This time, when Auntie tugs, Akilah has a sneaking suspicion about what comes next, but doesn’t have enough time to react—and if she did, how would she stop? There’s no stopping the sudden snapping back in time, not when—
“What?” Akilah’s a few years back now, and her brother is in front of her and her mother again. They’re outside the building, and it’s strange—Akilah’s a teenager, bigger than when she was eight in front of the hot comb, but Jamal’s the same size he was back then. Still larger than her, still larger than her mom, and still ready to pop off at a moment’s notice.
Akilah knows what this fight is about immediately, even if the details haven’t caught up yet. It’s always about his wallet. Always about filling it. So what matters aside from the amount?
“I said chill, Lala,” Jamal snaps. “And stay out of this. This is between me and Mom.”
No, it’s not, because Akilah was supposed to have a calm day with her mama, getting those slender cornrows that her mother had perfected post–hair straightening. Just them and Akilah’s homegirls on the steps, watching people move past. Instead, Jamal’s shown his ass again, and Tiana and Mama are cringing, and Akilah’s tired of watching it happen. She wants to go back to a few minutes ago, when her mother was redoing a part, and Akilah could feel her hands along her scalp.
But Jamal is still Jamal, and she isn’t about to fight him. She does the only thing she can. “How much you need?”
Jamal blinks, his tirade halted in its tracks. “Lala, what are you talking about?”
“I’ve got money,” Akilah explains stubbornly, even before her mother opens her mouth to argue. “What do you need today? Twenty? Forty?” She whips around to her backpack, digging in to find her wallet. She’d been saving to go out this weekend, all her allowance for the past couple of weeks and a little extra from fixing a classmate’s braids when the ends came loose.
She shoves cash in his hands, nearly everything she’d put aside. “Take it,” she tells him. She hopes he’ll pretend to be gallant, to have a chip on his shoulder about taking money from her, but she knows him better than to expect it. He glances between her and Mama and Tiana—Tiana who watches, memorizes every action and twitch and word—before shoving the cash into his pockets.
It’s like sun breaking through clouds, because he suddenly smiles. It’s like the morning that you wake up and you realize your braids have finally loosened up, that the headache is gone, except that just comes from the way Mama’s shoulders unclench as Jamal suddenly wants to remember they’re family.
But Akilah solved it.
Now Akilah’s getting whiplash, struggling to remember the year. How her legs aren’t as spindly anymore, and they don’t shake under her while she wonders if she handed over enough for Jamal to relax. Her hair is halfway finished now, and when she reaches up a hand to check on it, she could have sworn Mama was further along . . .
No, not Mama. Auntie. The witch.
Akilah jumps up from the chair now. “Don’t touch me!” she snaps. Auntie flinches at Akilah’s volume, but recovers quickly, crossing her hands in front of her as if waiting for a child to stop having a conniption. And maybe she is, because all at once Akilah is seventeen, eight, sixteen, and fourteen, and it’s all dizzying, it’s all too much. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do to me, but I know—”
“Now, maybe I’m just old,” Auntie starts, and Akilah cringes despite her rage, because she knows how this speech sounds. Witch or no, it always sounds the same. “Maybe I’m out of touch, but I don’t get you, Akilah.”
“There’s nothing to get between you and me,” Akilah assures her, gesturing. Her gaze shoots to the side at the slightest movement; a small spider crawls on the end table. Two spiders. Akilah takes a step toward the door. She doesn’t know magic, but she knows normal, and this ain’t it.
Akilah shouldn’t suddenly feel like Auntie is as tall as Jamal, as short as Mama. Her scalp shouldn’t ache as if divided into three different styles all at once, her forehead shouldn’t sting like a burn.
“Oh?” Auntie questions. “When you first started braiding around here, I was glad.” Akilah snorts. “I’m getting up there in age, and I don’t need to be fixing everybody’s head all up. And Jayleen doesn’t braid unless they see my arthritis acting up.” Akilah didn’t know Jayleen could braid.
Akilah’s head shouldn’t, couldn’t be jerked back then, as if Auntie’s hands and combs were still separating knots and curly chaos, but—
—No, that’s wrong. Jayleen has offered to braid her hair, a few months ago. Akilah’s in tears. Jayleen’s hand is on her back, rubbing small comforting circles as Akilah hiccups and sniffs. She isn’t cute right now, but Jayleen touches her like she is. Jayleen offers to braid her hair as if it might help.
Akilah doesn’t even really say no—her throat hurts too much from crying to speak. The mortification from Tiana’s attitude still rings too loud in her ears for Akilah to even manage a nod or a shake.
She doesn’t get it. Tiana is her best friend, but still caught her off guard. Tiana’s snap back—Well, we’d be able to go if you didn’t give Jamal all your damn money—made Akilah still. Jayleen had almost jumped in, would have snapped back if Akilah hadn’t deaded the situation. Because Tiana’s right, isn’t she? That Akilah is the one with the job, and it’s only fair that she treats her friends if she has the money . . .
It isn’t the first time that Tiana’s been annoyed when Akilah couldn’t front the money for them to go out, but it’s the first time she’s used Jamal’s name, buried the knife as deeply. Akilah doesn’t want to fight with Tiana or Jamal, doesn’t know how to make them both happy . . .
No, that’s wrong, too. She sniffles, pulling away from Jayleen even as they gently scratch between her braids. Tiana wouldn’t be pissed if only . . .
Akilah’s breath goes jagged with tears that were cried months ago.
Another spider, three of them now, crawl up from the back of the couch. Akilah feels sick.
“I suppose Jayleen stopped braiding when you started your business. Didn’t want to step on their girlfriend’s toes. But I always assumed if you were going to braid hair, you were going to do it right. No rush jobs, no rotating chairs of clients to squeeze in another dollar.” Akilah doesn’t speak. “It was a shame to see my old clients again. Saying that you’re rude, that you’re rough on their heads—”
“That’s not it and doesn’t give you any right to be doing magic on me!”
Auntie tilts her head. “You paid me to fix your head, didn’t you?”