Chains of Time Read online

  “Hey, little bros,” said Warren in a gravelly voice. I caught your act there on the field, J.” “You had those two rushers,” he smiled, “until you didn’t.”

  Jerome removed his helmet. His hair was buzzed short, silhouetting his forehead in a square pattern that made him look simple, which he wasn’t.

  “Good thing Dad didn’t see that play,” Warren continued as if trying to fill the air. He scrunched his mouth into a scowl and mimicked Carl’s voice. “You can’t be weak! This is no game.”

  Jerome nodded and sighed. “Dad is…what he is.”

  Jerome and Terry stood less than a foot apart from Warren with the chain-link fence between them, yet their eyes never met his. Finally, Jerome broke the silence. “Do you have to dress like that, Warren? Especially around here. You look like…” He stopped.

  “You can finish,” said Warren. “I know I look like a thug.”

  Jerome seemed to cringe at the word and hung his head. “I…I’m…”

  Warren saved him from having to apologize. “So, do you have…anything…?”

  Jerome spoke in a low, defeated tone. “Yeah, We’ve got something.” He knelt to the ground and unrolled one of his socks, revealing several bills wrapped around his ankle. He counted fifty dollars. Then he stood and passed the bills through the fence.

  Warren’s face sagged as he took the money and rushed it into his pants pocket. He breathed in deeply through his nose and coughed as if suffering from a bad cold. “All right. I…uh… I…you know…Thanks…”

  “Whatever,” said Jerome, already walking away. “Come on, Terry.”

  “It’ll be okay,” Warren called after them. “You’ll see. I’m getting it together. It’s all gonna be better.”

  “No, it won’t,” Jerome said, loud enough for only Terry to hear. “No, it won’t.”

  Three

  As I am dressing for the wedding, I tell my mother of the vision. I tell her of the flood of images—the ship, the men who speak the strange language that I can understand, the boys on the field, the scenes that play before me almost as clear to me as she is. She listens, smiling, nodding, stroking my face while she paints it with the mixture of fruit nectars and ocean water. A stream of salt water and sweetness trickles down my cheek and onto my lips. I taste the paint and close my eyes, trying to lose myself in this moment with my mother, in these moments of preparation for the ritual. I promise myself that I will always remember the taste of the fruit paint and the touch of my mother’s finger as she draws our family emblem on my cheek.

  I try to believe her—that I am stricken with waking dreams brought upon me by the gods, who are testing my resolve to see if I am worthy of a princess’s nuptials. Worthy of marrying the next king.

  My cousins arrive. They are young and as giddy as I was only yesterday. I fight to focus on them and on my mother—to force the visions away. My mother takes my face in her palms and tells me, “Do not scare these girls. Keep those dreams to yourself.”

  “Maybe Father should know…”

  “Amara, your father is readying our village for the ceremony. He does not have time for children’s stories.”

  She will not believe me. I could tell her every detail, and it would not matter. Van Owen will still come, and nothing will stop him.

  My cousins bear garments and libation. They embrace me, laughing. The youngest one, Daquimé, whispers in my ear: “Kwame is beautiful. All of the girls are envious.”

  I smile and try to see only what is tangible. I try to bury the apparitions that dance before me: the images of the strange gray city, of the young girl who does not speak, of her father whose anger is like armor, his sons—so different and so damaged, of ropes around me, of chains on my legs, of my face ravaged by age and loss, of places so unfamiliar, and yet I know them. Boston and Atlanta and Harlem.

  “There has never been a ceremony such as this,” Daquimé tells me. “With our peoples united, even Glele would not dream of sending his spirits here to steal away more of our people.”

  She is speaking of the disappearances. Many of our people have vanished in the last year—but never while they were in our village. They were off fishing or hunting or collecting herbs. But they did not return, and no one heard anything of them again. The legends have spread of our enemy Glele and his hold on the sprits that he has summoned demons to do his will, to weaken his foes, dragging our people off to be servants to his clan. But these were all myth. I had thought so before, but now I know it for certain. There is only one dark spirit allied with Glele: Van Owen.

  He is there in almost every vision. Even when he is not there, he is there. I see myself older and different. I see other faces that age and change—Dara’s, Rolanda’s, Willa’s. Yet Van Owen always remains the same. He does not age. He never grows old. He never changes.

  My cousins finish dressing me and stare at me suddenly as if I am no longer the girl they have known all of their lives. Or maybe it is they who look different now to me. When my mother returns, they hurry away, turning back to wave before they run off to describe my garments to the other girls in our village. They are so proud. I am to become a woman, to fulfill my destiny as princess of my people. I try to cling to their excitement, to use it as an anchor to keep me from slipping into one of the myriad scenes that play in my mind, but everything is happening at once, and I can see all of it.

  As my mother leads me by the hand from my hut and toward the village center, Van Owen and his men are lowering themselves into the smaller boat. On the coastline, a bluish light flashes. He glances at the strand but sees nothing. Perhaps it is the sun reflecting off our azure ocean, trying to blind him.

  They row shoreward and then wade through the knee-high waters and step onto our sands. My sands. My father’s sands. My people’s sands.

  Then I see Glele. He is fat and pampered, decked in odd garments that are not of our land—more like those worn by Van Owen and his band. Glele smiles, his mouth extending broadly across his face. The smile of a tyrant and a traitor, betraying his kind, selling them into servitude. How can he do these things? Are we not one race? Are we not all Africans? Should we not stand together against those who would enslave us?

  Glele wears the red headdress of his clan, but around his neck are jewels so shiny that they are ugly. He greets Van Owen as if they have known each other for years. They clasp hands. Van Owen forces a smile and then lets go and turns to clean his hands on a cloth. He wipes away Glele’s touch before dropping the cloth in the surf. Then he sends two pale men back onto the rowboat for a wooden chest. They stumble through the water, hefting the heavy box onto the sand. Van Owen kneels and opens the lock and lifts the lid. The chest is full of jewels and coins. And tobacco.

  “Glele is a fool,” Van Owen whispers to one of his men. “The coins are worthless. Lustrous but valueless. Copper and tin. The jewels are mostly glass. And the tobacco is the lowest grade. I couldn’t sell it anywhere.”

  How do I understand his language? How do I hear him at all? I am not there on the shore with them.

  My mother is speaking to me still, but her face changes. Suddenly, she is Willa, scolding her own daughter—pleading with her not to run off with “that man.” Then, just as quickly, she is my mother again. We are alone in the hut, but she is drowned out by visions of Glele, who is barking orders to his men. They scoop the jewel chest onto a latticework rope platform and begin the trek back to their village. Glele is jabbering on with another dark-skinned man—one dressed like Van Owen’s men. His face is scarred. His head is hung low. Why is this man with Van Owen? He is brown like us. Why does he conspire with these white men? Why is he translating between Glele and Van Owen? Why is he helping them?

  Glele points toward our village. He is speaking of the ceremony, of our two peoples—the Merlante and the Mkembro—which will soon be together. Unprepared. Vulnerable.

  “He knows,” I tell my mother, “about the wedding.”

  “Of course he knows. He has planned it.”
r />   “No, not Father,” I say, but my words are meaningless to her. I wonder whether I am still speaking my language or whether I have lapsed into the other one—English.

  “Your father will speak to you now.”

  I already know what my father will say. His words will mix with Carl’s and Jerome’s and Willa’s and Terry’s, and I will have to fight to distinguish who is speaking and which time and place are mine.

  My father enters wearing the green headdress that has been passed down from chieftain to chieftain. He looms over me, and I stare upward, feeling like a child. His eyes, so deep-set and dark, have always made him seem special—powerful—able to keep our people safe. For our leader is the fiercest warrior of all, the most commanding of men. In my vision, though, my father is bleeding and bleeding. The blood won’t stop.

  “Now, there will be no more war,” he tells me. “Because you, my daughter, will share your life with Kwame, and our clans will become one. We will build villages and shrines together, and we will fight together against Glele.”

  “No!” I scream. “Glele comes now with white men!”

  “Glele?” my father says, confused, looking behind him.

  “Yes, Father. Glele makes trade with white men, and he brings them here to slaughter us… to take us away…”

  My father stares at me with a puzzled expression. “What are these words you speak? What language is this?”

  No! I am speaking English! I try to force the words from my throat in my own language, but Van Owen slaps me in another time. I cannot feel the pain, but, instinctively, I touch my cheek. My hand is wet and red, but it is not blood. It is only the fruit paint.

  “Amara, why do you behave this way?” asks my father. His hands seem almost to glow as he reaches them toward my head. He takes my face in his hands, and, instantly, I feel safe. The visions stop, and I can feel only my father’s strength. I wonder if it has all been a fantasy, simply the irrational daydreams of a girl who is about to marry, about to become a woman.

  My father takes my hand and leads me from the hut. We walk through the village, past rows and rows of our people, smiling and stretching their hands toward us, overjoyed. The singing starts, followed soon by the drumming. I open my mouth, wondering if English will come out, but it is the song of my people that pours from my lips:

  Mai Wa kmaro

  Mai Wa kmaro

  Dji mi sarro ti kee la ti na-arro

  The dream language is gone. There is no ship with light-colored men and weapons. Glele is not on the outskirts of our village, leading evil to our gates. I am singing in the language of my people and walking with my father—toward the village center, toward my wedding. I smile and sing louder. I am at peace again. The day is joyous. As my father said, there will be no more war.

  In the distance, I see Berantu and the Merlante people approaching, a parade of colors stretched across the yellow horizon. Kwame walks beside his father. He wears a purple sash, the color of royalty. He sees me but turns to his father, and I turn to mine.

  “You can look now,” my father tells me, squeezing my hand harder. “You may look upon your betrothed.” Berantu must have told Kwame the same. He turns toward me as well. Our eyes meet. My cousin was right. Kwame is beautiful. His skin glows in the sunlight. His eyes are bright, and his smile is so lovely and peaceful. He is beaming at me. We will be happy. I know we will be happy.

  The singing grows louder. Berantu’s people form into seven lines, and they begin to sing. The tune is new to me, but the words are familiar somehow. The melody mixes with the Mkembro song, the two meshing into one. I think about all the ways that our peoples will change and grow from the joining. We will be a new, stronger people. We will create our own customs and songs and stories and legends.

  Ja dee tna-arrai

  Tee rah see la-awai

  Kai ma jee ha-anai

  Sai-Ree tna-arrai

  The two clans close in circles around us as we approach the elders. I recognize Sai-Ree, who is oldest of all of my Mkembro people. His headdress rises high above all others. Beside him is a Merlante elder. He is old as well but not as old as Sai-Ree. In unison, Sai-Ree and the Merlante elder each raise a hand high, and the singing stops.

  The Merlante elder begins chanting, and Sai-Ree joins him. Sai-Ree is reciting the nuptial words of the Mkembro. I have been to many ceremonies, and his words are always the same. The Merlante elder’s words are similar—almost identical—but chanted in a different order. I realize then that the Merlante were singing the same song that my people were—Dji mi sarro ti kee la ti na-arro—but the tune was different. Can it be that we share the same lineage? Generations ago, were we one people? If so, then this ceremony is fate—we are meant to be one. Kwame and I are meant to unite our clans.

  As the chanting grows more intense, the Merlante elder turns to Berantu and nods. Berantu steps back, leaving Kwame alone. My father, still holding my hand, bends and kisses my forehead. He squeezes both my hands. My heart quickens, and I shut my eyes to push away the tears of joy that come rushing forth.

  “To Kwame of the Merlante,” my father announces, “I give my daughter, Amara of the Mkembro.” He lets go of my hand, and the world turns dark.

  For a moment, I am nowhere. Everything is black, as if I am floating in nighttime without land or sea or anything solid at all. There is no sound, no scent, no touch, no warm, no cold, no earth on which to stand. Then the visions start again. In an instant, I am in so many different times at once. The Merlante elder is taking Kwame’s hand to bring it toward mine. Willa is shouting with her eyes closed. Terry is arguing with his father; Akins is pushing him to the floor. Van Owen is hacking at trees with a saber. Glele is celebrating over his chest of worthless gems. And Regina, like me, is opening her mouth to scream, but nothing is coming out.

  My people—the Merlante and the Mkembro—start singing again. Sai-Ree takes my wrist to bring my hand toward Kwame’s. I can almost feel Kwame’s smile. He stares into my eyes, and I feel I have known him forever. But then his lips curl downward and his eyes flare in fear, fixed on something behind me. I hear the sound of sabers slashing through leaves, the sound of angry, foreign footsteps, and I know what Kwame has seen: the white men have arrived.

  The visions swirl in my mind, and I fight to control them—to place them in in the correct sequence so that I can read them like a story. I try to focus on Kwame’s eyes, to root myself in what is happening now. I try not to hear Willa playing the piano. I try not to see Terry and Jerome across the fence from Warren. I look up at Sai-Ree, who is about to join my hand with Kwame’s, but then I hear the explosion from the pistol. The bullet flies. I hear myself scream as the Merlante elder topples backward and falls to the earth.

  The sound of the gun echoes. For a moment, it is the only sound. Then, all at once, the screaming starts. Our people scatter in terror. The Merlante and Mkemro have come in peace; they have not brought weapons to a wedding. We cannot defend ourselves.

  My father turns unarmed to face the invaders. I turn with him and see Van Owen for the first time.

  Four

  Terry was reading in the school library when the bell rang, jolting him from his only break in the day. He rechecked Regina’s schedule. Her math class had just ended, and he’d promised to meet her outside the classroom so that they could go to lunch together. He was standing up when Regina’s voice echoed in his mind.

  “Terry,” she said, “watch.”

  She called it broadcasting—using their telepathic link not just for communicating but for showing him what she was seeing. He was looking out through her eyes, experiencing the world as she did. If they were in the same room, Regina would sometimes try to offer a helpful broadcast. One time in the previous school year, Regina entered the gym while Terry was playing basketball in PE class. He was dribbling down the court for a layup, and Regina wanted to help by showing him that a defender was closing in on him from behind. She reached into his mind and sent him the view from her angle, but th
e 360-degree image—the combination of what Terry could see and what Regina was showing him—was so disorienting that Terry ran right past the basket and into a wall.

  Today, Regina’s broadcast stream wasn’t so disorienting, but it was jarring. Terry could still see the library around him—the shelves of books, the broken grandfather clock against the wall, the door that led to the corridor—but superimposed over it was an almost transparent view of Regina’s eighth grade math classroom.

  Mr. Dodge was at the front of the room. “Regina,” he was saying, “would you stay for a minute?”

  “Ooooooh,” came the response from the other students as they scooped up their books and dashed for the door.

  Regina remained in her seat. She stacked her algebra textbook on top of her three-ring binder and grammar workbook. She reached down for her backpack, lifting it just in time to avoid Leticia March’s foot, which stomped toward it. Leticia stumbled a bit but kept moving forward to catch up with her friends. The bell was still ringing, and the classroom was still noisy enough that only Regina—and Terry—could hear Leticia whisper “Mute bitch” as she passed and exited the room.

  “Regina,” said Mr. Dodge, his back to her while he erased the blackboard, “would you come up here, please?”

  Regina loaded the books into her backpack and walked to his desk. She watched the chalk dust clouds dissipate in the fluorescent light, animal shapes shimmering in the dust.

  “Regina,” he said, “your brother Jerome told me that you’d be in my class. You know I’m his football coach, right?”

  Regina nodded slowly, meeting his eyes with hers. He was an uneven man, his head a bit small for his bulky football coach body.

  “He also told me you probably wouldn’t speak in class.” He said it with an easy grin, tossing it off as if her silence were commonplace.

  Regina lowered her head.

  “And that’s okay,” he went on. “As long as you show up and do your assignments, you’re going to do fine. And I hear you’re as strong a student as Jerome.” He was speaking rapidly, trying to conceal his discomfort. “I’ve seen your test scores. I know you skipped a grade at your old school upstate. It can’t be easy being the youngest kid in the grade.”