Chin up, I pretend the dull ache in my chest isn’t there. Lines riddle Tash’s forehead.
The paper, look at the wrapping paper.
She rips the side open, then stops. She brings it closer to her face and tiny craters dent her cheeks. She holds the package there, staring, smiling. A priceless smile, worth every bit of trouble I could get into for this. I wasn’t sure what to wrap it with. They don’t exactly have a mini-mart with wrapping paper where I’m living. They’d probably magic some shit together, but I don’t know those spells yet. So I took pages from Moms’s old journal and wrapped the box, like an extra gift in addition to what’s inside.
Tasha peers closer at the paper and gasps. Moms’s words, she’s reading them. Her fingertips find the corners of her eyes. I stay on her six as she walks with quick steps toward her bus stop, opening the package. I can’t see her face. I wanna see that big-ass grin when she actually opens it up.
We round the corner, head down Fischer Street and turn into Moms’s complex. A square block of row-style brown brick apartments with a basketball court in the center. My old spot. The janky-ass hoop still hangs there with a piece of plywood for a backboard. The smell of bay leaves, onions, and garlic curl my toes. Somebody’s grandma is cooking gumbo. I haven’t set foot in my old stomping grounds since I left. Seeing the backside from across the street wasn’t easy. But walking into my neighborhood is… hard.
The block’s lit like it’s a Saturday night. People are everywhere, spilling out of their homes. Moms’s old door is still coated in chipped green paint. The number nine dangles there like it always did, perpetrating as a six. My fingers twitch to fix it out of habit. Tufts of weeds peek through cracks on the stoop where I spent summers drinking Kool-Cups, gossiping with my girls, hollering at dudes.
I walk along the shade. Tasha’s digging into the box now. The playground swings shuffle in the wind, creaking. They’re like a clock, reminding me I shouldn’t be here.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
Maybe a little closer. Just a little.
I stroll down a broken concrete path alongside the swing set, carefully cloaked in darkness, but closer to her now. She cracks a smile and I’m warm all over.
She rounds a corner up ahead and I follow as a pair of six-foot-two somethings walk by. Baggy jeans, another face I don’t know, says, “What’s up.” I do the same. Their bling dangles and clinks above zip-ups and long sleeves. It’s not cold enough for all that. Like most winters in Houston, it’s muggy as hell.
My watch vibrates. Another message. Ignored.
Just a few more minutes. A chance to see her face light up at what’s inside that box. Something to let her know that today of all days, I am still thinking of her.
Around the corner is Tasha’s school bus stop. Six-nineteen. On time. She rips off the last piece of paper and pulls out a golden trinket from inside the box.
It was a little pendant Moms gave me. The last thing I had from her. She put the heart-shaped pendant in my hand three weeks before she died. Told me she worked a double shift for months to afford it. That didn’t mean I needed to feel bad, she’d said. Just that my ass better not lose it because she can’t afford another one. Tash used to ask me to play with it. I wouldn’t even let her breathe on it. Now it’s hers. I’m the oldest, which means I have to be the strongest. She needs it more than me.
My watch pings. I swipe right. A new message and all the ignored older ones scroll up the screen.
Bri: You okay?
Bri: It’s been a long time. I’m getting worried.
Bri: Rue?
An old-school Cadillac with a rattling trunk steals my attention as its shiny chrome wheels slide to a stop. His black-tinted windows crack and kids at the bus stop rush over. Two kids about Tasha’s age hop out. Nosey, like Moms always said I was, I crane my neck trying to see.
Tasha looks in my direction. Like, dead at me. I can’t move. Does she see me? Shit. Shit. Shit. She waves at me, but she’s looking past me. I spin on my heels. Some dude’s hanging out a car across the intersection, waving back at her.
I exhale.
“Aye, yo, T,” he yells. The dude’s white button-up is tucked neatly into a pair of faded jeans. His face—do I know him?
“Sup!” Even her voice sounds older. She puts the heart-shaped pendant in her pocket and jets his way. I squint, hunching beside a dumpster. Who is this dude? And why the hell is whatever he wants so damn important she has to leave her stop to cross the street to come to him. You want something, you come here. My sister won’t be running after no one.
She looks both ways and he does too, beckoning her closer. She’s all smiles. Her bus. She’s going to miss her bus. Uneasiness coils in my gut.
She knows this dude. And by the way she’s grinning, she knows him well. I’m on my feet, keeping her in my sights. I don’t like this. She darts across the first half of the street as the sound of a horn zips by.
“Hurry up, girl,” he says with a smile, his pasty skin reflecting the morning sun.
“Aye, wait up,” she answers. “I’m coming.”
Coming where? Where the hell we going? I need to be closer. I’m not feeling this, any of this. Not with my sister. Not while I’m here. I creep so close, the scent of her vanilla hair puddin’ swirls in my nose. I’m so close. So very close. If she turns around she will see me. Then what?
As she checks both ways again, tires peel out in the distance. Burnt rubber stings my nostrils. The dude’s now in his Impala—dark blue with glistening wheels. My heart won’t slow and I no longer expect it to. Tasha dips across the rest of the intersection and hops in his passenger seat. He pulls off the curb and she turns my way.
Our eyes lock.
She sees me.
SHIT!
I’m no expert on the ins and outs of Ghizon—the magic world—but one thing I know for sure: Magic folks, like these Laws here, do not like broken rules. What does a slap on the wrist even look like there?
Tash knowing I’m here is a problem. A big-ass problem.
Her mouth is hanging wide open in utter shock. She grabs the dude’s shoulder to slow down. He throws me a glance, black ink peeking at me from the collar of his shirt. His eyes burn into mine and he doesn’t smile… doesn’t stop… just slows, approaching a yellow light. My excitement shatters.
Tires screech far off in the distance. The tatted driver runs the red and keeps rolling across the intersection… staring at me instead of the road. A white sedan dents my peripheral, racing toward them. The skin on my back bristles like icy hot knives.
Th-they’re going to get hit.
The sedan driver’s eyes bulge as he slams on the brakes.
No. No. No.
Rubber screams and skids against pavement. My magic. I close the distance between us and raise my hands, fingers spread wide. I tug all my focus to the center of my wrists. Energy like heat rushes through me, pooling in the balls of onyx glowing at my wrists. Waiting, ready.
The time spell. The damn words. What are the damn words?
“Tind na yo wevee.” Magic rips from my hands like branches, blinding and hot.
Everything stills.
Time stops.
The nose of the white car is frozen in motion, kissing the passenger side door—Tasha’s door. The face of the guy driving the white car is scrunched in pain, frozen and unmoving. Tasha’s arms are all I see, stilled in a wave. The entire scene is frozen like figures of glass, pupils dilated with fear. Wind whips around us feverishly.