I nodded because the huge painful lump growing in my throat wouldn’t let me speak.
Nana sighed out her prayer for the dead. “May Mami Wata guide her to our ancestors, and may she finally find her peace.”
Love didn’t stop the anger and resentment of knowing I wasn’t enough for Mom to stay, even though it had taken her so many years to have me. Nana constantly telling me how much my mother loved and wanted me for so many years wasn’t enough. Not for me. Not for my mom. I was supposed to live with that. And I couldn’t.
The only things, theonlythings that kept me from exploding were my grandmother and my friends. I couldn’t take another person leaving.
Eventually, the water crowd joined the shore crowd, and that’s when things got really live as we dried off in front of the fires. The music transitioned to a line dance, and the crowd went wild. Sekou spotted us, twirling an invisible lasso in the air and then throwing it at Naira.
She froze, caught for a hot second, then gripped the invisible rope in both hands and started under-handing her way toward him as he pulled on his end, her feet two-stepping and cowboyboogying effortlessly in time to the lyrics as she continued pulling herself along the rope. Her execution was so flawless, it was easy to see how Naira was the undefeated best dancer of the three of us.
Naira reached Sekou and he wrapped his long, muscled arms around her, twirling her as she cackled happily.
The two of them started dancing, jumping around, getting lost in the crowd. Sekou, who towered over most of the moving bodies, motioned for me to come over. I waved him off, opting to hang back and watch from the sidelines like I did best. I popped in my earbuds to block out the noise that could crowd my mind if I wasn’t careful, facing the expanse of water that stretched out of the Calibogue Sound and into the Atlantic.
I gazed out to the blackness of the glass-like water as it reflected the sky. I could see the mainland’s twinkling line of lights from where I stood on the beach as my friends danced the night away. I shivered, imagining someone across the three-mile stretch of Atlantic on the other side, doing just as I was doing. On the shore, staring over here and wondering about us too.
And for the briefest moment I thought my imagination was reality, and across the sea was someone staring back at me with two tiny red orbs where eyes should have been. I looked away to refocus, but when I returned there was no one. Another intense shiver ripped through me, clenching my bones, and I felt the slightest quiver of fear. I chalked it up to the dampness from the water and having an extraordinarily unordinary day. I walked back to the warmth of the fire.
It was nothing more than fear of the unknown.
CHAPTER FIVE
Naira and I were finally able to pull Sekou from the party after we reminded him he had ferry tours early the next day. His uncle James owned the fleet and would be pissed if he showed up late.
We piled into Sekou’s cart, waving goodbye to those who weren’t ready for the party to end. Naira was in the back, with me riding shotgun. I had spent the whole night without bringing up the elephant in the room:Luuuuke. But I couldn’t wait any longer.
“So, this Luke,” I began, nodding at her phone. “Who is he?”
Sekou chimed in, checking her in the rearview as we bumped along the road. “Yeah, who’s the frat boy?”
I said, “She was slobbing him down at concessions.”
Naira grimaced.
“Yeah,” I said. “Not only that, but you introduced him to, like, everybody. It’ll be all over the Isle by tomorrow if it isn’t already that you have some secret boyfriend.” I crossed my arms over my chest, settling back in my seat.
“Real talk,” Sekou added. “It’s one thing if it’s a dude from theIsle. Even one from Cal or right across the way at Hilton Head or someplace we know. But this guy? What do you really know about him? Where’d he come from, Naira? Thought we didn’t keep any secrets from each other.”
Well, almost no secrets.
Naira sighed. “I already said we met during my hybrid class with the Endowment.”
“You met online,” I countered.
“Everything happens online,” she returned.
Sekou asked, “What’s so special about this Endowment Research Company?”
“Endowment ResearchLab,” Naira corrected.
Sekou shrugged.
“The Endowment has been primarily focused on recovering, restoring, and returning lost cultural artifacts,” she said. “You know how I’ve been working with Nana Ama on chronicling the history of the Kinfolk and tracing back our lineage in case any of the Kin wants to return to their motherlands to see where they came from? Other groups along the coast, like the Gullah people, have retained their African roots even though they were captured and enslaved like our ancestors. All of these cultures have artifacts from their lands that have been lost or stolen over time. When the Endowment gets a lead on a find, they dig it up, determine where it came from, restore it, and return it. Luke was in the class too and reached out to me after I presented about helping Nana Ama chronicle our history, and we’ve been talking ever since.”
If it was daylight, I bet I’d see Naira blushing right now, the way she hid her smile behind her hand and turned away.
“So, he slid in your class’s version of a DM? Nice,” I cracked. Sekou cleared his throat in warning.
