Adri turned to face me, still holding my hand. I refused to let go of his.
“Zo, you have to go now. Luna first, okay?” His voice softened when he saw the look on my face. “I’ll be okay … Remember,” he grinned a little too widely, “I have a few skills.”
“I can’t Adri,” I tried to explain. “I just started learning more about this memory-working thing from Esme! I’m not her. What if I do something wrong?”
I could hear the panic rising in my voice, but I couldn’t make it stop.
Adri took my other hand in his and held them tightly in both fists. “Listen, from the little I 210remember, I know that you’re someone who never gives up,” he said firmly. “I know that because of you, Zo … You brought that part of my memory back to me. And you can do this now.”
A hush settled over the crowd of machines as a low rumble drifted out from one of the stadium tunnels that led to the arena where Adri and I stood.
We looked at the dark tunnel entrance, then back at each other.
“Steady,” Adri breathed. “Let’s go.”
“Okay,” I said, releasing his hands.
Then I ran over to Luna, while Adri turned to face whatever was coming our way.
Luna was seated on the ground in khaki overalls, with her legs drawn up to her chest, as if, even in sleep, she wanted to protect herself. She was leaning sideways against a Roman-style column, made from what looked like thousands of packed and glued plastic straws.
Better that those straws were in a weird stadium, than where they usually ended up: in the ocean. I thought about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and couldn’t imagine the ocean filled with trash like this.
Anyway, I pinched myself, back to the task at hand. 211
Luna’s arm was fastened to the column by her golden wristband. I kneeled next to her but paused before taking her hand. How would she feel afterward, about me entering her memories without her permission?
“You had no right!” I could hear her saying already; closing in on me like a jaguar ready to strike.
But as I looked into her sleeping face – lashes fanned out from her shut eyelids, her usually iron jaw softened – Luna seemed more vulnerable than I’d ever seen her. For once, she didn’t have to be in charge. She didn’t have to protect everyone around her. Now, she needed someone to have her back.
Unfortunately for her, that person was me. I would do the best I could.
Sweat broke out on my already damp skin. I reached out, forcing myself to concentrate. Hopefully, somewhere in her subconscious mind, Luna could hear me.
“Please show me the first time you used your powers. Please,” I whispered, then softly took her hand.
I found myself standing behind a crowd of people from different backgrounds, dressed in glittering saris, salwar kameez, hijab, lehenga cholis, ghararas, kurtas 212and sherwani. It was like staring into a sea of bright green, pink, orange, blue, purple, silver, and gold.
Everyone was seated in an open-air, brick-tiled courtyard, in the middle of what looked like a public garden. It was evening and the darkness in the outer parts of the garden was soft – the scent of flowers mixing with the guests’ perfume.
In front of the audience, silver semi-circular steps rose from the courtyard to a covered stage. The stage was large, with a well-lit ceiling between two minarets with gold domes. The overhang was marked by two golden elephants in relief, facing each other with their trunks and tusks raised. Some distance away, in the middle of the garden, was the statue of a ship with metal sails, lit with hanging lights, on top of a wide black stand.
I looked for Luna. What kind of memory was this? I needed to find out where we were, pronto.
Finally, I spotted her off to the right, leaning against the trunk of a palm tree, sleeping.
I ran over and touched her shoulder, “Luna, it’s Zo. Wake up!”
She opened her eyes and yawned slowly. I wondered what the Council had done to put her 213into such a deep sleep.
“It’s me,” I hurried as her eyes widened, “I’m in your memories. We need to find a name that’s important to you,” my words tumbled one over the other. “From the first time you used your powers.”
“W-what?” she asked, groggy and confused.
I thought of Adri facing that thing in the stadium, alone. We needed to hurry up.
“Where are we?” I asked loudly.
Luna shook her head and turned around, trying to make sense of her surroundings.
“Indian Monument Gardens,” her eyes widened. “Georgetown. Guyana.”
She took my hand and led me past the crowd, close to the stage. Since it was a memory, no one noticed us at all.
“Indian Arrival Day, three years ago.” Luna muttered. “We came here all the way from our village.”
“Who’s we?” I interrupted.
“Me and my best friends, Navi, Sunita, Adanna, and my grandmother Rima, our dance teacher.”
Suddenly, the scene in front of us disappeared and was replaced by the loud motor of a covered, snub-nosed boat with blue sides and a red roof, blasting 214chutney and soca music. It cut effortlessly through the brown, opaque waters of a river that seemed as wide as the sea, lined by dense rainforest. The boat was filled with giggling schoolgirls and watchful adults carrying all kinds of bags, baskets, and parcels.
Luna explained, “We’d taken a speedboat from our village on the Essequibo.” She smiled as the memory rolled out in front of us. “We saw pink dolphins playing, river otters … Navi even said she saw an anaconda!” Luna grinned. “We passed islands in that river big enough to hold houses. Look!” she pointed as it sped by. “Gluck Island. No one lives there except queen pink and purple water lilies, with black caiman hiding under their leaves.”
“Luna, we have to speed this up!” I broke in. What did this have to do with her powers?
But she was locked in, smiling as the scene changed.
“We reached Bartica, then Parika stelling.”
I stared at the docks full of people coming and going, buying and selling gold, diamonds, gas, sugar, animals, clothes, produce, and more.
Then I thought of Adri battling for his life at that very moment. As fascinating as this was, we had to move. 215
“Okay, great,” I jumped in, “but what happened at the performance in Georgetown?”
In a split second, we fast-forwarded from the docks to a crammed minibus, hurtling through the streets of the capital, Georgetown, past the seawall and waterfront vendors, shops, restaurants, and hotels. Before I could breathe, we were back in the Indian Arrival Monument Garden.
Just then, little Luna and her friends, decked in bright jewellery, wearing red silk pants with pleated, gold-striped skirts in front, and shiny fitted tops, came shyly onto the stage to the audience’s applause.
They began to dance to the rhythm of what I guessed was her grandmother’s voice, a pair of tabla drums, and the brass ghungroo bells around their ankles.
Luna stared at her younger self as if she were in pain.
“What happened?” I asked her.
“Shhh,” she said, pointing. “Look.”
Suddenly, there was a muffled ‘Boom!’ in the distance. Everything went dark in the garden and beyond.
A baby cried. People called out to one another, 216trying to get their phones. Then suddenly, in the darkness, two lights blinked into place on the stage. They grew stronger and stronger until people could see Luna and her friends, illuminated by the light that was beaming from her palms.
I looked from my Luna to the one on-stage.
Her younger self stood frozen, as her friends pulled back in fear. People in the audience pointed and whispered. Someone screamed.
Little Luna’s hands dropped to her sides – her eyes as wide as a full moon. Quickly, her grandmother ran on-stage and pulled her behind the scenes.
“By the time the electricity came back,” Luna murmured next to me, “we were already rushing out of the gardens. My Nani took me back to the village right away, but everybody was already talking about what had happened. People had seen the light come from my hands and those who hadn’t, wanted to see for themselves … Some said I was a god. But I wasn’t. Just me.”
Her voice broke.
“All I wanted was to play with my friends, dance, go to school, live a normal life. But soon, our village leader wanted me to become a tourist attraction and 217bring money to the area. When Nani refused, he had her declared an ‘unfit’ guardian– said that she was too old to take care of me properly and that I would live with him and his wife.”
Luna frowned. “The night before they came to take me away, my Nani said, “Come.” She brought me to the room we shared at the back of our clay house.”
As she spoke, the scene played in front of us like a movie. Luna’s grandmother adjusted her choli with a clink of the gold bangles on her arms. Her veined and spotted hands still had the precise grace of a dancer. Her Nani’s face was like a roadmap of life: filled with twists and turns, valleys and peaks.
According to Luna, her already petite frame had shrunk over the years, but her voice was still crisp and clear, like someone who’d had to speak up for most of her life.
That night, she reminded little Luna about some of her stories: how, even in her young days, Nani’s face had been too dark and her hair too wiry to be considered beautiful by some. But she didn’t care – never did. It hadn’t stopped her from marrying the most “bad fuh days” canecutter in all of Demerara-Mahaica. And when he died, instead of staying near 218the fields that had sapped his strength and the people offering her their pity, she had picked up and left. She looked for a place where she could find some peace and found herself in St. Jude village, up the Essequibo River, teaching children to dance.
Then, one night, when she was still new to the place, a shrouded woman passed through the village and left baby Luna on her doorstep. Despite her age Nani didn’t hesitate. Life had seen that she still had love to give.
Of course, the neighbours had questions galore. But she carried herself in a way that made most people in the village think twice about crossing her openly.
“I say let dey talk,” Nani reminded young Luna with a razor-sharp grin, “Monkey know which limb to jump ‘pon.”
“But I too old to run now beti,” Nani admitted, “and I cyah keep you safe here.”
“You not coming with me?” little Luna asked, her voice shaking.
Nani shook her head. “It have time fi fight and time fi run. This is what you have to do.”
Luna’s chin dropped next to me as, in the memory 219in front of us, her grandmother shaved off her childhood hair, dressed her in boys’ clothes, and gave her all of the money and gifts she had.
Nani grinned through the water filling her eyes, gold teeth flashing in the lamplight. “Gi them hell pickney. Gi them hell.”
Luna turned to me in the light of her memory.
“So, I made my way to the coast and stowed away on a tanker to Trinidad. Someone on the ship must have seen me though, because when I landed in Port of Spain at night and tried to sneak away, Old Man Yancy was right there waiting. He gave me a choice between the police, going back to the village and their plan for my life, or going to a place with other children like me, where I could learn to control my powers. I didn’t know anything about the Council then, so I went with him.”
Luna looked at me with a mix of sadness, betrayal, and rage.
“Old Yancy took me to Dragon Mouth Island that same night. And that’s where I’ve been ever since.”
Once more, Luna took in the golden memory of her Nani standing before us, giving away her most valued possessions in exchange for her granddaughter’s 220freedom.
“I know which words I need,” Luna said to me firmly. “Let’s go.”
In a second, we were back in the stadium, surrounded by the jeers and noise of the trash-machines. Luna was still sound asleep, chained to the smelly column. Nervously, I whispered the words she’d told me to say.
A thin needle came out of the band on her wrist and jabbed her lightly in the arm.
She jolted awake and wasted no time.
“Nani Rima!” Luna said loudly.
Her wristband detached from the column. She was free.
I nodded … a new understanding between us …
Then we spun around to look for Adri.