Ayida
I sat in the cloudy water, staring up at the stained glass on the ceiling of my grandmama's bathroom.
The light filtered through in soft blues and soft pinks, bending into shapes across the old tile like it was trying to tell its own story.
Steam curled up around me, sweet with herbs and bitter with roots, clouding the mirror and settling heavy on my chest. These baths had become my ritual, my routine when I came to visit madame.
The last month since Noles came out that coma had been complicated. Good, bad, beautiful, scary. It felt like we were getting back close, but even closeness had shadows attached to it.
I told Madame I'd been thinking about going to see a doctor, to see what they thought.
She laughed so quick and so sharp the sound bounced off the damn walls.
Then she told me point blank she wasn't letting me "pay white people to guess" when we had answers in our own bloodline.
"Doctors know nothin' 'bout hoodoo," she said, shuffling around the bathroom.
"You try my way first." Of course I did.
Every week, I drove out to her house, sat in this deep clawfoot tub while she mixed herbs only she knew by smell.
Basil, hyssop, sarsaparilla, rose petals, something she wouldn't name but made my skin prickle.
She'd light her candles, open the window to "let the air breathe," and pour the bathwater straight down my scalp until it ran over my shoulders.
I sat in it for hours while she tended to her clients downstairs.
when she would finally came back up, she circled that tub barefoot, her gold anklets shining in the sunlight, whispering chants.
Sometimes, when she didn't have clients, she'd sit on her little stool in the corner and talk to me about everything and nothing.
What dreams I'd had. What dreams she'd had.
Why my plants were dying. Why the wind felt different.
Why spirits lingered longer in houses where men came home from the edge of death.
She always knew how to make everything sound normal.
Like life and death and spirits passing through rooms was just part of Thursday afternoon. In her world, it was.
In mine, it was becoming that way too. I sank deeper into the bathwater until it lapped at my chin.
The water was cloudy, milky almost, hiding my body from view.
I could feel the herbs floating around me, brushing my skin like little prayers.
I closed my eyes, feeling the warmth soak into my bones.
But the warmth didn't reach all the places in me that needed it.
Some parts of me were cold, quiet, scared of the future.
Scared of the past too, because I wouldn't admit it out loud, but the past had started bleeding into my dreams again.
The dreams weren't normal, Not anymore. They used to stop after the gunshots, just flashes of light and sound, terror caught between my ribs.
But now they shifted and Gained teeth. I would hear the gunshots like always, sharp and close enough to rattle my bones, but then the world swallowed itself whole and turned pitch black.
No parking lot . No street. No sky. Just darkness thick like river mud, slow like mourning.
Then I'd hear A baby crying. Soft at first, then louder, like she was calling for somebody.
Calling for me. And when she finally came into view, my heart would twist itself up.
She was cute as ever, slick hair laid, skin smooth, wrapped in a soft blanket inside a white crib that glowed like moonlight.
I'd move toward her, every part of me reaching, wanting to pick her up, to hold her, to hush her little cries.
But before I got close enough, A man stepped into the room, but he wasn't a man, not really.
He was a figure without a face, tall and dark like a shadow that grew bones.
His edges blurred like smoke. He stood over the crib, looking down at her, and even without a face, I could feel the chill of his attention settle over my skin. My heart dropped into my stomach.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone, putting it to where his ear should've been.
I couldn't hear the person on the other end, but I could hear him.
Clear as day. Giving out the location. the exact lot where Noles and his brothers were.
Just like the night it happened. He was the voice. He was the one who called the hit.
The baby kept crying, her little hands reaching up toward him like she recognized something in his presence.
That scared me more than anything. A shadow shouldn't be recognized.
Not by a baby. Not by anybody. The room started shaking then the walls started trembling, lights flickering, the crib rattling like it was about to fall apart.
And right when I tried to scream, tried to run, tried to reach her, It ended.
I'd wake up drenched in cold sweat, gasping for breath, my chest tight like somebody had been sitting on it.
Tears streaming down my face. The sheets twisted around my body like I'd been fighting for my life.
I lifted my hands out the bathwater and rubbed my face, trying to wash off the memory, trying to scrub away the chill clinging to my spine.
The water rippled around me, herbs swirling, steam rising in slow curls like the room itself was exhaling the dream out of its walls.
Madame Laurent scooped my hand up off the side of the tub, taking me clean out my thoughts.
Her touch was soft but knowing, warm but intrusive.
God, she'd gotten nosy as hell these days.
"The dreams worse," she said, not asking, just stating it like she'd seen the nightmare sitting on my shoulders.
"You told your husband about these?" I shook my head.
My throat was too tight to answer out loud.
"So where his ass be when you waking up out your sleep spirit disturbed?
" she pressed, lifting one eyebrow at me like she was a judge and jury.
I stared back blank, because we both knew where Noles was.
She'd seen it in my spirit the moment she touched me. She saw everything. Too much sometimes.
She sucked her teeth and mumbled something in Creole under her breath.
It was sharp, irritated, something about stubborn men and blind women, she shuffled toward the counter where her jars of herbs sat.
The whole bathroom smelled like old magic.
Her perfume of frankincense drifted behind her.
"Add Auntie Rosalie to your altar," she said, her tone shifting into something firm, directive.
"Li ké fè sé rèv-la vini klè ba'w." She'll make them dreams clear for you.
Auntie Rosalie. The name alone made my skin prickle.
My mama's great aunt , dead long before I was born.
A seer. A dream-walker. A woman whose bones were still whispered about in this town.
Madame pulled down a jar filled with dried corn husks and grabbed another filled with little brown roots that looked like shriveled fingers.
"Fry up some of that corn with fatback like I taught you," she said, pointing at me with a root.
"And pour her a tall cup of Crown Royal.
Not the little shot glass give her a full cup.
" I swallowed hard. "M'ap koute ou" I'm listening.
She grunted like she didn't believe I'd actually do it.
Then her eyes softened barely, but enough to crack something in me.
"You need answers, Ayida," she said quietly.
"Them dreams tryin' to show you something.
Sa sé on bagay enpòtan." That's something important.
Her words wrapped around my heart like cold hands.
My voice trembled. "What if I don't wanna know?
" Her lips pressed into a thin line. "You ain't got no choice," she said, the truth heavy in her tone.
"Whatever in them dreams, Li ja sav ou." It already knows you.
My stomach flipped. She leaned over the tub again, placing her palm flat against the water.
The surface stilled under her touch, like the whole bath held its breath for her.
"You keep pretendin' like you don't feel it," she murmured, eyes locked on me.
"But that spirit followin' your husband?
Li koumansé maché dèyè'w osi." It's starting to walk behind you too.
The air in the room thickened. The water around my body seemed to warm and cool at once.
___
When I made it home, I saw Noles' car parked out front, and my heart stuttered a little.
He was never here at this time of day. Not for the last month at least. He should've been out there somewhere with his brothers, with the streets stirring trouble in his head.
But his car sat there still, quiet, sun hitting the windshield.
Inside, I heard his voice drifting through the house, deep, low, that tone he used only when he was talking business.
Not loud, but firm. The kind of voice that made a room sit up straight even if the room didn't have ears.
I rounded the kitchen corner and saw him standing at the counter, shoulder pressed to the phone, scooping food off a half-covered aluminum plate into his mouth.
Grease smudged on the foil. Steam still rising from the rice.
He looked over at me and gave me a half smile that was lazy, tired, and soft around the edges.
The kind of smile I didn't see often anymore.
He didn't stop talking, just finished chewing and kept listening to whoever was on the other line.