Chapter Four Malcolm Davenport #2
“Put the plate down, boy.” Big-Mama telekinetically snatches it from my grip before I can follow instructions.
Ma looks down, her sad eyes focused on the table.
Big-Mama shifts in her white linen dress.
She smooths her long hair, tucking a tinsel-gray strand behind her ear.
Her nose is slender, her cheekbones high and proud as she glares at me.
“Don’t think I don’t know about the juke joint last night.
You put yourself and your sister in unnecessary danger. Had me and your mother worried sick.”
She gives me a look that lets me know what she’s really mad about is Jayla going after me when it was her turn to watch Ma and make sure she ain’t conjure up trouble.
“I’m sorry, Big-Mama. Sorry, Ma,” I mutter, my eyes traveling the distance between them. I place my palms on the cool table, the smell of syrup and pancakes enticing me. I wish I could ask her to save the lecture until my stomach’s full, but Big-Mama takes orders from no one.
“You ain’t gotta be sorry if you behave,” Big-Mama says.
Pop-Pop, his frail body swaddled in a dark linen suit, leans over the table.
He coughs, his arm resting on the butt of a cane that’s as white as bleached bone.
“That’s it? You too soft on that boy, Wilhelmina.
” He scrunches up his leathery brown face like his unhealing wounds are bugging him again.
“Need to go upside Malcolm’s head one good time.
Leave a knot behind as a warning he won’t soon forget. ”
I see the pain from his injuries has him cranky, as always. “Good morning to you too, Pop-Pop.”
He rubs a palm over the wrinkles of his head. “What’s so good about it?”
“We’re on the right side of the dirt.” I grin. “And we get this amazing meal Ma made.” My mother smiles, bright and buttery. It’s good to see her like this. Out of her cloud of grief. Even if it’s only for a moment.
I glance at the paintings around the room.
There’s a new one above Pop-Pop’s head. It’s a real pretty girl with a kinky white afro and satiny brown skin.
She’s standing near an elephant in front of an orange-and-gold African sunset, her toes buried in dust. She’s holding an hourglass full of petal-pink sand.
The hourglass glows as she smiles at me.
I don’t smile back. It’s creepy to smile at living pictures.
I wonder why Ma has conjured this thing. It’s like losing Dad broke her heart and losing Alex broke her. Now she won’t do anything but make living art.
Art no one can kill.
Big-Mama treats Ma like a child now—or like she’s lost her mind.
But I just hope I can figure out a way to help her, to fix it.
The lady in the picture smiles. “Breakfast looks delicious,” she says.
Ma glances up at the picture. “Thank you.”
My eyes drift over to the chest in the corner with the tiny African figurines and small statues of people and animals on it.
Wooden panthers lie with their pink mouths yawning, spear-like fangs on display as they rest on the mahogany surface.
Elephants, giraffes, and zebras prance around them.
Why does Ma need these things, when she has us?
A tiny African boy made of wood plays his violin, and the ancient statue of a Zulu warrior next to him dances with other figurines. The warrior wears a leopard headband and has tiny hills of wooden muscle in his brown chest and abs. I hate him, and I hate his face. He looks like Alex.
“Look.” Jayla adjusts her glasses before pointing to the dancing warrior. “He’s doing a new dance.”
Mama rocks back and forth, smiling at the little statue that looks like my dead brother. Behind the tiny dancing statues, shadows of metallic silver dance to a different rhythm. All of them putting on a show as we sit at the table.
I eye the spread of food on the table, because I hate looking at the creepy stuff in this room. But something’s not right.
A thick black haze is coiling up from under the big plate of pancakes. My heart pounds. The smoke rolls across the table, crawling over forks and slinking across a platter of bacon before thinning into a shimmering gold thread by Jayla’s plate.
“Don’t move,” Big-Mama orders.
Dread pools in my stomach. I think back to the ravens we saw in the Mississippi forest last night. I didn’t want to deal with it then, but it looks like none of us has a choice today. There’s no outrunning this.
Ma sees the thread. She goes stiff. The lady in the painting freezes, too, before releasing a silent scream.
All the wooden statues stop their music and dancing.
The table gets scary quiet.
Ma turns pale. “No, no, no,” she says. “Them threads keep coming! More death! Or they gonna live like Alex…” She points to the dancing warrior figurine with my brother’s face.
We saw Alex die. Maybe Ma has lost her mind. My heart sinks.
Big-Mama’s lips form a hard line. She folds her arms and glares at my ma like she’s a broken doll. “Shut up, Carmella. The power of life and death is in the tongue. Stop wagging yours, if your words ain’t productive.”
Ma hugs herself, rocking in her chair and rubbing her arms. “The curse gonna demand the blood it’s due. It’s the price of magic, the price of freedom…”
Pop-Pop strokes Ma’s arm. “We’ll be fine,” he tells her. But from his expression, he doesn’t believe that.
The African warrior figurine turns away.
His muscles jerk in his wooden back as he dances again.
Ma squints, and the figurine of the boy playing the violin swings the instrument at the back of the dancing warrior’s head.
Tiny splinters of wood fly as he’s hit. The warrior pivots and grips the boy.
The two wooden figures start rolling around on the cabinet, swinging tiny fists as they battle.
“Enough!” Big-Mama snaps.
Everyone freezes. Even the statues stop their combat and rise to stand at attention.
“I wanted to wait to have this talk when everybody was here,” Big-Mama says.
“But since some of y’all can’t see fit to come when called, I might as well get started.
We all know what the fog means. We’ve been seeing the signs for days now.
The Tether is coming. The Gambit is here.
And it’s a scary time for everybody. But I need y’all to focus on training till we know who’s going to represent the family. ”
Big-Mama snaps her fingers. The red velvet curtains on the windows open even wider, and candlelight flickers on the table.
Something that sounds like an invisible projector rattles.
A ghostly hologram appears. It’s a metallic-gold card with pointy edges and swirling black trim.
The card gleams and glitters in the light, like rain on a spiderweb.
And in its center is a black-and-white photo of the Baldwin family.
I’ll never forget Isabel Baldwin’s smiling face.
I can still see her standing over my brother Alex’s corpse when I was ten years old.
Seeing her face again only hardens my resolve to end the war between us, before another member of my family dies.
But it’s the face next to Isabel’s that truly snags my attention.
I lean closer and blink. It can’t be … It’s the girl from my vision.
From the smoke when I played my guitar. The beautiful brown girl with all that hair.
In the image, her lips are curved into a smile.
I point to her perfect face. “Who’s that, Big-Mama? ”
“That’s Emma Baldwin,” she says. “Isabel’s youngest daughter. Her only one left. The enemy.”
Something about her eyes draws me in. “Do you know what she can do?” I ask.
“According to my spies, she can make wishes come true.”
“Is she the competitor?” I ask.
“We don’t know yet.”
My stomach sinks. I hope it’s not her. I know I have to do the thing I don’t want to, the thing that will keep everyone around this table safe. But I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to hurt anyone, especially not that girl.
Ma grips her dress and stares at the striped wallpaper. She looks again at the warrior statue with Alex’s face, her eyes getting misty, and glances back at the image of the Baldwin family. The hologram flickers like a candle, and a strange silver haze streaks across the golden card.
Big-Mama doesn’t seem to notice Ma’s pain.
“The Tether chooses its champions. It’ll probably be between you and Jayla.
” Her sad eyes study the floor, like she hates what may come next.
“I’m cooking up a plan. We’ll use Imani’s gifts.
Her sight will help us see all the potential possibilities and outcomes that lie ahead. We’ll be prepared.”
“Maybe we can end this curse once and for all,” I say as gently as possible.
Big-Mama nods. “We’ll train hard, win the Gambit, and take the power. Then we’ll kill them all.”
I can’t seem to hide the way my face twists in disgust. “Isn’t there some other way?”
Jayla tilts her head and gives me an irritated look. “You want a truce?” she asks. “Isn’t that like striking a deal with the Devil?”
Big-Mama runs her palm on the smooth wood table and glares at me.
I put my hands in the air. “Better the Devil you know than the devils you don’t.
If politicians, street gangs, and mobsters can have peace talks, I know we can.
We can do it remotely, or magically, for safety.
Maybe they’re tired of killing and dying, like we are.
Maybe they want this whole thing done, too. ”
Big-Mama sighs. “Jayla, you didn’t tell me your brother bumped his head in that juke joint.
He clearly isn’t thinking straight. The curse must be fed.
The Baldwins deserve what’s coming to them.
Too much has been taken from us. Too much has happened.
” She flicks her wrist, and the image in the center of the card floating above the table changes to video clips. “Malcolm, get your mind right.”
My brother Charles shakes his head. “Unity? No. Not with them.”