CONTENTS

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

PROSE

IN THAT PLACE SHE GROWS A GARDEN

Del Sandeen // 5290 words

Rayven has spent years growing and caring for her dreadlocks. When an abhorrent school policy forces her to sacrifice them, they are replaced by something even more magical.

MY SNAKES

Frieda Vaughn // 2693 words

One’s relationship with their hair can be very complicated. When your hair holds the weight of history, that relationship is even more complicated.

NO LATE-FOR-SCHOOL

Shari Paul // 4914 words

Delilah’s a style-forward blogger with an eye for amazing costumes and the skills to make them. When her post-big-chop beau hooks her up with a strange new client, Delilah will be lucky to escape with only her feathers ruffled.

WHILE DRAGONS CLAIM THE SKY

Jen Brown // 10032 words

Omani, a coif mage who can weave magics into hair, dreams of leaving her family’s shop behind and becoming an imperial mage. When Myra, a poor but talented knightess-to-be, stumbles into Omani’s shop, both of their lives will be irrevocably changed.

POETRY

UMAKE: THE GOD OF HAIR

Tim Fab-Eme

BURY ME WITH MY BONNET

A. Z. Louise

UNBRAIDED, CLEAN

Terese Mason Pierre

EXTRAS

THANKS

April 2019

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

Welcome to the tenth issue of the World Fantasy Award Winning FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction.

As always, we would like to thank our staff, readers old and new, contributors, and everyone who believes in our magazine. This work doesn’t happen without you, and without you, there are fewer reasons to do the work.

This issue’s theme is Hair, and this is a theme that the editorial team has been very excited about. Hair is, has, and always will be a subject of both joy and trepidation for black people. Our hair is politicized, used to shape perception of us, has been the historical basis for discriminatory law and policy, and has been snatched and cut from our heads in unthinkable acts of violence. Our hair has also been our glory. Our braids, parts, waves, freezes, locs, curls, and naps are a roadmap to our struggle, a cultural touchstone that contains the twists and turns of our global existence. We asked black writers to consider all of this and send us work that analyzed it, mocked it, honored it, and remixed it, and they responded to our request by sending loving, brave, brilliant work that made it tough for us to choose what to publish. However, I think that it’s safe to say that we’ve put together an astounding issue.

This issue’s cover art comes from Olivia Stephens, whose braided androids capture all of the complexity, power, and uniqueness of black hair. Our fiction and poetry for this issue do the same. Del Sandeen’s “In This Place She Grows A Garden” takes an all-too-familiar act of violence against black hair and reimagines its aftermath in beautiful and empowering way. In “My Snakes” Frieda Vaughn examines the weight and history that black folks carry around in their tresses, and shows us how that weight and history can be empowering. Our first repeat author is Shari Paul who is back with “No Late-For-School,” a complex tale that looks at love, loss, coiffery, colorism, and much more. Our novelette this issue is from Jen Brown, whose story “While Dragons Claim the Sky” is an epic tale of hair magic, dragons, and having the courage to chase one’s dreams.

This issue, our featured poems are Terese Mason Pierre’s “Unbraided, Clean,” Timothy Fab-Eme’s “Umake: The God of Hair,’ and A.Z. Louise’s “Bury me with my bonnet.” These poems are triumphant, hopeful, reflective, and magical.

We are immensely grateful for your continued support. If you like what we do, consider dropping us a donation, grabbing a subscription, or gifting an issue to a friend. Now tighten up that durag and get those afro picks ready.

We hope you enjoy the issue.

Executive Editors: Troy L. Wiggins + DaVaun Sanders

Poetry Editor: Brandon O’Brien

Acquiring Editors: Brent Lambert + Danny Lore + Kaleb Russell

Art Direction + Layout: LeKesha Lewis

Cover Artwork by Olivia Stephens

All material in FIYAH is copyrighted to the original authors and may not be reproduced without permission.

IN THAT PLACE SHE GROWS A GARDEN

By Del Sandeen // 5290 words

All the students at Queen Mary Catholic High School knew about Principal Vargas’s death before the first bell.

To Rayven James, it was welcome news.

The entire student body swarmed through the hallways like a many-headed ocean, with straight brown, blond and black hair coloring the seas. An occasional pop of red floated past like flotsam, but one thing as rare as finding a perfectly formed pearl within the tight clasp of an oyster’s shell was any hair that didn’t flow in silky sheets, that didn’t bounce like those no-rhythm-having girls trying to twerk in the restroom, that didn’t accept a fine-toothed comb as readily as a mother’s hand opening for her child’s.

Rayven was that rare pearl.

Her locs, four years in the making, trailed down her back that Tuesday morning, the tips grazing her waistband. A shortage of time had prevented the usual adornment, a green-and-white ribbon to match the green-and-white plaid skirt. No, that morning had been a blur of three snooze alarms, a two-minute shower and a single slice of dry toast snatched out of the toaster as Mama’s horn blatted with impatience from outside.

“Rayven!” had come the call, for the fourth time, right before the high-school junior had bolted out the front door, sure that the neighbors were cursing the early-morning chaos that routinely got them up and moving. Barely had her butt touched the seat before Mama zoomed the car into reverse, shaking her head and flicking a cigarette at the same time, her hold on the steering wheel not extending past two fingers of her left hand.

So, there was no time for ribbons that morning.

Rayven tossed her head, the sheet of her locs shifting like a curtain with a curious neighbor behind it before twitching back into place.

“Did you hear about Vargas?”

Rayven glanced to her right, where her friend Sonia Williams matched her step for step, like they were the Rockettes of Radio City Music Hall or something. They might not be high-kicking chorus girls, but according to the majority population of Queen Mary, it was hard telling them apart anyway. Although Sonia was several shades lighter than Rayven, wore a completely different hairstyle—short relaxed bob—and stood two inches taller. And yet, to the white kids they attended school with, these two black girls had practically shared a womb.

“I heard something,” Rayven said, twirling around the dial on her locker. “Is he really dead?”

“Yep.” Sonia leaned in closer, though any fear of being overhead was unwarranted, considering the loud chatter going on around them. “I heard he shot himself.”

Rayven shrugged. “So?”

“So that’s a grave mortal sin. He can’t go to heaven.” The white around Sonia’s liquid brown pupils seemed to pulse. “You know that, right?”

Rayven nodded, mainly to stem the tide of any religious teachings outside of Theology class. Sonia, like almost every other student there, was Catholic, so she knew all the ins and outs. Sonia also wasn’t on scholarship, like Rayven. Although her friend didn’t live in a three-story mansion like some of their classmates, Sonia’s upper-middle-class background was still quite an upgrade from Rayven’s lot.

“Why would he kill himself, though?” Rayven asked as they walked to first period, hers being English Comp and Sonia’s being World History, across the hall from each other.

“I heard he was having family problems.”

Throughout the rest of the day, rumors and gossip flew through the air like invisible bullets, propelled by little more than breath and boredom. By the time Rayven made it to lunch, the late principal’s death had been attributed to everything from poison, hanging, gunshot and carbon monoxide in the garage to his mistress’s fury that he wasn’t actually going to leave his wife. To Rayven, that was definitely the best one.

However he met his maker—and Rayven didn’t know which that was—he was definitely dead.

Good riddance.

∙ ∙ ∙

“You can’t stay mad forever.”

Mama’s words danced in Rayven’s head, one of Cathy James’s mamaisms, as she thought of them.

How did she know what Rayven could do?

But Mama had issued that mamaism after Rayven’s father had left to live with his baby’s mama six years ago, after she had grounded Rayven for a week for wearing lipstick when she wasn’t supposed to five years ago, and after Principal Vargas had suspended her for skipping class and therefore preventing her from playing in the girls’ varsity basketball quarterfinals last month.

Queen Mary had lost without Rayven’s handles on the court.

Unknown to Mama, Rayven could stay mad and she’d certainly hold onto that rage forever if she could.

Trouble was, her rage was soon to have a brand-new target.

∙ ∙ ∙

Mrs. McGee replaced the dead Richard Vargas as principal at Queen Mary. The student body reserved opinions publicly, although privately, text messages and DMs had already sized the woman up.

Rayven had no opinion, one way or the other, until one week after McGee’s appearance.

“Mr. Holloway?” the mechanical voice filled the Chemistry classroom. “Can you send Rayven James down to the principal’s office?”

Silence, heavier than noise, pressed on her skin as she made her way to the door. She imagined everyone’s eyes shining in her direction. Once the door clicked behind her, a rush of voices would break out from every corner of the room. Walking down the steps, Rayven wondered what this was about. When she made it to the main office, the principal’s secretary ushered her inside Mrs. McGee’s room.

“Good morning, Rayven.”

“Good morning, Mrs. McGee.”

Thus far, Rayven had only heard the woman speak at the morning assembly where she introduced herself and went into a rambling monologue about her experience, her past positions and what she hoped to bring to Queen Mary. The leather seat sank miserably under Rayven and she glanced at the woman on the other side of the big oak desk—a picture of unflattering bangs and milky blue eyes that just missed the boat of prettiness—before settling her gaze on the potted plant in front of her.

The only other time Rayven had been in this office was before Mr. Vargas had either killed himself or been in a grisly car accident driving home drunk from a late-night poker game, according to the latest rumor passing from mouth to ear.

“I hope your classes are going well. Although, I am aggrieved to come in and replace Mr. Vargas under the circumstances.”

Aggrieved? Rayven’s mind stumbled around in the dark, looking for a light switch. That had been a vocabulary word a few weeks ago, but she’d never heard anyone use it in regular conversation. She nodded, unsure what to say.

“Well, as your new principal, I have reviewed some of the school’s policies.” A clearing of the throat which sounded completely unnecessary. “And one of those policies regarding dress code had been rather lax under your former principal.” Another cough-cough coming through a clear passageway. “It’s about your hair.”

Rayven’s attention, which had been teetering on exiting stage left, made a quick about-face.

“What about my hair?”

Here, Mrs. McGee consulted a paper on her desk. Gone were the uncalled for ahem-ahems as the woman settled into more comfortable territory.

“I’m now enforcing the policy of Queen Mary School that no student sports any extreme or distracting hairstyles, which includes unnatural colors, shaved images or words, or dreadlocks.” Brown eyes locked onto blue ones as the bobbed head gave a brief nod. “You’ll have to cut your hair, I’m afraid. You have until Monday.”

∙ ∙ ∙

Later that night, when Rayven was finally able to think about the day without an excruciating buzz drowning out everything else, she tried to replay the rest of her conversation with the principal. All she recalled were perfunctory words and phrases: if you don’t cut your hair… expulsion… school policy… changes.

“We’re gonna fight this, baby,” Mama had said as soon as Rayven told her. “I’ll call the news station.”

Even as the words left her mother’s mouth, Rayven felt no conviction there. Because if Rayven left Queen Mary, what were their options?

Mama worked two jobs—one as a teacher’s aide in a preschool and the other as an after-hours office maid—to make up the difference that Rayven’s scholarship didn’t cover. It was either that or their neighborhood high school, R.G. Franklin. The “R.G.” stood for Rupert Godfrey, but these days, everyone called it “Riots and Guns Franklin.”

Rayven’s tears stopped long enough for her to speak clearly.

“Mama, I’m almost done with my junior year. I don’t want to go somewhere for just my senior year.”

The truth was, Rayven had no other school to attend. And they both knew it.

∙ ∙ ∙

It’s just hair. It will grow back. You might like a short ‘do.

Rationalizations tiptoed in before Rayven blasted each of them aside. She spent the entire weekend riding one emotion after another, sometimes one coming so quickly on the heels of the last that processing anything was impossible. Tears—sad ones, angry ones, frustrated ones—each took their turn. With her mother’s emotions mixed in, Rayven wondered how they’d survived.

By the time Sunday night arrived—insistent, swift—Rayven felt like an abandoned water bottle lying on a beach somewhere. Flattened and empty.

“You want me to help you?” Cathy’s voice, thin and young all of a sudden.

“No. I’ll do it.”

“I can help you shape it up, a little, if you want.”

“Mama, I’ll be fine, just let me do it.”

The bathroom door clicked, a barrier of wood between them.

Rayven picked up the black-handled scissors and faced herself in the mirror, squaring her shoulders.

∙ ∙ ∙

On Monday morning, heaviness pressed on Rayven’s eyelids, the weight of unending tears. Mama asked her if she wanted to stay home from school that day, and while the idea had tantalized her, Rayven decided to go.

What was putting it off for another day going to do? She already felt ugly, she may as well share it with everyone.

Quiet hummed in the car ride, tardiness nonexistent.

Mother and daughter stared through the windshield, eyes haunted and hollow.

The whispers were worse than outright insults. She couldn’t tell what they held, the words swirling on the edge of her hearing before breaking into pieces of silence. The not-quiet hung in the hallways, parting for her as she passed.

“Shhh.”

“W.T.F.”

“… glow down for sure.”

Even Sonia’s eyes couldn’t hide the shock and despair, though her friend made a valiant effort. Rayven imagined she could see the lump working its way up Sonia’s throat.

“I hate it,” Rayven hissed as soon as they made their way into the restroom.

“Ray, it’s not that bad. Really.”

Sonia’s hand crept up before falling under the shame. Even she wouldn’t touch it.

Rayven’s reflection scowled back at her.

“It is that bad. And it’s all McGee’s fault. I hate that bitch.”

∙ ∙ ∙

Anguish had prevented her from doing anything with her locs the night before except place them in a bag. Rayven had no idea what to do with them. She wanted to keep them, memorialize them in some way, but grief had to wane before she could think clearly.

When Rayven entered her bedroom that afternoon, ready to flop onto her bed while her mother made a quick dinner and changed before her night job, her eyes traveled straight to her small desk, where she’d left the bag.

It wasn’t there.

What the—?

Under the desk, around the desk, on and under her neatly made bed, in her closet and then a search of the entire three-bedroom house. All twelve-hundred feet of it. Outside to the carport.

No bag. No locs.

“Mama, did you throw that bag away, the one with my locs in it?”

Mama was tying her maid apron behind her and reaching for her car keys.

“What, Ray?”

“Did you throw my locs away?” The shrillness in her voice threatened to crack and break.

“No. Why would I do that? Where’d you leave them?”

“In a bag in my room. They were on the desk when I went to school this morning.”

“Girl, I’m gonna be late if I don’t leave right now. Dinner’s on the stove, so you eat. You’ll find them, you just forgot where you left them.”

“I didn’t!”

In the silence that followed, Rayven could almost feel the charge in the air. Mama’s gaze was level and unflinching, driving Rayven’s down to her shoes. Clearly, her mother sensed her distress and was giving her a break, letting that one white-girl-drama moment fly. But she knew Mama wasn’t going to allow another.

“I’m sorry, Mama.”

“Mm hmm. We’ll talk later, I have to go.”

A moment later, the car’s engine roared before fading away.

∙ ∙ ∙

On the closet floor, pushed behind a spare quilt, sat the bag. Rayven didn’t remember tossing it there, but she must have. In all of the heartache of the night before, she had no memory of most of it.

Except each snip.

That small sound had echoed in the tiny bathroom. After the first one, she couldn’t look any longer—she continued cutting by feel. In the end, a two-inch Afro remained. Shorn and weary. Had she shampooed her hair next? She must have. She must also have rubbed coconut oil throughout it and twirled what small pieces she could in an effort to make it look… different. At some point, Rayven assumed she’d given up on all of that and just gone to bed, where sleep welcomed her into its embrace of forgetfulness.

The bag’s mouth gaped, a stray loc poking out as if to test the air. Rayven pulled it out, then the next, and all the rest. They were so long, she thought. Four years of life resting on her lap.

Gone.

Gathering them into a bouquet, she tied a thick white ribbon around one end to keep them together and snagged a white carnation from the short vase on Mama’s nightstand. The flower peeked out from the ropes, nestled within them. Rayven carried the arrangement, the same way a parent might carry a dead child pulled out of a river, and placed it on her bedroom windowsill.

During the day, the sun would shine on them and at night, the moon would tell them secrets.

∙ ∙ ∙

One week later, the student body chatter had moved on to a new target, to Rayven’s relief. She’d resigned herself to her short haircut but not actually accepted it. Thin headbands that matched her school uniform did nothing to assuage her ongoing sorrow.

Kids milled around her, some grabbing books out of their lockers, others walking to class. She peeked at her reflection in the small mirror stuck inside her locker door, wondering why she continued to look for something hopeful.

A pop of yellow caught her eye.

Rayven reached up, expecting the worst because it wouldn’t be the first time one of Queen Mary’s finest had snuck an object into her hair—the end of a broken pencil once, a hermit crab shell another time.

“Ow,” she breathed. When she’d pulled on the yellow thing, whatever it was, it stung, as if she pulled her own hair.

Rayven rifled through her bookbag until she found the compact. She held its mirror behind her as she gazed into her locker door reflection.

A yellow flower poked from her ‘fro.

Even the shrill bell went unheard.

She tugged at it and again, felt that sting. Her fingers burrowed deeper, straight to the roots. And indeed, the base of the flower felt like roots. Plant roots. Growing from her head.

“Miss James,” a sharp voice clapped from behind her.

The locker door slammed.

“You’re going to be late, you better get going to class,” Mr. Baxter said.

Rayven looked around and indeed, the hallways were mostly clear, except for one boy racing to get somewhere.

“Yes, sir,” she managed to say. Rayven completed the walk to Chemistry by memory alone, because the odd yellow flower consumed her entire mind.

∙ ∙ ∙

She pulled Sonia into the restroom at lunch.

“Do you see it?”

“Yeah,” Sonia said.

“It’s growing out of my head.”

Sonia looked at her.

“I’m serious. Dig down in there, you’ll see.”

Sonia’s fingers gently obeyed and after a moment, a small gasp escaped her lips.

“What is that, Ray?”

“Don’t pull it!” Rayven hissed, but it was too late. Sonia jumped back, her hands in the air. “I don’t know what it is.”

“It’s growing there just like it would grow out of the ground. Hang on, I’ll take a picture.”

As Sonia dug around in her bookbag, she described the petals and the small green stem emerging from Rayven’s scalp like the hair around it.

Rayven heard a series of quick shutter clicks.

“Here,” Sonia said, handing over her phone.

In the photo, the small yellow carnation contrasted with Rayven’s dark hair. She zoomed in on it to get a better look. Nothing seemed extraordinary about its curled petals and circular shape, except, of course, where it grew.

The girls looked at one another in the mirror over the sink, wearing matching masks of confusion.

∙ ∙ ∙

The next day, two more flowers had sprouted in Rayven’s hair. White and pink, their soft petals just poking out against the black coils. She showed them to her mother, who shared her silent puzzlement.

“I’ll take you to the doctor,” Mama finally said.

“But I’m not sick.”

Mama’s mouth worked. “Well, what else are we supposed to do? This ain’t normal, Ray, to have flowers growing out your head.”

“What’s the doctor going to do?” For some reason, she feared him snipping the flowers away. She wouldn’t let him. Her fingers trailed over the petals. They weren’t hurting anything, the flowers. They were just… growing somewhere they weren’t supposed to grow.

Plus, someone at school was sure to say something.

And they did.

∙ ∙ ∙

“Miss Clarke, can you send Rayven James down to the office?”

Again, those milky blue eyes that Rayven imagined spitting into. The cough-cough through a clear throat.

Just get to the damn point.

“Rayven, I can’t help but notice your new hairstyle.”

“Why, thank you.”

The pink lips downturned at the smooth sarcasm, wrinkles standing out against the lipstick, just outside of the lines.

“While hair bows, ribbons and headbands are acceptable for girls, flowers are not.”

“I’m aware, but I don’t exactly have a choice here.”

“Pardon?”

Rayven exhaled. The cat was out now, she may as well send it running down the street. “The flowers are growing out of my head, Mrs. McGee.” After a beat, she continued. “I tried pulling on them and it was just like pulling on my hair. It hurts. So I can’t take them out.”

Disbelief shone in the principal’s eyes. Of course. Why would she believe something so fantastical?

“Let me see.”

Rayven shrugged, standing. What was the old bat going to do? She wouldn’t let her touch her or put her fingers on the flowers. Mrs. McGee came from around the desk and stood beside Rayven, her eyes fixated on the petals. Her hand began to raise.

“Don’t touch my hair,” Rayven warned.

“Now, young lady, I’ve already told you—”

“And I told you that they’re growing out of my head! You can’t just pull them out.”

“Okay.” A change in tone, like a thick coat of honey poured over a slice of bitter lemon. Rayven didn’t trust it. “We’ll have the nurse take a look at you, will that be all right?”

“That’s fine. My mother’s taking me to the doctor to get looked at anyway, but I’ll go to the nurse. You’ll see.”

“Perfect.”

They entered Nurse Bennett’s office a few minutes later. Rayven stood silently as Mrs. McGee went into an explanation that dripped with derision. She may as well call me a liar, Rayven thought. The nurse didn’t ask any questions, as if she saw students every day with odd things growing from their scalps.

“Do you mind if I take a look, Rayven?” she asked.

“No, ma’am.”

Rayven sat in the chair and the nurse slipped into plastic gloves. She felt a gentle prodding across her head.

“Ouch!” she hissed.

“I’m so sorry,” the nurse said, her hand over her mouth. She’d tried to pull one of the flowers away. She turned to the principal and stammered for a moment before getting the words out. “Mrs. McGee, they’re really growing out of her head!”

∙ ∙ ∙

Each morning, more flowers bloomed in random places. Once, three small morning glories curled behind Rayven’s ear, but otherwise, they showed up in singles: a red snapdragon at the crown, an orange poppy at the nape. Within a few weeks, only half of her hair was visible. The rest of it was a garden of colors. Purple violets, pink meadowsweets and white doll’s eyes nestled next to blue forget-me-nots. On occasion, a single petal or bud fell off on its own, to be found later on a couch back or pillow, its replacement already filling in the gap it left behind.

Her mother had taken her to a doctor, who’d been just as puzzled. He’d wanted to cut one flower away to study it, but Rayven had refused to let him.

What if it was like cutting a piece of her? Would she bleed, feel real pain? She didn’t want to find out.

The doctor suggested a specialist, but for what? What were they going to do? The flowers weren’t harming her, they were just… growing. So that’s what he wrote on a note that she took back to school. Not that it did anything to calm Mrs. McGee down.

The threats started. Expulsion was tossed out. Rayven eavesdropped on the conversation between her mother and the principal one afternoon as Mama dared the woman to expel Rayven.

“It’s a medical condition,” Mama snarled into the phone.

“It’s also a distraction, Mrs. James,” came the voice from the speaker. “Students aren’t getting their work done because everyone is so busy talking about Rayven’s hair and the flowers. We simply can’t allow it.”

“Then maybe you need to teach your students how to focus! You expel my child, you better expect to get sued.”

If Rayven thought her mother’s counterthreats would get her off the hook, they didn’t. The principal seemed to take the entire weird situation as a personal affront, as if Rayven grew the flowers herself.

She didn’t know how she felt about them. On one hand, they drove Mrs. McGee crazy, which was incredibly rewarding. But they also made Rayven stand out in a way she didn’t want. Girls staring at her as she walked down the hall, conversations stopping when she walked into class, even teachers tearing their eyes away. If she could have her original hair back, she’d gladly take it.

∙ ∙ ∙

Brody Tatlinger wasn’t the brightest student or the nicest or the handsomest, but he was a varsity football player so at Queen Mary, that made him a god.

Prior to Rayven sprouting a flourishing garden from her head, he’d never paid attention to the girl. She was one of the scholarship kids and he didn’t want anything to do with her, her people or her world. But now everyone at the school knew Rayven. Their feelings ranged from wonder to confusion to jealousy. Mostly, however, they kept their distance.

On that Thursday afternoon, when she passed him on her way to World History, he didn’t know why his interest was piqued. He’d seen the flowerhead dozens of times by then. According to school lore, the weirdo really did have plants growing out of her scalp, some kind of strange medical condition.

Rayven passed and without thinking about why he did it, he followed, although his next class lay in the opposite direction.

∙ ∙ ∙

Rayven stuck to the right side of the halls, though the occasional rulebreaker fought against the flow of traffic and forced the pack to separate briefly before blending back together.

Two things happened almost at the same time: a violent tug at the back of her head and Brody’s loud curse ringing through the hallway.

“Oww—shit!”

All heads turned toward him, including Rayven’s, though her hand went to where the pain hummed.

Brody’s eyes were fixed on his thumb, from where a small black stinger protruded.

Only Rayven saw the bright yellow flower fall from his palm and the dying bee beside his foot, a coil of black hair wrapped around one of its legs.

∙ ∙ ∙

It had hurt, but it seemed that Brody snatching a flower from her head didn’t leave any lasting damage. There was no bleeding and the spot didn’t feel empty, what with Rayven’s thick hair and remaining foliage. The anger simmered for a while, but at the same time, he’d received his just desserts.

Let that be a lesson to all of them, she thought.

But McGee proved herself to be a hard sell.

Rayven kept her head down and laid low as much as she could. She knew the principal was just waiting on her to slip up, to give her any reason to put Rayven out of the school. To prevent that, Rayven made the honor roll during the third quarter, excelled in Debate Club and participated in class without being obnoxious about it.

So the fourth-period call, “Mr. LaSalle, please send Rayven James to the principal’s office” came as a complete surprise.

What now? drummed through her mind as she walked downstairs.

The same unpleasant air hung heavily in the room as the two squared off across the desk.

She can say what she wants, Rayven thought, she just better not touch me.

The glint of the scissors caught her eye. Mrs. McGee’s fingers tapped next to them before she picked them up.

“You’ve proven yourself quite formidable, Rayven.”

What? Bewilderment held Rayven’s tongue in place.

“At every turn, you’ve fought against me, even had your mother threaten to sue me. All I’m trying to do is run a school and running a school is a big job, young lady. I want everyone to excel and do well here. After all, we’re preparing young ladies and gentlemen for the next phase of their lives.”

The principal rose out of her seat, scissors hanging from her right hand, the pointed end punctuating the air as she spoke.

“We cannot have major distractions such as yourself when we’re trying to do our jobs. We cannot have one student wreak so much havoc all on her own.”

“I’m not doing that, Mrs. McGee, I have no control over—”

“You may not,” she cut her off, “but I will.”

Rayven rose slowly, her eyes never leaving the scissors, which seemed to float toward her as the principal made her move. A surprising swiftness propelled the woman, more quickness than Rayven had given her credit for. She turned and reached for the doorknob. A hand clamped on her shoulder. The hiss of scissor blades opening rasped in her ear.

No…

Rayven turned back, too focused on making a fist to register the tingling on her scalp and the rush of air over her. If this meant getting expelled, she’d gladly accept it.

A thick wall of bees, wasps, hornets and even hummingbirds stood between her and Mrs. McGee. Their buzzing overwhelmed everything, but Rayven did pick up a weak “Oh my God” underneath it all. The cluster of creatures hovered for a moment, a riot of swirling color, the beat of many wings flapping noisily in the small room. Rayven was too transfixed to feel any satisfaction at the fright pasted all over the principal’s face. The mass of insects and birds—wider than the big desk—rose almost to the ceiling before driving down toward the principal. Mrs. McGee had two options: remain there and be assailed by hundreds of stingers and sharp beaks or flee her own office.

She chose the latter.

The last Rayven saw of the principal was her pumping legs heading away, a huge knot of insects and birds trailing behind.

∙ ∙ ∙

Queen Mary was cursed.

At least, the principal’s position was, according to the latest school lore. For the remainder of the school year, Vice Principal Lozado acted as interim principal, an unwillingness to accept the top job forcing the school system to begin searching for a replacement.

Soon after, Rayven woke to find several flowers pressed into her pillow. When she reached up, she dislodged a few more and they drifted down onto her bedspread.

Oh no, she thought. Just when she’d more or less accepted that she wasn’t going to have hair like everyone else. If not for the cloud of insects and birds that had driven McGee out of the school, where would Rayven be right now? Of course, her old principal had caused all of this to begin with, but Rayven couldn’t help the conflicting emotions churning inside her now that the flowers were dying off.

It continued over the next couple of weeks. Each morning, more flowers rested on her pillow, fewer growing from her scalp. Her hair filled in the spaces the flowers left and by the beginning of May, her slightly longer Afro showed no hint of the garden.

Sadness mingled with relief, both tussling for the top position. She wondered what would happen next year, with the new principal. Would that person allow locs?

Rayven decided she’d begin cultivating them over the summer. Without the distraction of the flowers, as long as she did her work and stayed out of trouble, surely they’d leave her alone for her final year.

∙ ∙ ∙

In the fall, on the first day of her senior year, Rayven sat in the auditorium for a special session. Budding locs sprouted from her head, a green-and-white headband holding them off her face. Absently, she twisted one as the new principal, a Mr. Abbott, introduced himself. Like most other adults Rayven had interacted with at the school, he sat firmly in the camp of The Others, no matter how affable he tried to make himself. She didn’t care about his vision, mission or goals. This was her last year and her sole priority was marching across the graduation stage next summer.

And seeing her locs grow back.

Three days later: “Miss Simmons, can you send Rayven James down to the principal’s office?”

The office was the same, although Mr. Abbott’s demeanor differed from his predecessor’s. He smiled a lot, for one thing, although the mirth didn’t exactly reach his green eyes. He attempted some little jokes and posed a few introductory questions, until time for small talk ended and he finally presented the reason for the summons.

“As you know, Miss James, we have a strict dress code policy here…”

∙ ∙ ∙

Rayven stared out the window of Sonia’s three-year-old BMW, a recent birthday gift from her parents. She’d told Sonia about the meeting with Mr. Abbott on the drive to her home.

“Well, you can comb them out, right? Since they’re still so new?” Sonia asked, hesitancy dragging out her questions.

“I guess.” Rayven sighed, running a hand over her head. Sure, it wasn’t a four-year commitment, but it was still her hair. One welcome day in her future, no stupid rules and restrictions would dictate how she wore it.

“Thanks for the ride,” Rayven said as she exited the car. “See you tomorrow.”

Before she shut the door behind her, Sonia’s voice pushed out: “Wait, you have something on your shirt.”

Rayven looked down and, seeing nothing, turned her head to her left shoulder.

A spot of pink.

∙ ∙ ∙

ABOUT DEL SANDEEN

Del Sandeen is a writer based in Northeast Florida, and from 2009-2017, she was the Black Hair Expert at About.com. She writes adult magical realism and speculative fiction, as well as young adult books on race issues. She’s the author of the Grateful American Book Prize-nominated "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: Joined by Fate" (Enslow, 2019). Currently, she’s working on a novel that she hopes Octavia Butler would have loved. Her favorite TV shows include oldies like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek, mainly because Lt. Uhura’s makeup game was always so tight. Connect with her on Twitter @DelSandeen.

MY SNAKES

By Frieda Vaughn // 2693 words

I was four the day my mother cut off all my hair.

“I thought I could make you look like all the other little black girls with their cute Afros. Your dad had an Afro back then, and I thought all I had to do was cut your hair short. But it didn’t work. You looked like a Struwwelpeter, like you’d been electrocuted.”

The vibration of the clippers had buzzed inside my head. Wisps had fallen around the legs of the chair, scattered across the kitchen linoleum.

While my mother swept, I took my dolls into the bathroom. Gretchen had blond braids down to her shoulders, bangs curled over her blue eyes, and wore a green dirndl with an immaculate white apron. Mucki wore a red dress with a blue ink stain on her red-checked apron. Mucki was a hedgehog. I looked like Mucki.

My mother says I cried for weeks and made her promise not to cut my hair again. I don’t know if I cried for myself, or for my snakes.

There are no pictures of me from that period.

∙ ∙ ∙

We were in the garden with that fool Adam.

We climbed the trees and found the sweetest fruit. We plucked one bright orb, balanced it on our coiled scales, offered it to him. He would not taste it. But she was not afraid of us, because she understood desire, flesh pierced by teeth, juice released, the sacred communion of the body, flesh feeling itself as flesh. We will not be penned in by logic, caged by gates. We find our way through, over, underneath. We are in the spaces in-between. We left Eden and took Lilith with us.

We tried to save Eve. It was too late. She had already been made to crawl on her belly.

∙ ∙ ∙

When it finally grew back, my mom parted my hair perfectly down the center. She raked the comb across my scalp, tines singing, pressed her fist just above my ear, gripped the mass of tangles, pulled every strand tight, so tight I was sure my face would stretch.

“Ow!”

“Don’t moooove, don’t you dare moooove, I’ll have to do it all ovvvver again.” My mother mouthed around the elastics pinched in her teeth.

Each side was bound, braided, secured. She coiled the ends around her fingertips before she released them. I sat still as a marble statue, while each hair screamed, until she was done. Then, and only then, the pain diminished, and I could breathe.

“There,” she said, stepping back. “I can’t have you running around looking like a pickaninny.”

Later, cleaning out the comb, I saw it: tangled in the snarls and knots was a single dead snake. I put the rejected bits of myself in the trash.

I finally had braids, just like Gretchen’s, but they were black. They brushed my shoulders as I walked. The snakes whispered, but I could not understand them. In my head they said stay put, be quiet, be small, be good. In school, we learned about Greek Mythology, and for a while the other kids called me Medusa instead of “Zebra” or “Oreo”.

I knew they couldn’t see my snakes. I couldn’t turn anyone but myself to stone. No one. Believe me, I tried.

∙ ∙ ∙

There was a call from school once, when my mother had just gotten home from a business trip. I was eight.

“Is something wrong at home? It is just… she’s such a nervous child. And she was so unkempt this week. Her hair was just sort of puffs on either side of her head. It looked like she’d done it herself.”

That night she taught me how to braid my own hair. From then on I did it myself, pulling it as tight as I could, wrapping the elastics around, around, around, until I could just squeeze each bundle of hair through the last loop. When I was done, she would check them, make sure they were even, symmetrical, neat. And If they weren’t, I’d do them over again. The snakes hissed at being so tightly bound.

At night, my braids were pinned to the top of my head, but they would find their way free, twisting across my pillow, looking for release. Their whispers were muffled, not words so much as murmurations kissing my cheeks.

But there were times in the summer, in a pool, at a lake, when I could drift off, float, hold my breath to buoy my body, belly to sun, all my snakes loose around me, waving at the sky. They would sing then, songs of sea spray and sun-warmed rock, songs of blood and bile and war.

∙ ∙ ∙

My snakes are not my own. They have lived other lives, traveled faraway paths. They tell me about women I have been, women I will become. I do not know what is truth and what is lies, because what they tell me cannot be found in books. What they tell me is blasphemy, heresy, sacrilege.

∙ ∙ ∙

At thirteen, we had our first black Miss America and I wanted to be just like her. I wanted her straight, sculpted caramel hair.

I told my mom, “I think it’s time I have an adult hairstyle.” So she took me to a salon. Not Antonio’s, where she got her hair done.

Antonio’s, in a multi-story townhouse, where she had a young girl who shampooed her, and a young girl who did her color and Antonio himself, an old Italian man with a comb-over and a dress shirt open to his navel, gold medallion dangling from a chain half-way down his chest hair and who was always talking, “You are so beautiful, your hair is so beautiful, I make you beautiful.”

Antonio’s, where I sat waiting for her beneath an up-tilted hood dryer, paging through magazines of hair in blonde, brown, and occasionally red, all of it sleek and shiny, all artfully arranged around blank white faces.

Antonio’s, where none of the women were ever in pain and they all left with bouncy locks and wide smiles.

Instead, she took me across town to a squat strip mall, a store front between a video tape rental and a New York-style deli. The neon signs in the front windows flashed “Beauty Shop” and “walk-ins welcome.” Inside, advertisements were taped to the white cinderblock walls.

We waited more than an hour surrounded by the smell of scorched hair and chemical flowers. I reread magazines we already had at home, Jet and Ebony. All the ladies in them had brown skin and dark hair, straight and flat.

When they finally took me to an empty chair, the man behind it asked my mother what she wanted.

“Just make it manageable,” she said, “but only trim the ends.” She went to wait by the front door. No one asked me anything.

“Look at you little lady.” He pumped my chair higher and higher, wrapped a plastic cape around my neck. His long fingers undid my braids, spreading the ropes and snakes. “You got that good hair, you just wait until I’m done with it.”

He plastered my head with cold paste, worked it in, smoothed it out, ran it straight to the tips. “Let me know when it starts to sting.” I heard them hiss then, cemented in place. My eyes teared up, ammonia filled my nose.

“It’s burning. It’s burning.” The paste was eating my scalp.

“Just a little longer, little lady. You want it to be beautiful, don’t you?” His hands weighed down my rising shoulders. I bit my lip, still as granite, my hair on fire, my snakes ablaze.

When he finally took me to the basin, I thought I was saved. But the burning got worse, the water running over each exposed nerve, like stabbing needles, each parting of my hair a fresh wave of pain. I cried.

“Don’t you worry, the pain is almost over.”

That was a lie.

There was shampoo that stung, and scrubbing that rubbed me raw, and finally cold water that ran clear; the blow dryer, and the round brush with bristles wider than a dinner plate pulled all the strands taut, baking them; then the curling iron, I felt its heat like a stove element on my ear, smoke curled off me in wisps. At the end, he spun me around to look in the mirror. I did not recognize the girl there.

He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “See now, look how beautiful you are.” My hair was pin straight, and each snake head lay limp as death, draped over my shoulders.

The women waiting their turns cooed and clucked. “Mm huh, got that good hair.”

“Don’t she look like a proper miss, now?”

“That reminds me, I got to get my roots done.”

I looked like the women in the magazines. But those glossy pages didn’t show the wounds where traces of the relaxer had glommed onto my scalp, had bitten into my flesh. No one saw the weeping sores that crusted over, scabbed and flaked out in pieces, like scales, or the tiny snake corpses littering my pillowcase. They only saw the shiny, smooth hair.

In July, Miss America relinquished her crown. My hair was resigned to touch-ups every ten weeks, to sores and scabs, to smooth hair and tamed snakes. The whole summer, there was no swimming. With all my hair pinned up on top of my head, I could only wade in, Tantalus of the shallow end.

∙ ∙ ∙

My sophomore year of high school I started dating a boy with a melancholy nature and a fierce desire to be somewhere else. At a basement party, wedged between a speaker and the edge of a desk, he asked me if I loved him. I was certain I did.

He placed my hand against the black light bulb. “Show me,” he breathed, and pulled his hand away.

And I did, I held my hand there, past the tears. His eyes went wide. I wonder if he saw my snakes then, their cavernous mouths rigid with horror, their tongues still.

The blisters took weeks to heal. He broke it off before my fingerprints returned.

∙ ∙ ∙

We came too late. Her greatest treasures had already been taken from her. We tied ourselves to her, nestled in her hair. We brought her our anger, our fury. She shut herself away, but they came for her anyway, there could be no refuge. We would not let her be destroyed. We are rage. We will not be sated. We stood our ground, we roared with our great gaping jaws, we turned them to stone.

When Perseus came, we were not enough. He had steel, he had metal, we could not shield her from that. We should have trained her, given her the might of men: weapons, violence and sweet words.

∙ ∙ ∙

By college, I relaxed my hair myself. It was faster and cheaper. My snakes were tamed, and so was I. I avoided boys and concentrated on my studies. But that doesn’t mean they avoided me.

“Hmm, you got that red bone in you.” The boy at the cash register in the dorm market nodded at me.

“Excuse me?”

“Redbone, Indian blood.”

“How can you tell?”

“Your hair.”

“I just straightened it.”

“Yeah, but it don’t go straight like that for everybody.” His eyes were glassy, like I was something edible, like he was imagining what it was like to run his hands through it. I didn’t say that my scalp was still tender, still tacky with exudate, that if he pulled it too hard, like I do when I wrap it in curlers, or when I masturbate, strands would fall out.

“You want to chill?” The snakes were silent. I said no.

∙ ∙ ∙

We trained with the Dahomey, braided into their spiky crowns, ready to strike. We learned the ways of warfare. We became the ones to bear the thorns and take the heads. If you saw them when they were angry, you would shake and quiver, just before they cleaved you in two. When they strode out of the palace gates, swords gleaming, a small girl would run before them ringing a bell, warning all men to avert their gaze, to keep their hands to themselves, and to hope they were passed over. The only safety to be found was in the glint of their muscled backs receding.

∙ ∙ ∙

At twenty-six, when I mentioned maybe stopping the relaxers, my boyfriend looked curious.

“I’ve always wondered what your hair would be like without it.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“It’s your hair. I don’t think I get a say.”

“What if it’s weird?”

“It’s just hair.”

But it isn’t just hair. I know it isn’t.

There was a transition period, where my new hair grew out puffy and thick. My old hair was limp and tired. I pulled it back, in tight low buns, all the snakes coiled into a controlled nest. They did not like it. They fought back, sprang free, frizzy with rage. They began to eat my brushes.

The first time I went home, my mother scowled.

“I’m going to make you a hair appointment.”

“I don’t need a hair appointment.”

“You look unkempt, dear. You can’t go work in an office looking like that.”

“I’m not going.”

“But, dear —”

“No.”

I had forgotten my snakes could sing. They sang in the shower, of strength and resilience, of ease. They sang of not listening to mothers.

I scheduled my own appointment to chop off the relaxed ends. They fell to the floor, flat and lifeless. So many dead snakes.

My new hair was buoyant. My snakes, unburdened, roamed as far as their ties to me would let them.

That Monday, my boss said my hair looked messy.

“It’s my hair,” I replied, even emphasis on every word. He left it at that.

∙ ∙ ∙

We rode with those who were stolen. We crossed oceans of sickness, of struggle, of pain. For a time, the sight of waves, of shining metal in white hands made us quiver.

We cannot save them. Some turn away from us, some beat us into submission, some do not need our strength. We come to them while they sleep, remind them of who they used to be, of who they will become.

There are limits to our powers, but we hold the memory of all that is possible. We resist the rough pen, the coarse brush, the hungry chisel of artists who would keep us from knowing ourselves, who would bleach the murderer Perseus’ wife Andromeda from obsidian to milk, remove the sun’s kiss from Cleopatra’s cheeks, turn the world white with lies.

The seas do not frighten us anymore. We remember who we are, who we have been. We can be stone. We can be steel. We need not break.

∙ ∙ ∙

When we make love now, he puts his hands into my hair and they wrap around his fingers, eels sliding through coral. I tell him to pull it, and he does. We are a chorus, my snakes and I.

After, we peel our bodies apart. He moves towards the shower. I follow him, because my snakes are not yet sated, and neither am I.

∙ ∙ ∙

No one else can see them, but when the wind blows, they dance like cobras before the flute. When it rains, they sing of mud flats slick from sudden storms, of winding through capsized sheaves of grass, of writhing, tangled bodies. And too, in sun, of the grit of glittering dunes, of speckled green harbors in the crooks of the sycamore fig, of marble made flesh.

I see them in other places now. In the pressed bob tucked behind my barista’s ears, weaving through the coils of my marketing manager’s pinned-up dreads, darting through the halo of my friend’s afro. And just yesterday, on my ride home from work, wreathed around the shaved head of the bus driver, a single snake, head poised over her forehead like a jewel in a crown.

I don’t say anything. But, my snakes, all my snakes nod their heads in recognition.

∙ ∙ ∙

FRIEDA VAUGHN

Frieda Vaughn is an alumna of Clarion 2017. She lives in Paris with her person, her dog, and a head full of snakes.

NO LATE-FOR-SCHOOL

By Shari Paul // 4914 words

[white background with repeating image of blue-lined sewing patterns]

[header illustration of half a woman’s head with hair in a large afro, hot pink and purple blush along her dark brown cheeks, bright yellow, orange and purple flowers stuck in her hair]

Delilah On D Loose

Sewing bold and bougie modern Trini girl realness…

Saturday, January 5th

One for the birds…

Tags: bae; all men are dogs; evil exes; some women are crazy; natural hair journey; obeah; superstition; listen to your mothers; this is one for the birds folks

[image 001: blurry selfie photograph of small metallic navy feather among strands of short, tightly coiled black hair]

You all see this shit?

[image 002: zoomed-in selfie photograph of metallic navy feather growing out of scalp, hair parted by fingers]

Yes, that is a real feather growing out of my scalp. No, I did not fall asleep on a craft project, which was my first thought, more on that later. I am also not part-bird as far as I know, though there are birds involved. Trust me, whatever explanation you’re coming up with for this, it’s not it. If any of you guessed obeah though, well, now is a good time to get out your blue and bush and jumbie beads.

To tell you this story right I have to tell you guys about my boyfriend.

You guys remember bae, right? Samson (not his real name, of course) and I were together for the past seven months. We met when I went out for the first time with friends after cutting off all that relaxed hair and let me tell you what a confidence booster it was to have such a tall, hot drink of dark chocolate look my way. He was everything that I wanted in a guy: gym body with an actual gym habit, nice clothes, smelled good, he had a car and a good job, and was active in his church. No pets, not even a bird, (Ha!) but he couldn’t with his job.

At any other time, I think I would have had my antenna up looking for trouble, but I had just broken up with that cheater, Mr. “Okay, Okay,” and with the hair and everything, I just chose to ignore shit. Mistake number one.

Things started out fine. We had a few nice dates: fine dining in the city; sailing down the islands with friends, romantic weekend in Tobago. My father liked his job and the neighbourhood that he rented in. My mother told me outright that I was probably not going to find a better man, especially after he brought her flowers for dinner and helped with clean-up after.

She had also said that a man that seemed so wonderful could not possibly be single at his age unless something was wrong. This woman and her goat mouth.

Anyway, you all know that I am proudly #independent. Samson had that oil money, but I was not about to ask him to take care of my expenses. I was rocking the pixie cut look, so I didn’t need his money for bundles. I have a friend who does my nails for cheap and I do my own spa at home. I make my own clothes, so the only thing I’ve bought for the past few years are shoes and accessories. Also, I’m still living in my parents’ house so as long as I pay a few bills and contribute to the groceries, I can stay for as long as I like. My sister’s old bedroom is my sewing room.

But here comes Samson, when he gets off work:

“Babe, you need anything for your hair?”

“Babe, you like that ($1100!) dress?”

“Babe, I saw you watching this makeup place when we were in in the mall, you need anything for your face?”

I’m not about to say no to getting things, but like, respect that I’m making my own paper, dude. Chill. And when I told him this, he was like “Oh, but you know I can’t have my baby looking like I can’t take care of her.” I had to remind him that I was doing just fine before I met him. He said that these were just gifts and we almost got into a fight over it. Not worth it though, so I let it go.

Ignoring that was mistake number two.

I think I must have told him at some point about wanting to make costumes for a band. I have friends who I play mas with every year and every year we always talk about me getting a contract to sew costumes. Some bands nowadays just assemble the pre-made costumes or import them completed. Very little sewing needed. But I have done adjustments to enough costumes over the years to know that they could do with the help.

So, one day Samson and I go out for doubles and he tells me that he has this friend who is launching her own band and needs people to help make costumes. Who would not be interested, right? I told him that I could definitely make costumes and he just laughed and said, “That’s why I told her about you and she asked to meet. After we’re done here, let’s swing by her place. It’s in St James.”

“She” (yes, I know, but I don’t mind my boyfriends having female friends as long as they don’t ask me about my male ones) turns out to be one of those red girls from the West, down to the “con-vohnt” accent and the soft curly hair. “Becky with the good hair” (also not her name) looked serious enough. Her mas camp was one of those old colonial houses, with a sign out front advertising the band, Limers, and their presentation “Pimlontas: Goddess of the Hummingbird”.

If it’s one thing our elders like to quarrel about, it’s that Carnival nowadays is all about the beads and feathers. There were ten pairs of costumes when we walked into the mas camp, and all of them were covered in feathers. I guess it was on theme, as half of the costumes were the pretty mas that you see on all the Carnival brochures, and the other half were J’ouvert style and feather-free, brown and black, to represent the villagers sinking into the pitch lake.

I’m going to back up here to tell you all the story. So, remember the La Brea Pitch Lake tour I posted about a few months back? Of course, you do, bae was in it, we went with a group and swam in the pools the rain formed in the pitch. A quick recap of the legend: a long time before Columbus, there was an Amerindian village at the site of the pitch lake. The villagers liked to decorate themselves in the feathers of the hummingbird, and Trinidad had enough of them that the people literally called it “the land of the hummingbird.” Anyway, these people also worshipped a goddess, Pimlontas in some legends, to whom the hummingbirds were sacred and precious. When she saw what the villagers had done, she was furious, and she sank their village into the pitch as punishment. To this day, things that fell into the pitch long ago will resurface, including bits of pottery that they said came from the village.

So, this is the story that Becky was working with and hence the use of feathers. I thought it was an excellent idea at the time and I loved the costumes. She even mentioned that she had some friends building King and Queen pieces. Whoever designed the band costumes did a great job. I could just see the masquerades flitting about like a flock of hummingbirds as they crossed the stage and though she said that the band was small, they were going to make an impact.

I think I had already made up my mind to get this job from the moment Samson told me about it and when Becky made the offer, I did not hesitate.

Now you all remember my mother’s warning about darling Samson? Well a few months after we started dating, I got bored of the pixie cut and began growing my hair out again. I had never planned on keeping this look (hell, I’ve been through at least five different cuts in the past three months) and I was ready to try out some of the longer natural hair styles. This is when bae suddenly starts having a problem with my hair.

He never said anything outright, no, but ladies, you know how the men do it. “Oh, time for a cut, babe. Getting kind of wild.” And, “You’re keeping your hair like that? What do your customers have to say about it?” And, “I have a friend who does hair, she sometimes gives me a trim, she could do yours for a discount if I asked.”

I think I could almost hear that one jerk from high school, black like tar, hair hard like wire, but still yelling about how he did not want “no late-for-school children” behind any girl that rejected him or was too dark for his taste. I heard he married some Indian girl some years ago and they had to go to the Registrar’s Office because her family did not want her to marry him. Their first child, a girl, took after him so much you would never know her mother is of East Indian descent.

But his mention of this hairdresser friend caught my attention because we had a friend’s wedding in a few days, and I wanted to try a twist out. I would have done it myself, but it took me three tries to realise that I could not get the twist as neatly as I wanted. Worse, my regular hairdresser was on maternity leave so, desperate times. And that was the biggest mistake of them all.

From the moment I met his “hairdresser friend,” I knew that they had been more than just friends in the past. Homegirl was very professional and sweet, but there was way more touching and low voices and lingering glances than you would expect from someone he had only ever been friends with. I should have gotten the hell out of there from the moment I noticed but again, desperate. Besides, her shop was cute. She had decorated it like one of those French bistros, with striped pink and chocolate walls, Tiffany blue cushions and white cupboards and cabinets and vases of real, fresh flowers everywhere. She even had pet birds that she kept in another room of the shop and you could hear them singing through the day. I don’t know how the neighbours dealt with that, but the place was clean, and she did not show me any kind of bad face, so I let her do my hair.

(I can’t wait to read your thoughts on my life choices in the comments.)

The twist-out came out fine. She trimmed a few split ends, (or so she claimed, I never noticed any) and put some spray-on colour and boom, I was ready to go. I think I got the most compliments on my hair that I had ever had, including back when it was straight. When I pointed this out to Samson, even he had to admit that my natural hair looked great. And then two days later the headaches started.

Now, I don’t not usually get headaches. I have a cousin and a co-worker who get migraines and they can be out for days. This was not a migraine; the pain was close to the scalp and irregular. A few painkillers took care of the problem and I told myself that it was the stress from the work on the costumes.

Becky had contracted forty costumes from me, (after I made two as a sample) and I spent more than a week cutting, sewing and hot-gluing these costumes from sunrise to sunset. My fingers hurt too (my arms stung from the hot glue burns for days) and my back and my neck, so I didn’t think anything of the headaches. Samson went offshore for work but he called me every day, in the morning and in the evening, to see how I was progressing and if I needed to take a break and assured me that I did not have to worry because friend or no, he would tell Becky to shove it if she tried to overwork me. I remember thinking at the time, that I did not know what I had done to get such an amazing partner, but I was glad to have him. I could even picture us married thirty years in the future and still working together like this. And that was when the first feather grew out.

The first thing I thought was that the feather had got stuck in my hair by accident, because what else was I supposed to think? I had fallen asleep at my desk the night before and woke up with beads and feathers pressed to my face and arms, and falling free of my clothes, so this had to be an accident. Maybe I passed my hand through my hair while I was gluing the feathers in. I was not even that alarmed either because Google had all these methods for getting glue out of hair without having to shave it off. (I cut my hair low when I did the Big Chop but I was not ready to rock the bald look.) When I went into the bathroom to get a better look at the problem, well you can see the same thing I did.

To be honest, I didn’t freak out as much as you would expect. Okay, so there was a feather growing out of my scalp, but I think somewhere deep down I still thought it was glue. I tried to pull it out, but it hurt like a bitch, so I decided to try one of the methods I found online. That didn’t work either. Still, probably glue. In a few days my hair would start growing and push the feather out. I could even camouflage it if I styled my hair right. Two days later, the feather was not only bigger, but there was a second one.

I think I called my mother first, but she did not answer. Most of my friends were at work already and I wasn’t sure how to begin to explain what was happening, so I called Samson. And do you know what the first thing Samson said was? He sucked his teeth and went, “Oh damn it. This girl…”

You guys, I think my blood went cold. My heart must have literally stopped for a second because my whole body just locked up. This man who I thought was so perfect, who I had introduced to all my family and friends, who I had begun imagining a life with, had kept a big dark secret for months. If the ground could have opened and swallowed me up right then, I would have gone willingly. Instead, I took a few deep breaths, trying not to hyperventilate and asked him, “Which one?”

I wish I had recorded the call, so you could see the expression on his face when I asked that, but I wasn’t thinking about that in the moment. My bold, beautiful boyfriend, my Samson, suddenly couldn’t look me in the eyes and his voice was nearly a whisper when he said, “[Homegirl].”

I don’t think I was ever so angry in my life as I was when he said her name, and most of that was at myself. He and Homegirl had been in a relationship and that was reason enough not to let her put her hands in my hair. I never really paid attention to any superstitions about who should and should not touch your hair, and when you should cut it. All of that was just old talk, especially the one about burning your hair after it was cut instead of throwing it out where the birds could get it to build their nests. But that was only supposed to give you migraines, not grow feathers.

So I had to ask him, “What is this then? Some kind of obeah?”

I believed in obeah even less than superstitions. He still would not look me in the eyes when he told me, “It does work.”

If I wasn’t cold before, I think I was frozen solid when he said that. I asked him what “it” is and what happens. Guys, the backstory for this is insane.

Apparently, Samson met Homegirl some years ago, when he was still a player. (He actually said “player”, I died a little inside.) They met at a fete, she was all over him, he just wanted somebody to have fun with and she was, so they kept meeting. Then Samson met some other chick and left Homegirl. Homegirl was not happy about this and attacked the new girl. Samson said that he broke up the fight and thought that would be the end of it, but then new girl broke up with him by text and he never saw her again. It took three girlfriends up and disappearing for him to get suspicious, and this is after the police (!) got involved in the last one. From one of his last girlfriend’s friends, he heard that she had gone to visit Homegirl to get her hair done for a party before she went missing. He goes to confront Homegirl and though she never said anything outright, he searched the shop and found personal effects and clothing and her new pet birds.

When I tell you that I could have killed that motherfucker if we were having this conversation face-to-face instead of over Facetime. I asked the two most obvious questions: one, why didn’t he call the police when he found his missing girlfriends’ stuff in her place, and two, why did he fucking take me to her fucking shop?

Samson got quiet and I realised that this was actually our first (and last) fight. I had every right to be angry though, so I waited until he got over himself and started talking. The reason he did not go to the police was because Homegirl threatened to do to him what she did to the other girls, and because the other girls weren’t dead. I asked him how was he so sure, were the girls just lounging around Homegirl’s shop buck naked? He said no, she turned them into birds. Yes, birds. And I was growing fucking feathers.

Okay, so why did he take me to her shop? Well, according to Samson, he had had other girlfriends in addition to the three who were turned into birds and he realised that she had only gone after the light-skinned ones with soft hair. He thought that she would not do anything to me because, and I quote, “she did not mind girls with hair as hard as hers.”

Guys, I cussed him out. I cussed him, his mother, his father, his grandparents, his dog, his friends and his neighbours. What I didn’t tell him, I forgot. Yes, it was foolish of me to let that girl touch my hair in the first place, especially after everything I had put into growing my hair out, but he led me to her like a sacrificial lamb. And he stood there wherever he was on the rig and let me cuss him. When I finished, he said, “Listen, I will call her and see what I can do about getting this fixed. Don’t worry about it. You have the costumes to make.”

I don’t know what prompted him to say that, guilt maybe, but it got me thinking. It seemed absurd, but I had the costumes all spread out in my sewing room and feathers growing out of my head, so I asked, “And where does [Becky] get the feathers for her costumes anyway?”

Samson just said, “Don’t worry about it. Don’t do anything. Just finish the costumes.”

If I was cold before, if I was frozen before, I was glacial ice now. I don’t know how I managed to smile at that asshole and calmly end the call, even promising that I would call him later. But as soon as I hung up, I dumped my phone, took up my bag and left the house. By the time Samson got back, I was probably going to have a head full of feathers if not a beak and wings. I was not going to wait around to start chirping.

Homegirl was in her shop when I got there, with a long line of customers. I’m very proud to say that I was still calm when I walked in there and said, “Do you do walk-ins? I have a problem with some new growth, split ends.”

Homegirl didn’t look surprised or nothing, just told me to take a seat. One of her clients even offered a home recipe to take care of it as I settled for the longest wait of my life. I hadn’t brought my phone, one of my ex-boyfriends had found a way to track me through it and I did not trust Samson not to do the same and call Homegirl. Maybe I should have brought the phone anyway, because I was bored out of my mind and then on a break between clients, Homegirl came over with her own cell and said, “He wants to talk to you.”

When I answered, it was like I was talking to a completely different person. He demanded to know what I was doing at the shop, if I was making a scene or had called the police. I refused to confirm or deny anything and that’s when he started with the threats. He warned me against making any trouble or I would be deader than the birds in a KFC box. I hung up on his ass. He called back and started calling me all sorts of names and even said, quote,

“All you stupid, hard-head girls is the same thing. You really think I could have anything with you? I don’t want no late-for-school children. I can’t take you to no company events and let these white people see me with this kind—”

I hung up again and he did not call back.

I’m not going to lie, that hurt. I had never had anyone speak to me that way in my life, not even indirectly, so to hear it from someone I was falling in love with was devastating. I had goddamn feathers growing out of my head because of him and here he was making a mockery of our relationship. I had to step out of the shop and take a walk.

When I went back to the shop, Homegirl had finished with her last client and let me in to the backroom. I hadn’t noticed before that there were five birds instead of three. They started chirping and squawking when I walked in but stopped as soon as Homegirl followed. Also, at some point while I was out, Becky had arrived. Just to be sure, I asked Homegirl, “Are any of these real birds?”

Homegirl said no, and that that wasn’t even all the birds. She had some more in her house.

I asked her how she turned the girls into birds. She showed me the set-up. Pure obeah. Strands of the girls’ hair, feathers from the birds she wanted to turn them into, cuttings from a funerary wreath, among other things. I had heard of these things from my mother and aunts talking in whispers. My mother had always mocked them the same way I had the superstitions, and here I was in a room with Homegirl, Becky and five girls she had turned into birds.

I asked Becky, “So what is your role in all this?”

Becky had met Homegirl and Samson at the same party. She had never dated Samson, but she had been talking for years about creating her own band. As the number of birds grew, Homegirl realised that their moulting left her with many bags of feathers. It was Samson who thought that, instead of throwing the feathers away, they could use them to make costumes. The feathers were pretty, and they grew back, so Homegirl thought why not.

These bitches (including Samson) had me gluing these feathers onto costumes, none the wiser, for weeks.

It was Becky who then started with, “You know, it’s just too bad that you came in now. The first batch of costumes you made are perfect, I had to save them for my friends. Do you know how hard it would be to find somebody to replace you?”

I hadn’t gone in there with a plan, but as soon as she said that, one came to me. I asked, “Can you undo this? The same way you hairdressers talk, is the same way us seamstresses do. I know you cannot find anybody as good as me on short notice. You want to finish your costumes and make your money on time, I need more time to make them.”

There was a chorus of betrayed chirrups that Homegirl silenced with a look.

Becky didn’t look convinced by my appeal, and neither did Homegirl, so I said, “No one would ever believe me if I tried to take this to the police. I don’t even need you to pay me, I will take you stopping this as payment and go on about my life. And after today, Samson and I are done. I will tell my family his work got in the way and we could not find a way around it.”

I had thrown in the part about Samson in desperation, not even sure that they would take the bait. They surprised me by agreeing. I would finish the costumes and they would undo the change. I pointed out that I had no guarantee that they were going to do as they promised. They told me that I had to trust them. Obviously I would have to be a complete idiot to do that, after everything, so I told them that I had recorded the call where Samson had stupidly confessed to their role in everything and that I was going to send it directly to the Police Commissioner, with some edits of course, so that he would know that Homegirl killed the girls.

Homegirl said that she did not kill anyone, that I could not prove it and that no one would believe me. I told her that maybe if she looked like Becky, no one would believe me, but instead, she and Samson were both going to jail. If she was lucky, they would think she was an accomplice, but did she really want to be known as Trinidad’s first serial killer?

Becky was still not convinced but I know I had Homegirl, and especially when I said, “You know nobody don’t care about no hard-head girls and Samson will leave us in the dust.”

Well Homegirl went to her cabinet where she had the things set up like bouquets and pulled out one with my 4C hair as the binding. Simple as that, she took a pair of scissors and snip-snip, the bundle fell apart and the feathers fell out of my hair.

It was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, but only for a few seconds, because then Becky was coming at me with, “But we need insurance.”

There was no way I was letting her get her hands on my hair again. I charged Homegirl, knocking her into the cabinet and throwing out all the bundles she had made with the other girls’ hair. The birds started screeching and flapping about in their cages. Becky froze and Homegirl threw me off, but I snatched up as many of the bundles as I could and ripped two open. Two of the bird cages burst apart as the women inside them grew back into human sizes, though still covered in feathers. They threw themselves at Becky, still screaming, and I scrambled out of the way. I burst open another two bundles and two more women tackled Homegirl as she went for the door. The last woman, tall and model-slim, stepped out of the ruins of her cage and said to me, “You should probably get out of here, if you don’t want to be a witness.”

I got out of there so fast there was probably a trail of fire behind me.

And that’s what happened to me this week. My ex-boyfriend turned out to be part of a conspiracy with his crazy ex and their friend to make a profit off the feathers that grew from the heads of his hapless, “late-for-school” girlfriends. I know it sounds crazy, but this was too wild to keep to myself.

In other news, my hair is fine now (and still feather-free.) Bantu knots are the cutest. I’m thinking about dyeing my hair gold next, maybe.

[image 003: selfie of smiling black woman in reflective rose-gold cat-eye sunglasses and dark brown lipstick, flashing a peace sign at the camera, hair in bantu knots, a red and black bead bracelet on her wrist]

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ABOUT SHARI PAUL

Shari Paul is a speculative fiction writer from Trinidad and Tobago. A clerk by day, Shari writes adventures in strange new worlds by night. Shari is published in FIYAH Literary Magazine’s Issue Five (January 2018,) and was awarded a creative writing prize for fiction by the University of the West Indies (2009.) Shari has a BA in Literatures in English, and is currently writing for a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at UWI.

WHILE DRAGONS CLAIM THE SKY

By Jen Brown // 10032 words

When a breeze shook the reed curtains in mama’s salon, I thought it might be another dragon gliding low, stopping to drink from Lake Mritil. ‘Course, mama and I weren’t afraid; we loved watching them soar overhead, wings gusting hard enough to free cotton fibers and coffee cherries across Gyrixëan farms, so that croppers only had to scoop them up.

So, you can imagine my disappointment when it wasn’t a dragon aloft, but a lanky huntress pushing into mama’s parlor. She burst through our straw door, letting in the noon sound of Gyrixëans haggling over pouches in the nearby spice house; testing winter tunics in the adjacent tailor’s gallery—but this wasn’t any old villager, like the rest of them.

Her wolf-pelt cloak, engraved walking staff, and curved daggers marked her as a traveler. And instead of looking journey-weary, her umber skin practically glowed beneath the gauzy afternoon light.

“Dragon’s ass!” she exclaimed, lilting accent stretching the vowels. “And I thought I wouldn’t find another black coif mage before I hit the goblin ferries.”

Mama couldn’t hear anything while her Sight was up. She was busy slicking greased fingers through Ama’ktu’s ‘locs, plying the hidden gossamer magicks that only us mages could materialize, to try and loosen the old woman’s phlegm. A few quick blinks sealed away her powers, returning sound and touch and every other sense the Sight dampened.

“What’d you say?” Mama asked.

“I’m looking to get Han’enfol twists. The long, chunky kind.” Pressing inside, the girl flung cold and snow and mud across our best mats. “Signpost says you specialize in healing coiffery, yeah? I’ve got a bad back that needs tending before I leave tonight. D’you take walk-ins?”

“Omani and I take payment for services offered.” Mama flicked her head in my direction. “Black opal, benitoite, copper stones. Even upland banknotes if you have ‘em.” Her lips flattened into an unimpressed line. “But I’ll bet you haven’t so much as a pebble on you, little girl.”

“Little?” The huntress snorted. “My eighteenth name day just passed, ma’am—”

“Then you’ve adult currency, girl?”

She frowned, chin stabbing upward. “I will soon enough—”

“Pah! I knew it.” Mama motioned her away. “Out.”

I hardly cared about the argument brewing. Instead, I was nestled on one of the salon’s colorful divans, neglecting all of my responsibilities—cleaning the wash basins, beating our yarn dyed throws so that waiting clients would go “Oh, how soft!”—to re-read a letter delivered via messenger raven last week:

From:

Mistress Carolyn Ames

Department Chair, Coif Magery

Imperial College of Allied Mages

To:

Omani Sudyha of the Gyrixëan underland,

Upon reviewing your application, I found your provincial use of “wish” magery an interesting method for the study of hair magicks. Therefore, I am pleased to offer you admission—

“Now, hold it ma’am!” The huntress backpedaled. “I can pay you easily in three days’ time!”

While mama and Ama’ktu fell out with laughter, I shimmied deeper into the divan, swathing myself in daydreams of meeting Ames; seeing the College’s campus. My imagination fissured around the letter’s last line:

At your earliest convenience, have your sponsor contact the bursar’s office to arrange payment for Fall term.

Only a fool would apply to the empire’s oldest Department of Coif Magery, under a Professor who’d pioneered hair magicks for thirty-odd years, without having any idea how to pay for it—yet, that’s exactly what I’d done.

“I’m serious,” the huntress barked, loud enough to draw my gaze. “As a finalist in the Dragonscale Melées, I’m this close to becoming an imperial knightess. My winnings’d be large enough to pay back your kindness twice over!”

My next breath stuttered. “Wait,” I cut in, sitting up. “The melée in Ecrouxvér?”

Visiting merchers often spun tales of a biennial, three-day brawl in the floating uplands; one that covered the Imperial College’s outdoor amphitheater in white tents, while competitors sparred in gleaming armaments—competitors who often traveled with groups of tailors and smithies and pageboys. Could this melée be one and the same?

“Yeah,” the girl replied. “I’ve got a summons to prove it.”

Bolting upright, I practically toppled a stool near my legs. “I’ll do your hair!” I blurted, choking mama and Ama’ktu’s side chatter off. “If you’ll take me on retainer as your personal coif mage during the melée.”

Everything went eerily quiet as mama’s bone comb cracked to the floor. I abandoned the divan, rounding styling shelves and low tables to plead my case before the would-be knightess. After all, I’d wished for this; I’d cast my want into the hidden magicks netting our world, hoping a tuition-sized miracle might appear. And bumping into a huntress on her way to the empire’s largest tourney—who, if victorious, would receive an audience with the Empress and her favor, all at once?

That’s how mages won Imperial College scholarships.

“Omani, what foolishness are you on about?” Mama demanded. “You would make for Ecrouxvér now, while your nanu lies sick upstairs?” Her gold lip stud trembled; cowrie braids clanked, as she shook her head. “You would leave us behind?”

Heat flared my neck. Nanu was dying, and from a malady nobody understood. It couldn’t have been age, because that simply thinned her coiled tresses and creased her complexion, making prunes of her dimpled cheeks. No, this death stole her from us memory by memory; made her gurgle wetly as she forgot our faces.

Gods. I didn’t want to leave either of them.

“I know the timing’s bad, but…” Loosing a long, slow breath, I handed mama my acceptance letter. “I got in.” Her thick brows only crumpled as she read the parchment. “I got into the Imperial College! And if I’m to accept, I need a patron who’ll cover my yearly tuition. You know who awards at least three incoming mages with Imperial College scholarships? The Empress herself.”

This time, mama’s laughter pitched high. It made her stagger and clutch Ama’ktu for support, before shifting into fury. “You think I took on Zareb’s cropping so that you could abandon us?” Mama barreled toward me then. “‘Mani, I do it so you don’t have to. So that you can keep our magery alive here.”

“Well maybe I wanna make it so you don’t have to crop!” I yelled.

Mama stopped, reeling like I’d struck her, and my whole body trembled as the truth rushed free. As if I needed reminding that papa was gone; the evidence was all around us. After he passed, ma took up his cropping rotations to cover our debts: coffee, cotton—all Gyrixë’s best-known exports. I hated that she picked year ‘round, only to send half her haul to the cloud ferries for upland distribution.

“Attending the College would mean graduating alongside nobility,” I reasoned, slicing the silence with calmer tones. “And I’d make good money doing upland heads with my wish magery. Every stone could help buy back our lands.”

Mama threw up her hands. “Worrying about finances is my job, ‘Mani. Yours? Is not to lie like you have!” She slumped, tiredness etching itself into her slackening expression. “How could you keep all of this from me?”

Movement prickled the edge of my vision; I caught the huntress glaring between us, backing away as if she regretted stumbling in at all.

“Stay!” I barked at her. “Ma, please—”

“No.” Her gaze turned glassy. “You wanna go? Fine. Gon ‘head. Join your new friend. Honor your ridiculous contract.”

“I haven’t agreed to anything!” The huntress bellowed.

“But don’t you dare come back here after it all blows up in your face.”

Backpedaling, I fought the angry comebacks scrabbling at my throat. I could tell she meant every word from the way she clutched her arms, like she was already getting used to holding herself up without me.

Guess I’d have to learn to do the same.

“Knightess-hopeful—” Don’t cry, I commanded myself. Don’t.

“It’s Myra,” the girl replied. She’d been halfway out the door before mama’s ultimatum, but lingered now, fingers playing at the mosaic tapestry on her left.

“Myra, then.” I gripped my hands ‘til the nail beds whitened. “Look, I’m the best coif mage you’ll find in Gyrixë. I’ve mastered healing coiffery, and I even made up a new kind of magery when scalp divination and strand summoning didn’t suit me.”

Myra edged back inside, trailing her guarded gaze along the length of me. “Then your coif magery…?”

“Molds your wildest wishes into the fabric of our world, so they might come to life.”

A smirk plumped her dark cheeks; sharpened her now-expectant gaze. Behind us, Ama’ktu began coughing anew. Mama went to comfort her, but the din of it all sounded far away.

“Take me on retainer, but keep your winnings,” I continued. “In return, I’ll twist wishes into your hair every day of the melée. Just give me a chance to make my wish a reality.”

∙ ∙ ∙

That night, I feigned strength as we rode out beneath a gloomy half-moon; as Gyrixë’s farmhouses, quiet windmills, and wending streams faded behind us. Once we hit Han’enfol, and our neighboring realm’s tarped night markets came into view, Myra slowed us to a trot to clear the bazaar’s throng. That’s when I spied the fire lamp glow of Madame Ellerie’s Coif Menagerie haloing the darkness, where papa had gifted me an “unbreakable” bone comb. At nine, all stubby legged and squat, I could barely reach heads for styling. Mama had gazed on excitedly anyway, proud to have a real Ellerie piece in our salon’s collection.

Now it jangled inside my rucksack, bumping grease tins and iron clips to the tune of my façade fraying at the seams. A miserable sob shuddered free of my throat at the memory.

“Nope, none of that.” Myra loosened her hold on the reins to squeeze my arm. “Look, I get it—leaving after a fight’d chafe anyone’s ass. But you better ready yourself with whatever strength you’ve left.” Clicking her tongue, she spurred her mare into a gallop so that we’d make the last departing cloud ferry. “We’ve a melée to win, and dreams to earn. Your ma’ll come around.”

I didn’t exactly feel better, but she was right. Sucking tears from my lips, I focused on everything but memories of home: my cramped thighs clinging to our horse, Myra’s smooth staff resting against my lap, the tang of anti-inflammatory salve wafting through her furs. We rounded Han’enfol’s bordering slaughterhouses. Hours later, the breathlessness of Vanar’s hulking cloud ferries rose into view as we entered the last southern realm I’d see before taking flight.

My sense of splendor quickly disappeared after it took every stone I’d saved to board. Which came after Myra negotiated the avimage captain’s asking price down, and threw in her horse for good measure.

“Come on now, friend. Who’s trying to fly with all these dragons about?” She winked, further wrinkling his bearded glower. “Might as well cut your losses and get what you can, ‘cause these docks seem pretty damn empty tonight.”

Mama said only birds were meant to fly, so I held my breath when we pushed off, until Vanar and Han’enfol and Gyrixë and every other little underland realm disappeared below dense clouds. It was win, or beg our way back home. Abyss below, I should’ve asked Myra to do a backflip or a blade toss or something to prove she could fight. Still, she had enough bravado for us both.

“Now,” Myra said, swaggering into our modest cabin below deck. “Let’s hope you’re half as good as you claim. I still wish I’d begged Kellarin to do my hair before leaving.”

I couldn’t decide whether I admired her caution, or found it annoying.

“Kellarin?” I began unpacking my styling tools atop a rickety writing desk.

“My sister.” Myra unfurled herself across our straw bed, long limbs dangling over the side. “She does healing coiffery like your ma, which means I know my way around coif mages. I’ll know if you’re playing me false.”

Annoying, then. Definitely annoying.

“Will you now?” I tried to clear the acid from my voice. “Why didn’t you beg Kellarin, then?”

“Because…” Myra canted her head defiantly. “She took up fighting Qu’hellain’s wolf-wraiths in my stead.”

“Oh.” Iron hairclips fell through my fingers, pelting the writing desk awkwardly.

I don’t remember how old I was during Gyrixë’s last wraith massacre; I just know I’d never been more frightened than when mama clutched me close, her breath lancing hotly against my ear while villagers called for aid outside: don’t let them in, no matter what skin they’re wearing, she’d begged before going into the darkness with papa. They left me trembling in nana’s room with a torch bigger than my torso, so that I could burn wraiths out in case everyone else failed.

Now Myra’s sister would exchange bone combs for obsidian blades and magicked arrows, to help keep them at bay.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“Why?” Myra challenged, rearing up onto her elbows. “Da taught ‘Rin to wield the knife too, same as any Qu’hell huntress.” Something jagged caught Myra’s tone, deflating her bravado to a paltry simmer. “And she’s in good company. She’ll travel with the last hunters Murinien trained, before she—” Myra hesitated, eyes widening. “Nothing. Before nothing.”

Oh. Oh Gods. “Wait, don’t tell me Qu’hell’s realm dragon left, too?”

Would this kick off a second wave of the so-called dragon exodus? The first had come like a torrent, with droves of them taking flight after failed negotiations at the Empress’s imperial summit. Upland pamphleteers reported that the dragons were heading east, claiming faraway crag wilds to build army hordes; that they’d come back and burn every city if we didn’t stop them.

‘Course, that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. Upland realms knew nothing of dragons, or their thousand-year-long relationships with underland village families.

“Uuugh,” Myra mumbled into the bedsheets. “Me and the other hunters promised we’d keep it secret, for long as we could.” She flipped over onto her back, eyes faraway. “Muri traveled by ground during the day, so Her Arsehole Majesty’s airships wouldn’t catch her flying.”

Gyrixë wasn’t big enough to boast its own realm dragon, so with Qu’hellhain being so close… Murinen felt like my family, too. I’d often race to watch her soar overhead in the spring, scaly form carving the clouds.

“Is that why you want to become a knightess?” I asked, but Myra’s expression stiffened around a stony glare. I guess letting me in wasn’t part of the deal. “Okay, then. Let’s get to your hair.” I steered the conversation back into comfortable territory. “Now, you might know regular coif magery, but wish styling is about binding what we most desire into the tapestry of magick itself. You know about the Sight?”

Myra rose, flinging off her furs. “Sis says it’s like looking at cobwebs or something.”

“Exactly! Mage-sight exposes the raw webbings of magick that overlay our world.” Setting a chair beneath the cabin’s only window, I gathered blankets to create a makeshift styling cape. “Now, you just need to focus on your wish—think it, speak it, doesn’t matter.” I made Myra sit, and began dampening her loose coils. “The rest is my job: binding it so that magick’ll rearrange the universe to make it true.”

“Can’t possibly be that simple,” Myra sputtered. “What if I wished for the world to end? Or to raise the dead?”

I winced. Dark memories from moons prior roiled to the fore: my chubby knees pressed into the salon’s floor, as I raked magicks through my hair. I wished for papa to come back, so he could pepper us with scratchy kisses; demanded that the universe reverse time, pump blood through his heart again. I cursed Ama’ktu for delivering the news, for telling us he dropped mid-cropping.

“There are things magick just can’t do.” Breathing through the rawness aching my chest, I changed the subject. “Anyway, you got nefarious plans I don’t know about?”

“Maybe.” Myra wiggled her eyebrows. “Kidding, kidding.” Her tone shifted, turning husky. “Well, I don’t fight good when I’m worried. So… I wish for ‘Rin’s safety.”

Surprise clotted in me, stilling my hands. Myra could’ve wished for anything. Strength. Speed. Agility during the melée’s battles. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one aching for home, and I suddenly didn’t feel weak for doing so. “All right.”

Loosing a breath, I squinted ‘til the world turned fuzzy, then paused; waited until the ferry’s creaking hull faded, until I couldn’t feel the softness of Myra’s curls in my hands. Until all sense, except Sight, fled me.

My next breath rippled a gleaming sliver of webbing nearby, which brought another thread into view, and another—until the whole cabin was sketched over with fibers of magickal essence just waiting to be molded. I tapped Myra’s shoulder, signaling her to focus on her wish. When she spoke, the threads crossing her hair undulated.

I worked quickly to form medium-sized Han’enfol twists, though we stopped twice so Myra could stand and stretch, making the threads cascade down her back like strung stars. Eventually I wove the magicks through each twist, creating a corded lattice that made her hair shimmer. By the time I reached the front section, even her lashes were aglow like some woodland fae from the stories, angular cheeks and wide nose bathed in light.

But like always, my Sight exacted its toll.

Nearby magicks began writhing while I worked, tendrils undulating wildly before stabbing into my skin. As thin rivulets of blood welled up from the cylindrical wounds, I snipped the base of each by pinching them between my nails (mama taught me to never cut them low). The leftover bits eventually settle beneath your scabs, but I learned early on to work fast, which also meant hitting my favorite part sooner: gathering the magicks.

Once Myra’s twists were finished, I mouthed: to me. Churning, the threads unlatched themselves from her twists, coiling into a yarn-like ball that hovered atop my left hand.

Make it so.

They scattered, crawling across the room’s magicks with renewed purpose.

Work done, I softened my gaze; watched the webbing trickle away until feeling crept back into my hands. Sound and taste and smell flooded into me once more.

“I’m guessing this isn’t an instantaneous kinda thing?” Myra teased, stretching as she stood.

“Not exactly,” I laughed woozily; Sight work always left me drained. “Give it time.”

With the horizon still blue-black, we had hours to go before reaching Ecrouxvér. But as I cleaned up, Myra’s calloused hand caught mine.

“Thanks, Omani.”

Heat bloomed where she touched me—the same spot Mekiah, the tailor’s son, pressed a kiss to last summer. A similar feeling torched my core.

“Uh, none’s needed. I’m your retainer, right?”

Holding my gaze, Myra surprised me by tearing some of her tunic to wrap my Sight wounds. Some stung worse, having reopened previously healed scars.

“Da thinks knights are pompous and stupid.” Myra’s jaw twitched as she wound cloth about me. “He doesn’t get what it’d mean for Qu’hell to have a real knightess, even though Muri’s gone. He said if I left, it’d be as good as killing ‘Rin myself.” Her hands lingered, even though my bandages were secure. “I want to become a knightess so that I can help our people.”

We stood there with our hands clasped. Nothing to return to. Everything to lose.

“And I can do that a little easier, even with my back, knowing she might survive the week.” Myra grinned, a real smile this time, unguarded and brilliant. “Thank you for that. And for, y’know, tagging along. I haven’t, uhm… traveled like this with anyone since Muri left.”

I returned her grin, but mine was a flimsy, strained thing. Why didn’t I feel brilliant and brave and unguarded, too?

I wondered about this long after Myra climbed into bed, tired eyes watching the inky horizon out our keyhole window. Thoughts of mama came to me then; of her roasted yams and belly-splitting jokes; of the way her summer sundresses caught the light, or how she stretched onto her tippy toes to plait braids into my crown, even when her back ached from picking.

Of how I hadn’t looked back, when she watched us ride away beneath the murk.

Of how she was probably watching nanu right now, in case she woke confused or tried to wander off. Shame boiled hot in me, since we used to take turns protecting her. Who’d change places with mama now? Who’d make sure she slept and ate while nanu wasted away?

My worries bled into something with claws, rooting deep until the marrow of me felt raked through. Those worries only worsened with the sunrise. Soon, daylight flooded the horizon, revealing landmasses.

Dozens of them.

Ahead, upland realms jutted against the skyline. They loomed like gilt behemoths, cast in grandiose shades of bronze and azure, tops aglow with sprawling cities. Spiral towers needled into thin, pristine points, while bulbous temple domes reflected a patchwork of mosaic artistry. I traced granite roads bisecting the land like arteries to waterfalls spilling over the world’s edge, where their stalactite bottoms knifed into the clouds below, blotting out the underlands beneath.

∙ ∙ ∙

The next morning, Myra woke in agony, back aflame as we skirted Ecrouxvér’s crowded port with nothing but walking sticks for balance. Jitters knotted my insides as we avoided throngs of bird-fishermen, grumbly merchers, and eager tourists—all of which only heightened the coiled tension of watching her struggle.

“At least let me help.” I rounded her other side, but Myra shooed me off.

“Stop fretting and keep up. We gotta book it! Ferry docked later than I’d hoped.”

We trudged the city’s cobblestoned streets, rounding obsidian spires where tempermages shifted winter’s chill into manufactured humidity. It might’ve been nice—if we weren’t sweating and stinking through our furs near gilt parliamentary temples, or needing to cool our damp cheeks against the Imperial History Museum’s marble colonnades.

To make matters worse, Myra’s staff kept slipping on the stones, skidding her into stagecoaches cluttering the street. She refused my help yet again, as we passed towering emporiums where Gyrixëan salt mix went for twice the banknotes they did back home, and veered from the spray of merchers beating sky-dew out of their fabric wares. We spent fifty minutes wandering, lost and sore-footed, along avenues where ruddy kids played around aqueducts plunging off the city’s edge, before finally discovering the Imperial College’s campus.

“Melée’ll be up there.” Ditching her staff, Myra pointed out a distant amphitheater that loomed between brick-topped departmental buildings and a massive belfry. “You ready?”

I could hardly see Myra past my worries, let alone respond. So I followed as she hobbled along manicured gravel walkways, smothering an impulse to retrieve her stick while battling darker thoughts: could Myra win while in such pain? Yesterday, she was all flair and cockiness, believing our destinies within reach. Now I wasn’t so sure.

Doubt dogged the minutes we spent walking toward the theater’s entryway, and I’d barely caught my breath before an attendant spotted us.

“Competitors, both of you?” the robed usher asked. “This way.”

Sweeping inside, my stomach knotted upon seeing so many sky-folk filling the stands: wig-clad men puffing on thick cigars, little girls garbed in chainmail, peering through binoculars to spy the fighters below.

Myra elbowed me, just as we rounded the theater’s circular stage. “Look, the asshole of the hour.”

I followed Myra’s gaze. Downstage, a grave-faced woman surveyed the grounds from a painted dais, flanked by royal guard. That could only mean one thing—Empress Troxrin would preside over the melée herself.

“Does she usually call these matches?” I asked.

“Not this early,” Myra whispered. The attendant led us into a rear preparatory tent, handed Myra a placard identifying her opponent, and warned that the melée would begin in minutes. She flung herself behind a screen to change. “She’s only supposed to show up on the final day, to knight the winner.”

Gods. Which meant now, the Empress might see Myra lose early. Might narrow those beady eyes, easily forgetting the underland girls who’d given up everything to be here. Clammy and cold, I coughed around the stench of competitors dressing and smoking nearby.

“Maybe we should style your twists again, real fast.” Drawing closer to the screen, I whispered: “You could wish away your pain.”

A kind of thick, strained silence met my words, leaving me space to really hear what I’d just said. Gods! I wanted to snatch the words back with my bare hands, but my fingers felt like claws—monstrous, gnashing things that’d shorn away mama and nanu, and now Myra.

“Look, I only meant—”

“Oh, I know exactly what you meant.” Myra came out from behind her screen, clad in dazzling armor: richly dyed leather, accented with a plackart and greaves made of interwoven iron that mimicked dragon scales. My ribcage thudded as I took her in—a real dragoness, towering and lithe, poised for flight.

“Abyss below, this was one helluva mistake,” Myra muttered. Her forehead smoothed, shifting what’d been a taut grimace into something serene. “Go home, Omani.”

Her tone was soft, yet cutting—a broadsword piercing silk. Like a final sundering of something that was once whole.

“W-what?” I stammered.

“Your services are no longer needed,” Myra replied. After fastening her knives, she turned to join the other melée competitors who’d begun lining up. “Shoulda known you weren’t strong enough to see this through.”

A million little things occurred, all at once: competitors took the marble stage to the sound of opening trumpets; I called out to Myra, but ear-splitting crowd roar swallowed the words whole. Pitching backward, I knocked into platters of wine and cheese while ushers and tailors and press pamphleteers and sky peoples frowned at the sight of tears carving my cheeks.

I’d ruined everything.

So I ran from the theater, plunging downhill as the melée’s host, Duke something-or-other, announced Myra’s opponent: “Thera the Thrasher,” a pale, tree-trunk of a woman from the underlands below Ecrouxvér who probably believed victory her birthright. The crowd’s applause faded as I scraped past manicured quadrangles and ivy-coated libraries. By the time I stopped, rucksack clanking, chest heaving, I was all sweat and snot; ashamed of myself for doubting the one person who believed in me; afraid of slinking home to mama and watching her crop until she collapsed like papa. If she’d even take me back in.

I was so absorbed, I didn’t catch the alchemist who’d stopped before me. He had a kind, round face, and carefully balanced a chemical tray full of beakers and vials against his crisp student robes.

“Got your midterms back, eh? I know that feeling,” he said, sounding upland proper. Lifting a knee, he rebalanced his samples. “Don’t worry, it gets easier after your first term.”

It felt worse being mistaken for an actual student. “I’m not—”

“You know, why don’t you chat up your advisor?” He leaned in close enough for me to count the freckles splashing his cheeks. “They want you to think you can’t argue a grade, but you always can. What’s your department?”

Department. Like gears whirring into motion, that word planted the seeds of a plan into my addled mind. “Coif magery.”

“Well, strike that,” he laughed. “Professor Ames is known for being a hardass.”

Reeling, I remembered my offer letter; recalled the way Professor Carolyn Ames signed her name to it. “Where can I find her?”

The boy frowned. “Hasn’t Physical Magicks always been in Kent Hall, behind the clocktower?”

I left him there looking utterly perplexed, but was firmly set on my plan: find Professor Ames; impress her, regale her, do whatever I needed to win her interest. Then, plumb her for ideas about possible sponsors! Wealthy skyfolk she might know. Gods, she had to know some, right? College faculty were practically nobles, themselves.

And if I was brave enough to keep fighting in my own way, then I was strong enough to find Myra later; to apologize for everything, and pull my own weight. To rally her and trust myself—trust us both—like I should’ve all along.

I raced toward Kent Hall; pushed through the department’s heavy oak doors, wincing beneath the over-bright feel of hallways humming with electric light; poked into empty lecture halls and scanned wall signs until I found her office placard, written in the same flourished hand from my acceptance letter: Department Chair, Carolyn Ames.

Unfortunately, her door was slightly ajar, which meant my creeping steps swayed it with a nasty creak.

“Who’s there?” She called.

Her boots echoed as she whipped the door back, revealing crimson professorial robes and a stern face pockmarked with recent Sight scabs. Uniform, layered scars hid beneath them, resembling sharpened scythes.

“Professor Ames,” I croaked, throat dry. “Hi.”

Her lips pinched, as she took in my sweating, disheveled form. “Are you here for office hours?”

“Not exactly.”

Chewing my tongue, I dug through my rucksack before retrieving and extending her my offer letter. After skimming it briefly, she arched one perfectly shaped brow.

“Ah. Yes, the underlands talent. I remember your application.” She swept greying bangs from her eyes, as if to see me better. “Prospectives usually come begging to get in, but you’ve already done that.”

So why are you here? Her tone implied.

Gods, I had to choose my words carefully. Twisting the edge of my traveling cloak between tingling fingers, I stuttered, “I came here to win patronage from the Empress.” Her narrowing eyes only worsened my stumbling speech. “I am—was working as a personal coif mage for one of her melée competitors.”

Professor Ames chuckled sharply, mouth agape. “And when that unlikely plan fails? As it already seems to have, since your coif work is a past-tense activity.”

Heat crawled my ears, dulling sound so that I had to flatten my tongue to feel the press of every syllable thudding out. “Then I’d like to discuss other options, Mistress. To prove that I’m worth investing in, to whoever’ll have me.”

Perfect brow lowering, she returned my letter; swept keen emerald eyes over me. “Meet me here tomorrow ‘round nine, before morning lecture. I promise nothing but coffee and a chat. Let’s see what you take from it, shall we?”

The door creaked shut before I could respond.

∙ ∙ ∙

When marble cracks, it isn’t loud—or at least, not in the way I thought it’d be. Thera the Thrasher demonstrated this by cleaving her warhammer into the space where Myra’d lain moments ago. Instead of shattering, the veiny rock split with a squelch that came from sliding against itself; too dense to crumble, yet still capable of being broken.

That rockface would’ve been Myra, had she not pitched away at the last second. Clambering up, she swayed gracelessly, swiping away the blood marring her chin.

She could’ve been killed.

That thought haunted me while I watched her match from a cramped stadium seat, wedged in between two bettors who could only complain about how boring the ‘underlands scruff’ were.

“How long?” I choked out to man one on my left. “How long have they been fighting?” I’d arrived minutes ago.

“Half an hour,” he grumbled. “Abyss and shit, let’s end it already. We’re all really here to see Giralt the Grand, am I right?”

He elbowed my side just as Myra rolled from another of Thera’s crushing blows—but this time her shield split, leaving her gasping for breath and clutching her side. I shot up, fighting nausea.

Myra was losing. She might actually die here, among uncaring skyfolk, before I’d gotten a chance to—

“Finally!” screamed the woman on my right.

With a deft foot sweep, Thera pinned Myra’s weakened form with ease. Abandoning my seat, I practically vaulted the stadium stairs while the crowd roared anew. I had to get to her.

Then, everything shifted in the span of a blink. Thrusting sharply, Myra rammed her knee into Thera’s spine. Off guard from the unexpected blow, Thera wobbled right into her grip, allowing Myra to slash up against the arm pinning her throat; then low as Thera staggered backward, welling her shin red.

It was a game of quickness after that, one that ended with Myra smashing her mailed boot into Thera’s chest plate. Despite tepid applause, Myra shouted when the Empress called it, laugh-jogging to the preparatory tent as if her life hadn’t been in danger.

Though when she saw me enter, her excitement dimmed.

“There’s the non-believer,” Myra called loudly. “Convinced yet?”

My lungs were still convulsing, breaths coming hurried. “Convinced? You could’ve died!”

“It’s called a feint.” Myra rolled her eyes, though the left one had already grown puffy. “Anyway, shouldn’t you be heading toward the cloud ferries by now?”

I deserved her ire, even if it stung. “Not without apologizing.” Though washrags littered the competitor’s tent, I tore cloth from my good trousers; pressed in close to hold it against the cuts peppering her chin. “I’m so sorry, Myra. For judging you unfairly. For doubting you.”

Myra’s jaw quivered, but she didn’t back away. “Fine. Apology done. You going now?”

“No,” I shot back. “Because I’m stronger than you think, and I’m not leaving until I find my way into the coif program.”

Something gentle flitted over Myra’s features. She let me worry over her scrapes a while more before catching my wrists. “Look Omani, I was born with a shit back, but it never stopped me from skinning wolf-wraiths, tail to snout. Know why?” Her lips curled back. “Because of the herb-gatherers they stole from us beneath swollen moons; or the sick ones they maimed, just ‘cause they couldn’t lock their doors tight enough after dark. I fight because I believe in what I’m fighting for, just like Murinien taught me.” Sun-warm and kiss-soft, her fingers burned against my wrists. “So, don’t count me out again.” A small smile lit her bruised face. “And I won’t underestimate you again, either.”

It was a plea and a compact and hope bound up in one; I latched onto it with both hands.

That night, I made dragon scales of my emotions; thrust everything I had into a belief in our ability to conjure dreams. After stuffing ourselves with cured meats and rich breads in the victor’s tent, we retired to our lavishly decorated dorm room. By the time I’d fashioned her twists into a pompadour and flung her next wish into the world (this time, blessedly about easing her back pain), I practically fainted onto our only featherbed—but not before telling her about my meeting with Professor Ames.

“Well, well.” Myra sounded genuinely impressed, legs dangling off her side of the mattress. “Good on you. Make her see what they’d be missing out on.”

I yawned. “Oh, I intend to.”

We lay silent, lulled by the sound of tempermages netting Sight threads to redirect strong winds every few minutes, until Myra cleared her throat. “You know, I’ll have real money if I win this. Which I’ll send back home,” she added quickly. “But...if this college thing doesn’t work out, it’s money I can use for other stuff.”

Her eyes fixed mine in the darkness.

“Yeah?”

“Mm,” she returned. “You could come along while I guard Qu’hell. A real retainership, salaried and everything.”

Shivers prickled my skin as Myra’s fingers grazed mine beneath the coverlet; as we hovered atop the precipice of a sudden, surprising want; one that stretched wide, strong enough to tremble us both. Then, it morphed.

I’d come here to scrub my family’s debts away, the way papa’d always planned. Yet here I was, lying next to a fierce, unshakable girl, chasing wants my parents never could.

“We should rest,” I whispered. Painfully, I withdrew from Myra; pressed my welling eyes into the pillow, so that she wouldn’t catch me crumbling over the way dreams claimed the space in my head where family should’ve been.

∙ ∙ ∙

Professor Ames enjoyed her Gyrixëan coffee black and scalding, dolloped with a bit of cream so that our cups matched my complexion.

“Is this a staple in your house?” she asked over-shoulder, descending Kent’s wooden stairs as if floating.

My saucer clattered melodically, punctuating our steps. “Sometimes. Mama likes to sell what’s left to the merchers, but we keep a little for special occasions.”

“And your mother taught you wish coiffery?”

Fat coffee droplets splattered my thumbs. Resisting the urge to lick them, I took the last three stairs with her, avoiding the portrait gazes of great mages lining the wall. “Yes, and no. I discovered it on accident.”

I didn’t want to mention papa; didn’t want to see pity lining her eyes. Instead, I focused on how Professor Ames liked to be on the move. We flitted between classrooms to check on student mages while walking towards her salon, then sunk onto a divan just outside once we reached its polished doors.

“One doesn’t luck into acceptances here. Tell me the truth of how you devised your wish magery.”

Guess I had no choice. You’re strong as dragonscale, I reminded myself. She’ll be the making of you. “I tried to wish my father alive.”

“Ah.” She regarded me for a long while, wrinkled mouth puckering. “You lost him young?”

“I was twelve.” Shifting, I set my saucer aside. “It didn’t work, of course. Which made me realize that coif wishing, and all magicks really, are bound to what the universe can actually deliver.”

“Did you try other wishes?” She downed the rest of her coffee; smiled at another professor sweeping by. “Ones that might change the course of something large?”

My brow crumpled. “Well, most wishes are about the client. Things like wishing for a good harvest, or—”

“What of wealth? Power?”

I was at a loss, unsure of myself. Had clients come to me wishing for riches and notoriety? Of course. Braylon’s boys fancied themselves Gyrixë’s best tailors; they once asked me to shear spirals into their flat-tops, wishing that one of the merchants would take their wares upland. Maybe a noble might don one of their tailored coats, exclaiming: “Who are these designers? Name them—I must have more of their work.”

They were still hustling, slogging to Han’enfol’s markets and peddling their clothing to anyone who’d listen.

“Yeah, I’ve gotten such requests, but there are no guarantees. A lot of wish magery depends on what follows, with how you dance alongside the universe as it tries to rearrange.” I could tell my answer disappointed her, so I quickly added: “Though, I’m excited to test its limits in your department. Maybe we can discuss patrons who’d find wish magery compelling?”

Professor Ames rose swiftly, so I stood too. “Patrons want to see what your gifts will buy them.” She eyed me closely. “Come. Let me show you magicks they value most.”

Entering her salon was like traipsing into a fortress, brimming with students preparing for battle. Foregoing styling chairs and capes, they huddled around large oak tables and wide bookshelves that seemed to house all the world’s knowledge. Together, we approached a group studying in the rear.

“Vincent!”

A boy with smooth, gaunt cheeks looked up. “Professor?”

“We have a prospective student all the way from Gyrixë.” He looked perplexed. “One of the underlands,” she added. “Please show her our coif specialty.”

Vincent waved over another mage, a girl with wavy hair and narrow eyes. She knelt before him as Vincent blinked, his pupils dilating enough to swallow the amber in his eyes. Summoning the Sight, Vincent raised his hands, whispered the word rise, and levitated her hair with magicks alone.

“Hold,” Professor Ames commanded, both with words and Ecrouxvérian sign language, so that her meaning reached him even without sound. Like gargoyles, they froze—Vincent stone-faced, awaiting instruction; the girl’s wide mouth slightly ajar.

“Fascinating.” Pitching forward, I tried to predict his next move. Would he completely style her hair without touching it? Make the magicks slick it into some dramatic updo?

“Raise Amelia.”

Minutely, Vincent’s fingers pinched together. Up, he commanded. Her hair went rigid, stretching around an unseen tether to lift her torso-first.

“Professor?” I sounded small.

“Hold out her arm,” Ames went on.

Grunting, Vincent pivoted his left shoulder, gritting out the word pull. Her right arm stabbed the air, sleeve felling away to reveal goose-pricked flesh where the hairs strained against her skin, as if they were being tugged. Sight scabs peppered her follicles like tics.

“Excellent,” Professor Ames cooed. Then, reverently: “Now break it.”

I turned sharply. “Professor.”

It wasn’t a question, but Carolyn knew that, preferring to keep her eyes on the way Vincent’s fingers bent. Claw-like, he squeezed the air, slithering break between his sweat-stained lips. It pulled a muffled shout from Amelia, as red colored them both—him, bloody from the Sight carving crescents atop his clavicles; her pale arm bruising where Vincent clefted muscle and tendons and bone beneath—

“Stop.” My command was cotton-soft, muted beneath the roaring in my ears.

“Well done.” Professor Ames applauded like I hadn’t spoken, then signaled two students forward. “Would you escort her to the infirmary?”

But Amelia wouldn’t go. Not without blinking rapidly into her Sight, round eyes impossibly wide. “Eat shit, Vince!”

With her good arm, she punched the air; Vincent’s chin hairs wobbled before a sickening crack sounded. Wailing, he clutched his jaw.

“Oh my.” Professor Ames laughed. “Any other volunteers? Seems they’ll both need a healer’s hand.”

I watched them stagger from the room, cold and hot all over; like my body couldn’t decide what to be.

“You see,” Professor Ames faced me, “patrons don’t fund stylists. They like charismatic diplomats. Keen politicians. Unstoppable assassins.” She pinned me with a wilting stare, crossing the distance between us. “Understand, that here? A patron funds your potential. Which means it—you—must be ruthless. That you must mold yourself into something they want to fund in the first place.”

Around us, students returned to their wrinkled scrolls and bitter coffees and weighty desks, but Professor Ames raised her Sight, hovering her fingers around a single braid along my cheek. Softly, she commanded: unravel. Magicks uncrossed the plait, expelling the added braiding hair until only my coils zig-zagged before us.

I knew what was coming. Knew it, even as my stomach bubbled wetly, last night’s dinner threatening to come up.

Align.

Her command stretched those coils until their spiral disappeared; until the hairs swung limply before my eyes. I caught it stiffly between my fingers, swallowing around a lump as it refused to spring back into place; as it blotched the picturesque view of student mages returning to a normalcy that didn’t include me.

“Now, return to the melée grounds.” Professor Ames made for the door. “And tomorrow, I—and a possible patron or two—shall be watching to see if your potential proves ruthless.”

∙ ∙ ∙

That evening, Myra faced fiercer competition: an uplands bastard called Harric, who had plenty to prove. But this time I watched them fight with my Sight up, straining to reveal crystalline magicks sketched across the amphitheater. Blood slicked down my arms as I traced the webbing from treetops dangling overhead, to the crowded seats, to the Empress’s dais, and then down to my feet inside a quiet corner of the competitor’s tent—the most I’d ever revealed at once.

It didn’t matter that my arm was on fire, or that, if spotted, ushers could disqualify Myra for my unsanctioned use of magicks during the melée. I had to risk it, in order to understand what I’d missed after years of self-study; to discover whatever ruthless magicks Gyrixëan coif mages hadn’t known to teach me.

Edging forward, I traced the magicks Harric touched; saw them warble and twist others nearby, until I found one that seemed to run between my foot and his mailed legs. Examining it, I wondered how much force I’d need to tug the hairs lining his calves, canting his balance.

Or to break his legs, bone-by-bone—

My chest seized. I’d stopped breathing. Convulsing, I blinked and rubbed the Sight away until the sweaty heat and hard stone beneath me returned. Which meant I’d missed minute sixty-three, where Myra ended the match with a knife to his neck.

I should’ve whooped and hollered when they announced her victory, but my stomach roiled instead; Myra was a finalist now—and tomorrow, Ames would eye us both while cupping my fate between her weathered palms.

“You’ve made a believer outta me,” Myra said, swaggering into the preparatory tent. I hid my bloody arm. “Gods, my back felt great. And I haven’t been anxious about the pain coming back, like I usually am. Does wish magery quell that, too?”

I shrugged as attendants poured us celebratory wine; tipped the glass back hard enough to knock my teeth.

“Guess we’ve both cause for celebration?” Myra smirked. “Did Professor Fancybritches get you a patron on the spot?”

My chalice felt molten enough to melt flesh. Fighting an urge to dash it against the stone, I threw Myra a tight smile.

“Let’s do your hair!” I said, discarding my glass. My breathing harshened, tightening around a panic attack. One mama would’ve helped me slow, if I hadn’t left, believing the Imperial College would save us all. “Give me another wish to work with.”

The word tasted acrid and wrong; I needed to twist it. Mold it anew, so that it fit me again. As I raced back to our dorm, scraping my shins on the brambles outside, Myra was right on my heels.

“You didn’t answer my question! Was she impressed with you?”

No. “She was,” I lied. “In fact, she’ll be there to see you fight tomorrow.”

Fight. The imperial way, like Myra with her blades or Ames with her strings. Wishes did not fight; they hoped.

I pounded up our dorm’s stairwell; this time, glancing at more paintings of great mages lining the wall, and met the challenge in their stare.

“Would you gimme your wish already?” I yelled back.

Bounding up alongside me, Myra laughed, successfully deceived. “Fine. It’s a simple one this time: I wish that we get everything we want!”

After racing through our dorm’s humming hallways, we fell through our door breathlessly.

“We’re this close, ‘Mani.” Myra said, approaching the room’s lone vanity mirror. “Mm, I’m thinking…” She squinted, letting her twists down. “Don’t hate me for this, but take ‘em all out. I want it wild and loose, so the bastards all see me coming.”

Her wish was too broad for working with, but that didn’t matter anymore. I unraveled each twist, wrapped her flowing coils in a silk square, and flung her last wish into the world even as the Sight reopened old scars along my neck—wounds that hadn’t bled since I’d tried summoning papa. Every gash felt like a betrayal, unstitching my resolve until old aches sprung free.

So, I made instruments of my agony. After Myra fell asleep, I kept my Sight up; planted myself before the vanity, and held my ashen arm before the mirror. I manipulated its long hairs without a wish to speak of; whispered commands well into the night, until it was too dark to make out my reflection. Until it was impossible to distinguish where pain ended and I began.

∙ ∙ ∙

Our final melée came under a bruised sky as we met Empress Troxrin on the College’s wide athletic field; wavering grassland stretched on for miles, accented by the rise and fall of sloping hillsides marked with sigils denoting different magickal sports. There would be no amphitheater this evening; no roaring crowd watching from the hovering mage-stands. Just six finalists waiting, while their retinue watched from the sidelines.

Though she lacked an elevated dais, the Empress commanded authority in polished chainmail while addressing a powerful cadre: College Chancellor Vihrane, flanked by distinguished faculty like Professor Ames; magistrates from Ecrouxvér’s six provinces; sign language interpreters, in case College faculty were using their Sight—a slew of important somebodies who might as well have been nobodies to me.

“Trusted colleagues,” Troxrin intoned. “Again and again, you’ve put our Empire above yourselves, sacrificing everything to see it whole. Now, it is time I show you the gift your patience bore.”

Nerves should’ve made slush of my veins, as Troxrin began addressing Myra and her competitors. Instead, I blinked my Sight on and off like flint striking stone. Like playing my fingers over fire, ignoring the singe of it. Ready to strike, I sized up Myra’s more foolish competitors; the ones who’d clearly thought all coif mages simple healers. I took in the exposed neck hairs of one burly finalist, and the armpits of another who stretched to get limber. Somehow, I’d interject; make a key move look like Myra’s actions, but really be mine.

“Fighters, you must be wondering what stands between you and greatness.” Myra fidgeted, hands poised on her daggers, eager to start as the Empress continued. “You will be called upon to best one another soon enough. But first, you must face the empire’s greatest danger together.”

Professor Ames clasped her hands tightly, grim mouth twitching. When she caught me staring, she inclined her head, giving me her full attention.

“This year, my champion’s bounty goes beyond banknotes and knightships.” Troxrin approached, royal guards following. “What you fight for now is the very survival of our empire, and all who walk it.”

An acrid smell drifted over us just as Troxrin raised her gauntlet, signaling something above. Distant Sight threads wavered as dark sky galleons crested the field’s western edge. Blinking out of my Sight, I squinted through the haze. Chains dangled between the airships, hauling something massive, muzzled—

“The hell?” Myra yelled.

A captured realm dragon flailed within the chains. The iridescent creature’s scales reflected sunlight in frost-blues and fuchsia-periwinkles; like a soap bubble bound against the skyline. Its muffled wailing increased as tethers gouged the fur tufting its belly, back, and snout. More rope dug into the membrane of its bat-like wings. Troxrin’s cadre rose, gape-mouthed as her warships settled it onto the field with a resounding thud.

“Comrades, competitors!” The Empress called. “I gift you one of the dragonkind that deserted us.”

Cacophony erupted: Troxrin’s senators cheered; Chancellor Vihrane hustled forward, jowls trembling. “What have you done? Empress, the old oaths. The dragonkind will come for us all!”

Professor Ames’s perfect brows arched toward the heavens; horses reared up against their handlers in fear—

“Wait, your majesty!” Myra screamed around the dragon’s muffled roars. “That—that’s Murinien.”

Murinien. The dragon who saved Qu’hellain babes from soul sucking wolf-wraiths; who taught Myra’s Da to hunt, and then Myra herself; who’d watched over Qu’hell’s plains folk for three thousand years.

“Myra.” Her name left me like a plea. I tried to make for her, but Troxrin’s guards blocked my path.

“She’s Qu’hellain’s realm dragon,” Myra pleaded. “She—”

“Deserted her realm months ago, breaking the old oaths like all the rest of her kind,” Troxrin cut in. I stumbled backward as the Empress suddenly unsheathed a wraith-blade, made from the very creatures Myra’d kept at bay. Its icy surface matched her pallor. “Competitors, how long have you lived in fear of the dragonkind?”

I flinched against the cry of upland warriors who’d never known dragons, or the lakes they liked to drink from.

“Defeat this beast here and now,” Troxrin commanded. “And you’ll have your knightship. You’ll have my armies, too. And you’ll march on dragons littering the Eastern crag wilds before they know what’s coming!”

Finalists charged with a collective battle cry. Troxrin signaled her mages—they trained levitating arrows on Murinien’s writhing form. Myra wept openly as noble conquerors readied to annihilate her protector.

I thought of mama and papa. Of Gyrixëan summer nights, when we watched dragons circle overhead, clutching dying gryphons and ogres between their teeth, while trying to guess which realms they protected. Of the way papa kissed my frizzy curls when, at seven, I told him I wanted to be a dragon when I grew up.

You can be anything you want, he’d responded, dark cheeks puffed with a smile. You just got to believe.

Slack-jawed, I glared as Professor Ames’s tight expression broke open; felt rage boil through me as she smiled the way papa used to, whenever he saw dragons; as mage-arrows lashed through Murinen’s wings from above, and competitors slashed at her belly below.

Reaching into myself, I discovered a smoking pit dense enough to swallow the sky. I recalled my Sight in one blink, revealing milky threads that stretched from Troxrin’s feet to the galleons above, running right through her guards before me.

And then, ruthlessly, I spat a single word while my hands hovered over magicks kissing their mailed legs: move.

In one motion, they buckled unnaturally, falling away. I strode over them like dust mites, keeping my left hand firmly on the magicks pinning them. No one noticed me yet—not the competitors hacking at Murinien; not Troxrin. Not even Myra, who still wept into her hands.

So, next came the galleons. I searched their hull quickly, hungrily for—aha! A shorthaired avimage stood at the bow, forehead bleeding as she manipulated threads about her craft like a cradle. I didn’t need to bring the whole ship down; I just needed to get its captain.

Raising blood-slicked fingers, I reached for the magicks stretching from her hair to my hands, yelling: throw.

This time, the threads pulled at me, almost upending my legs. But I stood my ground as they lifted the avimage jaggedly, then flung her overboard. The leftmost galleon tottered in midair, tossing its soldiers in every direction.

Troxrin spun, mouthing something I couldn’t catch, wraith-blade aloft. I hunted for the right galleon’s captain, but the pinned guards quickly named me her adversary. Sighting me, Troxrin advanced, auxiliary guards falling into line as I scrambled backward, searching for an advantage against the incoming mob.

But someone’s blade struck out, cutting the air between Troxrin and me. My heart lurched as Myra wedged herself between us, knives spinning for the Empress’s head. Troxrin snarled, quickly shifting between smoky silhouette and solid form to avoid Myra’s blow. Her wraith blade pulsed with the effort, lending her its power. Troxrin thrust its full might toward Myra’s torso.

We wouldn’t last like this, with the world bearing down on us.

Casting around, I searched for another move—but the magicks in my left hand suddenly severed, shearing painfully from my flesh as my fingers bent. I came out of my Sight with a scream.

Professor Ames bore down on me, hands curled like talons, tight-lipped snarl frozen in place.

“So, you would turn your ruthlessness against the empire?”

Though chaos raged everywhere, I smiled. Finally, I understood my place. “No. I’m shaping it into something my parents would be proud of.”

Summoning strength that mama and papa and nanu helped me tend, I called back my Sight even as Professor Ames fought for control of my body; as Myra failed to hit Troxrin, whose wraith-blade made landing blows impossible.

I peered past all of it, out to the magicks surrounding Murinien’s chains and muzzle; counted every thread touching her fur in my mind’s eye.

Break.

I thought it, spoke it, flung it into the sky—until the threads around Murinien’s chains shattered, taking the iron with them, pushing air and matter and debris around so that her muzzle and shackles disintegrated. Aghast, Professor Ames staggered as the world behind her seared, bubbled, erupted. I squeezed my eyes shut as Myra launched into me, hurtling us aside. Murinien’s flames licked past, igniting everyone but us.

And when the light flaring behind my eyelids faded, I opened my eyes; blinked my Sight away, taking in the destruction.

Only Myra and I remained, sweaty and ash-soaked, amid the now-charred ruins.

“How—how?” Myra stumbled ahead. We faced Murinien, whose pale eyes raked over us. “Your coif magery did all this?”

I shuddered. “No. That was the College’s coiffery, at its finest.” My heart stopped, as realization dawned on me. “Troxrin?”

“Not dead,” Myra muttered, dusting off her armor. “Stupid wraith blade saved her ass, yet again.”

But those without such abilities were gone. Professor Ames. Magistrates and senators. Even the competitors, who’d been too busy hacking at Murinien to notice us. I swallowed.

“You okay?” Myra asked.

Murinien approached while I struggled to answer, claws crunching over the smoking field. Myra practically leapt into her belly, nuzzling tightly against her fur. Murinien brought her head low; the best hug a dragon could manage.

Thank you for saving me. Murinien’s voice rang in my head, loud and clear as bell chime.

I staggered back a little. “Y-you’re welcome.”

Myra laughed. “You’re always so formal, Muri.” Which meant Myra’d heard her, too.

Murinien exhaled a bit of smoke. And you are always so teasing.

“But you love me anyway.” Myra put out her hand, beckoning me. And even though we stood amidst a field of ash, I took it, letting her warmth soothe my aching fingers. “Muri, my friend here doesn’t just do fancy, life-saving magicks. She grants wishes.” Myra pushed my hands into Muri’s soft belly fur. “She might grant yours, if you ask it of her.”

I felt a part of me stir; the part that loved papa and mama, and the underland magicks I grew up with. “You have a wish?” I asked.

Murinien paused. I have many. She rose up then, turning from us a little. But I abandoned Qu’hell against the empire’s orders. Left to join my kin who yearned for quiet, for freedom after eons of service. I knew the cost of this. Knew the humans I’d leave behind. So, kind as your offer is, I cannot accept.

Myra scoffed, voice shaking. “Don’t you dare start that, Muri. Look, you made us strong. You made me strong. And now, we have to carry on those lessons you and the other dragonkind taught. I’d rather see you free, old oaths be damned.”

Muri rumbled, sounding like a purring cat stretching beneath the sun, but she said no more.

“I… didn’t grow up with a realm dragon,” I began, stroking her fur gently. “But I watched them fly overhead. Heard of the wars we took you into, the problems we made you solve.” I smiled, remembering papa. “But you gave my family something to dream about. And you knocked our crops free just by flying over, even though you weren’t meaning to.”

Muri laughed in my mind, the sound coming like waves breaking against a moonlit cliff. Who said we weren’t trying to do just that?

“Then you were always thinking of us,” I grinned. “Now, it’s time to think of yourselves. So, I’ll ask again—you have a wish, yes?”

Far off, Ecrouvér’s emergency sirens wailed. Soon, Troxrin would bring her armies; would scour uplands and underlands alike for those who stole her victory.

Myra squeezed my hand, as if sensing my thoughts. Well, mama had always told me: pick your battles one at a time, and I wouldn’t shirk her teachings now. Until Myra and I somehow made our way back to family, I’d wrap myself in her sayings until I forgot them, like nanu.

Murinien rumbled. Very well. But may I wish for more than one thing?

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll send out whatever I can.”

I wish to remain free alongside my kin, until the sun calls me home. And I wish for your safety—that this empire never finds you or your families again.

There were no guarantees, but if there could be such things as dragons and underland girls who found their power above the clouds, I thought anything might be possible.

“Once more, Muri?” I asked.

I called back my Sight. Murinien roared, and the magicks crossing her fur illuminated brilliantly, shimmering up and over her horns to set the sky ablaze.

See it done.

Closing my eyes, I wove her wish into the world’s fabric.

∙ ∙ ∙

ABOUT JEN BROWN

Jen Brown is a design librarian and writer living in New York, and she strives to write speculative fiction that’s as black and queer as she is. You can find her musing about critical librarianship or writing wins and woes on Twitter @jeninthelib

UMAKE: THE GOD OF HAIR

By Tim Fab-Eme

I hum highlife, calypso and blues, counting

the dreams that slipped and rot away,

roll my waist like baked garri balls

journeying through a mouth that gulps down

hope after hope and takes anthills whole;

I’m on the mudflats picking periwinkles between

prop roots of mangroves, unhousing hermit crabs.

Cold air flows in like harmattan winds,

it’s not the tide turning its back

like a stubborn child, emptying its puffed

bowels on the quagmire and shore lines;

it’s Mami Wata calling me, come, come.

I couldn’t resist orchestra of a million

waterbirds from the lips of dawn, calling

me to a hip-dance; so I took

her hand of gold braids, each finger

the shattering words of an unwritten poem,

and we rolled our waists of beads

hipdancing to the banjo of hatching snakes

to the gourd folk fiddle inside me

as we turned a whirlwind sinking down.

Did you know there are more cities

in the water than what we have?

The gods, too, could learn from us:

they use big fish as firewood here

and cook gold gobies and stout infantfish;

I couldn’t join them, so I ate

the shark-firewood and they laughed at me!

I’ve come to bring their own paradise

they dreamt of woolly and kinky hair;

they dethroned their queen and I ascended

and every hour they queue like almajiri,

making wishes as they touch my hair,

prostrating and libating and calling me God,

and in whom am pleased I give

Afro, frohawk, locks, fishtail braids or cornrows.

∙ ∙ ∙

ABOUT TIM FAB-EME

Tim Fab-Eme has given us new poetic forms: musical, deep and charming at once; he writes about exploitation, identity, intimacy and the environment. His work has appeared in The Malahat Review, New Welsh Review, and forthcoming in The Fiddlehead. Tim studied engineering at the Niger Delta University; he lives in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

BURY ME WITH MY BONNET

By A. Z. Louise

fingernails don’t keep growing after you die and neither does hair

I guess it’s nice to believe that something lives on after death

even if it’s just keratin spiraling out into a casket

until you think back to the ancestors

like great-grandma Louise’s great-grandma

dead in a South with an invasion of kinky coily curly hair

growing out of the earth instead of buried scalps that are barely scalps

hairdressers slice the strands away from plantation grounds

until they can’t keep the growth back

they try lye but the tresses curl up columns and across roofs

looking for daylight or stars or a way back to their home

amongst heart strings cut with a number eight guard

∙ ∙ ∙

ABOUT A. Z. LOUISE

A. Z. Louise is a civil engineer-turned-writer of speculative things, whose conure keeps them company during the writing process. When not reading or writing, they can be found playing folk harp, knitting, or arguing with their sewing machine.

UNBRAIDED, CLEAN

By Terese Mason Pierre

I can smell her grease when I drive into

the lot, and I feel the child inside me

move, small spine arching into an auspice.

I walk through rows of headstones, scarlet sun

casting shadows over short grass, glittering

off my head scarf. I carry an offering:

cassava, white yam, festivals I made

this morning, coconut cake. I sit at

my mother’s grave and place the bowl food

under her name carved in rock. I rub the

moon of my belly, an incomparable

channel to reach her. The sun bleeds violet

over the hills, and I ask my mother to

come to me. She appears wispy and slow,

soft mosquito netting rising from dark

earth, her locs fanned round her head like a crown.

Her large hands reach out to me; I reach in

return, and her hand is solid around

mine, warm. I turn, my back to her tombstone,

and she unwraps the scarf on my head. My

hair pours out thick into the sky, and I

feel my mother’s hands through it, combing with

her fingers for knots, for fragile bits; when

I come to the grave for her to plait my

hair, she wants it unbraided, clean. When she

first rose to meet me, I, clutching roses,

lamented that I could not do it on

my own, that with child, I could never learn,

and my mother opened her coconut grease,

patted the grass before her thighs, and I

settled. She is quick with this ancient work,

her finger decadent, my scalp relishing.

She hums hymns, she speaks in a low voice of

her family, those who crossed with her, and I

speak of my own child, how she moves in me,

what it is like to house a soul. Often,

I think about rising out of my own

grave, plaiting my own child’s hair, what they will

offer me for time I will freely give.

It is nearly midnight when she finishes,

and small twists greet my fingers when I reach

up, the hair smelling of her. At times, I

am left wondering if I have dreamt the whole

event, if I am like those who have not

passed safely through grief, if I hold on too

tightly, her essence splitting, breaking, or

if she does sit warmly in my kitchen,

holding me, pulling me smooth

∙ ∙ ∙

ABOUT TERESE MASON PIERRE

Terese Mason Pierre is a writer, editor and organizer. Her work has appeared in The Hart House Review, Occulum Journal, and Longleaf Review, among others. She is the poetry editor of Augur Magazine, a Canadian speculative and surrealism literature and art magazine, and a co-host of Shab-e She’r, a poetry reading series that emphasises diversity in all forms. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

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