Chains of Time Read online

  CHAINS OF TIME

  R.B. WOODSTONE

  Copyright © 2020 R.B. Woodstone

  United States Copyright Office

  SR-1-8817595901

  ISBN-13: 9781649454270

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations used in book reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact the author through rbwoodstone.com.

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously.

  Cover photos by Sdecoret, White Pearl Resorts, and PixlMakr

  888888829b1f3f7cbc0fabd3bdae0441a5f88c9dcdb3f5d75c81bcf3cf28dd14bdab31c8888888

  For the two of you

  And now the storm-blast came, and he

  Was tyrannous and strong:

  He struck with his o'ertaking wings,

  And chased us south along.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Part I

  The Waking

  One

  I know what’s going to happen.

  I can see the ship though it has not yet arrived. It cuts through our waters so savagely, white cloth suspended from ropes, enslaving the wind and forcing it to push the vessel toward our shores. I can see Van Owen on the deck. He is taller than the others. Tall and gaunt, ghostly white. All sinew and vein. The others are bearded and filthy and rank, yet he is clean, his face hairless, his garments bright and unblemished. He is holding something to his eye—a long black pipe with a piece of curved glass at the end. He points it toward our land and gazes through it as if he can see everything though he is still so far away. As if he can see me staring back at him. I almost turn away, but he is not here. Not yet. This is only a vision—my first one. He is not even near.

  He is the first one off the ship. The others follow him—twenty of them, thirty, maybe more—into tiny boats that are lowered from the side of the large one. The men carry weapons. Nets, sabers, whips. The tools for hunting animals. Strange, angry objects hang from their hips. Somehow, I know what these things are for—to put holes in human flesh. They are called guns. Van Owen puts his hand to his hip and holds his gun steady as he steps from one of the smaller boats into the ocean. The water rises almost to his knees, much higher than he had expected. He turns back, berating his men silently with a scowl. They cower in apology. They treat him as our people treat my father. Like a king.

  Soon there will be other kings here—other kings and their followers—for today is the day of my wedding ceremony. I lie awake at sunrise, waiting for my cousins to bring me libation and face paints and jewelry, for my mother to come with the blessing, for my father to tell me again of the importance of the day—how this marriage will unite two warring peoples, bringing peace where there has been only conflict for generations, how the child of my betrothed and me will be blessed, the firstborn of a new family. My father always speaks with such certainty of my child’s future, though the child has not yet been conceived and though my husband and I have not even met.

  My betrothed’s name is Kwame, son of Berantu, leader of the Merlante people. Three days ago, father and son came here for the making of the contract. They were not what I had imagined. My father is such a large man, taller and stronger than any man in our village. I assumed that all kings must be like him, but Berantu and Kwame were barely taller than I. Yet they walked with such confidence. They came alone, without guards or weapons. My father met them by the adansonia tree that marks the entrance to our village and then led them to the spirit cave. Kwame waited outside while the two kings ventured within, neither one looking back. My father and Berantu remained in there for so long. Or maybe it only seemed long to all of us who watched and waited from afar. Then there was a flash of fire from the mouth of the cave and stout voices and the sound of laughter, and the two kings exited the cave, all smiles and mirth. Kwame turned toward me, and, for a moment, our eyes met. My mother tugged on my arm and told me not to look upon him—that he and I were not yet joined and must observe custom. Berantu scolded Kwame too, pulling him away so fast, warning of curses brought upon those who loved before their ceremonies.

  I remember my father’s hand on my shoulder as we walked the silt path back to our home. “Now our peoples will be one,” he told me. “Now we can face the might of Glele, who picks away at both of our clans. Now we will stand strong.”

  But he was wrong. There will be no unified clan to face the tyrant Glele. There will be no child. And there will be no marriage. For the slavers have come. Van Owen has come.

  If I were to stare out at the ocean now, past even the sun, I might see it—the faint shadow of a ship on the horizon, and the silhouette of a man who will haunt my family forever.

  I know what’s going to happen.

  Two

  Terry stopped at the foot of the staircase when he heard the commotion above.

  “She’s my daughter,” shouted his father. “She’s my daughter, and I say she shouldn’t spend all her time hiding away in some dark room with her grandmother. Now open this damn door, Willa!”

  Without a thought, Terry bounded up the stairs and planted himself between his father and the closed door. “Pop,” he barely mustered, “leave them alone. They’re just…”

  “Move out of the way,” said his father through a clenched jaw. Carl Kelly was looking older. His hair had turned gray years ago—shortly after Terry’s mother died—but now the beard was graying, and even his deep brown skin had taken on a gray tint. His eyes were puffy. He looked haggard. Angry, too. He always looked angry. And his anger made Terry angry.

  “No,” said Terry. At fifteen, he still needed to fill out, but he stood an inch taller than his father. It didn’t matter.

  With a shot of his elbow, Carl sent his son sprawling across the landing. Then he turned back to the door and raised both arms as if he might break it down. But the door slid open, and Regina leaned out and stared up at her father. She was small for an eleven year-old and rail-thin. Her hair was parted down the middle into two short braids that swung almost in unison when she moved her head, making her appear only eight or nine.

  Her father’s anger seemed to fade when he met Regina’s gaze. Her eyes were huge, almost too large for her face, giving her an ethereal quality. And her skin tone, light brown and flawless, mimicked her mother’s. Sighing, he put his hand on the top of her head and told her in a softer tone, “Go on now. Get yourself ready for school.”

  Regina reached down to help Terry up, but he nodded her off and rose on his own. His shoulder hurt but not as much as his pride. He glanced back toward his father, eager for some sign of remorse, but the man was focused again on the door to his mother-in-law’s room. “You know, Willa, it’s just not right…” he started, but the door slammed before he could finish.

  “Carl,” came the old woman’s voice, robust but serene through the closed door, “the child doesn’t have a mother. What isn’t right is you trying to keep her away from her grandmother.”

  Terry almost smiled at his grandmother’s knack for winning an argument without even raising her voice. She then capped her victory by playing a bouncy ragtime piano melody that spilled through the slender door, taunting Carl. His jaw clenched, and his mustache and beard closed in around his mouth. “How is it,” asked Carl, “that you can get yourself out of bed to play that piano and slam a door on me, but you’re too frail to come out of that room and speak with me face to face?”

  “Don’t you have to get those kids to school, Carl?” she asked with a bored
weariness. “Today’s the first day.”

  He checked his watch and seemed to get only more infuriated. He put his hand on the doorknob and started to turn it as if he might enter her room, but the lock clicked in place from inside, even as the piano music continued. His shoulders tensed, and he grunted, “Damn it, Willa. I wasn’t going to come in.”

  “Oh, I know that, Carl. I just wanted you to know that you couldn’t—even if you wanted to.”

  “Wasting my time on you,” he muttered under his breath as he stomped down the stairs. “Time for school,” he added in Terry’s direction.

  “I’m ready,” said Terry as he sat down on the living room sofa and ran a pick through his short afro.

  “You’re ready?” his father barked from the archway into the living room. He looked down at his gangly son as if sickened by the sight of him. “Good. Then you can make your sister’s lunch.”

  “I already did,” said Terry, pointing at two brown paper bags at his feet.

  His father’s response was unintelligible, more an acknowledgement that he had heard his son speak than recognition of what Terry had said.

  “You’re welcome,” Terry added, just loud enough for his father to hear.

  “You don’t need me to thank you for doing what you ought to be doing.”

  “Maybe I don’t need it, but it might be nice if I got it sometime anyway.”

  But his father was already heading down the hall to collect his jacket. His blue overalls and Stilson Stable cap disappeared behind the closet door, the wad of keys jingling from his belt.

  “Whatever,” Terry groaned more loudly as he pulled a book from his bag and flipped to the chapter where he’d left off.

  “That’s right—whatever,” his father called back. “Whatever I say goes. So don’t talk back to me.” He craned his neck far enough into the hallway to glare at his son, daring a response. Terry just nodded his head back and forth, fixing his eyes on the page. “That’s right,” said his father. “You just keep your nose in that book. You don’t want any of this.”

  Terry closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in. Don’t be like him, he thought to himself, and he began to calm down. But then he remembered the dream that had come to him again, the same dream he’d had so many times for the last two years: the slave ship closing in on Africa; the girl watching from the shore; the pale captain on the deck.

  “Did Jerome take the pickup?” his father interrupted with a gruffness as if he’d asked the question several times.

  “Yes. And when was the last time Jerome ever made anybody’s lunch?”

  “Your brother’s got his own responsibilities.”

  “Football’s not a responsibility. It’s a game. I don’t know why….” But Regina appeared at Terry’s side, tugging on his arm, her expression pleading him to stop arguing. He paused, eager to continue, but he knew Regina was right. He sighed and told her, “Okay, I’ll stop.”

  Their father was still rambling on, though. He was back in the living room, flicking off the lights and looking around for anything else he might need. “School hasn’t even started, but Jerome’s been up for practice at 5:00 AM six days a week for the last three weeks. You work a few hours a day at that market, and you think you get to complain about making a goddamned lunch for your sister…?”

  “Hey, I stopped already, okay?” Terry snapped. “And I wasn’t complaining about making lunch. Just about not ever being noticed for anything I…”

  “Just get out to the car.” Their father’s tone signified that his was the final word, so Terry and Regina headed for the door.

  The early morning Harlem streets were full of children for the first time since June, and Terry marveled at how all of them seemed so calm on the first day of school. He wanted to feel that calm too. He wondered if things would be different this year. Would the other kids treat him any better? Even more important—would they treat Regina better? Terry was always worried about Regina.

  As if in response, Regina tapped his arm and offered a half-smile. She didn’t speak—she hadn’t spoken in two years—but Terry could hear her question in his mind, her voice as full as if she were speaking aloud. He wished he had the ability to answer her telepathically, but his only special gift seemed to be the ability to hear her.

  “I doubt it,” he answered her as she eased into the front passenger seat of the faded Ford Mustang. The car was almost fifty years old and looked its age.

  “You doubt what?” asked their father, suddenly just a step behind them.

  “Nothing.” Terry climbed into the seat behind Regina and slammed the door hard.

  In the driver’s seat, Carl Kelly spun his head until his brown eyes caught up with Terry’s green ones. The same color as his mother’s. “You doubt what?” he repeated.

  Terry enunciated each syllable as he spoke. “I doubt you’ll let me drive either of the cars next year.”

  “What’s next year?”

  “When I’m sixteen.”

  His father started the engine. “I gave Jerome the pickup when he turned sixteen because he’d earned it. When you start earning your place around here, then we can talk about what you get.”

  “See,” Terry said, tapping one of his sister’s braids. “Like I told you, I don’t even exist—just like…”

  But Regina spun her head and glared, and Terry knew better than to finish that sentence.

  The ride to school was quick and quiet. Their father pulled the car in front of the main entrance to Harlem Community School, where students milled about on the sidewalk, sat on the steps, reclined against parked cars and school buses. Most of the kids were clustered in groups of three or more—talking, joking, laughing.

  There were police, too. HCS was one of the more respected public schools in Harlem, but Harlem was still Harlem. One squad car sat sentry across the street; another circled the neighborhood throughout the day. “You’ll be safe here,” their father had told them when they moved from Saratoga to New York City. “You’ll all be together,” for HCS was both a high school and a middle school.

  But Terry and Regina were alone together. The other students all seemed to have someone to greet them—handshake rituals, hugs, shouts. Nobody greeted Terry and Regina. They walked through the throngs of teens and preteens as if invisible.

  “Be careful,” their father called out after them.

  Regina turned and waved. Terry didn’t.

  After a quick stop in the middle school to drop off Regina, Terry raced out the athletic exit to get to the football field before practice was over. The security guard almost stopped him before recognizing him as “Jerome Kelly’s little brother.” Terry wondered if anyone would ever know him just for being Terry Kelly.

  The football field was really just twelve cones in a rectangular formation across a frayed baseball diamond. The players were filthy, but that was to be expected; they were practicing on a dirt field on the morning after a rainstorm. Their practice outfits—uniforms culled together from disparate team sports—were stained brown with mud and age. Jerome was easy to spot, though; he was the tallest boy on the field and the only one who wasn’t out of breath. His offensive line squad moved into a huddle, most of them weary as they bent forward. But Jerome stood upright, a tower leaning in only at the last instant to hear the play.

  The boys jerked from the huddle at the sound of Coach Dodge’s whistle, and Jerome moved into position at center, just a few feet in front of the quarterback, Nate Percy. Jerome’s gait was graceful, particularly for such a large boy. Even as he crouched into formation, he remained composed, almost too refined for football.

  At Nate’s command, Jerome snapped the ball to him and then backed up, shadowing the quarterback, protecting him. When both defensive tackles broke through the line, Jerome was prepared. He leaned forward, his arms outstretched, and caught the rushing defenders, one in each arm. The three boys seemed almost frozen in time.

  Don’t hug them, Jerome, Terry wanted to shout from his vantage poi
nt beneath a tree. Take them down.

  Jerome was bigger and stronger than both rushers. He needed only to fall forward and envelope them, and the quarterback would have an open field for running or passing. But Jerome hesitated, as if just stopping them were enough. One of the rushers seemed to sense Jerome’s hesitancy; he wriggled under Jerome’s arm and glided away. Within seconds, the boy had sacked the quarterback and the play was over. Coach Dodge shrugged as he blew the whistle, ending practice.

  Jerome was helping with the cleanup—scooping up the rubber cones and dropping them into the coach’s cart—when Terry called out to him. When Jerome’s head turned, Terry pointed to his watch and Jerome nodded.

  He waved to his teammates and trotted away into the bushes.

  “Where are you off to, Jerome?” asked Coach Dodge.

  “Taking a piss,” Jerome answered quickly. Then he slipped behind the foliage and joined Terry at the fence that ran parallel to the field. “You see him yet,” he asked.

  “No,” Terry answered. He looked at his watch again. They would need to get back to school soon for first period.

  They waited in silence until Jerome asked, “How was Pop this morning?”

  “What do you think?” Terry sighed. “Snapping at Willa. Snapping at me. Same as ever.”

  Jerome nodded. “Sorry.”

  After another minute, a ragged figure ambled through the trees and approached the fence. His build suggested he was in his early twenties, but his unshaven face and inset eyes told another story. He wore a torn black jean jacket and blue jeans that hung almost around his thighs. Sitting atop his matted afro was a New York Yankees cap that cast a shadow over his eyes. Terry was glad that Warren’s eyes were hidden. He had trouble looking his oldest brother in the eye these days.