Chapter Forty-Six
We must have been knocked out because suddenly someone was calling my name, shaking me.
My eyes opened and I hoped this had all been a bad dream, that my grandmother hadn’t given her life for me.
But the acrid and sweet smell of burning aged timber told me otherwise.
Told me, Ada, this is nothing like a dream.
My eyes focused on the shapes hovering above me, and the image cleared. It was Sekou and Hailey. Their voices sounded as if they were a million miles away but were growing closer, rushing in like a semitruck.
I didn’t know what was going on. Where I was.
But then it all came back like a punch to the gut. Nana Ama! I had to save her!
I shot to a sitting position, my head on a swivel as the massive heat from the raging fire came at us in waves. The plantation home burned like a box of matchsticks. I searched the flames as if I could see through them and pick out where my grandmother might be.
“Nana Ama!”
I stood, moving several steps toward the house, but the fire burned so intensely my face felt like it was melting. It illuminated the entire area, casting all the trees in a murky glow. They looked like they were dancing a ceremonial dance in the firelight.
Who could have survived that inferno?
My insides burned, matching the heat from the fire.
I doubled over in pain. Sekou tried to console me, but I pushed him away.
I didn’t need his pity. What I needed was for my grandmother to be okay.
And for all of this not to have happened.
I needed Sekou to have let me help Nana Ama back there in the house before everything went to hell.
Behind me, Lyle was back in sheriff mode, telling us to get back to a safer distance, telling us we had to go because the local police and the people who maintained this land would be arriving soon to see about the fire.
But I didn’t want to leave. Part of me still believed that she would emerge from the house, charred and triumphant. I still felt her life force, as I had felt Naira’s. I would wait for her, look for Nana Ama, just as I had done for Naira.
“Come on, Ada, we need to go,” Lyle said. He spoke with such tenderness my knees nearly buckled. But I couldn’t go.
The fire roaring like a demon. How would I have Nana Ama’s Homegoing and release her light properly?
How would I be able to send a goddess home to her father without her body cared for the right way?
How would I say that final goodbye when she was in there with the very things she worked years to prevent, her final resting place in her personal hell?
I didn’t know how I would be able to forgive myself for that.
For the fact that Nana Ama would be a part of this place, the place that nearly made her forget who she was and where she came from forever. How could I ever live with that?
Then I heard it.
A low buzzing that sounded more like angels singing. I stared hard into the flames, until I finally saw it. A ball of light floating in a jagged line back down, heading straight for me.
She blinked in and out like the light of a true firefly, moving drunkenly, barely able to control its path.
She lurched along, growing bigger on her approach, dimmer than I’d ever seen her before.
Growing dimmer and dimmer as Lyle and I watched.
I held my hand out to her, trying to catch her so she wouldn’t fall, but she couldn’t control herself.
She crashed hard into my chest, the size of a grapefruit, but the force of her impact made me fall back into Lyle and we hit the ground.
She landed in my lap and began to re-form herself, growing, lengthening into an adze and then, finally, into my grandmother.
Nana Ama blinked her eyes open after much effort.
Everything for her was an effort. That she was able to change into her Light and get here said much for her strength and power.
But it was still not enough. She swallowed, trying to speak.
Her wounds, where the fire had severely burned almost all of her body and where Effie had gouged out parts of her, were wet and oozing blood.
I couldn’t bear the unimaginable pain she had to be in. Her wounds weren’t self-healing. I was losing my grandmother.
“What can I do?” Sekou asked frantically.
“I don’t know. I don’t know!” I wheezed, trying to catch my breath. How did you heal the one who was the healer?
It was Nana Ama who always knew the perfect remedy to help, the perfect word to say during times like this.
It was Nana Ama who’d led the first founders of our island to safety with bounty hunters and enslavers at their backs and an unknown world at their front.
She made the pact with the island to provide sanctuary to those who needed it against those who’d do them harm.
And now, my grandmother, the greatest woman I’d ever known, a goddess and daughter of Nyame, was dying in front of me.
I opened my mouth, letting my teeth disengage from their shafts. They slid down and I bit into my wrist. “Take this, Nana, please,” I begged, pushing my bleeding arm to her mouth.
The droplets dropped on her lips and around her chin because she was shaking her head. I wanted to scream. Why was she shaking her head?
“Use me to heal yourself,” I cried.
I tried to put my wrist to her mouth, but she pushed it away with more strength than I thought she had.
I hiccuped out a sob, unsure what I could do next. How could I force her to drink? “I can’t do this without you. Please, it’s not time.”
I could barely see her clearly through the hot tears filling my eyes. I couldn’t imagine a world with Nana Ama not in it. I wasn’t ready. I’d already made so many mistakes, so many bad decisions in this short amount of time. I wasn’t ready for any of it.
Nana Ama gritted her teeth as a shock of pain rippled through her.
I slid my hand in hers. She gripped it tightly, not exhibiting nearly the strength I knew her to have, but strong enough.
I took it, waiting for the pain to pass, wondering what we could use around here, in the woods, to ease her pain, or better yet heal her enough so I could get her back to the island.
I tried to call upon all her lessons during the walks through the Isle, but nothing came to me.
What kind of poultice? What about a mojo bag?
I needed an asanka and tapoli to grind the herbs and berries with a bit of my blood.
Enough to form a salve for her burns. Bones from a small animal to sew her torn body.
Anything for right now until I could do more.
Nana Ama opened her mouth, trying to speak. At first the words struggled to come, but then she whispered, “Drink.” It was low and croaky. Her throat was closing up, burned and filled with smoke, but I heard her. Too clearly.
I shook my head hard. I wouldn’t.
“You must, child.” Her voice was stronger, forceful like Effie when she had me in her clutches. Nana Ama’s words weren’t coming from her mouth. She was in my head, now. Only I could hear her.
Take what I gift you.
I sputtered through tears and snot. “But—but—but then you’ll…”
Be gone? She gave me a blood-smeared smile. Yes.
“No, Nana. We can fix this. Tell me what I need to do.” I made a move to slide out from beneath her and channel every prayer or incantation she’d taught me in her cabin back home. Anything to set her back right.
Be still.
I stilled.
Be strong, my girl, and lead and do whatever it is that you will. Keep the island for those who need its sanctuary, but live as you must. Drink what I gift you and take all that is me and my history and legacy and live your life.
I choked on my sobs. I didn’t want to take her last bits of life. I didn’t want to do this thing.
She reached out to me. Quickly, before it’s too late. There isn’t much time.
She lifted a hand to my face, touching me on my cheek in a gesture she’d never really done. For all the love she bestowed on me, my grandmother had never touched me as tenderly as she did in this moment.
Then she spoke so the others could hear, “You are everything I was and more. I waited too long to tell you that. I shouldn’t have shielded you from the world, and all that I’ve done was for you.” A solitary tear slid down her cheek as she whispered, “You, my child, are … my everything.”
She looked deep into me as if assuring herself that I was ready. I didn’t feel I was, but something in my eyes must have shown her otherwise. Even during this moment, in which she was the one in need, she took care of me.
“Never forget, Addae, that you are my granddaughter. Mine. Always was. Always will be.” She pulled me closer, the words clearly difficult to speak, but she pushed through.
“What Effie never understood was that everything comes from choice and consent. You can create another, but only if there is true consent and acceptance between you. They must always accept the gift in its entirety. That is what Effie didn’t know, or accept. ”
“Nana.”
“Listen, because I don’t want you to make the same mistake. She took her gift for granted. Let it destroy her. That’s why the only thing she did right was to create your mother.”
“Okay.” I nodded.
“Now drink. Don’t stop. It will be hard. You will see too much because you will take everything I have ever been and learned. Tell our stories. Keep our history and heritage alive and the island safe.”
My grandmother, the original adze, slid her hand to the base of my head and pulled me toward her neck, to the artery that pulsed beneath her skin.
To drink. Her blood. Her Light.
I bit, and her blood was like drinking a soothing balm compared to the fire that raged from the few drops Effie gave me when I’d fallen.
Nana’s was an elixir of life and of gods.
And I saw it all. I knew all as Nana Ama had known.
Every single joy, sorrow, and hurt. My body felt like it might burst with the force of so much feeling.
When I took the last drop, my grandmother’s body began to blacken and grow small, and smaller still, until all that remained of it was a dark bulb, its light extinguished like that of a firefly.
The connection Nana Ama and I shared that I always believed was strong and unbreakable, finally broke.
I thought my grandmother would be forever.
I didn’t want to believe that she wasn’t.
And that I was left alone in this world.