DREAM-DRENCHED AFTER MY night in Nana’s bed, I’m relieved that Ma’s off on her travels again. On her departure this morning, tension – a spring coiled around my heart – eases. I fill my lungs with gulps of air and the moment I sense Maybe on our porch, eager to share my dream with him, I’m out of the house, off to school.
Before I utter a word, Maybe pauses, looks at me and says, ‘She’s gone.’
‘You can tell?’
He chuckles. ‘You barely breathe when your mother’s around, Sheba. She muzzles your breath. She clouds your shine.’
My eyes dwell on his, and as Maybe takes my right hand and places it on his cheek, the sensation that drew me to him the first day we met, sweeps over me again. I’m his finest, his brightest, his very best. Even in my ugly brown-and-yellow school uniform with hair bunched either side of my head, like stepping from earth to water, shade to light, the world shimmers when he’s around. In fact, as I describe fragments of my dream last night: the thrill of Nana Gyata su’s presence; my uncertainty as to whether I’m able to meet his challenge, there’s no skin between us, because what I feel, Maybe does as well.
While I talk and our little fingers link, the current between us sizzles. Amber eyes glisten, then darken, molasses-black, as Maybe’s sweetness seeps into me.
‘What are you going to do?’ he asks.
I search his face for an answer only I can give.
‘You have to decide,’ Maybe urges.
As the clamour of bustling school children grows ahead of us, we stop beneath a banana tree. The faint rattle of seed pods in a breeze hums in my ears. The sound circles Maybe before sparking glimmers of light on his skin.
He drops my finger, frowning. ‘Before you decide, perhaps you should see this.’
He opens his rucksack, tears a sheet from a sketchpad that he takes with him everywhere, and hands me a picture.
It’s a drawing of me working on Aunt Ruby’s hair, Aunt Clara in the background. Ruby, hair almost done, grins delighted, while my teacher, butterfly light and wistful, flutters behind me. I’m tall, loose-limbed, resplendent in a pair of cut-off jeans and a woven batakari top; everyday ‘house’ clothes portrayed with a deftness that makes me look elegant.
I should be flattered, I know. But what grabs my attention and draws me in is a necklace Maybe’s given me: a necklace of green, overlapping scales which resemble those of a snake. Indeed, the beaded clasp, a smooth delicate triangle, reminds me of the shape of Snake’s head. So much so, that on closer inspection she seems coiled around my neck.
I haven’t yet mentioned Snake to Maybe. How can I share what I don’t have words for – a being that excites but terrifies me at the same time? ‘Are you able to see her as well?’ I ask.
‘No,’ he replies. ‘But they can.’ Maybe’s talking about his dead-departed, his siblings. ‘They’re able to appreciate what can’t be seen. The bits I glimpse, they help me piece together.’
Even so, I’m puzzled that he can intuit what no one else in my family can.
‘They talk to me when I’m drawing,’ Maybe explains. ‘They sense things I can’t see. Make suggestions. You may be in danger, Sheba.’
I shrug, unsure what to say. If there’s one thing I know it’s this: in the same way that our little fingers search for each other and link up, my destiny is coupled to Maybe’s. So my heart tells me. It also tells me that even if I were to try to hide from him and keep my family’s secrets under our roof as Nana advises, it would be easier to stop the sun shining than to turn away from his face.
‘Well?’ he insists. ‘Are you in danger?’
‘Nana knows there is danger present – waiting, but what matters is how I face it. My family’s spent most of my life trying to protect me from the queen of mischief-making in our house, my mother.’
‘They know what she is as well?’
I nod, then hesitate, remembering what Nana mentioned last night.
The truth has different faces.And it rarely smiles.
I remember what Nana said and add thoughts of my own. ‘The women of my house have always known about Ma. Deep down, I have as well. They struck a deal with her. She was supposed to let me be, allow me to grow without dipping her beak in me…’
I shiver, and when that door in my heart slams yet again, and I turn my back a second time on the woman whose bones made my bones, there’s a tremor in my voice. ‘She’s my mother.’
Maybe’s jaw hardens. ‘You don’t have to be like her.’
I want to believe him. I need to, but the most important thing I’ve learned is to appreciate what I’m up against. A mother’s might should never, ever be underestimated.
‘If it is left to me, I’ll go my own way – no problem,’ I admit. ‘In fact, tomorrow, I’ll find out exactly what Ma has on me…’
Maybe folds my hand in his. ‘Has she cursed you? Woven a spell over you?’
‘I don’t know. Whatever she did happened a long time ago. I’ll find out tomorrow when my grandmother takes me to see a friend of hers, a diviner, Maanu.’
Pressing my hand gently, Maybe replies, ‘Promise me you’ll be careful, Sheba. Promise,’ he says.
I promise.
