Ama held the writhing abalsom, in raggedy slacks, still. She raised her arms, its bulging head still firmly in her vise grip, its toes trailing the ground.
She looked deeply in its eyes. Deep, unmoving, saying nothing, until eventually its snarling, and snapping, and writhing started to slow, then stop. Its mouth opened, slack-jawed, and a long drip of slimy drool stretched from its mouth, over its lips, down its chin, heading to the grass between them. My mouth curled in disgust.
“He has the hollowing,” Nana Ama said, giving her diagnosis.
“And what would that be?” I asked.
“Every adze has a poison inside them that, when injected into a human without a blood transference to counter the effect and complete a successful turn of a human, siphons their essence and rots their mind until they become a servant entirely under that adze’s control. They are possessed by their master. No longerthemselves. No longer human. And the master consumes everything about them. Their blood, thoughts, emotions.”
I had no idea that the adze held such destructive power. I imagined, my horror intensifying, that this poison was somewhere inside me, coursing through my veins. That I could do this to another person. Thatanyadze would do such a thing.
I looked up at Nana Ama, hit with a realization too big to understand. She and I were the only adze that I knew. “Who did this?” I asked, gesturing at the snarling monster in her grasp.
She ignored me and instead whispered, “Welcome back, Effie,” to the beast. His hand seized, fingers curling. “You have been missed.” His body spasmed. She returned the bag to his head.
“Who isEffie?” I demanded, panic rising.
My grandmother sighed, ignoring my question once again. She motioned for us to follow her back to the house. “Do you still sense that Naira is alive?”
“I do,” I replied, hoping she could see how much I knew this to be true. “She spoke to me.” Behind me, Sekou gasped.
Nana Ama was unfazed, as if she’d expected my answer. “What did she say?”
I would never forget her words. I wouldn’t forget the terror behind them and the pain. Or the scream when something cut Naira off and our connection went dead. Miles and miles of cut lines.
… Don’t, Ada. Don’t give her the cu—
I relayed it all to Nana, becoming uneasy when my grandmother’s face darkened, growing so severe I thought I was in trouble.
“Are you sure?” Nana got in close.
Instinctively, I leaned back. The look on her face was intense and fierce. It was as if my grandmother had been swallowed up and in her place was this warrior woman about to take my head clean off if I didn’t give the right answer.
“Nana?”
“What you think you heard, Addae,” she asked impatiently, “are you sure it was that she needed my cuffs?”
I nodded, my mouth going dry. Nana’s eyes flashed gold so dark they were nearly bronze.
“Who is she?” I asked more firmly now because I needed some kind of answer. It was getting real old the way Nana kept things quiet, only feeding me tiny bits of information until she felt good and ready to let me know what was up. Nana’s silence had kept me unprepared for whatever was coming.
It was the first time I saw Nana falter, as if the question destabilized her. “My sister.”
Her answer slammed into me, fast and hard. It took the wind right out of me. Nana wasn’t the only one destabilized. My whole entire being was rocked, and if not for me already being in a chair, I think I would have fallen flat to the floor.
Nana Ama had a sister. It wasn’t just her and me in the world? We had blood family, not just people we called Kin because we grew to be. We had a person who just was. And if there was one, maybe there were more, like me, like us, who just… were. Family.
But from Nana’s look, there was more behind the knowledge of a long-lost sister out there in the world.
“If she’s your sister, can you figure out where she is? Do you still have a telepathic connection with her?”
“I only feel her now because her power has grown. I severed the connection we had as sisters who shared a womb. I couldn’t sense her when she first woke. The Isle served as a buffer for the both of us, I guess. And she was likely very weak. But she has been feeding, much more than me. She’s stronger and has made her move.”
Lyle spoke up. “We’re running short on time.”
Shared wombstuck in my mind like big billboard letters.Nana and this Effie were not only related—sisters—but twins. Bound together before they were even born. And she never said a word. I spent my whole life thinking I knew so much. My truth had been cut up like fruit and baby-fed to me. I thought I was the one making my own decisions, when they were being made for me—what I knew, didn’t know about who I was. Like I was some kid who wasn’t tough enough to know the truth of my bloodline. There was a whole aunt hidden from me, and Nana would never have told me if Effie hadn’t returned. The realization that I knew nothing, not even who I was, left me as hollow as the hollowing that the abalsom had. Betrayed and resentful, that’s all I could feel. They thought they knew what was best for me, but turned out they didn’t. Knowing was what was best. Now how could I trust anyone else, even my grandmother, at their word, when they obviously didn’t trust me?
Sekou, who’d come up beside me, bumped into my side, arm-checking me, the vibe coming off of him telling me to be cool. He whispered, “I got you.” It was all I could do to not break down,because Sekou was the only one who’d been completely honest this whole time. And I had done nothing but lie to him. The guilt turned my stomach.
