Chapter Forty-Eight
Again the thunder rocked the earth. It was a sound that would shake islanders wary of sudden gales and storms that could wreak unexpected havoc. And the island itself pulsed with unease. It recognized someone was here that shouldn’t be. Something had blown through the protections.
The wind whipped, and as I left the skinny walk leading to Nana Ama’s house, there was Sekou pulling up in his cart.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked, yelling above the wind.
It howled something inhuman, and I was terrified that Effie hadn’t come alone. That she’d brought some surviving abalsoms with her or made new ones when the others burned. I didn’t know what she could want here since she had what she wanted—the cuffs and her way back home.
“What is it?” Sekou asked again.
“Effie.”
Usually Sekou was cool under fire, never showing his fear, but her name shook him and his eyes responded in kind. “What? How? I thought she was dead!”
I didn’t have time to answer. I screamed for him to call Lyle and make sure the people kept the area clear. And then I ran toward the Gathering Tree.
I found Effie standing in front of it, in her human form, wearing her amulet beneath her cloak, the cuffs visible on her arms. Nana Ama’s cuffs.
Mine, by right. My blood boiled. I flexed my fingers, approaching her.
But I wasn’t the only one. There were some Kin there, slowly approaching the circle that surrounded the Gathering Tree.
She watched everyone, a knowing smile on her face.
She watched me. Her cold, red eyes assessing me.
Who is she?
Where’d she come from?
Look at her eyes.
Thoughts, a multitude of thoughts, crashed in on me. The blood from Nana Ama had changed the mechanics of my body, heightening my senses to levels I’d never even imagined. She’d remade me by giving me her blood, her Light.
Get to Lyle.
What the hell is going on?
Tie down my boat.
Why does she have Nana Ama’s cuffs? Did Ada invite her here?
She’s not ready to lead.
I tried everything to push the thoughts out. They were coming at me fast and hard.
This girl can’t run this island. I’ll get Lyle off again. And then I’ll take care of her.
My steps halted, that stream of thought different, more treacherous, than the others infiltrating my mind.
Meanwhile Effie grinned horribly. She was enjoying the fear snaking from her to all the people approaching, as sick and poisonous as the kwandamu that she inflicted on the people on the mainland.
“Surprised to see me?” Effie grinned, looking around like she was taking in the scenery.
My mind whirred with questions. How had Effie gotten here? Had I really failed the island so much as to not consider the protections at all? I had, whether the protections held or not. I had failed the island.
Maybe Awuraa Effie will do what Ama could not. Keep Golden Isle pure with only Kinfolk. Build our power. Keep outsiders out. Keep that damned child from inheriting the throne. A new Abotisa, with me as the lady’s counsel.
I gritted my teeth as I heard James’s snake voice.
Effie bared her teeth in an ugly smile, the length of them making the growing crowd gasp and fall back.
These were things they hadn’t seen. It was one thing to believe Nana Ama and me were medicinal women with direct lines to the gods, the founders of the island; it was another thing altogether to see the teeth and glowing red eyes in the light.
“This place,” she drawled, advancing toward me slowly, methodically, like she was stalking me. “This little island is quaint. I shall be comfortable here when I do some … renovating.” She knelt down, placing her slender fingers on the ground. She dipped her head, turning it to the side, listening.
“This island lives,” she said, practically purring. “How is this so?”
“You have what you want, Effie,” I finally said. “You have the cuffs. Just go. Leave the island alone. This is not your home.”
Effie’s eyes flashed at me. “Any place I am is my home. No one will ever tell me what I can or cannot have again.”
She rose from her kneeling position.
“You let your little pets have too many liberties here. They do not see you as their leader, Addae. Let your rightful grandmother take the burden from you. I will get everyone back on track. Restore the order of what a queen’s kingdom should be.”
“Stay back!” I commanded the Kin.
She held her hand out, and one of the Kin, a man, was lifted off his feet. His legs pumped in the air, finding no ground to stabilize himself on. His arms flailed as he was brought close to her.
“Stop it!” I yelled. I launched myself at her in an attempt to break her focus and release the man.
I crashed into her, propelling her into the trunk of the tree behind her.
The tree shook violently, the leaves rustling and falling, a storm of foliage.
Effie grunted at my impact, pinned between me and the tree.
Effie looked at me incredulously, her eyes blinking as she sought to understand where my strength and speed had come from, realization hitting her that I had done it.
Behind us, Sekou finally arrived with Lyle and approached, yelling at the rest of the Kin to fall back. They obeyed, bumping into one another in an attempt to get out of Effie’s line of fire.
With a push of strength, Effie overpowered me. She flicked her hand and threw the Kin man, smashing him into one of the peach trees.
I launched at her again, and we tumbled backward, heading fast toward the cliff at speeds I couldn’t clock, fast enough for the wind to cut as we fought each other for control.
I had to keep her off track, unbalanced, and not knowing what was coming next.
That was the only way I could win this, I thought.
Throw her off before she had a chance to react and recover.
With one final, massive shove, I sent Effie careening off the edge of the cliff, her arms outstretched to me, her red eyes glowing and scared. She keeled backward and screamed as she went over. The wind reduced and everything was still.
I dropped to my knees, my chest heaving in and out, pulling in mouthfuls of air. My hands hung at my sides.
The first thing to come from the void was a streak of lightning. It shot up from the darkness into the air. Everyone dropped except me. Another bolt zipped its way past us, striking the ground. Beneath me the ground bucked, the island groaned, reacting to the attack on it.
I approached the cliff’s edge, Effie hovered, suspended over the cliff of the inlet, above the raging waters below.
Above her the moon was crystal clear and sparkling, looking luminous within the black void that surrounded it. There wasn’t a star in the sky. It looked so large I felt I could reach out and touch it.
The sky began to fill with storm clouds, like it did in my nightmare when me, Naira, and Sekou were on the boat. Like Naira and Luke when they were on their date. Thunder rumbled like an oncoming train and then boomed.
“I wish Nana Ama had finished what she started that night,” I said.
Effie looked down at us and for the briefest moment I could have sworn there was sadness there. Hurt. Disappointment. Betrayal.
“I wish your grandmother had,” she said, “because a true end would have been better than the hell she imprisoned me in all this time, only to be awakened and betrayed once again.”
There was another crack of thunder, a ragged line of brilliant lightning that looked like it would rip the inky sky in half.
The light was so bright I could see clouds gathering in the darkness, undulating and growing, looking as if they’d trickle down and swallow us up.
It was like this was the end of the world. Or maybe, the end of my world.
The ground beneath our feet began to shift and then shake.
Screams came from the islanders as they fell to the ground that rippled like a blanket being shaken out.
A deep groan seemed to emit from deep within the island, as if it were wakening, as if it were wanting to roll over and die.
The islanders were running now, running away, understanding what I was beginning to understand.
This would be our end, I couldn’t help thinking. Effie was going to destroy every last one of us. But not before I did everything I could to stop it.
I launched myself into the air and grabbed on to Effie. “You’ll sink the island. You’ll kill them.”
I tried to yank her arms down, to break the connection she’d made with the oncoming storm she was gathering. But I was no match. She was like a statue, her strength immovable and mine incomparable. She was a goddess and me … not even half of that, not even with the blood Nana Ama had given me.
She caught me easily by the neck, holding me before her. All the weight of her loss, her grief, the life she should have had flooded behind it. Her hands held me up in midair, and through them I could feel her, the real Effie, goddess and child of Nyame, the Sky God.
How she used to be before the invaders took her and Nana Ama, before her hell on Millner Manor Plantation, before her rage, before her thirst for human blood overtook her, and then her revenge.
Before she was buried—asleep but alive—by the only family she had left, her sister.
“I thought I wanted what Ama had,” Effie said.
“I thought I’d come take this island and rule as Ama did.
Have my own little oasis here, untouched, and perfect with nice little humans to adore me and drink my elixirs.
Just as Ama had done. I’d put her to sleep for two hundred years as she’d done me. ”
Beneath us, through the swirling typhoon of a storm that had gathered, lightning struck again, and this time, it struck the Gathering Tree where Nana Ama had held council and led this island and its people for hundreds of years. It split, shearing in two halves, while everyone ran.