We spiraled through darkness once again before we landed on a hard surface. I looked around and saw that we were back in Grandma’s attic. Moonlight poured in through the skylight above us.
“Mama, Daddy,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure who I was talking to, but the words kept spewing from my mouth on repeat.
I felt a sharp pang in my stomach that made me double over and almost fall to the ground. Aliyah and Zion picked me up. These were the tears I had been saving for so long, tears that I needed to shed at the loss of my parents. I didn’t know what to think or what to believe. I just knew that my mama was undead and that my daddy was nowhere.
A growl came from behind us. Before we could turn around, the attic door burst open. Grandma was standing right in front of us, holding a kitchen knife. “Cameron, move!” Whatever the thing was behind us growled louder, so close to us that goose bumps rose on my neck.
Grandma reeled back and threw the knife with all her strength. We ducked out of the way, then heard a scream. I stood up to see a mmo standing near the attic’s window. The knife was protruding from its chest. It screamed again before falling to the ground and turning to dust.
“It finally shows itself,” Grandma said, walking through the attic door.
“Wait, what?” I said.
“That … thing has been prowling around here for years, Cameron; that’s why I didn’t want you coming up here. When the pictures changed … I had to protect you somehow.”
“I knew there was something wrong with our house!”
Grandma opened and closed her mouth, as if she didn’t know what to say. Then she sighed. “I used to be the Descendant before your mama, so I noticed the changes. I tried my best to … to shield you from everything. There has simply been too much pain.”
“You know about everything?” Zion said.
“Of course I know!” Grandma said, pulling herself to her full height. “I’m a Battle. The Book is part of our family.”
“How long have we been gone?” Aliyah asked. “When we were in Chidani, it felt like we had been there for months.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t months for me, or I wouldn’t have known what to say to your parents. It has only been three days’ time in our world.”
The mention of parents caused tears to roll down my cheeks again. I ran to Grandma, enfolding myself in her arms. “She’s a mmo,” I said, rocking back and forth, more tears falling. “And I don’t even know what happened to Daddy. What if he’s one of them, too?”
Grandma could do nothing but rub my back and hold me close in her warm embrace. I couldn’t believe how badly I had missed everything about her, from her smell to the way she yelled at me for not cleaning my room when she told me. I even missed all the times she’d barred me from the attic. Maybe if I’d listened to her, none of this would have happened.
“Come on, let’s go to your room,” she said. We all walked down the attic steps and back to my room, where she helped me to sit on the edge of my bed. She sat down with me and pulled me close to her. “I didn’t want you to go to Chidani, didn’t want that life for you. But once I felt the changes, once I was certain that the mmo were trying to get to our world, once one showed up in our house, I knew it was only a matter of time before we had to fight back. I just didn’t want you to go over there so young, baby.”
“I saw her,” I finally admitted. “I saw them both in a vision from the day they died. It was my last test before I mastered my fear of fighting. I’m not scared anymore, but … seeing them one last time … seeing them … die … was too much for me.”
Aliyah patted my shoulder. “Cam, I’m so sorry.”
Zion gripped my hand and squeezed. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”
I didn’t know what else to say. It was all just so unfair. It seemed like everyone around me had loving parents and I didn’t. Fresh tears stung my eyes.
“She’s a mmo, Grandma,” I repeated. “When she died, that’s what she became, and Amina won’t let her go.”
Grandma rocked me back and forth, her own tears falling onto my shoulders. “That should’ve never happened. We can’t let her stay a mmo, Cameron. We must do something.”
“I tried, Grandma. I tried,” I said, feeling as if the tears would never stop.
“But what do we do now?” Aliyah asked. “We can’t just leave Chidani the way it is.”
“Amina has been captured, but the ring is still hidden somewhere,” Zion said. “I don’t know about y’all, but we can’t have the barrier overrun with demons.”
I faced them. “Don’t you get it? I don’t care about Chidani anymore! They took everything from me. They can solve their own problems!” Even as I was saying those words, I knew I didn’t mean anything I said. Mama and Daddy hadn’t seen it that way. They had seen Amina and Ekwensu as a threat and had wanted to do everything in their power to stop them, to save everyone in both worlds. Even if it meant that they might never see me again. Daddy didn’t even have ties to Chidani, and he had chosen to help because he loved Mama and he loved me, and they both loved our people and our world.
I couldn’t allow their memory to be tarnished because I didn’t want to fight back. I had to fight back because they had fought for me. Mama and Grandma’s legacy lived through me, and it was a role I had no choice but to accept. And now, after everything I’d seen, after everything I’d done, I actually wanted to accept that role.
Grandma brushed the tears from my face. “Amina did this, not the people of Chidani. You have to stop her. We are your family now. Zion and Aliyah and me, and all the people of Chidani. I am sorry about what happened to your mama and daddy, more than you know, and heaven knows I’ve tried to keep you from harm. But y’all are smarter than I thought. I can’t keep the legacy of our family from you—the Book won’t allow me to anymore. When you left, I realized that I can’t protect you the way I want to. I’m … I’m not meant to.”
They were my family now. Amina had captured Mama, so I couldn’t talk to her. But I could talk to my best friends. Seeing them staring at me only made me cry even more.
“It’s your call what we do,” Zion said.
I gazed at them all. “We need a good night’s sleep, and some of Grandma’s chicken soup, and a shower that doesn’t involve magic. Then we can make a new plan. I know I have to go back. I can find the ring, figure out what happened to my daddy, and then … I can try to see if it’s possible to save my mama.”
Zion grabbed Aliyah’s and my hands. “Okay. We do it together.”