“No, Nana. We can fix this. Tell me what I need to do.” I made a move to slide out from beneath her and channel every prayer or incantation she’d taught me in her cabin back home. Anything to set her back right.
Be still.
I stilled.
Be strong, my girl, and lead and do whatever it is that you will.Keep the island for those who need its sanctuary, but live as you must. Drink what I gift you and take all that is me and my history and legacy and live your life.
I choked on my sobs. I didn’t want to take her last bits of life. I didn’t want to do this thing.
She reached out to me.Quickly, before it’s too late. There isn’t much time.
She lifted a hand to my face, touching me on my cheek in a gesture she’d never really done. For all the love she bestowed on me, my grandmother had never touched me as tenderly as she did in this moment.
Then she spoke so the others could hear, “You are everything I was and more. I waited too long to tell you that. I shouldn’t have shielded you from the world, and all that I’ve done was for you.” A solitary tear slid down her cheek as she whispered, “You, my child, are… my everything.”
She looked deep into me as if assuring herself that I was ready. I didn’t feel I was, but something in my eyes must have shown her otherwise. Even during this moment, in which she was the one in need, she took care of me.
“Never forget, Addae, that you are my granddaughter. Mine. Always was. Always will be.” She pulled me closer, the words clearly difficult to speak, but she pushed through. “What Effie never understood was that everything comes from choice and consent. You can create another, but only if there is true consent and acceptance between you. They must always accept the gift in its entirety. That is what Effie didn’t know, or accept.”
“Nana.”
“Listen, because I don’t want you to make the same mistake. She took her gift for granted. Let it destroy her. That’s why the only thing she did right was to create your mother.”
“Okay.” I nodded.
“Now drink. Don’t stop. It will be hard. You will see too much because you will take everything I have ever been and learned. Tell our stories. Keep our history and heritage alive and the island safe.”
My grandmother, the original adze, slid her hand to the base of my head and pulled me toward her neck, to the artery that pulsed beneath her skin.
To drink. Her blood. Her Light.
I bit, and her blood was like drinking a soothing balm compared to the fire that raged from the few drops Effie gave me when I’d fallen. Nana’s was an elixir of life and of gods. And I saw it all. I knew all as Nana Ama had known. Every single joy, sorrow, and hurt. My body felt like it might burst with the force of so much feeling.
When I took the last drop, my grandmother’s body began to blacken and grow small, and smaller still, until all that remained of it was a dark bulb, its light extinguished like that of a firefly. The connection Nana Ama and I shared that I always believed was strong and unbreakable, finally broke. I thought my grandmother would be forever. I didn’t want to believe that she wasn’t.
And that I was left alone in this world.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
We had to leave the plantation’s raging inferno quickly. Lyle wouldn’t let me look for Nana’s cuffs, even though I begged him. The cops would be coming. And firefighters. All the people who maintained the forest and property. And we’d have no explanation for our being there and for the bodies they’d find inside. I let Lyle guide me away, holding on tightly to the ball that was my grandmother. She needed to be sent home.
We made it to the Charleston marina, where Lyle was able to hire a late-night boat to take us back to Golden Isle. The captain didn’t question why we smelled of smoke or looked like hell warmed over. While Sekou and Lyle got a still-unconscious Naira on board, Hailey and I stood off to say our goodbyes.
She looked as if she’d aged a hundred years. Her eyes were as red rimmed as her brother’s from crying. Her heart was as broken as mine.
“I’m sorry about Luke. I was wrong about him.”
She tried to smile, sighing. She looked out at the water and the lights glinting off of it. “I’m sorry about your grandmother.”Hailey hesitated. “She turned out to be less terrifying than I had thought.”
My eyes filled, and I shook my head. I couldn’t talk about her yet.
“What are you going to do now?” Hailey gestured at my hand where I still held my grandmother. “With her? With everything?”
I couldn’t begin to think of how to be the Isle’s matriarch. I couldn’t even wrap my mind around the fact that my grandmother,mygrandmother, was gone.
“Release her light,” I said, trying keep it all in. If I broke down here, I would never get back up. I would literally die.
I wiped an errant tear. “And then I don’t know.”
