Page 53 of Tangled at the Root
It’s raining heavily, the usually welcome sound too loud and jarring in my ears. I’m outside somewhere, lying on cold, hard ground with leaves and rocks and other debris. Above me is an unfamiliar domed ceiling packed with cobwebs, sheltering me from most of the downpour. For a moment, I’m confused, certain I’m still dreaming.
I sit up slowly. I’m in my nightgown, my feet bare. My body is covered in a sheen of moisture, the mist of rainfall I’ve been unable to avoid due to my current shelter’s lack of walls. I look around, and suck in a sharp breath.
I’m inside a gazebo. I glance frantically to my right.
The house sits innocently in the gloom, slightly blurry in the rain and without my glasses. All the windows are dark, the lights off. Shakily, I get to my feet. A glance toward my left shows me the back gates to the compound.
I squint, but the vision doesn’t change.
The gate is wide open.
I don’t move. But I know, if I leave right now, if I attempt to walk out of those gates, whatever juju had been keeping me bound would let me. Thanks in part to my ancestor, nothing is holding me here any longer.
ButGenevieve.
There’s no dagbato. There’s no deal with a demon somewhere. There never had been. If my ancestor is to be believed, and I do believe her, there’s only ever been her.
For generations. They’d eaten her heart forgenerations. The evidence is in … Genevieve. She, her mother, and her grandmother are literally wearing my ancestor’sface, her form stolen from her via her heart; another stark, piercing reminder of what Genevieve is.
The oerhwu from my mother’s story had been real, but she’d never had her happy ending like I’d hoped. The “Chief”—Genevieve’sancestors, I forcefully remind myself—had won. Myother ancestors had really up and run, had up andlefther, either believing she was truly dead or a lost cause.
It—the one you call “Genevieve”—has fed twice already from me.
What did you do when you were twenty?I’d asked, and Genevieve had said,I don’t remember.
Had she been telling the truth? How can she not remember? She’d left school on Friday, a few days after her twentieth, and had come back Sunday. Granted, she’d been behaving a little weird when she’d returned, unusually reserved and tight-lipped, but I hadn’t pushed. Ineverpushed, I think bitterly, not even when it would have mattered.
What had happened when she’d been ten? The thought makes me feel ill. My ancestor’s voice emotionlessly reminds me that she’s not human, that I can’t think of her in the context of a human child, but I can’t help it.
It’s a family thing, she’d said as she’d been preparing to go off to her grandmother’s.
Oh God. I feel sick.
I need to calm down. I pace around the perimeter of the gazebo, trying to control my breathing. Fuck, the rain is too fucking loud. I jump when lightning flashes, and jump again at the answering rumble of thunder.
Every time I glance at the house, my heart skips a shuddery beat. Is Genevieve still in there? Is she watching me panic right now? Trying to come up with a way to stop me? Keep me here for her and her future offspring to use and feed on?
Stop. Stop it.
I begin to hum, a song my mother used to sing every time she made my hair. I’d sit between her legs, her fingers loving and gentle as she combed, always from the tips, never from the roots to prevent breakage in case of any tangles.
Am I offering myself to Genevieve out of some misplaced sense of duty? Am I so desperate for my gift tomeansomething—so desperate to simply haveher—that I’d let her take advantage of me?
Isshe taking advantage of me?
I think of how, for our entire friendship, I’d never really trusted her. I’d told myself it wasn’tabouttrust, that it was about society and my fear and trauma and everything else.
But when it came down to it, I simply hadn’t trusted her.Wehadn’t trusted each other, both too entrenched in fear, assuming our secrets were too big to share, our worlds too different—toodelicateto collide without them permanently shattering.
Even now, I still harbour a bit of fear. It’s why I’m yet to tell her my last and final secret, the downside to my gift. How its possible that generations of legbajus have been feeding on the same, single oerhwu for decades.
I’ve never said the words. I’ve never directly eventhoughtthem. Even when my mother had confirmed it, she’d alluded to it in Ibiiom, in metaphors. I’m so afraid if I say it out loud for the first time to Genevieve,I’llbe the one to leave her behind this time, convinced I’ll be saving myself the future inevitable heartbreak. The last ten years might’ve been empty, devoid of light and life, but they’d also been devoid of this—the angst strangling my chest, shortening my breath.
To truly live is tofeel. I’m feeling so much, every nerve ending sensitive and raw. I want to crawl back to safety, to numbness.
I press a fist to my chest, heat burning behind my eyes. It hurts, it hurts. Loneliness and grief swell, threatening to drown me. I refuse to let them.
I stop pacing and open my eyes.
