My grandma, Wilhelmina, who we call Big-Mama, scowls at us from the head of the table. Even upset she’s impossibly beautiful. Jet-black skin, thickly coiled hair, and eyes that command attention… and respect. Jayla sits by Pop-Pop and Charles. I pile bacon on my plate.
“Stop!” Big-Mama looks my way.
I freeze, because it’s a fool’s errand not to listen to my grandmother when she uses that tone.
“Put the plate down, boy.” Big-Mama telekinetically snatches it from my grip before I can follow instructions.
Ma looks down, her sad eyes focused on the table.
Big-Mama shifts in her white linen dress. She smooths her long hair, tucking a tinsel-gray strand behind her ear. Her nose is slender, her cheekbones high and proud as she glares at me. “Don’t think I don’t know about the juke joint last night. You put yourself and your sister in unnecessary danger. Had me and your mother worried sick.”
She gives me a look that lets me know what she’s really mad about is Jayla going after me when it was her turn to watch Ma and make sure she ain’t conjure up trouble.
“I’m sorry, Big-Mama. Sorry, Ma,” I mutter, my eyes traveling the distance between them. I place my palms on the cool table, the smell of syrup and pancakes enticing me. I wish I could ask her to save the lecture until my stomach’s full, but Big-Mama takes orders from no one.
“You ain’t gotta be sorry if you behave,” Big-Mama says.
Pop-Pop, his frail body swaddled in a dark linen suit, leans over the table. He coughs, his arm resting on the butt of a cane that’s as white as bleached bone. “That’s it? You too soft on that boy, Wilhelmina.” He scrunches up his leathery brown face like his unhealing wounds are bugging him again. “Need to go upside Malcolm’s head one good time. Leave a knot behind as a warning he won’t soon forget.”
I see the pain from his injuries has him cranky, as always. “Good morning to you too, Pop-Pop.”
He rubs a palm over the wrinkles of his head. “What’s so good about it?”
“We’re on the right side of the dirt.” I grin. “And we get this amazing meal Ma made.” My mother smiles, bright and buttery. It’s good to see her like this. Out of her cloud of grief. Even if it’s only for a moment.
I glance at the paintings around the room. There’s a new one above Pop-Pop’s head. It’s a real pretty girl with a kinky white afro and satiny brown skin. She’s standing near an elephant in front of an orange-and-gold Africansunset, her toes buried in dust. She’s holding an hourglass full of petal-pink sand. The hourglass glows as she smiles at me. I don’t smile back. It’s creepy to smile at living pictures.
I wonder why Ma has conjured this thing. It’s like losing Dad broke her heart and losing Alex broke her. Now she won’t do anything but make living art.
Art no one can kill.
Big-Mama treats Ma like a child now—or like she’s lost her mind.
But I just hope I can figure out a way to help her, to fix it.
The lady in the picture smiles. “Breakfast looks delicious,” she says.
Ma glances up at the picture. “Thank you.”
My eyes drift over to the chest in the corner with the tiny African figurines and small statues of people and animals on it. Wooden panthers lie with their pink mouths yawning, spear-like fangs on display as they rest on the mahogany surface. Elephants, giraffes, and zebras prance around them. Why does Ma need these things, when she has us?
A tiny African boy made of wood plays his violin, and the ancient statue of a Zulu warrior next to him dances with other figurines. The warrior wears a leopard headband and has tiny hills of wooden muscle in his brown chest and abs. I hate him, and I hate his face. He looks like Alex.
“Look.” Jayla adjusts her glasses before pointing to the dancing warrior. “He’s doing a new dance.”
Mama rocks back and forth, smiling at the little statue that looks like my dead brother. Behind the tiny dancing statues, shadows of metallic silver dance to a different rhythm. All of them putting on a show as we sit at the table.
I eye the spread of food on the table, because I hate looking at the creepy stuff in this room. But something’s not right.
A thick black haze is coiling up from under the big plate of pancakes. My heart pounds. The smoke rolls across the table, crawling over forks and slinking across a platter of bacon before thinning into a shimmering gold thread by Jayla’s plate.
“Don’t move,” Big-Mama orders.
Dread pools in my stomach. I think back to the ravens we saw in theMississippi forest last night. I didn’t want to deal with it then, but it looks like none of us has a choice today. There’s no outrunning this.
Ma sees the thread. She goes stiff. The lady in the painting freezes, too, before releasing a silent scream.
All the wooden statues stop their music and dancing.
