ONECLEMENT
Everyone I love either dies or deserts me, and not even magic can do a gotdamned thing about it.
Magic also can’t get rid of the strikingly beautiful boy lying next to me, who turned me all the way off late last night with his “hot take” that magic is a tool created by white people to enslave and distract Black folks. For weeks, I nearly went broke and developed a caffeine addiction, trying to get Nate’s attention at the Bean. Now I wish I’d just drunk my lattes and minded my business.
Nate rolls over and grins at me. “Good morning, my Black king.”
“Morning.” I give him the smile he’s expecting. Maybe it’s best he turned out like all the others. Otherwise, I’d just lose him, too.
He props up on one elbow, eyes bright like he’s been awake for hours. “Our talk last night sent my mind racing, you know? And then I had this dream—”
“I’m so sorry, Nate, but I have a really important appointment this morning, and I’m already super late. I forgot to tell you last night, and I felt bad waking you early, so, umm…”
His face falls, and he sits up. “Oh, okay then. Sorry.”
Kicking him out makes me feel like a royal ass, but today’s the day we find out if fate’s going to take its foot off our family’s neck or if I’m going to lose Mama, too. Nate will be okay. I might not.
He slides out of bed and bends over to pick up his shorts. He catches me watching his perfectly peach-shaped butt and grins. “If you, uh, change your mind—”
“Sorry, but no.” I get out of bed and pull on a pair of basketball shorts.
He shrugs one shoulder and throws open the curtains. Blazing sunlight bounds through the window, and he throws his arms back dramatically like it revitalizes him.
Mama said the people who first owned our estate loved sunrises, so they built all the bedrooms facing east. I fucking hate sunrises. I also pity people who’re afraid of the dark. The magical quiet of night has always been my sanctuary. Besides, my monsters tend to prowl in broad daylight.
“No worries,” Nate says. “I don’t want to leave you, my king, but absence makes the heart grow fonder,” he recites as he clears the space between us, arms out for an embrace.
I flinch out of his reach and laugh as I throw on a shirt. “Do you have any idea who you just quoted?”
Before he can answer, someone knocks hard on my door. I’m glad for the interruption, but not the person behind it. She bangs again.
“Clem!”
I yank the door open and lean against the jamb, crossing my arms over my chest. “And to what do I owe the displeasure of this early-morning intrusion, my good sister?”
Cris peers past me at Nate, who’s collecting his things—very slowly—and frowns when I slide into her line of vision. It’s barely eight o’clock, and already her dark curls are brushed back into a ponytail and she’s dressed in some cutoff jeans and a tank. And she’s done her full-on skin-care routine, judging by the way her tawny skin glows in the morning light. My sister, ever the overachiever, even on summer break.
“What do you want?” We both know what today is, and I’m in no mood for her shit this morning. At times, I resent her for being able to hold on to hope when it slips through my fingers.
Hope is for white people and idiots—like you.
I squeeze my eyes closed. I’ve wondered more than once if the gods cursed me with anxiety, which turned my subconscious into an internal frenemy who loves to remind me I deserve this pain.
“You missed breakfast,” Cris says.
I roll my eyes. “Y’all wake up before God.”
“You know Mama needs to eat before her doctor’s appointment; but I see, as usual, you have other priorities.” She cuts her eyes at Nate, who’s fallen still behind me.
Before I can rebut, her bedroom door opens and her boyfriend, Oz, saunters into the hallway, grinning at her like some corny white guy from a low-budget romance movie.
I cut my eyes back to her. “You usually shoo him out before you show up at my door to cast stones. You’re getting sloppy, sis.”
Cris glowers like she wants to cross me. It’s the same look she gave her ex-bestie before crossing her in front of the entire school last spring. I narrow my eyes, daring her. But we both know she’d never do it. And I don’t care if that’s “mean.” Nothing I’ve done compares to how she hurt me. And what’s even more fucked up is she’s my twin sister, the only person I thought never would.
“Morning, Clem,” Oz says, hugging Cris from behind.
“I told you I’d be right back,” she says under her breath, which he kisses away.
Watching that redheaded jerk press his lips onto the side of my sister’s face makes me want to vomit on them both.
Oz, clinging to Cris’s waist, nods at Nate behind me. “Who’s this?”
“None of your damn business,” I say.
Cris huffs. “Clem, really?”
I turn to Nate. “You ready?”
He shakes his head at Oz and dips between us. “Text you later.”
Oz steps from behind Cris and leans one hand on the wall, like we’re old friends or some shit. And I wish he’d stop putting his hands all over everything and everyone as if it all belongs to him. His hazel eyes are level with mine and his face has reddened, camouflaging some of the freckles draped across his nose and upper cheeks.
“Listen, my guy,” he says, “I really don’t understand why you don’t like m—”
“I’ll be down in a second,” I tell Cris before closing the door on whatever fucked-up tête-à-tête her clown of a boyfriend thought we were about to have.
I’m sick of trying to get Cris to wisen up about him. She thinks I hate Oz because he’s white, but I actually hate him because he’s an opportunistic sleaze who just so happens to be white. Mama told me to always trust my gut with magic and people—and Oz is walking ipecac.
I wait a moment and press my ear to the door, catching the tail end of Cris whisper-shouting something inaudible at him followed by the thumps of their footfalls headed downstairs.
I pull down a large plastic container from the top shelf of my closet and set it on my desk. I remove the lid and get smacked by the powerful and comforting aroma of cinnamon coming from the mixture of luck oil inside, which I made from bayou water, cinnamon, and patchouli. Submerged in the luck oil is a brand-new midnight-blue candle. It’s been soaking for thirteen days, in preparation for a conjuring ritual I want to perform for Mama this morning.
Despite my dwindling hope, I still pray to Papa Eshu every day to ask him not to take her away from us. I’m not sure if my prayers have made it outside of this bedroom, much less to the spiritual realm, but I can’t give up. I can’t lose anyone else.
I’m trying a luck spell because healing spells are too hard. Normally, I’d ask Cris for help, but since she’s given up magic for whatever ridiculous reason, I’m on my own. The last (and only) time I tried healing magic was three years ago. I attempted to mend a small bruise on my cheek I’d gotten from running into a door, but instead, I ended up conjuring a black eye and the bubble guts like I’d never experienced before. Cris mixed some healing powders with blessed water for my eye but said I’d have to let the stomach thing pass on its own and prescribed ginger ale and saltines in the interim.
And since I’m not trying to accidentally murder Mama (or give her the shits), I’ll stick with what I’m sure I can do, which is this “fast luck” spell. I’ve never conjured one before, but the instructions seemed easy enough. Make the luck oil, soak a blue candle in it for thirteen days, and on the thirteenth day, carve your intent on the side of the candle with a blessed blade. Light the candle and say a prayer to Mami Karu, the gen goddess of fortune. Maybe if I do all that, she’ll bless our family with good news from Mama’s test results today.
It’s been nearly three weeks since her last appointment. Her doctor had drawn so many vials of her blood, I was worried she was gonna prune. Today we might find out what’s making her so sick.
Last weekend, I blessed Dad’s old pocketknife—the one with the initials of Dad’s dad, who I never got to meet.
The blessing was an easy ritual, only requiring blessed water and a sincere prayer to the ancestors under the light of the Moon. I remember tossing the knife onto the mess on my desk afterward. I sift through the books, papers, and random shit there now, but the knife’s gone. I check the drawers, under the bed, the pockets of the clothes strewn across the floor, and everywhere else it could possibly be. But it’s nowhere to be found.
I take a deep breath and go down the hall to Mama’s bedroom. My heartbeat reverberates all the way to my feet. I can’t have lost Dad’s knife. Not today.
When I knock on the door, Mama calls softly for me to come inside. She lies in the middle of the four-poster, sunken into the plush bedding that seems as if it’s devouring her whole. I wish I could take her hands and pull her out, drag her safely back to who she used to be before she got sick.
Her hair hides beneath a scarf, tied into a knot on the side of her head, and her tired eyes glisten when they fall on me. “Morning, baby.”
“Hey, Mama,” I mutter, nearly choking on the words. “How are you feeling?”
She pushes herself up and smiles. “As best as can be expected. Every day I get is a blessing.” She reaches for me, and I sit on the bed and lean in so she can plant a kiss on the bridge of my nose.
Her sickness was sudden. One day she was fine, and the next, Death lingered at her bedside. Even now, the thickest shadows in the farthest corners of her room seem to harbor dark omens.
“Did I leave Dad’s knife in here when we were reading yesterday?”
That’s always been our thing—reading in bed together, her with her romance or thriller, and me with whatever interests me, genre be damned. It’s one of the few things that hasn’t changed since Dad died and she got sick. I cherish those times with her, though when each comes to a close, I remember that’s one less from so few we have left. Making more memories with her is only investing in my inevitable loss.
She frowns and takes a quick glance around the room. “Not that I’ve seen. I’m sure it’s around here somewhere, unless you took it outside of this house, which would mean you and I are going to have a very serious issue—”
“I haven’t. I swear.” Lying is easier than upsetting Mama right now.
Dad’s knife is the last part of him I have left. I do what I need to do to be okay.
She purses her lips and narrows her eyes at me for a moment before her expression softens. “Ask your sister. She’s like Kathy Bates in Misery, so she probably can tell you its last whereabouts.”
We share a small laugh that ends on a sting in the pit of my stomach.
I stand up to go, but Mama grabs my hand.
“Hey,” she says gently. “Don’t worry about me.”
I hate when people say “don’t worry,” like worry is some trinket I can leave home.
“My heart is already heavy with the burden this has put on you and your sister,” she says. “No matter what those test results say today, everything is going to be okay—I promise.”
I don’t hide my grimace. “Please don’t promise things you have no control over.”
She doesn’t say anything to stop me when I turn to leave or when I close the door gingerly behind me.
I find Cris downstairs in the kitchen, glowering at the brewing coffeepot on the counter like she wants to uppercut it.
“You seen Dad’s knife?” I try to steady my voice, but my chest tightens. Dr. Thomas will be here soon. I’m running out of time.
She shakes her head. “Where’d you last have it?”
“My room—where it always is.”
She turns back to the coffeepot. “Maybe one of the randos you let sleep over stole it.”
“Or how about I ask your skeez of a boyfriend?”
I don’t understand why Cris is so judgmental. Not everyone can catch every single curveball life throws like she can. The rest of us are very, very far from perfect.
“I’m not arguing with you today,” she says coldly.
“I don’t want to fight either. I just need to find Dad’s knife. It’s important.”
She spins around, scowling. “Why, Clem? Why do you need that knife right this particular moment when we have other, more important, stuff to worry about?”
“I’m conjuring a luck spell for Mama.”
She shakes her head at me. “Why are you still bothering with the gods and magic when you pray to Papa Eshu every day and he still hasn’t bothered to answer?”
I try to ignore the dark feeling that rears up inside me. I’ve often wondered the same.
Copyright © 2023 by Terry J. Benton-Walker
