Page 71 of Tangled at the Root
“Hey.” Her mouth tilts up in the corner. “Good day?”
“Yes.” I beam. “Chidinma finally asked me, by the way.”
“Oh yeah? You see what I said, abi?”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re always right; whatever.”
“Iamalways right,” Genevieve says, shoving her face into my neck and snuffling.
I giggle helplessly. She nips at my throat and I giggle again, shivering when the slightly sharp sting tells me her teeth are more pointed than normal. I’m about to inquire about her own day when I notice she’s gone completely still. Around us, the garden and the surrounding forest have gone deathly silent.
It’s a Pavlovian response at this point, the way my heart leaps into my throat and my stomach dips, then clenches.
She scrapes sharp claws down my back. I make an embarrassing noise, arching helplessly as they tear easily through my dress, leaving thin, stinging cuts in their wake.
“Do you think,” she begins, her voice a low growl, “if I tried hard enough this time, I could finally get you pregnant?”
Jesus Christ.
I pull back, slowly, stretching the moment out, my pulse thudding with lust and fear and excitement.
Her eyes are entirely black.
She grins, revealing two rows of sharpened, animal teeth.
“Run.”
I hiss in a soft breath, then I’m scrambling off her lap and darting toward the back gates, which swing noiselessly open at my approach.
My cheeks hurt with how hard and wide I’m grinning. I leap over roots and branches and rocks, using the eshé to simultaneously boost my movements as well as hide them.
I don’t look behind me, even though every snap of a twig, every crunch of a dry leaf has me biting back frightened gasps.
It doesn’t matter how fast or how far I run, though; I know Genevieve is always going to catch me.
Rosemary always grows quiet and withdrawn whenever we visit Maraya Forest. I don’t intrude on her silence, knowing its what she needs.
The trees we’d planted when we’d buried her father and mother respectively have fully matured, towering as tall as the rest of the forest around it, the only evidence of their ages in their barks and roots.
We stand solemnly before them, both of us dressed in dark green. Rosemary has said her little greeting, and we’ve left our offerings. Sometimes, we perform a proper ceremony to celebrate and remember them like we do for Rosemary’s other oerhwu ancestors, but I’d been able to tell, from the moment we’d woken up, that this was going to be one of the more sombre visits.
I still remember the last time her mother had come to see us; Christ, that had been what? A little over thirty years ago? Rosemary had hated her visits, especially toward the end there, though she’d never said nor done anything to indicate it.
Dominique Oronariode had still been strong and spry for someone nearly a hundred, but every single one of those years had shown on her face and her frame. She’d clung heavily to a walking stick—a fancy, polished wooden thing I know must’vebeen carved from one of the trees in this very forest, just like the beads at the end of Rosemary’s braids, and the new bangles circling her wrists.
Aunty Dominique’s limbs had trembled when she stood for too long. Living with an oerhwu had made me more sensitive to the eshé, which meant I’d felt it every time she’d pulled at the current to keep herself upright, even when the effort left her panting, her heart beating hard. Rosemary had obviously felt it, too.
That final time, as she’d always done, Aunty Dominique had attempted to go to the back of the house, first thing, to pay her respects to her oerhwu ancestor.
The walls of the house had vibrated, attempting to part to let her through. The house had only just been coming back to life, but slowly, it’s new eshé a combination of the spiritual current already seeped in from my ancestors over the years, along with Rosemary’s and I’s steady, lingering presence.
Aunty Dominique kissed her teeth, whacking the end of her walking stick on the floor.
“Ey. Did I ask for your help?”
“Mummy,” Rosemary complained.
Her mother scoffed. “I’m not an invalid. Help me take my things upstairs while I visit your great-aunt.” My lips twitched. “I saw that.” I flattened my expression.
