“This will not be your last night, if you but promise me . . .”
“P-promise . . . ?” Akanni continued to shiver.
“Promise me you will end them. The heshen. Blasphemers, who do foul deeds in my name. Who plot against my people. Promise me, lost one, and I will give you what you want most.”
A spear erupted from the ground before her. It jutted into the air, and on its spike, Tosin’s head, bloated and discolored in death, gazed at her.
“Promise me,” the voice repeated. “Harden your heart, for it will be tested. Whatever it takes, do this thing. Be strong, like stone, and I will make you the mountain.”
Akanni saw the face of her mother in those stars above Tosin’s rotted head, and the faces of her father and brother. Then all began to fade into the Deep’s black.
“Promise me . . .” the voice whispered, flaking away.
“I—I . . . I promise,” Akanni gasped.
A feeling like fire filled her arms and gathered in her palms. Light sprang forth from her fingers. It engulfed everything around her, white hot. She wanted to scream, but she could not. Nor could she move. So, she lay there, as the light brightened, until it consumed her.
“When I awoke,” Akanni said as she stared into Tosin’s terrified face, “I realized what had happened. That I should be dead. But She spared me, for this moment.”
The flame began to creep toward Tosin where Akanni’s will had held it back. He whirled and splashed, scrambling to try to get away, but the fire took him. His screams ended in cracked yowls as his tongue burned. Flesh peeled from muscle. What water remained in the tub bubbled and thickened red.
Akanni turned, indifferent, as the remains of the tent continued to falter around her, burned to nothing. She approached another spot where the fire had held back at her bidding.
Clutching his stomach with red-licked fingers, sweat prickling his ashen brown face, Seth gazed up at her in a mix of wonder and confusion. Coughs wracked his body, and blood dappled his lips. “H-how . . .”
“I am the mountain.”
The last of the tent’s trappings fell away. Tosin’s camp flickered into view, the fires all around the hill still lit, almost mirroring the stars above. Soldiers who had come, looking to try to help, surrounded her. Those same brown faces that had watched with scorn as she was marched up here now twisted in shock and fear. The boy-guard was not among them. She wondered if he’d run. Several of them did now, racing down into the camp. They would not get far.
Kneeling, Akanni pressed her hands into her brother’s blood where it spilled across the ashy sands. He’d fallen still, finally, their mother’s eyes staring at nothing. Carefully she tilled the blood and the earth, making the mark of the Goddess. Then, with fingers crusted with clay, she pressed them to her face.
Three lines beneath each eye. Two dots above each brow. Then she stroked her thumb from the line of her hair, down the center of her face, and to the tip of her nose.
Standing, her legs trembled but held. She turned to face the camp, now in a full panic, as she allowed the fires to consume the corpse behind her.
“Well done, my child.” The familiar voice rose in her ears, sizzling with power. “Take what is yours.”
Akanni’s chest heaved and her eyes burned, but no tears came.
I am stone.
Her palms grew hot as the flames around her intensified.
I am the mountain.
She lifted her hands toward the camp.
“The Goddess provides.”
HEARTS TURNED TO ASH
By Dhonielle Clayton
Jackson broke up with Etta on a Thursday night, and her heart started to disintegrate on Friday right before dawn.
Hearts can do that. According to Ms. Mildred, Etta’s grandmother who doesn’t want to be called a grandmother, and who Etta always thought was wrong about everything. Soul mates aren’t supposed to break up. Not when worried mamas had the conjure woman cast the stars, tie a fortune string made of the universe from one heart to another. Not when fates had been written.
But Etta didn’t know that was the reason for her pain.
Not yet.
Etta sat straight up in bed. The moon winked in her window, tiny pearls of light scattering across her new diorama of the Eiffel Tower on her nightstand.
Heat seared in her chest like a lit firecracker. She rushed to the bathroom. Her breath tangled in her throat, a pink flush fighting to push through the brown of her cheeks. She pulled down the collar of her nightgown. Beneath her skin, she could see her heart: a smoldering coal. Her veins illuminated like snakes desperate to escape the destruction.
The blood vessels in her eyes left red spiderwebs across the white. Her pupils dilated, the black swallowing the hazel. Jackson used to tell Etta that her eyes were his favorite thing about her face. He’d goad her into closing them, then he’d trace his deep-brown fingers across the lid and down over the eyelashes until his soft fingertips rested at the corners. He’d count the few freckles she had on them, little dark stars.
“Open your eyes,” he’d say. “Let me see you.”
And she always did.
Then he’d let his hands, strong from lifting lumber and building fences on his grandfather’s land, knead the shape of her shoulders, and rest his palm on her chest. He’d thump his thick fingers to the thudding rhythm of her heart, excited from his scent, anticipating the taste of his mouth.
Etta’s hand found that spot.
His spot.
But now, her heartbeat was almost gone.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
“Don’t ever give your heart away, Etta.” Ms. Mildred’s words puttered out between puffs of a clove cigarette.
Etta was only around seven years old when her grandmother issued this warning.
They’d been headed into town for something that Etta couldn’t remember anymore. She’d been stuffed into Ms. Mildred’s blue Cadillac, her little-girl limbs looking for space among the antiques in the back seat. A stuffed robin in a wire birdcage stared down with glassy eyes, piles of striped hatboxes slid back and forth, and the sounds of clattering teacups became a melody underscoring her grandmother’s words.
“Your heart is the core. Where you house how you really feel about things. It’s precious. It’s to be protected like a pearl.”
The car swayed like they were in a boat and trapped in some storm of Ms. Mildred’s own creation as she barreled down the long stretch of road that connected their house to the outside world. Or at least it always felt like that to Etta. They were the only family aside from Jackson’s who lived so far away from town. Far enough so white folks couldn’t meddle and the Black ones felt it was too much trouble to turn down their gravel driveway and travel the two miles to the Big House to be nosy.
Dust and gravel pummeled the windows. Ms. Mildred cursed before looking up at Etta in the rearview mirror. Etta felt like her grandmother was the most beautiful woman in the whole world, even more beautiful than her mama. Not a single wrinkle marred the brown of her grandmother’s skin, and Etta had always thought that it would smell of maple syrup and roasted pecans if she ever let Etta get close enough to sniff it. She wasn’t the kissy type of grandmother. She had the same freckles Etta had, but they’d been expertly placed so that when she smiled—which was rare—they took the shape of a scattered heart. She always wore a deep shade of red lipstick and told Etta that it let everyone know she would bite until she got blood.
“Did you hear what I said?” she’d asked Etta.
“Yes, ma’am,” Etta replied.
“What did I say?”
“Never give your heart away.”
Ms. Mildred nodded, then blew smoke rings, the white clouds smelling like Christmas. “Don’t let nobody take the center of you.” She beat her chest so hard Etta thought her fist might pierce her own sk
in. “But do you really understand what I mean?”
“What about love?” Etta asked.
“What about it?” she replied.
“Aren’t I supposed to get married?”
Ms. Mildred burst with laughter, the cackle escaping from deep down in her belly. “Love ain’t got nothing to do with marriage, honey.”
“Do you love Granddaddy?”
Ms. Mildred almost bit down on her cigarette. “I like him fine. But I didn’t have to give my heart away to have your mama with him. And I had children with other men, too.”
“Uncle James, and Aunt Peggy.”
“And I liked their daddies just fine,” she said. “I just see these little girls running around here with no sense. Nose wide open. Brain full of rocks. Distracted ’cause some boy told them they were pretty. There are so many other things to do is all I’m saying. Don’t be no fool, Etta.” Ms. Mildred’s eyes found Etta in the back seat, and she watched as her grandmother’s forehead creased, fold upon fold, an accordion of thought and feeling and memory trapped in brown skin. Ms. Mildred launched into more fussing: “Don’t let love take you too high, ’cause you’ll be a kite without a tail, and before you know it, caught in a storm cloud. And lightning ain’t kind. Love ain’t worth being electrocuted for. Or your heart turned to ash.”
One of the things Etta remembered the most about this conversation was the lightning, how she wanted to be that kite or one of the rods her daddy had installed on the roof of their house right before he left them and never came back. She wanted to feel that electricity. She needed to know how it felt.
“What if I gave my heart to a girl instead?” Etta asked.
“That would be better. Women are much better about taking care of hearts. But the point still stands.”
“I love you, Ms. Mildred,” she’d squeaked out.
“And I love you, too, Cookie.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Now Etta’s mama found her on the bathroom floor and scooped her up like she was nothing more than a baby again, not a girl of seventeen. Her mama hadn’t seen her in several days because Etta had been in and out of the house and off with Jackson. She grunted as her mother carried her back into the bedroom.
“Something’s wrong with my heart,” Etta whispered. The words jagged rocks scratching at her throat as she struggled to get them out. “It’s burning.”
Mama inspected her, pulling down her nightgown and gawking at the sight of her chest. “What happened with Jackson?”
“Why?” Etta croaked. “Shouldn’t you call the ambulance? Shouldn’t we go to the hospital?”
“No medicine from that place can fix this.” She ran her cold fingertips across Etta’s achy skin. It was a momentary comfort. “Now, tell me what happened.”
“We broke up.”
A gasp escaped Mama’s mouth. “Why?”
“I don’t really know. I don’t under—”
“What you mean, you don’t really know? This isn’t possible.”
“What does it have to do with . . .” Etta sucked in a deep breath as pain erupted through her.
“You need to go see the conjure woman, Madame Peaks. Only she can stop this.” Mama pushed the frizzy curls off Etta’s forehead.
The picture of the conjure woman drifted into her mind like a reflection broken into shards. A pair of filmy eyes. A pursed red mouth. Luminous brown skin. A scarf wrapped around her head like a dollop of cream. Etta had little-girl memories of the woman—her mama dragging her there when her daddy left, to ask for a root to bring him back; the way her house seemed tilted, almost; and how at thirteen, she and Jackson had found a weird map from the woman in his mama’s basement.
“He was your soul mate.”
Mama had told her the stories of how she and Jackson’s mama had their stars cast, and Etta had felt like her connection to him fit, slid into place like when the right puzzle piece finds its match. The pull always tugged at her whenever she thought of him, whenever she saw him, whenever he showed up in her dreams; she had to see him, touch his skin, wrap herself in his scent.
“Your skin’s yellowing. Your heart is dying fast.”
“I don’t understand why this is happening.” Tears flooded Etta’s cheeks. “I don’t even understand why we . . .” She couldn’t finish the sentence. The thought of the word sent another bolt of pain through her.
“When soul mates break up, the shock in the universe has consequences.” Mama rubbed as many tears as she could from Etta’s cheeks, then left the room for a moment.
If Etta’s pulse could race, it would’ve as her mind filled with worries. She’d always known her family’s and town’s superstitions were more than just that, and that roots and conjure were as everyday as the herbs in most folks’ kitchen gardens. But the magic, if you could call it that, always felt like something far away, a horizon she could never touch, a thing that didn’t affect her life. Or so she’d thought.
Mama returned with steaming mugs.
“Drink this,” she ordered.
Etta took long, slow sips. “What was I supposed to do?” She balled her fists but didn’t have the energy to bang the bedside. Her heart steadily slowed a little after each labored beat.
“You’re supposed to stay together. You were matched. You were destined.” Mama touched Etta’s cheek, her brown fingers warm from the mugs. “You’re supposed to make sure it worked.”
“Why is it all on me?” Etta’s lungs squeezed, and she coughed. “What will happen to him?”
“He’ll get what’s coming. Worse than a heart dying.” Mama rushed forward with a bowl. Tiny trickles of dust the color of pulverized rubies made their way out of Etta’s nose and mouth. Mama caught each little bead for safekeeping. “You must hold these close, otherwise she won’t be able to put your heart back together again.”
“When’s the last time you saw Madame Peaks? What if she’s not even alive anymore?”
“She’s not a person who dies, and stays dead.” Mama closed her eyes for a moment before answering. “I’ve seen her three times. The first when I was pregnant with you. Jackson’s mama, Mrs. Mary, came with me. Y’all were due a week and three days apart. And we’d been dreaming of y’all together. Best friends. Partners. I knew it was the right thing to do to have your stars cast.”
“You’ve told me this story a hundred times.”
“Listen again.” Mama nibbled her bottom lip, puffy from the hot tea. “The second time I saw her was when you were around four years old. Just to make sure it had took. She said everything was as it should be, as it had been written. And the last, right after your daddy left us.”
“How do I find her?” Etta replied, out of breath.
“With conjure. With roots.”
It felt impossible.
“Why’d you even do this, Mama?” Etta winced, the burning sensation in her chest back.
“I never wanted you to have to be alone like me.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Etta kissed Jackson first. They’d just turned eleven years old that summer and they were out on his grandfather’s farm, which touched the back of her grandmother’s farm. She’d conscripted him into helping her collect materials for her next diorama. She loved creating little scenes in shoeboxes and hatboxes and fruit crates. Really, any box she could find, she’d make a little world within it. She liked to create tiny visions of the future she wanted—her far away from this too-hot place, her pressing her feet onto the cobblestones of old cities, trying to absorb magic through her shoes, her being able to sketch new skylines to make replicas of later.
They’d climbed as high as they could in her favorite magnolia tree because she’d wanted one of the white flowers from the very top—the perfect ones that hadn’t been messed with by squirrels.
Jackson sat beside Etta, brown legs dangling
and blending with the rich color of the tree boughs. He looked around for one of the flowers. “I think they’re all gone. Blown away.”
“I’m too late,” Etta had said.
Jackson stood, then climbed onto a higher branch and disappeared into the leaves.
“Come back. There’s nothing up there.” Etta counted to ten, but Jackson didn’t return. “Jackson Eugene Williamson, I’m coming after you.” She squeezed a nearby branch, preparing to hoist herself up and follow him, but he jumped back down beside her, holding an abandoned bird’s nest.
“Maybe you can use this?” he asked with a shrug. “I’ve been watching it, and the family left a week ago.”
Etta thought she could do a thousand things with that nest, and she felt like he knew that, which made her heart almost flip. “Should we kiss?”
“Why?” he asked.
“Why not?”
He shrugged again. “Okay. I guess that’s a good reason.”
She leaned forward, puckered her lips, and clamped her eyes shut.
It took a while but Jackson finally brushed his lips across hers.
Their eyes both snapped back open, and they said “Yuck” in unison.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
The first time Jackson told Etta he loved her, they were fifteen years old. He’d left her a message in one of her dioramas, and used the Valentine’s candy hearts with the words on them to arrange it.
She pretended to be mad that he’d desecrate one of her masterpieces. Littered her image of what twilight in Cairo might look like with his note. But she let the candy stay in there until the ants crept through her window and ate it all.
And she loved that he said the word love first.
Being loved by him grew so big it became even better than the dioramas.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Mama dragged Etta out back. The sun had barely started to rise, a hint of its yellowy forehead peeking over the line of magnolias that marked the edge of their land. They raced through the gardens, ducking under a trellis of vine tomatoes and butter beans and bright, plump squash.
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