“Yes,” it said. “I understand now.” It regarded Ube thoughtfully. “You humans are … unpredictable.”
“We’re human,” Ube snapped. “And I think it’s time for you to leave.”
Vengeance swept its eyes across the room, resting briefly on Bitter. “The hunt calls,” it said. “We will see you.”
It drifted up to Hibiscus and placed a claw on his shoulder, the tip of it sinking through him. Hibiscus shuddered like he’d been touched by a ghost, but he didn’t step away. He glanced at Ube, and his face wavered with a shadow of fear. “I’m sorry,” he said. The branches of the weeping willow hung mournfully above them.
“Do what you gotta do,” Ube replied, his voice bitter and resigned. He turned to follow the remaining Assata kids out of the atrium. Vengeance vanished with Hibiscus, the last of the hunters, and Bitter stood there with Alex and Blessing, almost alone under the dark sky.
“What do we do now?” Blessing asked, her voice unsure.
Alex put an arm around her girlfriend. “We’ll figure it out.”
Ube paused at the wooden doors and glanced back at them. “Y’all coming or what?” A streak of relief ran through Bitter. If Assata wasn’t kicking them out of the safe house yet, then this whole situation felt less alone, like maybe Alex was right and they really could figure it out, find a way to undo this thing she’d done by bringing Vengeance through. The invitation in Ube’s voice felt like a chance, and as Alex pulled her and Blessing along to catch up with the others, Bitter allowed herself to hope that this wouldn’t end entirely in blood.
The lights were dimmed in the kitchen as they walked into it, and all the little children were gone. Miss Bilphena stood watering an enormous monstera plant that vined over the kitchen window, and a sky-blue kettle whistled on the stove. “Get that for me, baby,” she said without turning around, and three of the Assata kids moved toward the kettle as one body.
“We lost folks to the angels,” Ube said. In Miss Bilphena’s presence, he seemed young again, tired and scared.
She put down her watering can and wiped her hands on her dress before walking up to Ube and placing a hand against his cheek. “We’ll have some tea in the den and you can tell me all about it,” she said, as if debriefing after a visit from angels was normal. It seemed as if having the angels physically out of the house had lifted her fear away, and now she could focus on the distressed young people in front of her instead of terrifying unknowns lurking in the atrium. Tenderness radiated from Miss Bilphena like warm light stealing through the room. Bitter could feel all the Assata kids turn to it like new leaves to the sun, relief dropping their shoulders and loosening their necks.
“Y’all grab your mugs and show the new kids where the tea cabinet is,” Miss Bilphena said. “Ube and I are going to go on ahead and have a little chat. We’ll have our usual.” She left with her hand resting lightly on his shoulder, and Bitter watched as Alex merged seamlessly in with the rest of the group, as if she’d never left. They passed each other bright ceramic mugs from the rustic wood shelves on the kitchen wall, seeming relieved to be doing something normal, something that didn’t require thinking about vanishing angels and wars and impending bloodshed. Alex beckoned to Bitter and Blessing as she pulled open a cabinet door.
“Okay, so this is where all the tea is kept,” she said, and Blessing whistled. It was a ridiculous amount of tea, in jars and muslin bags, handwritten labels scribbled and hanging from small tags. “Miss Bilphena drinks ginger with honey—”
“I got her mug over here,” a kid with locs and a snakebite piercing called out. “Someone pass me the honey?” A jar of manuka honey went from hand to hand, and Alex added a tea bag full of dried ginger.
“Ube drinks …” Alex paused and frowned. “Does he still drink peppermint?”
Another girl reached over her shoulder and grabbed a jar. “Yup, I got it.”
“Bet.” Alex took down a box and turned it over to read the label. “I think you’ll like this one, Blessing. It’s hibiscus with blood orange.”
“Ooh, I want that too,” Bitter piped up. They stepped away from the cabinet to let everyone else make their picks, then filled up their mugs with hot water, watching the tea bags swell and float.
“Tea is kind of a house ritual,” Alex explained as she led them down the hall and around the corner into the den. “Everyone gathers in the den and we take a minute to just … sit with each other.”
Bitter could feel exhaustion sneaking through her, a combination of the warm tea cupped in her hands and the coziness of the den. The large room was full of pillows and cushions, oversized beanbag chairs that you could sink into, deep couches low to the ground. It made Bitter want to curl up and just rest for a moment—it felt safe enough to, even though she’d never been there before. The feeling took her by surprise. New places often had her on alert, spiky for weeks before she’d settle down, remnants of the lost years inside the foster homes. Even her own room at Eucalyptus had been hard to settle into, until one evening when Miss Virtue had stopped by, about a week after Bitter had arrived. Her gray hair flared out wild and curly from her scalp, and she was wearing a purple suit the color of smashed berries. She’d knocked politely, waited till Bitter invited her in, then looked around at the room.
“It’s a little sparse, isn’t it?” she’d said to Bitter, and Bitter had shrugged. Putting down roots was dangerous, and Eucalyptus had been so new then, it hadn’t felt like home. Miss Virtue had walked up and looked at Bitter with those ghostly gray eyes of hers gleaming out from her dark face. Bitter remembered feeling both seen and pinned by that gaze, uncomfortably so. “We will never cast you aside,” Miss Virtue had said, and something about her voice seemed to reverberate through Bitter’s room, like it was layering over itself, like it was a spell. “You will always have this room, come hell or high water.” She had said it with such grim certainty that it felt more like a prophecy than a reassurance, and Bitter could feel the surety of it brush against her bones. She had just nodded, unable to speak, and Miss Virtue had nodded back, then left. It still took Bitter a while to accept Eucalyptus as home, but Miss Virtue’s proclamation was a big part of that, burned into her memory and echoing on the nights when panic shook Bitter awake and gasping.
There was something about the Assata safe house that reminded Bitter of Eucalyptus and Miss Virtue, that spirit of a space that was designed for the lost ones, the abandoned ones, designed to hold them safe and tell them they never had to leave again. Bitter hadn’t expected to find this same vibe here, to find actual tenderness within Assata. She’d thought they were just about fighting on the front lines, that their home space would be full of loud debates and decrying, but instead it was simply a bunch of tired kids climbing onto soft furniture, holding their mugs of tea and telling Miss Bilphena what had happened in the atrium with the angels. Bitter joined Alex and Blessing on a corduroy couch, tucking herself against the arm like she was back in her room.
Blessing snuggled in next to her. “You okay?” she asked.
Bitter nodded. “It just a lot.”