The Ancestors

by Brandon Massey

  “It’s not time!” Spinning to face his male pupil, Abe remained steadfast. “She’s willful, arrogant, hardheaded, recalcitrant, obstinate, and questions everything!”

  “Yeah, because she’s been trained to think for herself, which means she has a strong mind already, she has faith in her gut judgments—which is the start, the core of listening to one’s spiritual directives—and takes nothing on face value, which will come in handy when she goes up against those that twist the truth! I say, let her stay here, under our protection, until we can get everything back in order over on Fitzwater Street, or,” Rashid hedged, “I’ll take the risk, and stay in the house with her. Your choice, but she’s not going it alone. Under your roof, or hers, I’m staying with her! And you, old man, will have to learn to trust us, and have some faith in human nature, yourself.”

  Aziza watched the two men take an opposing stance from each other in the small kitchen area before her, as a strained silence engulfed the room. Never had anyone so thoroughly defended her, and the new awareness gave her pause.

  Glancing between Rashid and Aziza, Abe Morgan rubbed his chin. “Well,” he muttered, as a smile crept out of hiding. “We finally have a real knight in shining armor. Now, all we need is a real princess.”

  Chapter Nine

  Nothing in all her educated years prepared her for what she saw as she stood beside Rashid and her grandfather, staring into the mercury-like surface of the mirror she’d always admired. Reality suspended right before her very eyes as an antebellum scene came alive. Aziza covered her mouth with one hand as Rashid steadied her lest she topple over from shock.

  She could hear them, everything—people talking, birds in the trees, literally feel the heat wafting off the cotton fields. The stench of manure fused with rich soil and summer grasses. She saw her people laboring, and almost turned away.

  Then she saw someone who looked similar enough to Rashid to be his next of kin. The man smiled at a young woman, which made her gasp, but he kept walking to not alert the watchful eyes of the overseer who rode down the rows.

  In awe, Aziza extended her arm away from her body, her fingers trembling with electric excitement. “She looks just like me,” she said in a faraway tone.

  Those were the last words she murmured before her grandfather yelled out, “No!”

  Tumbling, moving faster than her mind could comprehend, colors swirled in her head until her ears began to ring. Centrifugal force crushed the air from her lungs and deafened her. Then all of a sudden she came to a thud on a soft, grassy surface. The young woman that could have been her body double rushed over and helped her up.

  “Be quick, be quick—don’t let ’em sees you slackin’.”

  “I’m going in behind her!” Rashid yelled. “You know what happened to Theodora! They raped her and—”

  “And they strung up her man,” Abe said, holding Rashid’s arms, blocking him from the mirror. “Why do you think I’ve been trying to get you ready! She’ll survive that horrific attack—and yes, she’ll have that child of the plantation owner’s son—but if you interfere, if you or he dies on that side of the mirror again, the second baby won’t be born . . . that’s the child we’re waiting on. That’s the one that will make decisions that will ripple forward!”

  “I’m not leaving her over there, old man. Don’t even ask me to do that!”

  Abe caught Rashid by the arm. “That’s my granddaughter. Do you think I, of all people, would want to leave her there in some hellhole to be raped and enslaved? Aziza was never supposed to go—her mind could buckle and snap over there! You two were supposed to be on this side protecting the mirror,” Abe said between clenched teeth. “This is a portal. A veil between worlds. That’s why the shades want it . . . do you know what they could do with access like this to the past? They’ve already altered history once, by making sure your ancestor was killed before he ever sired an heir. That cannot happen again. It’s my job to go back to the time I came from to stop it.”

  Rashid stared at Abe for a moment. “You’re stronger than me in mind and spirit—so you guard the mirror from this side,” he said quietly. “But this time, you can’t beat me on the mats . . . because that’s my wife.”

  Rashid landed hard behind a stand of trees. Spanish moss swayed and every instinct in him told him that he was so far and so Deep South that even a prayer wouldn’t get him North whole.

  Squinting, he scanned the rows of workers in the distance, trying to see a way clear to join them without being noticed by the overseer. Rashid glanced down at his white karate pants and took off his top, balling it up and stashing it in the bushes, and then dirtied up his pants in an effort to blend in. He just prayed that somehow Aziza would be able to figure out how to get something to cover her jeans . . . maybe an old sheet from a clothes line, or maybe his shirt could be dirtied and tied some type of way to camouflage her. If they saw her cashmere sweater, fine leather loafers, or even her strange jeans, she’d be beaten for theft, for sure. Maybe worse.

  But twenty-plus years of stealth training, including how to kill a man with his bare hands, fought to the forefront of his mind. This is what he’d been trained to do—never leave his own, go in and extract his team from behind enemy lines.

  Rashid scoped the landscape, noting where the barn was, the main house, the smaller outcropping of shacks, approximate number of overseers to contend with . . . the number of able-bodied men that might fight against him or with him. That part was the gamble that left him unsure—the variable of people so broken that they’d rather fight against a potential source of freedom than risk the wrath of their captors. Happened in POW camps all the time, and the people working down field from him weren’t trained military personnel.

  Nightfall, for the first time in his life, would be his friend. Booby traps could be set, firearms located. If Aziza would just lie low and could hide until the darkness covered them.

  A crash on the second floor made Abe look up. He already knew what it was. The shades had found him, they’d confirmed his location, knew the mirror was here. He smelled the sulfur before he smelled the smoke. They’d burn him out . . .

  The grates went down on the windows as the stifling heat began to cause sweat to run down his face, locking him in. Lamps and glass cases exploded around him as his voice belted out the refrains of the Twenty-third Psalm.

  Walls moaned, and floorboards began to buckle as though something were coming up from the depths of the basement. Entities slithered from beneath every conceivable surface, their claws extended, swiping at him. He looked up and saw embers coming through the ceiling above and then in a fit of madness, he laughed.

  “Burn the place down and the mirror is lost forever!” he shouted. “Kill me and I’m more dangerous to you dead than alive—because I will become an Ancestor! Ev’ry shut eye ain’t sleep—I know who you are and you will never make me give up!” He spun around and then rushed to a shattered glass case that contained a World War II German Lugar pistol and ammunition, as demons positioned themselves to leap at him with bared fangs.

  “Bullets don’t work on them, my friend,” a smooth, melodic voice said in the din. “Oh, trust me; I’ll stop the fire before the mirror is ruined . . . but not before your human breath expires. So blast away. You’ll only amuse my pets.”

  Abe smiled and sauntered over to the mirror, his gaze on the tall shadowy figure in the corner of his burning shop. “So, as in every era . . . we meet again, Lucifer. And this time, like always, even after all you’ve done to us, you’ve forgotten about the power of love.” Before the black bolt could hit him, Abe Morgan flung the gun and ammunition through the mirror. He dropped to the ground, his chest smoldering from the charge that had blown him across the room, and smiled. “I love them, I don’t care about me.”

  “Fool!” the entity shouted and rushed forward to grab the mirror, but then recoiled, hissing, as a brilliant white glow left Abe’s body to fuse around the silver frame. Scorching white-light heat made the tormentor a
nd every dark entity in the room cover its hideous face and disappear.

  Fifteen years later . . . Walnut Street, Center City—Philadelphia

  “Mom, why do we always have to go visit that old antique shop where Great-grand started, and why do we have to be there to hand out meals to the homeless every year right before Christmas? I mean it’s like you and Dad act like it’s your fault people are homeless and like you’ve gotta do all this give back stuff because you’re guilty that you own a chain of antique dealerships. I don’t get it—we know the history already, we know you’ve gotta care about your fellow man, blah, blah, blah . . . geeze! But it’s not your fault that you guys have money. Can’t we ever just go straight to the mall?” The teen flopped back in her chair and yanked her cell phone away from her ear, pouting.

  “Yeah, and Dad be trippin’ with all that spiritual commando stuff . . . man!” her brother said. “I thought we were going up to King of Prussia after we got Dad from the store. And why can’t I drive?”

  “One day you and your brother will finally figure out that you stand on a lot of people’s shoulders,” Aziza said calmly. “And until your spoiled little bourgeois behinds get it, we’ll be there . . . in fact, we’ll be there whether you get it or not. You know how your father feels about that first store and about people who have to live on the streets.”

  “It’s so not fair,” the teen fussed, applying lip gloss. “Donna and Suzie’s mom and dad do not even go there. I don’t know anybody’s parents who really—”

  “Yeah, and Robert got to drive his dad’s Lexus—so why can’t I even spin the Beemer around the block?”

  “Oh, right, like Mom and Dad are putting you behind the wheel of their car, puhlease.”

  Aziza peered in the rearview mirror, wondering what planet her children had come from. A part of her smiled knowing that Pop and Ma Ethel were probably laughing at her and Rashid’s struggle, but in context and perspective, dealing with spoiled, willful, upper-middle-class teens was the better end of the time continuum for sure.

  “You know it’s a family tradition to honor the ancestors,” Aziza said quietly but firmly, navigating the sedan through gridlock. “It’s important to know your history . . . how things could have turned out. If it weren’t for one man’s courageous vision—you might not even be here.”

  The Patriarch

  Brandon Massey

  Prologue

  Before I begin to tell you how I learned the truth about my family, there’s one thing you must understand and accept here and now.

  Every word is true.

  You may know my reputation, of course, and assume otherwise. My name is Daniel Booker. I write crime novels—fast-paced, blood-soaked stories about an Atlanta private investigator. I’ve written seven of them so far at the relatively tender age of thirty-four, and they’ve won a couple of prestigious awards in the mystery fiction field, been reprinted in a half-dozen foreign countries, and sold enough copies to keep food on the table.

  But just because I earn my living telling lies doesn’t mean I’m lying about this. As my Grandma Ruth likes to say: “Some things you don’t fool around with.” In my mind, family is one of those things. To be frank, I don’t think I ever could have made up anything as . . . well, shocking as what I’m about to relate to you.

  Are we cool? Okay, good. Prologue over.

  Here’s what happened.

  Chapter One

  Now this is what it’s all about, I thought with a smile.

  We were rolling along at seventy-five miles an hour in my Ford Expedition, cutting a blazing path up the middle of Mississippi on I-55. The brilliant August sun created quicksilver heat mirages on the highway, boundless fields of cotton and soybeans blurring into the hazy horizon. It was probably ninety degrees in the shade, but with air conditioning, a cooler full of bottled water and turkey sandwiches, my beautiful girlfriend at my side, and John Legend crooning “Ordinary People” on satellite radio, all was right in my world.

  I’d wanted to make this trip for years. Finally, it was happening, and I was so hyped I could hardly believe it.

  “Can you pull over at the next rest stop, baby?” Asha said. “I need to wipe the dew off the lily pad.”

  I glanced away from the interstate and caught her eye. “That’s why I love you.”

  Her brown eyes narrowed. “Because I need to pee?”

  “Because you’re an original. You and your odd euphemisms.”

  “I didn’t think telling you I need to piss would sound very ladylike.”

  I smiled. “Not very MDish, either. What would your parents think after all the money they spent toward your education, Doctor Cook?”

  “Hmph. You should know by now that I don’t care what my folks think about what I do. We’re living together, aren’t we?”

  I winced. “Ouch.”

  Asha’s lips twisted into a satisfied smirk. She had a sly way of pricking you with those little needles when you least expected them. In this case, I probably deserved it.

  We’d been dating for slightly over two years, and living together for five months. Her parents, devout church-going folk born and raised in Georgia, condemned our living arrangement. Y’all playing house, living in sin. The pride of the family, who’d studied abroad and gone to medical school at Columbia, Asha claimed to be above their sanctimonious judgments about her lifestyle.

  But I knew her better than that. Like most children, grown or not, she wanted her parents’ approval. She wanted us to get married.

  But I wasn’t ready—and it had nothing to do with her.

  A sign announcing a rest area soon came into view. I took the exit and veered into the big parking lot, eased into a space in the cool shade of a magnolia.

  Asha grabbed her purse and turned to me. “I love you, too, you know,” she said. She leaned in close and kissed me, and I got a chocolaty taste of the Snickers bar she’d nibbled on earlier. “Be back in five, baby.”

  “Your limo will be waiting.”

  I watched her stroll inside the squat brick building. The handful of men filtering in and out of the restrooms watched her, too. In white Bermuda shorts, a pink halter top, and wedge sandals, Asha was a striking sight—five feet five inches of sweet and shapely cinnamon loveliness. I was lucky to be with her, which made it all the more perplexing to family and friends, on both sides, as to why I’d yet to pop the question.

  I sipped a bottle of water and checked the GPS unit on the dashboard. We’d left Atlanta at ten o’clock that morning and entered Mississippi around two that afternoon. We were a couple of hours from our destination in Senatobia, a small town in the northwest region, right above the Delta.

  A more direct route would have shaved hours off our drive, but I’d wanted to take in the sights. Admittedly, there hadn’t been all that much to see thus far. Maple and pine trees dressed in kudzu. Run-down motels advertising rooms for thirty dollars a night. Hole-in-the-wall diners offering all-you-can-eat fried chicken dinners. Mud-splashed pickups grumbling past with Confederate flags proudly plastered to their bumpers.

  But excitement crackled through my veins. This was the land of my ancestors, and merely inhabiting the soil of the state they had called home made me feel closer to them.

  After all, that was the purpose of the trip: to plumb my family’s background. I’d been raised in a loving, two-parent household, but my father’s people were few, so I knew them and their history well. Conversely, my mom’s kinfolk were like some fabled tribe—hundreds of aunts, uncles, and cousins, a colorful stew of relatives both dead and alive, so many that no one could cite all their names and exploits. I’d long dreamt of digging into our genealogy, of talking to the elders, of writing down everything they remembered of our roots, of creating a book exclusively for our family. Building a bridge to my ancestors, for my own self-knowledge and the benefit of generations yet to come.

  Since I was between novels and Asha had a break in her residency, we’d decided, why not do it? Although I suspected
that Asha’s motive for tagging along was much different than mine.

  I thumbed on my digital voice recorder and brought it near my lips. “It’s three-seventeen in the afternoon on Friday, August fifteenth. We’re in a rest area about an hour north of Jackson, and well . . . it’s a rest area. They seem to be the same no matter where you go.

  “We have a couple of hours ahead of us before we reach Senatobia. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been so hyped. I feel as if I’m standing on the brink of a big discovery—it’s a gut feeling I’ve had ever since we crossed into Mississippi. Somehow, delving into my family history is going to teach me more about myself. That vacancy I’ve felt in the back of my mind for so long, like there’s a chunk of me missing . . . I think—I feel—this trip will finally fill it in.”

  Chapter Two

  At half-past five, we arrived in Senatobia.

  Senatobia was one of those “blink, and you miss it” towns that you could find all across the South. On the main thoroughfare, there were a couple of budget-priced chain hotels, a sad string of fast-food restaurants, and that was it. There might have been more to the place, but we wouldn’t see it; we were staying there for only one night. Tomorrow morning, one of my cousins would lead us to the family home in nearby Coldwater.

  We parked at our hotel. Getting out of the air-conditioned SUV was like entering a steam bath. The sun bore down savagely, and the cloying humidity robbed the lungs of air.

  As we carried our luggage across the parking lot to the entrance, I turned to Asha. “Do you hear that?” I asked. “Like a soft humming, sort of buzzing noise?”

  Dragging her carry-on piece, she shook her head.

  “I guess my ears are ringing from being cooped up in the car all day,” I said.