19. The Nest
The Nest
T he steam from the bath alone was enough to make me sigh. I loved a hot girl bath after a long day. An afternoon one seemed even more magical. Maybe because it was so rare it almost felt forbidden, like playing hooky from school to play video games or taking a day off work to read a book that just released. It just made me feel like a little kid again.
I spent several minutes wrangling my locs into a headwrap to protect them from getting wet. As the tub filled with water, I went to the kitchen and plucked an unopened bottle of moscato from the wine cooler along with my favorite iridescent wine glass. I poured myself a hefty glass while I made my way back to my room with the bottle in tow.
It felt necessary after today.
Closing the bedroom door, my backpack purse caught my eye as it hung next to the door. A corner of the grimoire peeked out from the purse’s flap. The sunlight streaming from my windows caught on the gems on the cover, emblazoning the room in a kaleidoscope of color. I should have wanted to hide the book and forget about it for as long as I possibly could after today. So, I don’t know what made me shift the wine bottle into the crook of my other arm and pull the book out of my bag, but I couldn’t resist its pull.
The bath was halfway full already when I returned. I tossed a few bath bombs inside along with some epsom salts and bubble bath wash to make the bath cozy. Candles lit up all around the tub. The scents of oatmeal and honey filled the bathroom, making it feel like I was inside of a freshly made cup of chamomile tea. I took a deep breath, and it felt like today maybe wasn’t so bad.
I arranged my wooden over-the-bath-tub caddy to the perfect spot over the lips of the tub. I positioned everything on top of it in their appropriate spots: my phone standing in a slot on it, the grimoire propped so I could lean back and read it while soaking, my glass in its divot, and the bottle in the extended part of the caddy. Once everything was perfectly in place, I got undressed. The water rose as I entered, but it didn’t overflow. The tub was deep enough for the water and bubbles to cover my boobs with plenty of room for me to move and remain comfortable. This was a huge selling point of this place. You have no idea how much of a rarity it was for someone with big yitties and curves like me to find something like this.
Instantly, the heat of the bath and the concoction I put within it pulled the tension from my muscles while I settled in and relaxed. I leaned my head back and allowed myself to soak the day away. “Ocean Eyes” by Billie Ellish started to play softly from the speakers with Cleo playing my favorite bath time playlist. I picked up my wine glass and took another sip of the sweet, tart apple wine. It was all such a vibe.
I let myself have this moment.
And another.
And one more.
Okay, seriously last one?—
C’mon, Byrd. It’s just a freaking book. I thought. Rip off the bandaid already.
Before I could change my mind or lose my resolve, I opened the book.
The smells of home appeared again and sliced through the oatmeal and honey. Immediately, I was a kid again, waking up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons and get ready to spend the day with my family… my family that was still very much alive. Tears welled in my eyes, blurring the pages in front of me. I tried to take a large sip of wine to drown away the pain in my chest, but I could barely swallow it.
Feelings are just like eating, Baby Byrd. If you don’t process them, they are hard to swallow and they can strangle you. It’s okay to feel. It’s how you process them that can affect yourself and those around you.
You are emotional, baby girl. It isn’t a flaw or a bad thing. But your kryptonite is bottling it up. Feel it. Sit with it. Then let it go. I’ve seen too many bad people who don’t do that, and they let it consume them and those they love.
I choked out a sob at the memories, Mom’s and Pops’ voices waltzing together in my mind. I have always been sensitive. I used to get bullied for having so many feelings in school. I would come home in tears from being called a crybaby and for “whining” too much. Aunt Max and Uncle Everett used to worry about how soft I seemed, how sweet and gentle. They never expressed it out loud, but I saw it in their furrowed brows when I would come home crying about something a peer said. They didn’t realize I noticed their concern or took their teasing to heart. But Mom and Pops saw as I got older and tried to hold everything in instead of letting it go. Aunt Max and Uncle Everett took it as me finally growing that thicker skin, but my parents knew. They always did, even when I didn’t.
I closed my eyes a moment. I breathed in deep, allowing the smells of memories and a home I would never be able to return to fill my lungs. Then I exhaled and just let the tears fall.
When I opened my eyes, I had to blink away the blur to see the ceiling of my bathroom again. I sighed, shakily, before taking another sip of wine. This one went down easier, but mingled with that distinct taste of grief.
I refocused on the pages in front of me. There was the family tree looking back at me once more. I traced my mom’s floral handwriting curling out my full name before I hovered over her name and Pops’. When we had first opened the book, I hadn’t even paid attention to the other names connected to Mom and Pops. Now, I was able to see that those branches went on and on and on, even going off the page to keep continuing. I had no idea my family went back this far. It reminded me of my family’s song, the same song passed down from my ancestors to my mom to me. Were they connected? They were both older than I could imagine and like family heirlooms. Did they come from the same time, the 1800s as Izzy had said? Where had they come from? Could the same ancestor have created both? There was power in that song and in the grimoire. What did this power mean?
I shivered despite the bath being magicked to never cool down. Was that a shiver of fear or thrill?
I flipped through the pages. They were all blank aside from indents on the paper. I finished my wine, poured another glass, and pressed my hand on the paper to feel the indents there. So many stories were etched in this book. It’s like I could almost hear their voices through the different handwriting written on top of one another. I wished I could read the stories written there. This was supposed to be my family book with our secrets and nuggets of wisdom. Yet, I couldn’t read a single word of it.
I sighed and leaned back against the tub, taking another sip of wine. My frustration with this book was going to get me freaking wine-drunk.
“I just want to know everything you want to tell me,” I whispered to the book, hand still pressed on a page.
Suddenly, as if hearing my plea, writing inked onto the middle of the page. Against my chest, my necklace warmed even hotter than the steaming water of the bath. Just like before, a spirit wrote in the same stunning, feminine cursive as my mom’s handwriting:
Do you want to know the truth, my baby Byrd?
My hand flattened on the page, as if I could reach out and touch my mom if I just pressed hard enough. How was this happening? Why? After all this time? Was this really Mom talking directly to me, or was it just the book using Mom’s voice? How would either even be possible? Izzy said grimoires serve a purpose for a family and held their secrets. What could be the purpose of this one, then? What secrets could it possibly hold? I was supposed to be human. Humans didn’t have grimoires. Since this was my grimoire—my family ’s grimoire—what did that make me? What did that make Mom and Pops? Would this book tell me what I was?
“I am ready. I want to know the truth,” I said out loud to the book. “What do I need to do?”
As if we were in conversation with each other, the imaginary hand wrote on the other page: Turn the page, my love.
I swallowed half the glass of my wine before putting it down on the caddy. “Cleo? Play lo-fi for reading.”
“You got it! Playing lo-fi hip hop radio—beats to relax/study to! Happy reading!”
I snorted at her salute as Adele’s “Easy On Me” shifted to soft, down-tempo chill hop sounds. I picked up my phone from its perch on the caddy. Maisie and Simone were probably detoxing from the day and wouldn’t reach out until later in the night, if all. Everett was working and would still be out for the next few hours. I shot Quinn a text that I was about to be wrapped up in something and would text her when I was done. With everyone accounted for, I silenced my phone to fully focus. I settled in. Usually, when I was in the bathtub, I was reading a monster romance or some dark romance, so this was definitely different from my normal taste, to say the least.
Byrd, you’re stalling again, I thought.
I sighed.
I took one last hefty gulp of wine.
Then I turned the page.
At first, the pages were the same. But soon, my mother’s handwriting started to form on the page again in thick black ink:
My life both ended and started after Mama died.
With that sentence, the page on the right filled with such vibrance that the open book in front of me looked more like a movie playing in 4K. Color splashed onto the old, dusty page like watercolor, quickly inking its way to fill it. A beautiful black woman materialized on the page. Her back was to me, but I knew that curvy, petite frame that wasn’t much taller or larger than mine now, that dark skin that always seemed to glitter, that afro that would make any natural hair YouTuber squeal at its length.
“Mom.”
Like she had heard me, the woman turned around to meet my eyes with a fiery focus in her dark ones. The Mom within the book was younger, but it didn’t look like much, since Mom always looked like she could pass for her early thirties. She had the same face that was so much like my own, with our same straight eyebrows, upturned round eyes, nose, high cheekbones, and full lips. Gods, it had been so long since I had seen Mom in motion like this. I had forgotten the little things about her. Like how her eyebrow and lips would always twitch up as if she had a joke on the tip of her tongue. Or how her fingers were always turning her rings around, a nervous tick that I had even inherited. How had I forgotten her smile, how brilliant and contagious it was? Even now, as I cried, I couldn’t resist smiling back at this tiny vision of my mother. It was something . It was more than I had gotten in years, the first time I had seen my mother in living color since I lost her. I could have sat here admiring her all day. I placed my hand on the page. It was so warm under my hand, radiating magic that matched the heat from my black stone between my boobs. I felt a strong ache, a hunger, deep within my chest and all the way down past my stomach.
No words would ever be able to describe how much I missed her, how much it hurt that she wasn’t here.
Mom’s smile widened, and she turned back around. She readjusted the violin case in one arm and the three duffel bags on her shoulders before she walked on. A familiar city came to life as more of Mom’s handwriting appeared on the other page.
Mama had been my world. She was all I knew. Without her, all I knew was that I had to find my own way. I couldn’t stay where I grew up—too many memories of her around every bend. So, I packed up my violin, my family’s grimoire, a few clothes and trinkets, and the small fortune my mother had left behind for me—a bag of gold, jewels, and money that would leave me and anyone else I wanted beside me set for life no matter what I decided to do.
I decided to settle in Blackbell. The city called to me like the Northern Star. It wasn’t far from where I grew up, but the city and her magic made it feel worlds away. If it wasn’t for Blackbell, the pain might have engulfed me. People say grief is like an ocean, drowning you.
They are wrong. It’s like fire, slowly burning you from the inside out until it consumes you. Even if you put it out, the burns and agony remain to always remind you that you are scarred.
The page flipped on its own, and Mom’s handwriting started up again, captioning the story.
I went to college at Everlore University. I met Everett there at a party. I drank too much that night, but so did Everett. He was dancing on a table, and I wanted to join him up there. He helped me up, we started to dance together, and we clicked immediately. We remained inseparable from then on.
On the right, a picture blossomed in ink. Mom was scantily clad in a very 80s but sexy outfit that I would definitely wear to a themed party now. She held a red Solo cup in one hand, and she clutched someone else’s hand just out of frame of the page. Then the person hoisted her up onto a table. When they did, I saw that it was Everett, young and in a neon windbreaker suit that hollered totally tubular . I giggled seeing him with a mullet going down to his shoulders.
Oh, he was about to be flamed alive when he got home.
Everett and Mom started to boogie the night away. They danced, twirled, and had the time of their lives on that table. It was enough to almost make me jealous. I clearly didn’t get any of my dance moves from my mom, which may be a blessing and a curse.
After we graduated, I decided to become a teacher and took a job at a middle school and Everett landed a gig at the DSO. He wanted to celebrate both of us starting our careers, so he chose a club for us to go to and relive our glory days, even if they weren’t that long ago. We both knew we still had it, but we missed the fun and carefreeness of it all. He picked me up, we went to a club he heard only good things about, and we danced until the club closed for the night.
Mom and Uncle Everett dancing on the table at some college party swirled until they were dancing on a club dance floor and on their bar top. They were all deep belly laughs and sweaty fun. I laughed just watching them.
The page turned again.
After the club had closed around three a.m., we went to eat at an old classic barhop nearby. The food was so greasy and salty, it was like an instant hangover cure before you could even experience one. It was delicious and just what a pair of drunkies needed. We were sucking our fingers of the greasy goodness when he entered the restaurant.
An image of Mom and Everett appeared on the page as they sat at an old-timey diner. Mom was licking her fingers, but she paused with one of her fingers in her mouth as the door of the diner opened. I could almost hear the bell chime above the door, but I could also feel the pause in time.
“Pops?” I called out to the page at the man entering the restaurant. Then I saw a short woman follow behind him. I called again, “Aunt Max?”
I couldn’t believe it. It was Pops and Aunt Max, for sure. Pops’ locs were short and just starting, but he was still the same large, tall black man with light skin close to my own that would buy me books and Pocky sticks from the bookstore or play video games with me. Aunt Max’s locs were shorter, too, and twisted in a ponytail. They were chuckling at some joke that I’m sure Aunt Max had made. As they finished laughing, Pops’ eyes met Mom’s.
The colors and image swirled, mixed, and zoomed out to show a universe of stars, planets, and comets. My breath caught in my throat. It was dazzling. At the universe’s center was a planet of different shades of red and shimmering gold with traces of black in its terrain. A nearby planet made of blues and greens started orbiting around the gorgeous ruby planet. They waltzed together in harmony, bound together forever and never to part.
It was so romantic I sighed dreamily as the page turned again.
He was the most handsome man I had ever seen, and I never wanted to stop looking upon him. He approached our table, and we talked all morning and deep into the afternoon. I never got tired, and I don’t think he did, either. We talked and flirted the whole time. I think Everett and Max noticed how sparks flew between us. I don’t know how they couldn’t. We said our names—his being Forest and mine being Doe—and we laughed. It was perfect. It was one of the best nights of my life.
This was love at first sight.
We were mates, and the spirits knew it.
Young Mom, Pops, Everett, and Max talked and burst into laughter on the page. Everyone was together again. It was the first time I had seen everyone all in the same place and so alive in so long. The family had returned. It made me cry so hard I could barely breathe.
As I wiped away tears, I noticed how pruned my fingers were from the water. I loved that the tub water stayed warm for as long as I was in it, but it made me lose track of time with my relaxation. I checked my phone, and I realized I had been in here for almost an hour. Feeling warm enough, especially from the magic of the grimoire, I drained the tub and got out. A hot towel floated and wrapped itself around me. I did my full night routine of lotioning my skin, moisturizing my hair and face, and putting on my bonnet. Afterward, I put on my biggest, thickest sweatshirt—a 10XL-sized one I found online.
I pulled the grimoire close to me as I got in the bed. It was early evening, around seven, but I was exhausted from getting up so early this morning and all the day’s events. I snuggled the book close to my heart. I held it tight as if it would bring Mom back.
Tears rolled from my eyes and onto the pillow underneath my head.
Suddenly, my phone lit up on its charger, and I reached for it.
QUEENIE ??
Hey, sweetness. Just checking in to make sure you are okay after everything today. Did you finish what you were working on? I hope your night ended better. ??
I smiled and choked on a sob that I couldn’t keep down. I responded:
ME
You are so sweet to think of me and to ask. You have no idea how much I appreciate that. ?? I’m having a tough go of things, to be honest, but I’m in bed now. Hopefully, things will be better tomorrow.
QUEENIE ??
I’m so, so sorry, baby girl. Things will get better. I will have a surprise for you when we meet soon. I hope it will make all of this… well, not worth it, but give you something to look forward to. Until then, goodnight and sweet dreams.
QUEENIE ??
Oh, look, something else to look forward to. Dream about me there, sweetness! ??
ME
I hope so. Sweet dreams, pumpkin. ????