Or the only one.
And then we were there.
First you heard a kind of weird, eerie chant well up through the dense shrubbery and vines. Then you could see the flickering of light from some sort of fire.
Alonso put out a hand to stop me and then directed my body to a spot behind a clump of bushes. He took off his shirt and placed it on the ground and we both sat. The fuzzy suede was surprising against my bare butt, but then it felt good. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever felt quite so wonderful in my life! It was like everything I’d ever seen or done or wanted to was pushing me right against a cliff—the very edge of existence! Whoosh—and you were standing against a cliff and the view opened onto everything ever else, light and dark both, and you told yourself, Now or never, baby. Jump!
There was a ritual circle in the center of the clearing. Hooded bodies stood in ragged clumps to either side—the event itself was yet to begin.
What really got me was how weirdly familiar the look of the whole thing was. Like I’d done this many times before, and like I loved it.
The next thing that caught your eye after the circleness of the circle was that its perimeter was defined by dozens of sputtering white candles. And inside the big circle were more circles, little ones, and more candles—the candles seemed to multiply as you watched them…
You feel yourself being drawn into the circle.
Inside there is also an altar, facing east. It is dressed with bottles of dark rum and red wine and coconuts, honey and pieces of hard candy.
You are standing in the center of the circle, almost.
And behind the dark rum and the red wine and the coconuts, the honey and candy, there is a miniature plain-pine coffin.
The conga drums begin.
Your identity is blown away like a leaf. You stand naked at the edge of everything.
And Sammy appears.
Sammy!
He is dressed entirely in white, a white turban with pentangles on his head and a large cigar in his mouth. Walking in a peculiar, crook-backed way, he alternately spews rum on the ground, tosses down handfuls of cornmeal, and issues forth clouds of cigar smoke.
Then I was Pet again and wanted to spring up! Sammy! But Alonso pressed a restraining hand on my forearm.
Coincidence. Sex. Ritual.
You are in the circle again and you watch him walk in this peculiar stance seven times around the magic perimeter.
Then a woman appears.
Deane!
She is dressed in full white skirts with many petticoats poofing them out. Over her white ruffled blouse hang many strings of glass beads, carved beads, seeds and seed pods. Her hair is concealed by a white bandanna with pentangles and other mysterious inscriptions.
You almost know exactly what they mean.
In fact, you have seen them before. You have seen the spider woman holding tiny dolls in the sand painting in front of her power-altar.
Now the chanting begins, weaving against the steady rhythm of the drums.
A crowd of dark-skinned people appears. They are pummeling packets of mantioc and setting them onto the fire they have built. They also hold cucumbers aloft, slit them down the middle, and use the pale green water as if it were blood.
It is blood.
It might be your blood.
Sammy crosses the line of candles. He stands inside the circle almost touching you. He motions for the woman, Deane, to join him.
You know now why he pursued her. You know the perfect texture of their coincidence.
The woman radiates strength and power. Deane! The woman knows things that you almost know. You remember them hazily, as if you have dreamed the entire spectacle before. You want to ask her everything, but you cannot ask her anything.
You do not know if she knows you are there.
The fire licks at her heels but it doesn’t hurt. Smoke billows up all around them, but her lungs breathe something other.
Dozens of naked bodies writhe outside the circle. They proliferate like mice, flimsy as tissue, shadow forms to populate all the cities of the world.
You stick your foot out into the dark, and all you receive is the silence, deep and manifold. If it had wings, it would stretch up light and cover you black, and you hold back the fungus of fear, knowing that once you admit it into the folds of your body, it festers inside—but it is cool as fresh-picked morrels, intricate as handmade lace.
How the fear can grab you.
You hear:
Kabiyesi, Alaye!
Ebo a fin!
And:
May you live till old age, Oloja
May your time be prosperous
And:
Lizard offered two pigeons
In order to get the woman
But he did not offer two cocks
Which would make the woman stay
The chanting and the drums, the writhing of the bodies. The flickering light of the candles and the fire.
There is real blood.
There is only the pale green juice of the slaughtered cucumbers.
From the folds of his pants, Sammy produces a machete. Its gleaming blade makes a statement.
He looks at Deane. “Slit my throat.”
Without warning, except for the sliver of warning-pain you felt dig a line of ice in your spine, everything stops.
The group of people in the clearing are as silent as the inside of a cereal box.
“What is it?” you whisper.
“The Egúngún!”
You know exactly what is happening.
You have no idea what is happening.
Energy exits your body: you are a boat caught in the ebb tide of the Bay of Fundy.
Phosphorescence traces the outline of a veiled figure who now stands in the circle.
This is the Egúngún.
He is They who return from the spirit world to visit his children.
His feet are wrapped in a curious sort of bandage, which is layers of bandages dangling with black charms. The shape looms larger and larger. Swathed in clothing, onion skins of white on white, netting floating in a veil around his face—he is like a great, hovering, supernatural beekeeper!
You know him. He is closer to you than your jugular vein.
His hands are also wrapped in cloth. Around his wrists and hanging by the score from his neck are more black charms, red auras glittering about them.
It is blood that has turned these objects black. Blood from the centuries of loved ones gone to their early deaths.
Sacrifices of the ones you have loved. The ones who were taken from you before you were ready to let them go.
You are completely naked before him. He towers above. Your body leaks its sexual juice from every pore; your skin is sore and red from contact with the corporeal world.
The Egúngún!
He stares at you, or this is the conclusion you would make if you could see his eyes. There are no eyes, only sockets swathed in white gauze.
He will bless you. He brings spiritual strength from your dead. But you must make a sacrifice in respect.
“Slit my throat!” Sammy cries. “Now!”
You have forgotten Sammy was there. But where is Deane? Only you and Sammy and the veiled Other are standing inside the circle.
You are holding a machete in your right hand.
It feels utterly powerful.
Are you prepared for this moment? You look Sammy in the eye; his ice-blue chips are mirrors. He is the one who has deceived you. You understand that you have been a pawn in his hands, trading your family and your sister to this man.
You understand that power was all he ever cared about.
And then you realize you are Deane. You raise the machete and look one more time at the only person you have ever loved. All your life, this is the only person who has ever understood you.