Nana Ama turned toward me, the light catching her eyes like those of cat. “Don’t lie to me, Addae. I can smell her terror.”
Hailey shrank back like she was trying to get away again, crashing into the guards behind her.
“You are here on the island. What information are you seeking to take back to your family?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“Nana Ama, can we talk about this?”
“Quiet,” Nana commanded, holding up her hand. “You know what it means that she has seen you. That she knows of our kind when she is directly and deeply related to the Endowment.”
“She won’t tell,” I said. I couldn’t allow us to kill to keep a secret. Whatever intentions Hailey had come here with, I didn’t think she deserved to die.
“I took the liberties of having the bungalow searched while we were looking for the trespasser,” James said. He produced a small leather bag from within the folds of the colorful robes wrapped around his torso and across one shoulder. He flipped open the flap, revealing several clear tubes and packaged syringes. Hailey’s body sagged. “We found them in her bags when we searched her cabin, after she was spotted spying.”
Hailey’s voice rang out. “I wasn’t spying! That’s a lie.”
Her eyes slid to me, begging me to believe her. The earlier fear she had at my nearly making a meal of her was gone, replaced by her need for me to believe that she didn’t bring those vials here to get something.
But the vials… weren’t they proof? Why were they with her if she wasn’t going to use them?
Suddenly, I didn’t know what was going on. All I thought I knew, I didn’t. I hadn’t just shown Hailey my precious island. I had shown her who I really was, beneath the stoic, dutiful front I was forced to put up.
Was it all a lie?
Was this all just a part of Hailey and her uncle’s plan? Lure me in, make me trust her, make mewanther, then use it to get whatever it was they were after on the island? From me and Nana Ama?
Nana Ama remained unmoved. She remained transfixed on Hailey, then me. She was unreadable, a stone statue with only her eyes moving from me to Hailey to me again. She didn’t have to say what she was thinking, her eyes saying it all.
Addae, what have you done?
Hailey cleared her throat.
“My uncle runs the Endowment, yes, but it’s research. We find ancient artifacts. We restore them and send them back to their place of origin. We try to help communities.”
The laugh that came from Nana Ama was like thunder. “Oh ho! You think the Golden Isle needs your help? How magnanimous of you to offer something unasked.”
Hailey shook her head emphatically. “No. I came here for Naira’s Homegoing. I swear.” She held her hand over her heart like she was making a pledge.
Nana Ama pointed to the vials in Elder James’s hands. “And these?”
Hailey twisted around to look at me, silently asking for me to plead her case, but I turned away, my own thoughts conflicted. Hailey had violated something sacred, something intimate.She’d seen me at my most vulnerable, when I was trying to finally Light and do something about those things we saw back in Charleston. My Light had been right there for grasping, and she’d ruined it.
Hailey turned back around, dropping her head. “We use those, but I forgot they were still in my bag from our last trip. I swear to god that’s the truth.”
“What do you use them for?” Nana Ama prompted. She would make me hear it. Make me realize how quick I was to trust. How I should have listened to her and stayed on the island instead of running off to find more trouble.
“For samples. Samples of the soil. Samples of…,” Hailey stammered.
“Of our blood?” Nana Ama’s voice was low. “Of my elixir?”
Hailey was silent.
“You know what this means,” Elder James said. “She has violated us in more ways than one. This is indefensible. This deserves death.”
The word was poison to my ears. Death! Like we were those kinds of people. Nana didn’t even kill to feed. But would she kill to protect?
I looked at her and her cold regard of a terrified Hailey.
