; her breath was shallow and wet, as if she were sucking down an alien atmosphere. She combed the air with rigid fingers then raked jet black fingernails across her cheeks, leaving pink wiggly lines. They were all trancing — thinking deep. Cinnamon never had friends to do that with except Sekou.
Klaus stared at Marie, worried. Alien contact didn’t have to be benign. What if reading The Chronicles, one of them got stuck in the spaces between things? Mostly Klaus looked like he wanted to kiss Marie’s killer red lips. Or Cinnamon could be projecting. These days she saw sex everywhere: full bosoms, sultry eyes, shapely buttocks, plump lips, well-placed racks of muscles, bulging crotches. When Klaus hugged her, she felt his penis against her thigh, not huge or hard or anything, just there. This could be the dreaded hormonal shift to teenage sex zombie that Opal, Star Deer, and everybody had been worrying about.
Cinnamon’s period had arrived in sixth grade. That was forever ago and no big deal. For the last few weeks, since the audition actually, random body parts had been grabbing her attention, although nothing much had happened after that. At school, the interesting body parts were always attached to kids who would have tortured her if she were smaller, had fewer muscles, and broadcast one tenth the attitude, so who cared how fly or how sweet or how fine… until Klaus and Marie came over tonight. They made her hot and itchy, smiling at her posters, books, and Sekou’s dictionary collection.
Klaus was particularly impressed by the Oxford English Dictionary on its altar under the mirror. “What do you do with this?”
“It was Sekou’s,” Cinnamon replied. “You know, despite Hollywood pretensions, bite the dust dates to Homer’s Iliad, and before probably.”
What the hell was that about?
Then there was the three-way hug that went on and on, because if they let go of each other, they might drop off the planet into an abyss and burn up or… Did Cinnamon have to fall, hard, for her only two friends in the world? Sex was a big distraction. Why couldn’t they just be friends?
Derailed by lust and dread, Cinnamon hadn’t done one single thing she swore she’d do when Opal landed in the hospital. That one crazy night had gone on forever, and then two weeks passed so quickly, it wasn’t even a blur, more like a blink. Every day Cinnamon showed up for ninth grade, advanced placement, visited her mom in intensive care, and went shopping with the elders. In between homework and chores, she’d done some scouting. Griot Joe and Bug-Man Lexy were MIA. Star Deer went off to do contact workshops in New Mexico. Getting Ms. Respect Your Elders to talk behind Opal’s back about Raven would have been a miracle anyhow. Drugged Opal went in and out, ranting and rambling. Nobody could say if her mom was revealing deep secrets or talking crap, which meant no further progress on the important shit. Cinnamon scoured the attic, pulled up floor boards, and dug around under the back porch hunting Raven’s paintings. Nada.
Big and bold, the baron of badass in her mind, yet Cinnamon hadn’t asked Klaus and Marie for help. She’d have to explain the whole faggot thing. Their Mod Squad secret society had survived the ghost thing, an ambi-sexual alien thing, maybe even a trio thing. If Klaus and Marie freaked over the gay brother thing, Cinnamon would have to dump them. In fact, she ought to put them to the test immediately. But sex had her so turned around that for the second time in her life, not knowing seemed better than knowing. Angst over Opal had been a legitimate excuse for clinging to ignorance, but lust? She was terrified that rapper-nerd Sekou might drop in for a haunt and inadvertently broadcast his sex life before she was ready. Lust had shown Cinnamon to be a coward. Nothing to lose before. Klaus and Marie was a real test of bravery and she was failing.
Two weeks gone by, mucho heavy stuff coming down on her, and she told the elders nothing either. Everything she wanted to say sounded stupid. They were stuck up in the nineteenth century. Anything they said would probably sound corny and so country, it made you itch. Damn! Opal’s crap had totally infected her. Cinnamon hadn’t even asked Aidan to take her to see Daddy. It was disappointing and downright humiliating not to be who she needed to be.
“More clear words!” Marie yelled and read on. Thank God.
CHRONICLES 18b: Paris Fables —
Oshun’s Comb
In this version of Paris, we arrived on a steam-powered train from Marseille. Bob took us on a tour: bridges, arches, spirit houses. Riding an underground train, we traversed the sewers. Boasting cavernous halls, waterways, and sidewalks, this sewer world was an ingenious city under the city. Somso and I were enchanted. My anxiety at the looming masquerade dissipated. Kehinde was distant. Bob suffered in daylight and wore a floppy hat and itchy woolen clothes; splotches of dark pigment on his hands were raw from scratching. Shadowy sewers should have put him in a good mood, but in his coat pocket, he found an old copy of Household Words containing a Noble Savage story by Charles Dickens.
“Not that tripe again!” Liam groaned. He groaned more when Bob dragged us to a dime museum to watch a savage masquerade —not by Dickens, but starring a friend. “You do this to yourself, laddie.”
The crowd shrieked at a giant on stage, Raymond, a friend of Bob’s. Raymond had a thick bush of hair, ruddy broken skin, and bright white teeth. He toted a broom handle spear and limped as if wounded. The crowd played Raymond’s enemy. They pelted him with rotten red fruit, bananas, and coconuts. A warrior unencumbered for battle, Raymond wore only a skirt of rough cloth. Bones and bags dangled around his neck — minkisi, spiritually-charged vessels filled with power from the land of the dead. A short Frenchman in blue and red finery jabbed the giant with a dull sword. Raymond laughed at fake blood dripping from the parade warrior’s blade. A woman swung in the air on what Liam called the trapeze. She shot arrows at straw men. Her bolts pierced hearts and heads. Raymond leapt for her, but she was too high. A lioness yawned, bored, until they prodded her into big cat acrobatics. Women in frothy white skirts kicked up their legs in a spirited dance. Liam insisted we leave before savages were shot from cannons and Bob got too angry for civilized folks.
We strolled along the river into a sudden electrical storm. Kehinde laughed at balls of hail, Somso grinned, and Bob’s temper cooled. As in all versions, I risked scattering into the spaces between things to heal a stranger and save loved ones. Absorbing lethal electric charges, I passed out standing up with Melinga in my arms. Kehinde carried me to Raymond’s dwelling. Transitioning to an aje during an electro-magnetic storm was imprudent. What demon is not reckless? I was ill several days or weeks. But many Dahomeans fell ill when we landed in France. Luckily, Kehinde, Somso, and Melinga were immune to French maladies. Raymond offered me a dank room to recuperate in. His dwelling was near a spirit house that clanged its iron bells every fifteen minutes. We had no peace, no time of our own making. The spirit house claimed to shelter devotees of the Jesus orisha, but worshippers bowed in deep obeisance to their clocks, more than to Jesus’s cross. God was the master of clocks, and his universe ran with angelic gears.
Once when I shrieked because of midday tolling, Bob gripped me and said, “You should go to Hamburg, Germany, on the North Sea if you want to meet God the Clockmaker and feel the heavenly tick-tock. France doesn’t hold a candle to Protestant Germany.”
“Hamburg?” I hissed. “Tell me Hamburg’s story.”
“If you promise to get well quickly!”
“There are in me always others waiting for an opening. I’m not sure I can be well.”
“Nonsense.” Bob dabbed my brow and drizzled a French doctor cure on my tongue.
Kehinde didn’t notice. She poured libation to Eshu:
Eshu, guardian of the gate!
See! My legs are sturdy
Feel! My breasts are mighty
Let hungry rogue spirits find their way through me
She offered invading demons her body for mine.
“No!” I refused her sacrifice and flailed weak limbs. “The bells…” were quiet to their ears but vibrating still and breaking my heart. I passed out again.
Kehinde stood guard over my feverish body and wandering mind. Bob nursed me. Liam brought us food and drink; he would do anything for his dragon lady. Melinga fussed until Somso laid her against my swollen belly. The child cooed and pounded my flesh, occasionally calling me back from the strange stupor. Once I leapt out of sweaty sheets, dizzy and disoriented, Kehinde covered my face with kisses. Happy tears streaked Bob’s cheeks. Even Somso looked pleased. I gulped a cool drink Kehinde offered me. She shooed the others outside.
“Don’t leave me, Wanderer.” Kehinde plaited my wayward hair.
“Tell me a story you don’t want to tell. For love.”
She thought a moment. “I lied to you about the woman I betrayed to Abla.” Kehinde rested her forehead on my sweaty neck. “I do remember her face and her secret Yoruba name, Ekundayo. It means sorrow and tears become joy. Her mother was a Yoruba slave and taught her Ifa wisdom. Her Fon father called her something else. I’ve forgotten only that name. Ekundayo had planned to escape while we danced for Mère d’eau. Before marching off with the gate opening force, she gave me this Oshun comb.” Kehinde placed a beaded ornament in my hair. “Memory is the master of death, Ekundayo said. You love me. You’ll keep me alive. I tried to give the comb back. Ekundayo wouldn’t let me. Abla is suspicious of you. Be careful, she warned as Yao took her away.”
“Yao, who killed your family and sold Somso?”
“Yes. Ekundayo still trusted me, loved me. She was quick and foolish with love… I never saw her again. I dreamt once that she’d slipped from the battlefield and escaped. Abla had threatened to send us both to the front line, but spared me when I betrayed Ekundayo. If I loved her, why did I betray her?” She touched my forehead. “Your face creases like hers, when you think, when you’re happy.” She rubbed her cheek against my shoulder. “Oshun protected me through countless battles. Now the mother of waters protects you.” Her arms circled my chest. “You know the worst of who I am and haven’t yet abandoned me. Stay longer.”
Feeling better, I stroked the cool glass beads in the Oshun comb.
Kehinde abandoned me in Pittsburgh. Why should I bear it? How should I bear it?
The painting is from a photo of the Tour Eiffel électrique. Kehinde and I are up high. I’ve lost the photo. This is recovered memory.
Hormones
“I’m wearing Oshun’s comb,” Marie said, near tears.
A spark of electricity leapt from The Chronicles drawing and zapped Sekou’s time-bomb clock. The alarm went off: a giant explosion followed by shattered glass, walls caving in, and a siren whining — enough action-adventure noise to wake the dead and keep them from slipping back into the sheets for a snooze.
Marie gaped at the Wanderer’s video-drawing. “That’s the Eiffel Tower in a lightning storm,” she shouted, “not a termite hill.”
The Chronicles trance-spell was broken.
“This is drop-dead cool.” Klaus turned off the alarm.
“Is drop-dead cool German?” Marie said. “Say it in German.”
“Todschick.” He spoke a mouthful of sexy consonants. Marie repeated them.
“Termite tower isn’t a literal description.” Cinnamon felt an inexplicable need to defend Taiwo’s intelligence. “That’s how the Wanderer saw it, back in 1890-whatever, before checking out the whole world. Perspective is everything.”
Marie rolled her eyes. “Of course.” She patted the bed next to her. After a moment, Cinnamon plopped down, close. “Why do a painting of a photograph?” Marie leaned into Cinnamon and thrust The Chronicles under her nose. Cinnamon snorted a cloud of ozone. “Don’t sniff it. Do that deluge thing you do.”
Cinnamon pushed The Chronicles aside. She felt completely out of character. Could raging hormones make a bold person timid and cowardly?
“Yes. Why paint a photo?” Klaus looked as eager as Marie. “Please. A deluge.”
“What?” Cinnamon played dumb.
“You know what,” they said in unison.
Klaus and Marie seemed nice, but after one audition and a blizzard, Cinnamon didn’t really know either of them. What if they had joined forces to get Cinnamon to act crazy so they could make fun of her?
“Don’t be coy.” Marie shoved her.
“I don’t do coy.” Cinnamon didn’t know how.
Klaus punched her shoulder. “I’ve been waiting all day for —”
Marie narrowed her spooky eyes. “Why are you holding out on us?”
“What?” Weren’t aliens and ghosts enough? Why did Cinnamon tell them about —
“A story storm.” Klaus’s eyes darted about; his brow wrinkled. “What else?”
Marie pursed her killer red lips. “You said the hidden truth of The Chronicles comes to you in a fire storm of words, burning in your mouth, until you spit them out, so fast the words smash each other up.”
“Yes. Deluge.” Klaus sucked that word like it was finger lickin’ good.
“Did I tell you all that?” Cinnamon swallowed slowly. “Both of you?”
Marie smirked. “Klaus was at my house when you called yesterday.”
They’d been hanging out without her! “Nobody told me.”
“Don’t get mad. I had to leave my house,” Klaus said. “Muti goes volunteering every day at the Playhouse. Vati says nothing against this.” Klaus grinned. “Who argues with Commander Williams? And Muti knows so much English!”
“I told you there was more to her.” Marie grinned too. “The Tempest opens the first day of spring. That production could use mega foreign aid.”
Klaus licked dry lips. “Ariel gives me acting tips.”
“Ariel’s a scattered bit of the Wanderer.” Cinnamon offered a taste of her theory.
“No, really?” Marie said.
“Yes, Ariel is…” Klaus blinked rapidly. “Muti goes to tea with the Playhouse Angels. Since our blizzard ride, she and Mrs. Williams are bosom brothers, yes?”
“Bosom buddies,” Cinnamon said. “So explain why you were at Marie’s.”
“Oh.” Was Klaus hiding something? “After Mrs. Williams picked Muti up yesterday, Vati was…how he gets, so I tell him Marie promised to help with hard music for Title Under Construction, on a grand piano.” Klaus sighed. “A big lie, but since the blizzard, I was going bananas and nuts. I was very lonely for you two. I knew where Marie’s house was. Mrs. Williams drove there first after the hospital. Easy to take a bus and walk on by.” He laughed, goofy and vulnerable. “I’m out there walking on by, many times. Marie sees me and says I must come inside. I walk in the door, the phone rings, and it’s you. How perfect is that?” Klaus picked a scab on his knuckle.
“Stop that.” Cinnamon grabbed his hand.
“Vati says it’s a damn shame I got the lead. Irony too, Drug Prince. But I don’t have to fall on my ass. I can drop out, next rehearsal.”
“You can’t drop out!” Cinnamon shook him hard.
“I’ll help you with the music,” Marie said. “We’ll both help.”
“Really?” When did klutz Beckenbauer get puppy-dog adorable?
“We’re your crew,” Cinnamon said. “You think we’d leave you hanging?”
Klaus had obviously thought they would. “I wasn’t sure.”
Marie touched the Oshun comb reverently. “All I do is think about you guys,”
“Me too. Miz Redwood made me call,” Cinnamon said. “I was chickening out.”
Every day, Marie and Klaus rang Ms. Allen at hospital reception to check on Opal. They asked about Cinnamon too. Redwood stuffed coins in a payphone and waited while Cinnamon dialed Marie’s number. Who’d risk an encounter with Vati?
; “So now we’re here together.” Marie tapped The Chronicles. “Do the storm thing.”
Cinnamon gulped. “My mouth is a runaway train.”
Marie flipped her hair defiantly. Cinnamon snorted at this cute girl move. “What’s the big deal? It’s not like getting naked.”
“Yes it is.”
Klaus flushed red-orange down his neck to his arms. He was having a naked fantasy. Cinnamon couldn’t imagine getting naked with anybody. She tugged at the mud cloth outfit Iris bought her. The tunic fit, but the homespun fabric from Mali felt scratchy. Maybe raging hormones made her skin hyper-irritable. Blaming everything on creeping adolescence was stupid. She had to take responsibility. Ain’t no devil ever made you do nothing.
Marie groaned. “We’ve already seen you do the story storm thing.”
Klaus whistled. “You were talking full throttle, light speed.” He liked how she was.
Marie did too. “We can keep up, you know.” She sucked more blood into her killer red lips and gripped Cinnamon’s arm. “We go that fast too.”
“Well,” Klaus squirmed, “sometimes.”
“Of course.” Cinnamon shuddered. Talking Opal into the emergency room had scared the stuffing out of her. “I’m worried about my mom.” She lied with the truth.
Klaus and Marie looked baffled, the identical question marks on such different faces.
“OK. It’s like this. Three times since she fell out at the Playhouse, my mom’s gotten better. I’m talking get-up-out-the-bed, roaring-to-go better. Her blood tests are stellar; her heart is rocking; the gravel wheeze is a distant rumble. Doctors are ready to release her cranky behind, but out of nowhere, taking off her johnny, fussing at the nurse about a cigarette, or slipping on new sneakers — she relapses back to intensive care. What kind of bacteria, virus, or cancer would play like that?” Sekou had established her innocence vis-à-vis Opal’s lung rebellion. Just in case, Cinnamon had thrown up shields against marauding story storms. No slipping into darkness, taking her mind beyond the trees.
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