The city looked different at this hour. It was washed-out, like it had just cried and hadn't wiped its face yet. Streets quiet but still breathing. Everything smelled like rain and old asphalt. Billboards glistened under streetlights like false promises. One by one, the lights flickered out as I passed, like they were bowing their heads or minding their business. Every corner I turned made me feel smaller somehow. Not in my body, but in my spirit. Like the world had stretched wider just to show me how empty it could feel without him walking through it with me. That was when the thought of Madame Laurent crept in again.
The steering wheel twitched in my hands when I thought her name. Part of me wanted to turn the car right then, swing it toward her house without thinking twice. I could almost smell her place already, incense burned down to its bones, dried herbs hanging from every doorway, old wood soaked in years of prayer and secrets. Her shadow always stretched ahead of her, long and warning, like she knew things before they arrived. She'd know what to do. She always did. But another part of me, the stubborn, scared, prideful part, kept the wheel straight. Kept me driving home like I hadn't already crossed so many lines loving a man I was warned about.
Calling Madame Laurent meant payment. Not money. Never money, but she never worked for free, not her time, not her spirit, not her blessings. And she'd told me once, long before I married him, her voice low and sure as a knife laid flat on a table: "You marry into that blood, bébé, you gon' pay twice. Once for love. Once for what come after."My grandma hated the St. Jean name long before I even had an understanding ofthe world. She said it carried a shadow the way snakes carried venom, born with it, couldn't help it, but deadly all the same. She'd sit out on her porch in her nightgown, hair wrapped, tea cooling in her cup, and tell stories like warnings disguised as memories.
She talked about Saint. About nights by the river when the air was thick, and the water listened. Said he traded something sacred for power and never looked back. Folks whispered he sold his soul for land, for money, for a name that made people straighten their backs when they said it."Rich don't always mean blessed," Grandma would say, snapping her fingers like she was breaking a curse in the air. "Sometimes it mean the devil just collecting slow."
I never asked her how she knew. Maybe she saw it. Maybe she lived it. Maybe she survived something she never named. Either way, she told me plain: love him if you must, but don't tie yourself to that blood."Once you take that name," she warned, "it take something back."I didn't listen. I fell in love with Noles anyway. With his laugh that came from his chest, deep and careless. With his stupid jokes that made no sense but somehow still landed. With the way he walked into rooms like his presence alone could shift the energy. He felt like home in a way that didn't ask permission. And when he asked me to marry him, I didn't think about curses or bloodlines or whatever deal his daddy might've struck with the dark. I thought about forever. About us, but I forgot that forever always had fine print.
Now here I was, driving home after bleeding myself under fluorescent lights, whispering to ancestors who couldn't always answer me the way I needed, trying to pull back a man who might've been claimed long before I ever touched him. Thesteering wheel felt slick in my palms. Sweat, maybe. Or fear. "Madame," I said softly, the way I always did when I needed her to hear me no matter where she was. "I know you mad at me. You told me not to marry no St. Jean, and I did anyway. You told me some love ain't meant to be held. But what I'm supposed to do? Just let him go?" The road answered instead. Tires humming over wet pavement. My heartbeat thudding in my ears, trying to outrun a truth that stayed right beside me no matter how fast I went.
I turned onto our street, oak trees leaning low like they were listening in. The sky was clearing now, soft blue bleeding through the storm's gray like something healing slow. Our house waited at the end of the gravel driveway. Beige walls, black shutters, black door. Every dark detail something I begged for, and he gave in on easy because it suited him just as much as it did me. I smiled despite myself, memories flooding in uninvited. Us in the kitchen late at night. Him leaning against the counter watching me cook. His boots by the door. His laugh echoing down the hallway.
Then the anger hit me sharp and sudden. It felt all too familiar. I felt it rise behind my eyes the way it always did, hot and quick, like lightning looking for ground. Lately, I'd be at my altar praying and feel it flip inside me without warning and outside, storms would answer. Somewhere deep down, I started believing I could flood whoever did this to him if I let myself go far enough. And sometimes it felt like the world listened.
I tried to suppress it. I really did. But seeing Noles laid up like that cracked something in me I'd spent years holding together. Growing up, Madame Laurent taught me how to control my anger. She said it came from my other side along with foolishness. Said fire lived in my blood just as much as prayerdid, and both needed discipline or they'd burn everything down. I'd listened. I'd learned and I'd kept myself steady for years. But love changes the rules. Seeing him like that, silent, still, stolen from himself, broke my control wide open.
I parked the car and sat there longer than I needed to, hands gripping the wheel, chest rising and falling like I'd just run from something. The house loomed quiet, waiting. When I finally stepped inside, the air felt different. Heavier. Like it knew I was alone when I wasn't supposed to be. I dropped my bag by the door and went straight to the altar. Candles half-burned from the last time I was there. Offerings still fresh. I stood there staring at it, feeling something ancient stir in my chest. "My ancestors , I know yall got a soft spot for me.” I whispered, my voice steady even though my hands shook. "And I know y'all hear me."
The room felt warmer. The air pressed against my skin like it wanted something from me. My breath came slower, heavier, like every inhale had to be negotiated. I stood barefoot in the middle of the floor, toes curling against the wood, feeling vibration underneath low and restless, like something pacing just below the house. “I been obedient,” I said again, louder this time, not for reassurance but accusation. “I been respectful. I been patient.” My voice didn’t echo. It sank. “I been quiet about my pain,” I continued, jaw tight. “But I’m done with that.”
The candle in my hand trembled before I even set it down. The wick bent sideways, flame stretching long and thin like it was trying to escape itself. Smoke lifted in a narrow ribbon, sharp and bitter instead of sweet. I placed it on the altar anyway, shoulders squared. The room responded and it wasn't gently. The air shifted, swallowing the thin streams ofsmoke the candles gave off. The walls seemed to inch closer, shadows thickening in the corners where light usually lingered. My ears popped like a pressure change, and my scalp prickled, that familiar warning crawling up my spine. I lit another candle. Then another.
Each flame burned uneven, jumping instead of standing tall. The glass jars clicked faintly against one another, like teeth chattering. I felt watched not threatened but measured and weighed. When I struck the match for the last candle, the flame caught then vanished. Just like that. I blinked. “The hell is that about,” I murmured, frowning. I struck the match again. The candle flared and died again.
My chest tightened so fast it almost stole my breath. A cold thread slid straight down my backbone, sharp and familiar. This never happened. Not with me. Not in my space. Fire always listened. Fire respected me.
I crouched, eye level with the wick, voice low. “What we doin’?” The room did not answer. The pressure increased. I stood slowly, match still burning between my fingers, its heat biting my skin harder than it should. My heart thudded not in fear but in offense. “If love is the price,” I said softly, steadying myself, “I already paid it.” The flame in my hand flickered sideways. "If blood is required,” I continued, swallowing around the tightness in my throat, “mine already spilled.” My mind flashed hospital floors, sterile white light, my thumb split open under fluorescent glare, blood blooming dark and real while machines breathed for my husband. “If fire gotta answer fire,” I whispered now, something darker threading my tone, “then so be it.”
The candle flame jumped. It leapt high, snapping loud enough to make me flinch, then settled into a low, aggressive burn with a thick, blue at the base, yellow curling sharp at the tip. The glass warmed instantly beneath my palm like it was alive. The house creaked slow, almost like it was Listening.
The air went dense, thick as syrup. Every sound dropped out the hum of the house, the distant night noise, even my breath for half a second.
My ancestors didn’t coddle. They corrected. I exhaled slow. “Say what you need to say,” I told the room. “Or get out my way.” The flame stilled. Not obedient but definitely Acknowledging. A deep calm settled over my shoulders. Whatever line I’d stepped onto, there wasn’t no stepping back. And whatever didn’t like it Would have to deal with me anyway.
Because my faith Isn’t fragile.
And my love isn’t negotiable.
NOLES
I could hear Ayida praying and feel her spirit moving around the room like she did everyday. I had no better way to say it. Physically I wasn't awake, but spiritually I was. I was stuck in a dark, closed place that smelled like candle smoke and hospital bleach, where her voice cut through it occasionally. Every time. She was keeping my soul right here with her, refusing to let go, holding me in place with them soft hands and that hard faith that scare mutha fuckas who never had to face it. She showed up like clockwork, bathin’ me, groomin’ me, combin’ my hair even when my head felt heavy as a cinderblock, talkin’ to me like nothing had changed, like I was just resting after a long night. She whispered Creole prayers in my ear, He veil touched my face as she kissed me often. and I swear I could feel her prayer beads like they had weight in my chest.
Mama came. She didn't say much. Never did when it counted, not out loud. But I could feel the way her silence pressed against me, like a pillow over the face of all the things she wished she could undo. The chair squeaked when she shifted. She would shuffle around a cup filled with ice before sippin out of it . Her perfume smelled loud. She'd touch my wrist like she could read my pulse for answers, and I'd want to squeeze her hand, tell her I was here, just not in a way she could hold. Initially , She blew in like a storm. Her voice shook the room. Every time. Cussin and fussin about incense and flames and " witch ass bullshit," like the smoke was the problem and not the fact that I was laid up behind a damn machine. She stayed mad at the air. Mad at Ayida. Mad at God. Mad at the nurses for letting nights belong to my wife. She kept talking to me like I was the same boy she dragged by the collar back when I was too young to know what living could cost. "Noles, don't you dare,"she'd hiss at my closed eyes. "Don't you leave me." And then under her breath, when she forgot she was speaking out loud: "Don't you leave this family."
P came in all broken, tryna to hide it. That nigga cried. I ain't gon' sugarcoat it. He cried like he was born with the tears in him and just now got permission to let them out. Started and stopped. Started again. Tried to play it off by telling me old stories, dumb shit we'd done, fights we won, nights we laughed so hard it sounded like we was chokin. His palms was hot when he put them on my shoulder. He kept saying, "You hear me, brudda? You hear me?" like he was asking life to sign for a package. I heard him. And I hated that I couldn't tell him.
Juste sat quiet, I'm sure that nigga eyes was mean as could be. He didn't have to say vengeance for me to hear it. It was there in the way he breathed, the way the chair complained under him like his weight was an argument he was havin with gravity. He didn't touch me long. Just enough to mark me safe, like a man checkin his stash, makin sure it hadn't moved. When he left, the room cooled down, like he took heat with him.
Pops and Jules came. Not as often. When they did, they brought talk with them, shop talk, street talk, anything but the talk that mattered. Daddy's voice got sharp around the edges when he mentioned the condition, I was in. Jules smelled like weed smoke and rain. Their words didn't come all the way into me. Maybe I didn't let them.
It was killing me feeling like I couldn't wake up no matter how much I tried. You ever run underwater in a dream? Push hard as you can and barely move? That's how it was. Every night I pressed up against whatever this was, and it pushed back, slow and patient like time itself. The more I fought, the further waking up slid away. I'd get close enough to feel the skin of theworld, close enough to smell morning on Ayida's hair, and then I'd slip again. Back down. Back into the dark that wore my name like it owned it.
Sometimes I drifted toward where the world was and got caught on the edges of other people's sounds. Nurses humming gospel to themselves while they wiped me clean, little, tired hymns on the exhale. Shoes squeaking. Wheels of a cart rolling away slow. Mama’s voice rising and then somebody shushing her. A doctor saying "neurological" and "stable" and a list of words you only learn when life goes sideways. I learned them without wanting to. Words get in you when your body is still. They know when you can't run.
Other times it was worse. The dark brought me back to the lot where I fell. That long hum in my ears became the night. That beep became the gun.I remember the first shot like a bright door. I walked through it, and everything went quiet. Like a church waiting for the first note. Body cold, then hot. Hands clumsy. Vision narrow at the edges like the world was tunneling itself toward a single point. Gravity got disloyal. The ground rushed up and the bricks had a smell I couldn’t forget. I went down cussing in my head. No sound came out. Somebody said my name that wasn't my name. It was like they was trying it out to see how it fit.
I wasn’t fearful but know this: I was mad. Mad at the way my body didn't answer me. Mad at how small the world got in that parkin lot. Mad at whoever picked the place, whoever timed it, whoever told them where we’d be. But then Ayida's voice floated in like it had wings on it. Soft, sure. That sainted little "Noles," like she was calling me to the table to come eat. And the dark, It hiccupped, man. Stumbled in its own house. That's when I knew her prayers wasn't just words. They were rope. They werechain. They were a woman's two hands grabbing the scruff of my soul like you catch a dog tryna to run the wrong way."Rete avè m," she said. Stay with me.I stayed.
