“Then I mentioned Nana’s ceremonial cuffs and how they tie into our culture and ancestry and tradition when we started talking about family,” Naira continued as if I hadn’t said a thing.
The mention of the thick gold-and-cobalt cuffs that had been passed down in my family made my shoulders tense. They were so old even Nana couldn’t say when they were created, and she only wore them during our most sacred and private Kin occasions.
Sekou looked at me nervously while I began a slow simmer. “You shouldn’t have done that, Naira.”
There were a lot of things Naira shouldn’t have been doing.
“You know we don’t talk about our ways here. How the island is kinda…” He trailed off, whirling his hands around in a pantomime of thoughts. “Special,” he whispered. “And Nana is”—the hands again—“also special.”
She could heal people was what he wanted to say aloud, but didn’t.
“While Ada is…” He looked at me with a pained expression.
Not so special. Because I was supposed to be able to heal too, but couldn’t. Was supposed to be able to do a lot of things, but couldn’t. When I dug my hands into the Isle’s earth, I felt its energy, all the spirits and life force Nana had infused with it there, but I couldn’t use it to do anything. Not like Nana.
“I didn’t tell him any of that,” Naira said defensively. “I just said we kept our traditions since slavery, same as the Gullah Geechee up and down the coast. I just mentioned she had Africanheirlooms passed down in her family and hidden by her ancestors when they were stolen and brought here.”
“Still…” Sekou shot quick glances my way like he was checking my temperature.
It was rising, the slow simmer beginning to bubble.
I brushed a loose coil of hair from my face, looking out at the homes lined along the street and the banyan trees looming overhead, their leaves low enough to practically touch. And just beyond them, marshes and ravines, massive trees, creeks and lakes, a nature preserve. Remnants of tabby cabins, some of the first homes the founding families built when they’d come to this place.
Talking about the cuffs wasmyfamily’s business, not Naira’s. And that she was spilling to not only some rando, but a mainlander rando was way too much—I didn’t care how much she liked him. Her loyalty should have been to me, to Nana.
Naira continued. “Luke was talking about some artifacts the research lab at the school uncovered in Virginia under the statue of Robert E. Lee. There was a necklace, and when Luke described that it had blue gems, it made me think of Nana’s. So, I mentioned that she had something with blue gems. And he was like, what if they were related.”
“Oh, he said that, did he?” I said.
Naira’s nostrils flared. She could be frustrated all she wanted, but it wasn’tusyakking to strangers about Isle shit, much less Nana Ama’s heirlooms.
“Y’all, it wasn’t even like that! It was a two-second conversation!”
I turned to her, accusation coating my words. “Did you show him any of the drawings you and Nana did?”
Her eyes went from shock to hurt. “What? No! No, I would never show anyone our work. I would never tell anyone about how special Golden Isle is, the Kinfolk, and about you and Nana Ama.”
Nana Ama spent countless hours detailing the history in intricate drawings of maps and family trees and scenes of gods, goddesses, and battles she had envisioned from the writings of Kin throughout the time, especially drawings of Anansi the spider god, Nyame the supreme god, and his twin goddess daughters who tragically ended up being the vampires of West Africa.
The adze, Nana Ama began long ago, as she showed me the drawing of two African goddesses, daughters of Nyame the Sky God and his queen, Asase Yaa, draped in rows of cowries and gold as they seemed to peer out through the drawing and right into me.
They were first created to help mankind cure disease, but over time their story and purpose have become convoluted. Our people needed a reason for where illness had started coming from. The adze sisters could move with Light, becoming fireflies, often at night, to help the sick. However, over time and due to the fear of the unknown diseases brought in from enslavers and colonizers, ravaging our people, the legend and true purpose of the adze became convoluted superstition, and one of nightmares. That’s why we honor the sisters on Golden Isle, a land of fireflies. They guided us to this land, protecting us as they always intended to do.
Naira might not have told Luke everything, but she still told him about things she didn’t truly understand. Nana Ama castincantations over the land, protecting it from those who would do it harm, using its bloody history when the First Peoples who owned and roamed it were massacred by the British in the 1700s to help fortify the protections.
As Sekou pulled to a stop in front of her house, Naira leaned in close, her voice barely above a whisper, warm breath tickling my ear. “I think I might leave Golden Isle.”
CHAPTER SIX
What. The. Hell.
Slowly, I faced Naira, hoping I hadn’t heard right. She looked back at me with her luminous brown eyes, waiting for me to say something. Her fingers twisted around one another in her lap.
“You mean you’re going to leave on this research trip?”
Naira swallowed, slow to speak, like she was weighing her words. “Well, yeah. But I mean after that.” The skinny gold bangles covering Naira’s slender arm nearly to her elbow jingled from her movement.
“Just say what you’re going to say,” I muttered, already feeling the heat building behind my eyes.
