Mom peers inside the envelope and removes a crisp piece of paper etched with our family seal. The image is surrounded by dark blue constellations. She flips the paper over and silently studies its back. She frowns and thrusts the note in my face. In gold embossed letters, it readsGET HERE NOW! A small timestamp in the corner of the note readsNEW ORLEANS, 1922.
“Your grandmère knows,” Mom says darkly.
My stomach gets heavy. Of course Grandmère Clair knows what I did tonight. She always knows everything.
Mom sweeps us out of the tent, her red heels making holes in the grass. “Your father must have the cars around by now. Let’s go.”
A knot of guilt lodges in my throat.
I follow after Mom and the trunks, suitcases, and bags floating behind her pretty red dress. Grass crunches under my feet, an icy feeling creeping up my spine.
What’s Grandmère gonna say? The question drums through me. She’ll do whatever it takes to protect her family—but if we make mistakes… well, let’s just say she’s the one we’ll need protection from.
A cone of light washes over us. A row of silver Bentleys rolls forward, their blue rims glowing, emphasizing their sculpted design and the unmistakable Baldwin family crest on all the car grilles. A thin cloud of glitter surrounds the Bentleys now, like stardust.
Papa steps out of one of them. Beams of moonlight bounce brightly off the jeweled buttons of his ringmaster suit as he runs his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair. “You made a mess, huh, baby girl?” He gives me a quick hug and a smile that can’t mask the disappointment in his eyes.
A branch snaps nearby, and goose bumps rise on my arms. I look around, filling with panic. Has the mob found us?
Papa opens his palm, and the image of a clock floats in the air, shimmering as if it’s reflected on water. “Hurry. We’re outta time.”
Demetri opens the trunks so Mom can load our things telepathically. She mutters words like “reckless” and “irresponsible.” When the last trunk slams on the final bag, she turns to me with narrowed eyes. “You got us all looking ridiculous. And now I gotta head to the past and deal with crap from my mother because you can’t seem to listen. Emma, you better get it together.”
Tears slip from the corners of my eyes. “Mom… I…”
Her eyes soften unexpectedly. She sighs and cradles me in her arms. “I know, child.”
My tears dampen her collar.
“I know you didn’t mean it. But we have rules for a reason. To protect us, and not just from the racist-ass white folks, but our own, too. Our enemies killed your sister, and they’re still out there. I’m hard on you for yourown good, Emma. As a Black mother, the threat of losing your baby to a world that doesn’t love them like you do is always present. And our family has lost too much already. You and Demetri are all your father and I have left. I must protect you both until—”
Suddenly a raven flies by too close, too fast, landing on a tree branch above our heads.
Mom shivers, keeping her eye on the bird. “We’ve got no room for you to be impulsive. I hope you learned that lesson tonight. Obedience is as important as oxygen.” With those cryptic words, Mom climbs into the car.
I trudge toward a different Bentley, wrench open the door, and sink into my seat. The door glides shut behind me.
Papa rolls down his window and snaps his fingers. The circus illusion fades away as if it were nothing more than a child’s chalkboard drawing washed away by a spring rain. Nothing is left but an abandoned parking lot, a mob of confused, angry people, and a dead body.
Demetri sits next to me in the driver’s seat. He flashes me a somber smile. “You okay?”
“Like you really care.”
He plays with the glowing buttons on the dashboard and jerks the key, and the Bentley rumbles on. The other cars follow under Mom’s command.
The car rolls around to the front of where the circus just stood, speeding by the memory of our striped tents. I close my eyes, the family crest blazing in my mind, mocking me.
When I was a child, Grandmère had explained our family seal to me. “The moon is our essence, our power. The ouroboros, a reminder. The snake will eat its own tail because nothing can be created without destruction first. It is the eternal dance.”
As I open my eyes, the snake on the gate brightens to gold for a second, before shifting to a bloody shade of red. The crescent moon in the center of the ouroboros glows in a shimmering white ice. Frozen. Just like the blood in my veins when an angry crowd surges toward us.
The streets of Harlem glow like an electric circus. Red taillights, white streetlights, and yellow cabs with black-and-white checkered stripes rollby. I hold my breath until the mob chasing us becomes nothing but fading dots in the rearview mirror. “We barely made it.” Demetri flicks his turn signal on.
We glide past three-story brick row homes with cracked stairs and smudged window ledges. Colorful curtains whip outward from open windows, catching the steamy breeze, twisting and flapping in the air. A child screeches, “Grandma!,” his head bobbing out of a window as he tries to get the attention of an old lady in a tattered housedress. A red bandana rests over her hair curlers as she sits on a stoop, cooling herself with a flowered fan. Black men with short beards and tall hats hang on the corner smoking by a store.
“Is this how it’s always gonna be, Demetri? Running, just to perform the same acts for a bunch of white folks who don’t see what we can really do?” I lean my forehead on the cool glass, inhaling the scent of sweat as I study the tall buildings and trolleys beyond my sad reflection. I envy the people out there, the normal lives they live.
“Granting a stranger’s wish without knowing what it was? That kind of impulsiveness puts us all in danger.”
