By the time the train circled the Loop on the elevated tracks downtown, Papa had started to feel better. He gave me a big smile as he stood up and stretched his back. I stood up too, resting my staff on my sneaker instead of the sticky floor. Like always, the train smelled worse than an old, dirty shoe.
Papa stepped close to the sliding double doors. We still had plenty of stops before we got to Ashland Avenue, then we’d have to take a bus home. I could feel the static in the air as his magic spread like a fine mist around us. He was bending space on the train in the middle of rush hour. I nodded my approval—breaking the rules of physics was much faster than taking a train—but I wished that I could do it for him so he could rest. Real Talk: Papa did not come to play.
Almost everyone on our car was looking at their phones, but no one would notice us. Here was the thing about magic: most people wouldn’t see it even if it smacked them right on the forehead. The key word being most. Some humans could perceive magic, so we still had to be careful. I found out at the beginning of summer that you couldn’t even catch it on camera.
“The next stop is Roosevelt,” the train’s recorded voice announced. “Doors open on the left at Roosevelt.”
The space in front of us shifted. It was subtle at first, like a cool breeze against our faces, but everything looked the same. When Papa was trapped in the Dark, the Lord of Shadows had stopped him from connecting to the veil to return home. He could fight to keep himself alive there, but he couldn’t open a gateway or create a portal.
According to Papa, bending space across great distances could damage the universe. You make one mistake, and boom, you’ve wiped out a moon or a whole solar system. That was why gateways were much less risky for traveling across worlds or dimensions. They created a temporary bridge without changing the fabric of the universe. But for short distances, he said it was more convenient to create a portal by bending two points in space. Before I understood the difference, I used to think that gateways and portals were the same. I was still learning so much and having a hard time keeping up.
“We can’t have you late for school,” Papa said as the train’s double doors slid open at Roosevelt. A man moved to exit, but he walked to the other set of doors, ignoring the ones that Papa had commandeered for his portal. The people on the platform waiting to board frowned at the open doors and did the same. This was wacky. To everyone else, the doors were out of service.
“How do you make the outside of your portals an illusion like that without even trying hard?” I asked.
When we passed through the doors, the train and platform faded away. I had to blink a few times to wrap my head around it. Here was the other difference between gateways and portals. When Papa or I built a gateway, it always had god symbols to connect two places together. My gateways were giant black holes on the outside and a bridge of spinning god symbols on the inside. Papa’s gateways looked different every single time. He made a gateway once that reminded me of one of those moving walkways at the airport. Another time, we floated across an ocean on hoverboards shimmering with god symbols. Portals might’ve been faster than gateways, but they were also far less fun. When Papa bent space to create a portal, there was no bridge and no travel time.
“How do you know that I wasn’t trying hard?” Papa asked as we stepped from the train platform onto the sidewalk on Ashland Avenue. I jolted forward from the force of the portal, which felt a little like being stuffed into a giant slingshot and propelled through space. The trip had taken a few seconds.
“You make it look so easy,” I said as a woman startled next to us. She clutched her purse tighter and rushed away, glancing over her shoulder the whole time. From the way the woman ran off in terror, I had an idea of what she was thinking. She saw a Black guy with long locs and likely thought he was going to snatch her purse. I shook my head and rolled my eyes.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t heard my neighbor LJ complain about it all the time. Anime-loving, master gamer, LJ. He was tall, Black, and what Mama called stocky. Never been in trouble a day in his life, according to her. People would switch sidewalks to avoid him. If they were walking a dog, they’d make sure to put it between them and him. Mama said that a lot of people judged others based on stereotypes portrayed in the media. Think of it this way, she’d said. If you always see rabbits on TV eating carrots, then you’ll think that all rabbits eat is carrots. Imagine when the stereotype is more harmful and the damage it could do.
“You should know by now, Maya, that things aren’t always what they appear,” Papa said, distracting my thoughts. “It takes great effort to bend space in two exact points to reach the desired destination. It took me a millennium to learn how to do it without causing an undesirable outcome.” Papa frowned as he squeezed his staff. He had a pained look in his eyes like he was thinking about the past. “We can’t afford to make mistakes . . . not like the one I made with the darkbringers. Not a day goes by that I don’t regret it.”
I couldn’t imagine what it would mean for me to make a mistake that big. For now, I wasn’t messing around with bending space.
“Why didn’t you take us straight home?” I said, quirking an eyebrow.
“Earlier, you asked if something was wrong with me,” Papa said. He leaned his weight on his staff as we walked down the sidewalk toward the corner store. “I told you before no more secrets between us, so I thought we should make a quick stop. We still have a little time before school starts.” Papa let out a frustrated breath. “Truth is, baby girl, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but Eshu might. He’s got a unique ability to suss out ailments.”
Eshu, the orisha of balance, sat on a red plastic crate in front of the corner store, playing his harmonica. He blew out a down-on-your-luck tune. You know the kind. A song that made you want to turn out your pockets to show the bully demanding your lunch money how broke you were.
The orisha tapped his foot along with the beat, and I couldn’t see his harmonica lost in his brushy white beard. When Papa and I reached him, Eshu or I should say Ernest, which was his human disguise, stopped playing. His dark eyes glistened with flames that I was pretty sure no one else around saw.
Eshu frowned at Papa. “You don’t look well, Eddy.”
“I don’t feel myself,” Papa said, wiping sweat from his forehead.
“Your equilibrium is off.” Eshu squinted at him. “That much I can see.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, speaking out of turn.
“Hello to you too, young guardian,” Eshu said like he was just noticing me standing there. He flashed a smile, and his eyes were smothered embers in pits of ashes. “Everything in the universe has equilibrium. Light and dark, matter and antimatter. Every creation, whether mortal or immortal.”
Eshu had been the one to balance the veil so both the Dark and the human world could thrive. “Can’t you fix Papa?”
“Maya,” Papa warned, and I ducked my head.
“No, she’s right, Eddy,” Eshu said, rubbing his chin. “I should be able to sense why your equilibrium is off, but I can’t. That has never happened before.”
“The Lord of Shadows drained some of my powers, old friend,” Papa said, brushing off Eshu’s concern. “It’s just taking longer for me to heal.”
I thought about how the Lord of Shadows’ writhing ribbons had hung Papa upside down in the Dark. His skin had turned gray, and then the Lord of Shadows tossed Papa aside like he was a broken toy. I swallowed hard and clenched my teeth. Next time I faced him, I’d be ready.
“Have you considered going to see Obatala in Azur?” Eshu asked. “He is the oldest among us and the wisest. He will be able to see what’s wrong with you.”
I had thought the mythical city in the clouds wasn’t real. Papa used to tell me that people in Azur ate ice cream for breakfast and commuted to work on dragons. That Obatala, the orisha who helped create the darkbringers, lived there was a shock too. How could he be up there while the veil was failing here?
“I have . . .” Papa mumbled.
“And there’s still the matter of the veil,” Eshu said, almost apologetically.
I bit my tongue. If I were better at closing the tears on my own, Papa wouldn’t have to work so hard. He could rest and get his full strength back.
“I can’t figure out how the Lord of Shadows is causing the tears,” Papa said. “For now, we’re lucky he still can’t cross into the human world, but the veil won’t last much longer if he keeps damaging it.” Papa pitched his voice low and grumbled under his breath. “If only I could create a new one, then we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
I glanced down at my sneakers, feeling sorry for Papa. He’d given up a part of himself to create the veil and a parallel world on earth. It wasn’t something you could do every day, or even twice in an endless lifetime.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Eshu said. “You’ve done everything that you could to protect this world. It was inevitable that the Lord of Shadows would find a way to start another war. What I don’t understand is why he hasn’t sent more darkbringers who can cross into our world. What’s he waiting for?”
“He’s got something bigger up his sleeve,” Papa answered with no doubt in his voice. “He’s lost against us twice and doesn’t intend to lose again.”
“The more reason for you to get healthy, brother,” Eshu said. “We need you if things get worse. Go see Obatala.”
When we left Eshu, I worked up my nerves to ask, “Can I come to Azur with you?”
“Yes.” Papa nodded. “It’s important as the guardian in training . . .” He paused, nudging my chin. “It’s important as my daughter and the guardian in training that you know what’s going on in case . . .” His voice cracked and trailed off.
“In case what?” I asked, a chill running down my back.
“Never mind that right now,” Papa said. “Let’s see what Sky Father says before we start speculating what might happen.”
“When do we leave?” I asked excitedly.
“Tomorrow morning bright and early,” Papa answered, still leaning on his staff.
I wasn’t sure if that meant I’d have to miss school, but I decided not to ask in case he changed his mind. Papa getting better was way more important than the second day of school anyway.
“I need to rest and talk to Mama first,” Papa said. “I’ll ask Nana if Eli can go, and talk to Pam and Dee about Frankie coming, too. Best if you three stick together.”
When we walked into the house, Mama was stirring in the kitchen, and the smell of bacon and eggs filled the air. She’d been asleep when Papa and I left to fix the veil. If it weren’t the first day of school, she’d have been in bed until noon. Mama was still on the night shift at Stroger Hospital.
“Morning, Mama,” I said as she walked into the living room with an apron over her red-and-white polka-dot pajamas. “You’re up early.”
“I could say the same for you.” Mama gave Papa the Look (trademark)—the one that said they would have something to talk about later. “Now that school’s started again, it’s back to your regular schedule, okay? No more chasing tears at all hours of the night. You can help your father after school once your math tutoring and homework’s done.”
“But I’m never done with homework until dinnertime,” I said, annoyed. “I won’t have time to help Papa.”
“I’m sure you two will find a way to make it work,” Mama said. “Now, hurry up before you’re late for school.”
If we didn’t keep patching up the veil, there wouldn’t be any school. The darkbringers would destroy it along with everyone else. It wasn’t like Mama didn’t know that, but she liked to remind me that being a godling didn’t exempt me from the rules.
“Maya, honey,” Mama called after me as I ran upstairs to get ready. “Ms. Vanderbilt sent me an email this morning to remind you not to forget to turn in your math workbook today.”
I froze at the top of the stairs. The same workbook that I hadn’t finished yet. The one that had a dozen sketches of the warrior goddess Oya in the margins. It was only the first day of school, and my math teacher was already on my case. Typical.