Sekou threw a branch of palm with a grunt. “That’s not fair, Ada. Think of how you’re acting looks to her family. When you’re out there coming at Lyle being all pissed, you’re making it worse for them. You’d know that if you’d been by to see them. You know, like folks who were her best friends should.”
Were, past tense. I could only shake my head at him, not trusting my words to be nice.
I hadn’t been by the Russells’ to see how they were holding up. Sekou thought I was being selfish, but the truth was that if I went over there to see them, it meant accepting that Naira was in the past tense. She wasn’t past tense to me. She was still very much in the present.
I couldn’t stand the looks of pity because they thought I wasn’t coping well, wasn’t accepting what they thought were “facts.” Even Nana told me to let it go. To her, to all of them, even my remaining best friend, Naira had been caught in a storm. And it pissed me off that they could give up so easily.
“Nana Ama,” I asked for what felt like the hundredth time as I watched her meticulously stirring the pot of bubbling elixir. It was later that evening and she was preparing for our upcoming Harvest Festival, held biannually, where our tradition was to honor and pay tribute to Nyame, the god supreme, lesser gods of the pantheon, and the land-dwelling deities who protected, guided, and helped us to prosper.
I noted the rows of small glass vials she would use to offer to the Kin in appreciation and in exchange for the continued promise of their loyalty and commitment to safeguarding of the Golden Isle and fellow Kinfolk. If only they knew how much my grandmother sacrificed to keep them healthy and strong and a cut above everyone else. They would never know, but I did.
“You may not go,” Nana Ama said, also for the hundredth time.
I sighed.
“Then you go,” I said. “You can check into it for me. She’s alive out there, I just know it. We can’t leave family out there alone.”
Nana’s shoulders flinched like I had struck her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Our place is here on Golden. If I left every time someone was in trouble, land developers would take our home. The Kin would dissolve to parts unknown, and what would happen to Golden Isle? It entrusted itself to our family’s care. It saved us.”
“But don’t you think it would want us to save others too? Save our own? It’s not like I’m asking you to be out there like one of the Avengers saving the world. I just want you to save Naira.”
Nana sighed, placing her thick wooden ladle in the holder. She turned to me as if the world were on her shoulders, lookingolder than I’d ever seen her. “I don’t feel her, my child. Like Gilbert, she is gone. All we can do for her is send her off in honor with our traditions so she is well in her afterlife and prepared for the next.”
Screw thatwas what I really wanted to say. Forget sending Naira to another life when there was still this one.
But I kept these thoughts to myself. We might be able to sense our other Kin, but my grandmother never entered others’ thoughts, finding that intrusive and a misuse of her gifts.A person’s mind, she said,as their choices, are their own. Who am I to intrude just because I can?It was my hope that when I finally Lighted, I’d never be able to fully read thoughts; the sensing was loud enough and just barely contained when I drowned it out in earbud noise. Plus, I could never get a sense from her like I could others. Maybe it was because I was a descendant of hers.
Nana thought she’d given her final decision and I’d obey as always. What she didn’t know was my mind was already made up.
“We will have her Homegoing right before the Harvest Festival. It can’t be helped,” she said, checking me for any protest.
“Timing is horrible, but we must give thanks, the Kin for their good year, and you and I for being allowed to be with them.”
Sending Naira off to the spirit world Asamando would be the end of Naira’s story here on Earth, and it was the last thing I wanted to think about, let alone be a part of.
She continued, “It’ll be good for us to release Naira and then welcome her the following day with the rest of the spirits when they walk,” Nana Ama said. “We will spend extra time with her.” Tears fringed Nana’s eyelashes, and I knew they were real. I justcouldn’t deal with them. “If that’s what’s gotta happen.” I handed her a warm glass of coconut water and palm oil, watching as she drank deeply.
“You and I need to be strong, Addae. The Kin look to us for strength and guidance.”
Don’t I know it.I tried to see it from Nana’s point of view. I’d never seen her break. I guess this was what being a leader meant, not letting everyone see you break and be vulnerable. But what about when something happened to someone you loved? Nana barely flinched when Mom died. She’d just bucked up for the rest of us. I didn’t think I could be that kind of leader. I didn’t think Iwantedto be.
When I thought of saying goodbye to Naira once again, this time for her journey into the World of Spirits, I felt all of my sadness and regret and rage rise up like a wave and roll through me, threatening to pull me under.
Nana wanted me to be like her and move on from the pain for the rest of the Kin. And if that was the kind of leader Nana wanted me to be, then I’d have to disappoint her.
“The—the—” I had to force the words out, my will overcoming my need for self-preservation. “Right before graduation… you said a storm was coming. You said—”
“Nothing you should be worrying yourself sick over. Whatever you think you heard and this tragedy are not connected,” Nana Ama said briskly, waving her arms as if shooing away my concerns. Her golden cuffs etched in intricate designs glinted against the brown of her skin, making her glow.
“Okay.” I let it go as quickly as I brought it up.
“You’ve had a hard day. A hard few weeks, my girl. Why don’t you get some rest, hmm?” She smiled, back to her warm self, and I nearly bought it. But I hadn’t spent eighteen years studying her every move for nothing.
She was hiding something from me.
She looked down at her precious elixir. “I’ll need to go out tonight. The elixir takes a lot from me.” She pulled off her cuffs and wiped them down before placing them in their deep purple velvet-lined box, closing and locking it. She wanted me to accept that the conversation was over, like I always did… following her rules to a T. But I couldn’t this time. I couldn’t just keep silent.
Nana’s warning held on and wouldn’t go away. Someone gathering. A secret boyfriend who was Naira’s real reason to go on the research trip. Then Gilbert washed up on shore. Finally, Naira disappeared. If all of this was a coincidence, then we had the worst luck in all the world. It had to be something else.
