I cross my arms and stare at the floor. I hear what she’s sayin’, but it just don’t feel like enough to me.
“You have all you need, Evalene. Except patience and confidence. That’s why you’re upset, and it’s why everything feels off. You are so close to bein’ unified in who you are, but you afraid to trust it.”
“Can you feel what I’m feelin’?” I ask helplessly.
“Don’t matter if I can or not. Ain’t my battle.”
“I’m scared.”
She nods. “If you believe in your power one hundred percent and wait for it to have the effect it needs to have, you’ll be fine.”
“How do I know when it’s had the effect I need?”
“By not asking questions like that.” She sighs. “It’s like when you go on a trip, and the more you ask ‘Are we there yet?’ the further from your destination you seem to be. Stop questioning so much. Stop worryin’ about what ain’t workin’ or don’t feel right.” She leans closer to me, and she does something that stuns me: she touches my cheek with actual affection, and she looks at me with love and deep, deep sadness. “No matter what happens, you gotta have faith that you will survive and you will become the whole person you’re meant to be. This I know,” she finishes. Then she sits back in her seat and starts carvin’ again, her face back to its normal state somewhere between skeptical and indifferent.
Her intensity hasn’t exactly calmed my fears. And after tellin’ me I need to be patient, I decide I’d better not ask if she knows if my hex on Virgil is working. Patience. How am I sposeta just wait for shit to happen when I can be doin’ other things to solve my problems?
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay,” she says.
She examines the tiny object, blows on it, and nods. Meticulously, she threads a hole in its body with a long string of buckskin.
“Come ’ere,” she orders. I walk over to her, and she stands.
“Turn around,” she says.
I do, and she lifts the stringed trinket over my head and ties it in the back. This is a necklace.
“What’s this for?”
“Don’t get excited. It’s not a magical talisman, if that’s what you’re hopin’. No. This is just a reminder.”
A reminder? I examine the delicate charm she just carved for me. It’s a small wooden bird with its feet planted on imaginary ground. Looking backward. Sankofa. And unlike the cuckoo clock version, this one’s delicate and pretty.
“You just now made this. You knew I was comin’ over today?” I ask.
Without answering, my grandmother turns me around to face her. She probes me with her eyes, like she’s looking at me and in me at the same time. Just like that, we’re jubin’. And she has something to tell me.
Go back and get what’s yours.
I have another dream-vision. I don’t walk through an empty field this time, but I end up on that same hill overlooking my town dressed up as a city I don’t recognize, with booming bass music blasting outta large, fast cars, and the billboard of the gorgeous jet-black Negro woman, and that Popeyes place.
I sit in the grass, and as I expected, the weird girl appears and sits next to me. We both stare down into the busy street. She’s still wearin’ those white things in her ears, and now I hear sounds comin’ out of ’em like maybe they’re very small headphones that you stick in your ears instead of wear on your head. Yikes. I would not like that!
“Why are we here?” I ask.
She keeps starin’ like she can’t hear me. I gently tug on the wires connected to the things in her ears, and she turns to me now.
“I just asked why are we here,” I say.
She touches the little box the wires are plugged into.
“It’s interesting that you’d ask me that,” she remarks, “because I was gonna ask you the same question.”
This does not bode well.
“Why would you ask me?”
“You’re the one that keeps pullin’ me into these visions,” she informs me.
“Me? No! There’s no way I’m doin’ it,” I tell her.
“You are, though,” she says, her voice emotionless.
At this point, nothing should surprise me.
“Are you sure it’s me?”
“Positive. You’re better at jubin’ than I am,” she says. “For now, anyway.”
“Who are you?”
She lies down in the grass, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Oh, I thought you knew. I’m Atti.”
“Atti? No, no you’re not.”
“Yes I am.”
“Your name is Atti? Like my grandmother? I don’t think so. That’s too much of a coincidence.”
“It’s not a coincidence at all. I’m named after her,” she says evenly.
I turn to this girl, who looks a lot like me except for her terrible taste in clothes and her hairdo. She’s got it in tiny plaits all over her head. It’s a look I’d gladly leave to Buckwheat, but somehow it looks cute on her.
“Who named you that?” I ask, tryna sound calm and casual.
She sits up on her elbows and gives me a confused look.
“Wow. You really have no idea who I am. How are you calling me if you don’t know what’s going on?” she asks.
“Can you just tell me please?”
She sighs. “My mother. Violet. Your daughter.”
Lord Jesus, can I ever just have a regular, boring day? Just one? And—HEY! Why the hell didn’t she name that kid after me? What a bitch!
“I have a daughter. Named Violet. Great,” I say.
“I’m startin’ to get why you don’t know this stuff. You look like you’re about my age right now. So this is all still far off for you,” she reasons.
“Why didn’t I call her? My… daughter? If I’m doin’ all this callin’?” I ask.
Atti snorts. “Yeah. You and Mom don’t get along so well, so that part makes perfect sense to me.”
So sometime in the future I will give birth to a girl, and we won’t get along. Figures.
“If you don’t know why you called me,” Atti begins, “why don’t you tell me what it is you want, and then
