My body was returning back to my usual human form, retracting—my senses normalizing from my heightened state of awareness, but I could sense another adze, my grandmother, transforming back to her human form, her own hunt interrupted from the chaos I had caused.
I heard joy and exaltation coming from the festival square as the Kin continued to drum and dance and celebrate at the Gathering Tree. Hailey was somewhere not too far, but I couldn’t place where. I ran frantically through the undergrowth, trying to pinpoint where she was. Deepening dread built up in my chest thinking about how scared and repulsed she now was by me.
Then the drumming stopped abruptly. I sensed confusion and anger radiating from the square, and I could sense Sekou’s energy especially, fury mixed with righteousness.
A scream I was now familiar with pierced the night, loud and clear like a beacon. It was Hailey. She sounded almost primal, her fear like that of an animal, caught.
They had found Hailey. And she was being taken back to where Nana Ama awaited her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I burst from the forest, weaving through the homes in the Landing, heading straight for the Gathering Tree. My desperation intensified knowing Nana Ama had beaten me back, and they had gotten to Hailey before I could and were taking Hailey to her.
The ring of the lighted torches creating a square of illumination to cast off the darkness. The crowd huddled around the front with the tree looming above everyone. I searched for signs of Hailey or Sekou, but I couldn’t see either, assuming that they were at the front of the standing bodies, craning for a good view of the spectacle happening up front. With each passing moment, my anxiety grew.
I started toward the front, but stopped when I looked down and saw the blood on my skin and clothes. They may know what Nana Ama and I were and swore to hide our secret, but they’d never seen those versions of us, the firefly traveling the night or the full-form being we could become—neither of which I could become because I had yet to Light. Even though the Kinfolk knew, I still didn’t want them to see me bloody.
Taking a pitcher of water from off a table of trays of emptied serving dishes of food, I washed my hands and face and brushed off my skirt as best as I could, hoping nothing would be too noticeable.
There were still specks of blood and smudges of dirt and grass on my clothing, but I was presentable enough. I hurried through the crowd, people straining on their feet to see what caused the disruption. They parted for me as I walked through, trying to exude purpose instead of defeat and shame for exposing myself, for my poor decisions, and for my inability to control myself.
My steps slowed as I approached the front and saw what was there.
Normally, there were two chairs and Nyame’s stool at the front beneath the Gathering Tree. Nana always sat in her wicker chair next to Elder James, or stood when addressing the rest of the Kin. Though Nana Ama was the leader of the Kin, essentially the “woman king” in Nyame’s absence, she had never sat in the stool of the Sky God, the king of all gods. It was reserved for him alone and nothing serious enough had warranted her to sit in Nyame’s place.
Until tonight.
When I saw her sitting upright on the stool, her expression stone cold gazing at the expanse of jittery Kin, my blood froze. Their chorus of thoughts crowded my mind, and I fought to push them out, wishing for my earbuds, which rested at home. Across the square, Nana Ama’s eyes found me, her anger kept in check with preternatural ability, and followed me as I wound my way forward to accept my fate.
Nana Ama didn’t have to say aloud what she was thinking.Though her face was wiped clear of anything discernible, her entire vibe was clear.
I was in the deepest of shit.
Hailey stood in front of Nana Ama and Elder James. Sekou was positioned near Hailey as her protector or guard, I wasn’t sure, but by the way his jaw tensed, maybe it was the latter.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Nana?”
James was looking at me like I wasn’t much of anything. Hostility and disapproval sloughed off him and onto me. I didn’t know what I’d ever done to him except exist.
I channeled my inner Nana and Sekou too, wiping my expression clean. I wouldn’t give James or anyone who doubted me the satisfaction of seeing me squirm.
Nana Ama inclined her head, indicating that Elder James could begin.
“Your guest was found within the Landing perimeters unaccompanied and in a restricted area of the forest during the festival,” James said, his voice reedy and accusatory. He fixed his bushy-eyebrow-covered eyes on me.
“I told her to stay in her bungalow at Freeman’s.”
“And yet here she stands,” he said.
I didn’t dignify that with a response. We could all see Hailey was there. James just wanted to flex his authority.
Nana Ama regarded me coolly. No special treatment just because I was next in line. I was not above anyone else when it came to reprimands and consequences. And I shouldn’t be.
Hailey was a mess of dirt with the stains from her battle with the island’s foliage, and I guess with me too, standing asevidence of her crime. Her body was riddled with scratches. I could smell the drying blood, saw the two contact points on her neck, and fought both guilt and thirst as I forced myself to focus elsewhere.
“What were you doing out of your quarters?” James demanded.
Hailey flinched at that question being directed at her, the once cool, dismissive rich girl who lived in the big city of Charleston a thing of the past. She trembled so hard I thought she wouldn’t be able to stay upright for much longer.
