“Mmmm,” someone hummed. I gripped Harvey’s warm arm and laid my chin against it. When I felt him lean close to my ear for a whisper.
“She’s a true clairvoyant unlike some of these students that pretend to be on paper to get into this school.” I rolled my eyes until I felt him delicately kiss my ear.
“My people have been the change! We’ve been did that! They just didn’t like the shape it took! I come from hoodoo!” She shouted with a tap of her chest.
“Woo!” Someone let out while another clapped.
“Yass friend!”
“I come from hoodoo!” She repeated. “My hands, these hands, learned the land before they learned the law! We buried thoughts and prayers where no one thought to look!”
“Preaaach!”
I looked around seeing the crowd growing thicker as the woman looked up at the sky, feeling a renewed sense of magic and energy around her. She was most definitely a witch.
“They call the Underground fragile now,” she let out with a smirk as she rolled and curled her arms like snakes until her skin slowly transitioned into patterned scales where her hands formed the head of two snakes hissing at one another. “Funny how our systems only feel fragile when the powerful, the almighty, the First of magic…suddenly feel threatened because the weak are finding out just how strong they are without them…”
“Yass!” Someone shouted.
“Yes ma’am!”
“I know that’s right!”
Her arms began to stretch as the snakes moved, wrapping around her body as her eyes closed and her mouth opened wide to show her own snake tongue.
“Control only works when the people at the bottom believe they belong there, but not anymore!”
Everyone began to get amped up at her words as Harvey mugged a man trying to slide towards me with an inviting smile. It wasn’t until he saw Harvey’s face standing directly behind me, that he continues moving until he was standing further back on the other side.
“So hear me when I say this! Not as a threat! Not as a promise!” She charged. “A war is coming! Not the kind with banners and armies but when earth chooses sides!”
Her arms suddenly took a shift back to her regular skin as the bangles draped down against her arms. She continued to look upat the sky, eyes rolling to the back of her head where you saw nothing but white space.
“Where the sun remembers what it’s supposed to restore, the moon remembers what they are, and the earth becomes what she’s meant to be! A war where balance will no longer ask for permission or wait for it to play out! The universe will reset itself, and when it’s over!?”
She let the pause linger as everyone hung to her every word. She lowered her head, eyes white as snow, lips black and shiny from the lip stain.
“Don’t ask who started it, looking to blame… Ask who will be there in the end to see and remember it. Thank you so much. My name is Kayla Montell. Third year spiritual student with a concentration in world economics and a minor in prophetic literature! That was my poem titled War is Coming! Thank you all so much for coming out and staying around to listen! Please, if you want a copy of War is Coming, please stop by the library and pick it up and make sure you vote for bestOpen Mic on the Groundsperformance! I need everyone to go vote, Kayla Montell! Third year!”
Chapter Eight
Ayira the Princess
I sat quietly, feeling guilty as Asha began combing my hair. We sat on my bed in my bedroom, waiting for Maggie and Namir to finish…talking. Souxie sat on the balcony with a book in her lap while Isis laid on my bed, texting on her phone. Nobody said a word at first. We just…listened. It was a late weekday night. We were supposed to plan our escape from the school to the club above ground. My first visit to see an actual city and it just didn’t seem likely if Maggie wasn’t involved.
“It’s always the ones that seem so perfect,” Asha said as she continued to comb my hair, dragging the comb all the way down to the bed before starting back at the top from the scalp.
“The ones that are always happy and in love,” Isis added. “Those are the ones you gotta watch because it festers. I’ve seen it with my own parents sometimes.”
“That’s not true,” Souxie said as she quietly flipped the page in her textbook. “Do none of you have any other things to do besides listen?”
“Like you’re not listening,” Asha retorted. “We’re all hearing this shit.”
We said nothing as the sudden sound of a loud boom went off like something hit the wall. Even Isis sat up at attention as we stared at my closed bedroom door. Asha froze while I lookedback at the two before looking at Souxie. She continued to read, not thinking much of it.
“THIS IS NOT ENOUGH, NAMIR! I DON’T HAVE MY FAMILY!” Maggie screamed. “I DON’T HAVE ANYONE AND INSTEAD OF DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT, YOU WANT ME TO–––”
“Yes! Say it! I want you to lay fucking low! You already have eyes on you! Everywhere you fucking go,Maggie this! Maggie that!I know you get sick of that shit!”
