Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was time. Silently my grandmother and I extracted ourselves from the celebration and walked into the woods.
The night air crackled with energy from the increasing music and singing coming from the square where the Kin still danced, deep in their celebration.
My skin tingled and my breathing quickened, as I tried to tell myself I was finally ready and worthy of Lighting.
This time I would be able to accept the gifts of my legacy that hadn’t manifested themselves in their entirety.
We walked deeper until we couldn’t be seen or heard, the transference that was about to happen sacred.
Where I could accept my full gifts within the sanctity and protections from the island, and from my grandmother.
It was dark, the light from the festival blotted out by the trees and dense foliage, leaving only the sky to offer dappled bits of light filtering through them.
I took my cue from her, every one of my senses amplified and ready for what came next. My grandmother studied me from within the shadows. Asking a whole lot of questions and looking as if she was leaving even more unsaid.
Nana Ama asked, “Are you ready?”
I took in a breath. “I am.” I had to be.
She watched me more intently, as if she were trying to read me.
But I wasn’t ready. I was terrified. What if I couldn’t do it, like all those other failed times, last year and the year before?
A gift that was as unknown to my grandmother as it was to me because I wasn’t like her, one hundred percent.
I was a first generation, only half of what I was supposed to be.
“To Light, you must truly consent and yield to it. You must truly want it.”
I nodded. I did want it. I had wanted it all my life, watching my grandmother and mother.
“Then Nyame be with you,” Nana said, smiling at me. “I will wait to celebrate you with our ancestors and our Kin.”
She was gone before I could blink, leaving me alone. I listened for sounds of her retreating footsteps, light as they were, knowing there would be none. Drive everything out. Leave only room to Light. Say yes. Accept it. I told myself all these things. Over and over.
I refocused on what was around me, the noise around me, or rather the quieting of noise. The rustling of the wind through the dense forest. The echoes of singing back at the Gathering Tree.
The animals were equally as quiet. Waiting, as I was waiting.
The snap of a twig sounded in the distance to my left.
My ears homed in on it and my head snapped to.
On the heady breeze, the aroma of cooking food from the ceremony marked the last parts of it drifting to my nose.
I stayed perfectly still, regulating my breathing, letting out the air trapped in my body in one long blow.
I ran my tongue over my teeth, baring them a little, crouching, zeroing in on where the sound was coming from, an unusual scent filling my nose.
I leapt in the air, soaring through the leaves and branches.
My breathing deepened, each sense heightening, electrifying the air and my skin as I went through it.
This was it, this was me finally receiving the Light, even though I had doubted, was doubting it this moment.
I released myself one section at a time, doing as Nana Ama said and not forcing it.
I was letting go, becoming this other me, my body changing, contracting and expanding.
I spotted movement ahead, and came to a stop in the treetops, tracking it. Its smell drifted over me, and my body reacted on its own, sailing down and tackling my prey.
The buzzing in my ear drowned out any other noise, any other cry I might have heard, because all I could hear was the thumping pulse of its life force, even as the animal staggered from my grip.
It grunted in pain and surprise as we crashed hard to the compacted earth, roots and branches snapping beneath our combined weight, but as I now was, I barely felt the sting.
My fingers grabbed it, digging into the rough skin so my catch wouldn’t get away in a last-ditch burst of adrenaline.
Its muscles pumped beneath me to buck me off of it, letting out a high, muffled whine of surprise.
It kicked its feet as we rolled through the underbrush, connecting with something else, softer and more delicate, breaking my grip.
There was nothing but my primal urge to hunt, and I pounced again, unseeing, grabbing what was there, not hearing the sound of retreating hooves.
My head tilted to the sky, my throat loosening a guttural sound as my mouth opened, my top canines disengaging in a satisfying slide.
I snapped my teeth and I dove down, the points breaking through skin that seemed as thin as paper.
This blood tasted as it never had before, rushing fresh from the animal’s veins, making my vision hazy and unfocused.
So delicious that I could barely contain myself, fighting to sink in farther, to drink from it. To drain it. Until it spoke.
“Ada, no!”
My eyes snapped open and I tore myself away, confusion and dread colliding in me along with the sweetest taste of blood I shouldn’t have had.
An ice cube moved coldly up my spine as my vision cleared, refocusing on Hailey’s face, frozen as she stared up from beneath me, still half hidden in the brush, her face a portrait of horror and terror and revulsion as she finally saw me for who—what—I really was.
An adze.
A vampire.