Chapter 1 #2
Every year, I swear I’ve moved on. And every year, once certain dates come around, there visions of her come, too, like catching the faint whiff of a familiar perfume in the oddest places and at the oddest times, one I can’t avoid nor get rid of no matter how hard I try.
At first, I see it in her dark eyes—all the things we’d once pretended didn’t exist. All the things we hadn’t let ourselves admit existed.
Ten years; a single heartbeat. So much time has passed, yet it feels like no time has passed at all.
I blink rapidly when my eyes begin to sting, my hands gripping the strap of my handbag so tightly it hurts. I’d once let myself dream of a million impossible reunions, back when I’d still been in denial—all the things I’d say, the things I’d do, the way I’d react.
None of them had been this—me, just standing here, speechless and trying not to splinter apart.
Ten years to this very day. My mother would call it serendipity.
My lips part, though I have no idea what’s about to come out of my mouth. My head is scraped clean, smooth and empty as a calabash. Like she’d been waiting for something to break the moment, her expression shutters.
“No—” I take a shaky step forward before I can stop myself.
Immediately, I’m flushed with shame, cringing at my obvious desperation and lack of self-control, at my brief amnesia of all the reasons for our parting—for why I’d let her leave.
Forgetting, for a brief moment, why I’m even here in the first place.
She matches my step with one of her own, stumbling back even though she’s standing well out of my reach.
“What are you—how did you—?” She stops. Inhales and exhales slowly.
I let her. “What are you doing here?” Her hair is dyed a dark ginger orange, and is in cornrows in a gorgeous pattern; spirals and loops and a straight plait in the middle of her scalp, and hearts on the sides.
She’s wearing a plain dark blue tank top and black, loose-fitting basketball shorts, exposing her shapely legs.
She’s thicker, too, her body corded handsomely with muscle, her warm, light brown skin a shade darker—sun-kissed.
Plain diamond studs glitter in her earlobes.
“I—” I swallow, and suddenly, I’m taking in too much air, too quickly.
Through the few years we’d been best friends, I’d never grown brave enough to tell Genevieve I’m an oerhwu. Despite the call I’d gotten leading me to this house, where my ex-best friend has just appeared out of thin air like an apparition from my past, I’m still afraid.
It would’ve been inevitable, if I’d been candid; one secret would’ve led to the reveal of another—and another, and another, and another, until all of them had toppled at her feet like a line of dominoes.
There are so many parts of me, tender and bruised and buried so deeply unearthing them would practically unmake me. The possibility of how I could be hurt—how I’ve been hurt, and in so many ways—has always been too great, far eclipsing whatever depth of feeling I have for her.
“I got a call,” I say vaguely, timidly. “For my … holistic services.” It’s not exactly a lie.
A trail of sweat trickles down from underneath my chin. Her gaze snags on the traitorous drop of moisture, following its path as it slides its way between my breasts. Her eyes are unnaturally dark, but her expression doesn’t change. Heat burns in my gut at the shameless, almost distracted perusal.
She wants to ask for clarification, I can tell, but instead says with a frown, “I didn’t call you. And I’m the only one here. It was either a wrong number, or they gave you the wrong address.”
I glance pointedly at the trees towering over us on every side. “Somehow, I’m not so sure that’s true.” Wrong number? Maybe. Infinitesimally. But wrong address? “Perhaps you didn’t call me, but—”
My mouth snaps shut and I glance up, toward the window where I’d spotted the old woman.
Shannkshin. It’s my knee-jerk assumption.
A shade—a vague impression of a long-dead owner of a house, left behind by eshé and time.
But I’m sure it’s not a shannkshin; shades can’t communicate, let alone interact with the wider world.
It has to be a shannko—a lingering spirit who died here, or a wandering spirit who got stuck when they were passing through.
But why go through the farce of pretending to be a real person? I would’ve still responded positively had it been honest from the start, but perhaps it hadn’t known that.
“Like I said, I’m the only one here,” Genevieve says, crossing her arms. It’s my turn to stare at those defined muscles, the pushed up curves of her breasts, a flush—thankfully hidden underneath my dark skin—heating my cheeks as I frantically—obviously—tear my gaze away.
“And I didn’t call you.” She’s not looking at me now, her jaw clenched.
Ten years. A single heartbeat. Not nearly enough time for me to forget anything about her; it could’ve been twenty, thirty—an infinity, and it still wouldn’t be enough.
I’d been fooling myself; she’s a brand on my soul, previously cold and ignored, but sparking back to life now that she’s in front of me, newly pressed and flaring sweetly with a soldering burn.
She’s staring off toward the left, her body deliberately lax despite her crossed arms, like she genuinely could not give less of a shit.
She’s nervous. My want is a vicious, desperate thing. I squeeze the handle of my bag even tighter, the strap biting painfully into my skin.
“Sorry you came all this way.” She jerks a hand behind me, glancing purposefully at—
I turn and nearly topple over my trunk, the duffel bag sitting innocently on top. I glance at the open gates, frowning. Maybe, in my daze at hearing Genevieve’s voice again, I hadn’t realised I’d dragged them along.
When I turn back to face her, she’s managed to edge her way around me and make it up the front steps. She disappears into the house and doesn’t once look back.
The last time I’d seen her, at what had been the sputtering end to our friendship, my heartbreak had been neither immediate nor overwhelming. Her mother had just died; of course she needed space. The denial had held strong until graduation.
When I’d waited and waited, my heart thumping with every car that drove into the Founder’s Square. When the ceremony had begun and she still hadn’t shown, and I’d brought my phone out, ready to send her an innocuous text.
And somehow, as I’d opened the chat box, I’d known.
If I’d texted her, she wouldn’t have responded.
That single moment of devastation somehow doesn’t compare to this one.
I spin away from the house like looking at the closed front door is what’s causing the pain in my chest. I’m swamped with an unfortunately familiar swell of loneliness, one whose sting I’d thought had since blunted.
It’s back to feeling especially sharp, like my skin has been peeled off and I’ve been rolled in a sheet of salt.
I clench my eyes shut, forcing myself to focus on the air easing its way into my body through my nose, into my lungs, and back out through my mouth.
I should go. I should leave. She doesn’t want me here. My feet refuse to move.
When I open my eyes again, the tall iron gates are shut. I don’t think about it. I grab the handle of my trunk, adjust my duffel atop it, and start moving.
I get three feet from the closed gates and believe I must be doing something subconsciously. Sometimes, when I’m especially emotional, my eshé tends to have a mind of its own.
But I really can’t take another step forward. I take a step back, and it’s like unsticking my foot from the floor; it takes so much effort it makes me stumble. Once I’m free from whatever had held me stationary, I can move again.
Anywhere but forward.
There’s a modest, though equally rundown bungalow to the left from the main house, nestled close to the fence. What must’ve once been a field occupying the corner between the two buildings is now a plot of weeds, wildflowers, and untamed grass coming up to about hip height.
The back of the house holds a decrepit garden with a fancy gazebo in equal disarray to the rest of the compound.
Something about the crumbling structure makes me feel hollow.
It leeches the warmth from my bones and steals the air from my lungs, making me instinctively hold my breath until I’m well past it.
It glares imposingly in my periphery, and for a moment, the smell of rot is so thick and cloying I gag, frantically pinching my nose shut.
I force myself to look directly at the gazebo, to take a tentative breath when I can no longer hold it, and feel instantly ridiculous.
The building is completely ordinary. There’s only the thick scent of vegetation and sun-warmed earth, nothing putrid underneath.
I activate my shoddy glasses. There’s no hidden trickery here.
I study the gazebo for a minute more, not one to ignore my instincts, but whatever I’d sensed is gone now. Silenced, it feels. Suppressed.
I frown, then breathe deep and keep moving.
Yet another gate sits in the old fence a few metres behind the house, smaller and less impressive than the one in front, but made with the same black iron in an identical design. The gates are similarly shut.
A second bungalow, also smaller than the one at the front, sits close to the corner of the fence on the left, with a roofed platform at its side covering a mustard yellow, large-scale generator.
My situation remains the same; I cannot step closer to the fence or either gate any closer than three feet. I can only go backward, toward the main house.
I don’t give up just yet. I don’t want to see Genevieve again. Not when she doesn’t want me.
Here, I amend desperately. She doesn’t want me here. Another swell of grief and loneliness washes over me, which makes me clench my jaw. I thought I’d come to terms with these fucking feelings, God.
I try a few incantations to break through a ward or eshé-erected barrier. I try a few to reveal invisible walls and doorways, using my glasses for good measure. I try everything I can possibly think of to get rid of whatever this is and make my way out.
When I’ve exhausted all options, I turn helplessly to face the house. It stares down at me.
In my attempt to find out if whatever juju keeping me captive affects the whole fence, I’d left my things behind, by the front gates.
I notice now they’re up on the veranda, by the front door. The walls encasing both sides of the porch protrude where the rooms of the house itself extend in a geometric design, giving the welcome stoop a cosy, intimate feel.
I’m still staring when the front door eases itself open.
The incantations to several protective enchantments are on my lips, the beads at the tips of my braids warming readily against my collarbones and shoulder blades. When no one steps out or reveals themselves, I clench my hands into fists by my sides and resolutely move forward.
Despite my swiftly gathered nerves, my right foot lands tentatively on the first step.
“Hello?”
Left foot; second step.
Silence.
“Hello?” I say, louder. “G-Genevieve?” I hate the way my voice breaks around her name. “Genevieve?”
I’m right at the edge of the top and final step, a few feet from my things.
There’s a small foyer through the wide-open door, and a staircase sitting directly opposite.
The space opens up toward the left, while the right looks like it leads to a corridor.
The inside of the house looks shockingly well-kept.
Slowly, I walk closer to the opened door. I have no plan if Genevieve responds. How am I supposed to explain that I’m magically stuck here when she more than likely doesn’t even know or believe magic exists?
“Genevieve?” I try again.
“Come inside and stop making so much noise.”
I jolt despite how faint the voice is. It seems to be coming from the left.
“G-Genevieve?” I say unsurely, my heart pounding. The open space looks like it leads into a sitting room. There must be another room beyond that, where her voice is coming from.
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
My hesitation lasts a second, then I’m grabbing the handle of my trunk, tilting it and rolling it inside.
I turn to close the door, except, the door is no longer there.