moves in here, I am going to kill her,” she said pointing her finger and squinting her eyes.
“Relax, Mija, let me talk to her.” Nico said.
I was a nervous wreck. I didn’t realize that I had done something wrong. I didn’t
mean to walk in on Blazen, and I didn’t even want to know what was going on in that
other room. I just didn’t want to exist. What was the use? I wasn’t wanted anywhere.
Nico could see the pain in my eyes. He grabbed my hand and led me to another room.“Mija. What’s wrong? You don’t like it here?” he said.
I lowered my head and focused on my feet. I couldn’t explain the emotions that were
running through me. I wanted to ask him a million questions. What was going on in that
room? What was Ali doing working for him? Are all the stories that I’ve heard about him
true? And, are you really my daddy? Now was the time, I told myself. But I couldn’t do
it. I just shook my head in frustration.
“Why, because of Blazen?” he asked.
I couldn’t look at him. I crossed my arms over my chest and focused on the ground.“You miss your momma?” he said.
My head shot up. I looked into his eyes for the first time. They were bloodshot red,
with black dancing pupils. A small voice began to prattle in my head. His soul is on fire.
He leaned in closer and then whispered in my ear like he was sharing a dirty little secret.“Do you believe in dreams?” he asked.
I didn’t answer. It was an odd question that I really didn’t know how to answer. My
mouth filled up with saliva and my stomach felt like I had just swallowed a cup of castor
oil. I felt vulnerable, cheap, exposed, as if I had just let a pedophile get a few cheap feels
for a bag of candy. I wanted him to stop looking at me. To stop asking me questions. I
started to itch all over, like there was an army of ants crawling on my skin.I winced as one of the imaginary ants bit into my flesh. I wrapped my arm over my
opposite shoulder to scratch out the pain. I sighed from relief, only to feel another one
bite my lower leg. I pulled up my pant leg and raked my fingers over my flesh. The
itching didn’t stop. It spread all over my body until I felt like a voodoo pincushion doll.
Nico smiled at me again before he answered his own question.
“You believe in dreams because they’re coming true right now.”
I looked at my skin. There were patches of red all over it. I knew that I hadn’t
scratched that deeply. Instantly, I was concerned. Was I coming down with something? I
touched my head. It felt hot.
“Travel with me,” Nico said like a man who was trying to convince a woman to
make love to him.
No. No. No. No. I thought. Something inside of me was telling me that this was
wrong. It was really wrong.
“Travel with me,” he said again.
I clinched my small hands into fist and began to rub them into my eyes. Suddenly,
they were burning. “Don’t resist,” he said.
My head jolted back. I felt like he had injected me with the Ebola virus. I could feel
the poison running through my veins. My blood turned cold, and I started to shiver. I
looked down at my hands and arms. They were covered in large patches of pimples that
were filled with puss. My vision blurred. My eyes rolled in the back of my head and I
fainted, right in Nico’s arms.
~ ~ ~
Chapter Ten
King Foot! King Foot! King Foot!”
I rushed out of my hut. I looked at my arms, my strong furry legs and my chiseledtorso with amazement. I brushed my long fingers through my short stumpy hair. I lookedaround me and stared with amazement at the quaint village that consisted of huts withwooden frames and straw roofs. There were dirt-paved roads, strong as concrete thatstrung around the village.
There was a garden in the back of the hut. The weeds were hard and wet and tangledaround my feet as I struggled to move through them. The garden was vast, with sectionsof potato plants, papaya and squash. There were long, sword shape leaves with paniclesof whitish flowers and long stalks of hard corn with brownish green tassels. I heard atwig break. Startled, I looked around and followed the sounds of bushes rumbling. A littleblack girl, around the age of two, stuck her head out and smiled. I smiled back, but itsoon faded when I saw the Griot behind her.
He was holding my son in his arms. Both their faces looked long and solemn. Astrong feeling of loss came over me. I looked up at the sky. It was twilight. Pedro Juanheld his hands out, pleading for me to take him into my arms. I embraced him tightly. Icould feel his little heart beating. He was just a child, a baby and yet he understood. TheGriot led the way. We walked in silence, the only thing that I could hear were the wavescrashing in from the sea. I peered off in the distance. There was just water and a barrenblue sky.
My heart pounded as I looked at the waves. They reminded me of Isabella’s thickbouncy curls and how they blew in the wind. When she was in my canoe, she always sat,like a lady with her legs crossed, her dress tightly tucked between her thighs, alwaysplacing modesty before comfort. Her eyes shone like emeralds, with thick spider likelashes that fluttered every time she blinked. Her lips were smooth and soft and as red asberries.
I did everything that I could to make her laugh. I straddled the canoe. I jumped intothe water to wrestle a huge fish. I exaggerated when I told
