“You don’t need to be. Beliefs are only variations of oneanother depending on the cultures and places. Don’t fear this place because it’s unlike your own. Welcome it.” She stepped back as if to beckon me in, and I almost took her up on it, the pressure of energy building in my chest. “Come in from the cold.”
It wasn’t cold, it was late summer, but instantly I knew what she meant. A flicker, a cool wisp of air tickled the fine hairs on my arms and the feeling that aside from me, the lady, and the few people passing by, something else was there. Something out here was very wrong.
I turned sharply, my arm out, ready to protect the lady from whatever harm was coming our way.
Nothing.
The moment slipping away like smoke and a trace of that diseased smell from the corpse on the Isle, broke the spell and reminded me of my purpose. I almost laughed. I was spooking myself. I returned to the woman, who was watching where I had been looking, her eyebrow arched in defiance. I thanked her for her kindness, saying I had somewhere to be.
She hesitated, studying me, then nodded her understanding. “If you must. Another time, maybe.”
I trudged down the steps and turned to give one more look at the powerful church and felt as at ease there as I was on the Isle.
“Maybe.”
I ended up on Rainbow Row in the Historic District. I couldn’t fully appreciate the multicolored homes that made this street so famous because recognizing Luke and Hailey’s turquoise-blue row home made my anxiety flare. I was on unfamiliar turf amongstrangers; my only hope was that Hailey, or one of her neighbors, wouldn’t call the cops on me.
There was a bright-red Camaro in the home’s short driveway but my unanswered knock at her front door meant no one was home. I didn’t want to miss Hailey’s return, so I decided to hang around for a little while. Maybe I’d get lucky. At least the street was relatively quiet, except for the few tourists staring at the homes and the occasional resident taking their dog out, or riding a bike, or walking themselves. Each time one passed by, they threw guarded glances my way. As a Black person, I was triggered, and my knee-jerk reaction was for me to automatically gothereand think their side-eye had to do with my skin color.
Soon, it started to get dark. I needed to find a hotel where I could stay for the night and come up with a plan B. I had no idea when she’d be back.
Poor planning, girl. You should know better.
I should have also planned for a place to stay. I pulled my phone from the pocket of my hoodie, finally gathering enough courage to look at my messages. I had a bunch from Sekou checking in on me.
I answered Sekou’s last message, telling him I was fine. I reminded him that I wasn’t coming back until I found answers or Naira. Or both.
Take care of Nana 4 me pls
If she wanted to, Nana could swoop over here and bring me home, but with all the “choice” she touted, I was banking on herstaying true to that and humoring me, if only for a minute. She had, however, left me a voicemail.
Nana’s message was short.“At least you thought to leave a note. Do what you think will help you deal with Naira’s death. A reservation is waiting for you at the Francis Marion. You may have two days before you must return for Naira’s Homegoing. And then, Addae, life must continue.”
Life must continue.
I was a big old ball of confusion and guilt. Second-guessing if I was making the right choice or if I was being reckless for sitting on the sidewalk of a girl I’d only met once. Guilty for adding to a heavy load I knew my grandmother already had. Was I being selfish, like Naira had said? Thinking only about myself when life was supposed to continue?
But how could it without Naira?
Hailey was apparently going to be a no-show tonight. I pushed up from the curb, shrugging on the straps of my backpack. It was time to head to the Francis Marion on King. There I could figure out a game plan for tomorrow and where to go first. I had two days to find out what happened to Naira. Or make my peace with never knowing.
The skittering behind me, like nails scraping on cement, started off low, barely there. It was coming from an alley in between the houses I had been hanging in front of all evening. I froze, sensing danger. I ran the sound through, trying to give its owner a name. Maybe a rat. Too big. Could be a cat?
The old-fashioned streetlamps had blinked on, casting hazyswatches of light down on the street. The sky was a dark purple. The alley was extra dark. The Isle got dark, especially deep in the forest and swamp, but this extra black was something else. From the corner of my eye, the pitch black seemed to swirl into solid mass, into something like a body. My heart jumped. Not possible. I’d been in this spot for a while and no one had come or gone into the alley. It led to a dead end. What the hell kind of tricks was my mind playing on me? I backed up a step.
Earlier at the church, hadn’t I felt something off, something lurking? There one moment and gone the next? I played it off then, but it wasn’t as easy to do now.
One of the straps of my backpack slipped down my shoulder and I tugged it back on, twisting around to get a better look as I put more space between me and the alley. I didn’t scare easy, but I wasn’t totally senseless. I didn’t know this place. It was unknown terrain.
The skittering started up again. My eyesight was great, but the light cast off from the streetlamps made it hard to see through the darkness to the wall at the end of the alley. I struggled to tell dark nothing from something in that alley. The noise got louder, like it was coming closer. I tried to pinpoint its location. Didn’t seem to come from directly in front of me on the ground, but around, on the walls of the houses on either side of it. Coming closer toward me as I shuffled backward, step by step. I looked both ways down the street for someone. Just a minute ago there had been people on the street, checking their mail or on an evening stroll. Now there were none. Like right out of some freaking movie.
Another sound came after that, the low, guttural growl ofsomething about to pounce. My head snapped back, facing the alley, and for a second there were spots of lights close together like eyes, zooming in closer to me while I kept backing up, one foot, then another, not looking where I was going, only looking at the two iridescent lights homing in on me.
Until the shrill of a car horn screeched and a car swerved past me in a blast of wind, narrowly missing me.
“Whoa! Are you okay?”
The noise snapped me out of my daze. I jumped, disoriented, the red brake lights from the car that nearly pummeled me glaring at me angrily as if it meant more than braking to a stop. It felt like a warning to turn back, pinning me in its lights until the SUV made a right at the end of the street and was gone.
