“Malik Sewell, you asked for an assembly,” Mr. Resby stated. “What is the request?”
“I want . . .” Malik’s voice cracked and he paused. “I want a union blessing.”
“With this girl?” Mr. Resby’s light-skinned face turned red with irritation.
“Who are her people?” Mr. Barnette asked.
“She’s the daughter of Yem Everlasting,” Mr. Sewell said. “He was in the Nautical Guild. Sailed with the last scouting party into the Veil.”
Nalah felt a light flutter in her stomach. Almost like the flip of butterflies when Malik kissed her, but this was something more. The Belle Hammock midwife had called it the quickening. The old woman had also asked why Nalah hadn’t prevented the pregnancy in the first place. That morning, she had tried to choose a respectable dress, but she knew no clothing could disguise the baby growing inside her.
“How old are you?” Mr. Barnette asked her.
“I was born in 167,” Nalah answered.
“You’re seventeen years old,” Mr. Sewell said. “Just a year younger than my nephew here. Neither of you has even joined a Guild yet. What is the rush?”
“I love her,” Malik said.
“Did you trap this boy?” Mr. Resby glared at Nalah’s too-tight dress, and she moved her hands over her belly, protecting the baby from his hostile gaze. He was one of the fairest men on the island, a trait of the Mainland scientist bloodline.
“No,” Nalah said. “Never.”
“I willingly claim the child she carries,” Malik said.
“You have violated sacred law.” Mr. Resby pointed angrily at Nalah. “We can’t have bastards on this island.”
Nalah wanted to laugh. Since its inception, the Council had forbidden women to hold ruling seats. They had even removed their membership from several of the Guilds, deeming women unqualified. Of course they would only see her at fault. Only see her as the sole violator. She was more than sure the laws that these men, their fathers, and their fathers’ fathers had constructed were far from sacred.
Malik clenched his jaw. “Since the child is already claimed, it’s already a Sewell and not a bastard. By sacred law.”
The men at the table gathered and murmured amongst themselves. After a few moments, they turned to face them. Both Mr. Barnette and Mr. Resby glared at Nalah.
“You have left us with no other option, nephew,” Mr. Sewell said. “The Council blesses this union.”
Malik swooped Nalah up in his arms and swung her around.
“Mind yourself, boy,” Mr. Resby warned.
Nalah giggled as he put her back down and she straightened out her dress. They bowed their heads as a sign of respect.
Now that their union was officially blessed, Nalah could come back to Sula Church as a bride. She wouldn’t be able to wear her favorite bright colors in the formal ceremony, but she could still honor the old ways by wearing a nubie charm around her ankle.
When they had made it to the church door, Nalah hesitated and touched the wood, which was cast iron warm. She turned back to the Judgment Table, where the men were still seated.
“All of you will be in my prayers tonight,” Nalah stated. “Don’t let the Hag ride you.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Nalah never returned to Sula Church as a bride.
After the Boo Hag had stolen Malik’s spirit and killed him, Nalah walked the roads of the island north of the Old Mansion ruins all the way south to the Samara Lighthouse. Days, then weeks and months, passed. All through a dark haze, Nalah felt the loss of her love. She would lay her head in her mother’s lap and wail until her mother stopped indulging her.
“You need to stop with this mess.”
“Don’t you miss Daddy?” Nalah wept. “Don’t you wonder what happened to him?”
Nalah always wondered why she had never seen her mother cry. Maybe she had shed all her tears when Nalah was a baby.
“Crying won’t change nothing,” her mother said. “What’s done is done.”
Nalah tried her best to recover from the intense grief but found that she couldn’t. The Sewell family in Shell Bluff paid little attention to her although she carried their blood kin, their disdain for her Everlasting lineage now apparent since Malik’s death. She was also ignored by the Elders in Belle Hammock, since she’d disregarded their warnings about getting involved with a Council boy. She spent her days as she did her nights, mourning Malik and the reality of her life. All the while, the Boo Hag continued her reign of terror, stealing the spirits of men.
Nalah was at her lowest point when she felt the first kick of her baby, a reminder that even though Malik was gone, a part of him was still with her. The sadness slowly began to lighten.
Four months after Malik’s death, Nalah stood in the kitchen late at night, drinking deep sips of well water. She stared out into the darkness and spotted her mother venturing into the woods without a solar lantern. Nalah hadn’t heard her leave the house. She put down her drink and decided to follow her.
It was difficult following her mother in the dim starlight. She had ventured past the marsh and moved deeper inland to the part of the woods where island folks warned of the jack-o’-lantern. Following this ball of light could get you hopelessly lost in the wilderness surrounding Belle Hammock. Nalah had never seen this light, but now she was wary.
She tentatively followed until her mother stopped in an open area covered with resurrection ferns. Nalah hid behind a live oak, and its Spanish moss grazed her shoulders.
Her mother stripped naked and heat rose up from the ground, the smell of sulfur heavy in the air. Sweat appeared on Nalah’s forehead. Her mother raised her arms and chanted in an ancient tongue. Suddenly, her skin split open down her spine, revealing red tendons and blue veins. As her mother stepped out of her skin, a translucent slime dribbled down her arms and lingered on the tip of her fingers like molasses.
The baby violently kicked in Nalah’s belly, and she covered her mouth to stifle a cry. The Boo Hag sniffed the air, and Nalah wondered if she smelled her presence. But then the witch quickly wrapped up Tena Everlasting’s skin and hid it in the ferns. She changed form into a large buzzard and took flight. The wind of her movement rustled the nearby cypress trees. A feral cry screeched above Nalah, and she shuddered.
The witch had been wearing Tena Everlasting’s skin. A new Boo Hag hadn’t arrived on Samara Island: the witch had been here all along. It had been her mother that the Defense Guild had found on Carlitta Beach, shrunken and unrecognizable. It had been Tena Everlasting who had burned in the tar cauldron.
Nalah’s mother had been dead for seventeen years.