1HOLD ON
Sunny and Sugar Cream were walking again. Sugar Cream liked to walk. Today they were walking through the Dark Market, the shadiest part of Leopard Knocks where the shadiest dealings were known to be done. You could buy chittim with Lamb money here, though when Leopard currency was procured in this way, it acquired a telltale tarnish that lessened its value.
You could buy super-cheap marijuana here, though more potent, spe
cialized marijuana could be bought at much higher prices in the general area. You could buy all kinds of dark, illegal juju powders, from “Liquid Jinn” to “Erasable Death Oils” to captive and trainable bush souls.
Sugar Cream and Sunny passed a woman selling night roses. One of the vicious thorny plants tried to swipe at Sunny, knocking her glasses off as she passed a bit too close. “Whoa!” she said, leaping out of its reach. “Geez!” She reached down and grabbed her glasses from the ground and inspected them for scratches. When she saw none, she put them back on, glaring at the plant.
“It’s up to you to have your own back here, Sunny,” Sugar Cream said, shaking her head. “Come on, student, don’t embarrass me, sha.”
“You’re blaming me when it swiped at me,” Sunny protested as they moved on.
“Blame is not of interest to me here. Pay attention. When you bleed, you’ll feel the pain; the plant will feel nothing but satisfaction because it is unapologetically evil.” She sighed. “Anyway, so people come to the Dark Market to bargain and deal,” she said as they passed a man selling large black vultures with muscular wings. They stood on a thick branch and the one at the end watched Sunny pass as if it wanted her to die so it could eat her.
“When you need someone to do something for you that is not acceptable among most people, you come here,” Sugar Cream continued. “Some of those requests aren’t necessarily bad, evil, or illegal. I know a scholar who comes here because there was a man who sold an oil that left her hair smelling like flowers for months, even after she washed it. Couldn’t find this oil anywhere else. I have my theories about where that oil came from. There’s a reason it was so hard to find.” She chuckled. “I like to walk through here once in a while to remind myself that all our faces are useful.”
“Even that guy there, selling ‘Six Million Ways to Die’?” Sunny asked.
The man had dreadlocks hanging to his ankles that were so neat and perfect they looked like cables. His large booth was packed with colorful bottles of various shapes and sizes; many had something undulating inside. No one was stopping to look at his wares . . . at the moment.
“In the grand scheme of things, yes,” Sugar Cream said. “So, Sunny, you can glide fairly well now. It’s useful, eh?”
“I wouldn’t be able to sneak out of the house any other way.” Sunny laughed. “I hear it’s really hard juju to work.” Gliding was one of her natural abilities, which meant unlike most, she didn’t need juju powder to do it. To glide was to drop her spirit into the wilderness,
shifting her physical body invisible. She’d make an agreement with both the wilderness (the spirit world) and the mundane (the physical world) and then zip through both as a swift-moving breeze.
“To glide as a natural is to die a little . . . and come back. And yes, it’s extremely sophisticated juju to work for those who can’t naturally do it. Since you’ve gotten so good at it, you can access something else. You already have . . . once.”
Sunny stopped walking. Around them, people conducted shady business, selling shady things, looking shadily at one another. The sunshine didn’t even reach here because there was a tattered tarp shading the entire place. However, Sunny was focused on her mentor with every shred of her being. She’d been waiting over a year for this lesson. Ever since she’d done it once and been sent to the Obi Library basement because of it.
“It’s called ‘holding,’ ” Sugar Cream said.
And then all the activity around them stopped. Sunny’s first instinct was to duck down. The lack of noise registered to her brain as the exact opposite of what it was. The silence and absence of motion was stunningly loud, jarring, terrifying. She looked around. The man with the vultures, the man selling poison, the women selling stacks and stacks of something that looked like blocks of cheese, all were . . . holding.
“Except you,” Sugar Cream said.
“How are you doing this?”
“It is complicated and it is simple,” Sugar Cream said. “I think it, want it, draw it to me. It’s like grabbing a rushing river with both hands and holding it. It’s like jumping on a road full of fast-moving cars and making all the people driving them see me at the same time and stop instantly. It is juju at its most intentional. It’s not something I can use powder to achieve. It must be a gift.”
Sunny didn’t understand any of this, but she thought she could do it. That helped. She had already done it once. “Is that why you can breathe in this state? Because you have the gift? I nearly killed that Capo guy when I did it.”
Sugar Cream nodded. “You can bring people with you into the rolling void you’ve created. However, if the person does not have the natural ability, it is like pulling the person into space. They will die within a minute. They cannot breathe; you have stopped all the molecules, their organs, everything.”
“So I really did nearly kill him,” she whispered.
“Yes,” Sugar Cream said. “Thankfully, you didn’t. Mastering holding is all about control, intent, and audacity. Stopping time takes a lot of nerve. If you are timid, you can never do it.”
“If you have to focus like that, how long can you . . . hold?”
“I’m an old woman,” she said. “I forget things, but my will is like iron.” She made a fist with her bony hand. “I can hold for a very long time. It is not effort that maintains it—once you hold, it holds until you unhold. But to keep holding for more than a few minutes, you need to set down an object you keep. A talisman.” She brought a white stone from her pocket. “It must be something very, very dear to you. I’ve had this stone since I was a baby. It’s one of the few things I kept from the Idiok baboon village.”
“You keep it with you?”
“At all times. If I wanted to hold for, let’s say, the equivalent of three days, I just put this stone to the ground in a place no one would notice and make sure I know where to find it when I return.”
“So you must come back to that spot when you return?”
“Yes. But holding for this long is not healthy.”
“Why?”
“Oh, there’s always a sacrifice,” she said.
Sunny was about to ask what the sacrifice was, but something was coming. She instinctively moved closer to Sugar Cream. The noise was like an arriving train. When it
passed by, everything continued. A soft breeze swept past them and Sunny smelled a wake of flowery perfume. She turned to Sugar Cream, grinning.
Sugar Cream laughed. “Stepping back into time is a breath of fresh air. And . . . it never gets old.” She winked. “Are you ready to try it?”
Sunny nodded.
“Wait . . . your spirit face. Is she with you?” The pained look of concern on Sugar Cream’s face made Sunny uncomfortable.
Sunny frowned, looking away. It was always so humiliating. Anyanwu left her often. So unlike a normal spirit face, Anyanwu spent more time going wherever she went than being with Sunny. A normal spirit face couldn’t . . . wouldn’t leave; it was one’s . . . spirit. This was what it was to be doubled, a rare obscene condition for which Sunny had the terrible masquerade Ekwensu to blame. From the little Sunny could bring herself to read about doubling, most didn’t even survive the trauma of the violent separation.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sugar Cream quickly said. “She may come when you glide. You can still hold without her, and remember, you have the advantage of having done it once already. Intuitively. That’s good. Think back to that moment. Your anger. The Capo right there. How he led that confraternity to abuse, nearly kill your brother. Think about what you
wanted.” She paused. “It is the want. That is how you did it. Not the rage. The want. The power of it.”
People were walking around them, and Sunny was distracted. However, she knew the look on Sugar Cream’s face, too well. Excuses were irrelevant. You did it or you didn’t do it. There was no in-between. She pushed away the distractions and let herself remember that night, that moment with the Capo. When she was so sure of what she wanted, and not knowing how she would get it didn’t affect the clear fact that she would get it. In that moment, she wanted to isolate him from everyone and everything.
“Now hold,” Sugar Cream said, looking hard at her.
With force pushed by the hot fury she’d felt from back then, Sunny thought the same word she’d thought that night, Stop. Unlike back then, this time she felt it. Then she felt Anyanwu fly into her. She stood up stronger, understanding exactly what Sugar Cream had meant by it being like grabbing a rushing river. It was less than a moment, but it was exhilarating and she could control it.
Everything stopped.
“Heeeeeey!” she exclaimed, grinning. “I did it!” A bunch of tiny gold chittim fell at her feet. Anyanwu! she thought, and she felt Anyanwu smile. It was a sweet feeling.
Sugar Cream chuckled. “Tiny chittim or humongous chittim mean pointed mastery. Well done. As you advance, I hope you’re saving your chittim.”
Sunny counted thirty-three. They were each the size of a fingernail and as light as one, too.
“The first time is the most difficult. This is your second,” she said. “Now let it go.”
Sunny imagined the river rushing forth with power and life, and there came the flowery gust of everything. She had the urge to try it again, and she did. Then she let it go.
“Don’t play with this skill,” Sugar Cream said, pointing a finger at her. “And keep it to yourself. Practice it, but alone. There is rarely a reason to use it. But when the time comes, you will. It’s a powerful tool in your juju box.”
Sunny smiled and said, “I know what I will use as my object.” She touched the zyzzyx comb in her hair, the beautiful creation made by and gifted from her wasp artist Della. Not only was it dear to her, it was the most beautiful object she owned. The entire comb was made of tiny, shiny, multicolored zyzzyx crystal beads, even the teeth. It sparkled yellow-orange, but only when she turned her head a certain way; otherwise the many colored beads all together looked darker.
“Good choice. Your insect companion will be flattered.”
Sunny laughed.
“Come,” Sugar Cream said, linking her arm around Sunny’s. “Why don’t you buy me a bunch of those night roses with one of your teeny tiny chittim? My office spiders will like them, and they smell lovely at the stroke of midnight.”
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