Mother, Guide My Fate

My favorite place to be was my mother’s arms. She caressed my little head, braided my little curls, kissed my little forehead good morning, and sang me goodnight with a voice that reminded me of the hot autumn nights we got in Mobile. Her dark eyes comforted me; like two stones of obsidian that rained protection over me. I was never bothered by the red thread she tied around my ankle nor was I the smell of cinnamon that always circulated our home.

We lived humbly, but full of life. The plants she grew thrived and whispered back the same way she did to them, and there always seemed to be the presence of something, or someone, that I couldn’t explain, but felt deeply embraced by nonetheless.

We were the only house around those parts, surrounded by mossy trees and a sticky swamp, but I never feared what entities crawled beneath its waters; they never seemed to mind us either.

I remember when the men raided our home, banging on the door for her and grasping her arms to pull her into the midnight street. Her hands were balled into fists behind her back and the swamp dirt from her feet put smears on the floor of their vehicle. I remember my grandmother coming to get me from the police station and how she held my hand in the seat of the court when the judge convicted my mother of murder.

I screamed for her, watching as they pulled her towards the door. She stopped in front of me, thrashing in her restraints, but the kiss she left on the top of my head was soft.

“I’ll be with you. Always, baby. Look for me in the water.”

They killed her for her crimes, but the last look she gave me was not of fear.

That was the last I ever saw her— the last the world ever saw her, and from then on, I lived with my grandmother in Orlando.

The first year with her was long.

I cooked with her one night, my little hands bringing her ingredients from one side of the kitchen to the pot she had on the stove. I picked a taller red capped jar with full green leaves inside: Bay. I knew it instantly, even at my young age. Mama had kept it everywhere: her tea, behind the dishes in the cabinet, in her wallet, burned in the ash of a candle.

I opened the plastic bottle and took one of the dried herbs out, careful not to shatter it. I handed it to Granny to put into her broth. “For good luck,” I smiled. “That’s what Mama-“

“Forget about what your Mama told you, all of it!” And she slapped the jar out of my hand, sending the jar rolling against the tile floor.

She didn’t seem to care about the tears in my eyes, and for 20 years I wouldn’t understand why.

Our life together was relatively sane otherwise; just the way she wanted it to be. I began school and every week we would attend Sunday service together. Once the time came, I enrolled in college, following a Pre-Med track.

Granny was so happy when she found out I wanted to go into medicine and I was excited to finally be doing something to help those around me.

I thought that maybe I would work as a pharmacist once those long college years were over. I liked catering to people’s needs, organizing, working with different medications to better understand how people’s bodies work, and after helping Granny for so long with her own medical care, I already felt halfway to my doctorate.

But excited as I was, my love for healing slowly dripped little by little as I’d sit in class.

“Remind me, a glycoside is what exactly?”

A student raised their hand.

Among my classmates, I wasn’t the best, but I surely wasn’t the worst. However, my grades were at the bottom of my list of worries, even when the MCAT was coming in hot around the corner.

“Correct. And what does a cardiac glycoside do?”

I was never one to make myself known, but the silence of the class made my brain itch, especially when the answer was so clear.

I raised my hand.

“Yes, Leola.”

My throat felt dry, even when deep down I knew I was ready. “It strengthens the heart.”

The professor hummed at my answer, throwing his foot upon a small box near his deck. “How?” He questioned.

My fingers picked at the curled edge of my notes, looking down at them, but not exactly reading them. “It binds with the sodium-potassium pump, increasing the amount of sodium in the heart muscle cells, making calcium increase to balance and reverse this effect, which causes an increase in heart contractions.”

Also reduces heart rate, commonly used in patients with congestive heart failure or cardiac arrhythmia.

He raised a brow, but played it off. “Good,” he muttered quietly. “Very good.”

With the answer of satisfaction, I went back to scratching my notes, that is until the two boys next to me began to chuckle under their breath.

I sighed. An entire room of empty seats and the professor insisted on sitting me next to two boys that hardly took a day serious. If I couldn’t learn to work with everyone, I may as well forget about working with patients, they said. So, I ignored them, until one sighed dramatically loud during work time.

“I’ve been seeing this one chick in lab, Stacy, you know her?”

“Really, dude? No way, I don’t believe you. There’s no way you got a girlfriend before me, that’s crazy.”

It was like they had no spacial awareness. Was every conversation between people at this school always so bland and depthless? This was the future of science? It was beyond me how they even made it that far in the courses, and yet, it was as if no one around ever noticed. They never noticed when it didn’t affect them.

“Yo, what’s your type anyway?”

“Bro, I’ve been going crazy over girls doing that one hair thing lately.”

I rubbed my face, irritation bubbling up when the table shook as he proceeded to mimic a hairstyle and his friend began to laugh.

“I’ll tell you one thing though,” he leaned in close, only then beginning to whisper, but not quiet enough. “I could never fuck a Black girl, their waaay too much. I feel gross just thinking about it.”

My eyes darted away, suddenly feeling like a spotlight was shining directly on top of my head, burning into my scalp. The way they laughed made me feel even more sick, like they knew they were taunting me directly, and as far as I was concerned, they were.

I wished it was new, wished it wasn’t some version of something I heard damn near every day, but it was. And all they ever did was laugh, made sure to speak just loud enough for me to hear. Everyone did nothing, and nothing happened anytime I spoke up. So, I swallowed it down. Again.

When the bell rung, I sighed and put my things away. As I stood and headed for the door, I heard a shoe squeak from behind me, along with a girl’s yelp. When I turned back, I saw him on the floor, covered in liquefied caramel crunch, and one of the brunettes that sat in front of us was cupping her mouth while holding a then empty coffee cup.

Hmm, served him right.

But on my way to the bus station, I felt that similar rot in the pit of my stomach, something I felt nearly every day.

Every minute that went by, I felt the passion leave my body. A degree that I had worked so hard to achieve now felt so empty and meaningless, and I was only just getting started. I thought maybe it was just a bad semester; every med student got that bump in the road. The only thing that had kept me going was the fact that I had miraculously made it through anatomy.

But the feeling had only gotten worse. I had been having dreams about my mom. I missed her. I found myself wondering how she would guide me through this tough time if she were here next to me. It’s like she felt so close, but there was something blurring my vision of seeing her entirely.

I never found out if she really had killed that man, but something in my gut told me there was more to the story than any simple murder. My mother was not evil, not without purpose.

I closed my eyes, feeling that familiar sting in them that came from the loneliest of days, but that’s when something dusted past my shoulder. My head turned in an instant, only to notice a small black feather resting upon me. I picked it up, thumbing slowly through its barbs, before I looked up into the sky, but there were no birds flying above, none in sight.

It was curious, but when I looked back down, the 109 bus was already driving away.

“Where have you been? Your mother has been looking everywhere for you!”

Granny’s soap opera blasted in the otherwise quiet home, a bowl of rice and beans in her lap, the aroma floating intimately around the house.

I walked to the kitchen, opening the cabinet to take out the small jar of pills on the bottom shelf, but the shaking of the little chemicals didn’t go unnoticed.

“You still taking them pills, baby?” I heard the couch creak from the release of her weight, her steps sticking to the tile as she neared wobbly.

“I swear I be gettin’ headaches every day lately.” I spoke with a heavy sigh in my breath, my head leaning to rest on my palm, but my eyes narrowed when I saw her begin to move around the kitchen.

She brought a small pot to the heat of the stove: rosemary, a sprinkle of lavender, and three basil leaves floating atop.

I sat up higher, slowly placing the medicine back in its place, before walking to watch over her shoulder as she poured the liquid into a glass mug. “Here, baby. Drink this.”

I chuckled gently at the idea but took the cup into my hands anyways. Something always felt homely about natural remedies, a feeling I had forgotten since beginning classes and being stuffed full of knowledge about chemicals and procedures.

Once the liquid was cool enough, I brought it upstairs to sip while finishing one of my essays due for that week. I had been too focused to acknowledge the ease my head felt, or the calmness in my body, only used its effects for my benefit.

On Sunday mornings, I always accompanied Granny to church. I enjoyed the bonding time with her, but something never clicked in me those Sundays, not like it should have.

There was a small lake outside our church and I found myself standing on the dirt shoreline, my purse slumped at my feet.

My years with Granny never felt as connected as one might expect from living with a grandparent. I always suspected it had something to do with my mom, but it was more than that.

I don’t remember much about Alabama, other than the many leaves and roots my mom had around our home. She did everything with such intention. She seemed so connected with everything around her, like she had created life itself— and in more ways than one, she had. She was powerful, something that didn’t take age for me to realize.

Granny reminded me of her a lot, but in subtle ways. I don’t think there’s a single herb in this world that she didn’t have in that kitchen. She put that similar level of intention into everything she did: cooking, cleaning, even walking. And the way she read Psalms— it was different, powerful but indescribable. The little things; they all felt like hints to me.

“Pick that bag up, Leola. You know better than to put your belongings on that dirty ground, that’s gon’ make your money funny.” Her footsteps scraped in the dirt until landing beside me.

“What are we?” I whispered.

“What’d you mean, baby?” Her brows furrowed at me, looking at me like I was crazy, but I knew.

“Why’d they kill my mama?”

Her face hardened entirely. She held her hands together at her waist, taking a moment, but when she spoke again, her voice was void of any tone. “They say she killed a man, you know that, honey.”

“Did she?”

She looked at me in surprise, like I had nerve for even asking, but words didn’t find her quickly. “I don’t know, baby.”

I stayed silent, but my stomach ate at me until I couldn’t stop the words from coming out. “Did she curse him?”

“Now, how-“

“Was she a witch?” I turned to face her boldly. I wasn’t scared of her reaction anymore, I was scared of not knowing. I needed to know who my mother really was.

I watched her shoulder drop, her eyes searching for a way out, but she gave in, reluctantly so, dangerously even. “Leola, I will tell you this one time.” Her teeth gritted, her eyes sharpened as they looked away from me and out at the water in front of us instead. “We come from Hoodoo. Your mama practiced it. No matter how many times I told her to quit it, she just—.” She growled as she spoke, years of regret and disdain laced in her voice. “I better never see you do none of that, Leola. We have a good life here. Don’t go down her path; chasing something our ancestors buried a long time ago.”

I knew something was different about my mom, about the way I felt every time I stepped foot in that church. I was missing such a crucial ingredient to our family history. It was in front of me all this time.

“Let it go,” she warned.

My mouth felt dry, my fingers clammy, and I bit the inside of my cheek. “I will,” but I didn’t, couldn’t.

That day on, I had never paid more attention to the earth around me, and Granny was pleasantly surprised to see how glued my eyes were to the bible every night. Everything was hidden in plain sight, waiting for me to unlock it, and my dreams had only gotten more vivid than ever.

I could hardly pay attention in class anymore, but on the day of midterms, I felt an urge to wear an old yellow shirt in the back of my closet. My test scores couldn’t have been any higher.

When I remembered the tea Granny made me that day, I decided to experiment by putting lavender by my pillow, and I never slept more calmly. Overtime, I would eventually switch the lavender out for a bath of bundled Jericho, which always seemed to bloom in greeting for me every morning.

I noticed myself hovering over the trash bin in the kitchen, holding on to fruit peels and egg shells. It was like something in me told me not to waste it, like everything was more useful than it appeared, but I didn’t have the recipe book to discover how. I felt my dreams whispering to me and I heard her voice through the radio in the music.

That’s how one night I found myself kneeled over a small dresser in my room, a single white candle lit at the center, surrounded by a handful of dirt from the church she lay today.

“I know you’re here, Mom… calling out to me. I feel you,” I whispered so very quietly.

My eyes fluttered open cautiously when I heard the subtle squeak of my closet door falling open all on it’s own, but slow enough to not be from any simple living creature or a gust from the air vent. She was there.

I smiled, holding my hands together at my chin, before squeezing my eyes shut again. “Guide me, teach me.” I repeated the words over and over, but what I received was nothing of an immediate reaction. No, it was more subtle than that. Instead, I felt her words in the back of my mind, her hand ushering me without even realizing it.

It took weeks of study, of searching online, visiting the library between classes and reading. With time, I had learned the herbs intimately, their properties, their healing, but it was the intuition to know how to apply them that was the real test, something no book could have ever taught me.

I traveled to many historical sights, listening to the winds, feeling the ghost of a scene that had long since passed. It was a gift I kept a secret from Granny, but one that had never felt more sharp until that day.

I felt connected; with my mother, my past, my community, the church, my food, my life. This was what I had been searching for, not chemicals, not degrees, but life; natural, growing life, and mama encouraged me every step of the way, sending me music and signs of her adoration for connecting with her.

So, I tried something bigger.

A Wednesday morning found me with a quiet smile.

“Plead my cause with them that fight against me,” I whisper beneath my breath, pushing open the door.

I had already done the bulk of the work the night before. It was time to set the intention.

I pulled out my notes, sitting at one of the back tables. The two boys, my lab partners, entered with a groan as they see me settled in front of the chemicals, loud enough to be heard from across the hall in one of the other labs.

As I sat, unworried, I continued, “Let those be put to shame that seek after me.”

One drops his book down harshly, blowing a huff from his lips and rolling his eyes in my peripheral. He was begging for attention that I would not give.

His friend looks around, garnering a reaction from others that give their sympathies for having to work with someone like me.

“So, like, we’re gonna do the drops, you know, so we don’t ruin our grade.” The shorter one covers his laugh with his hand, doing poorly to hide that he was laughing at me.

“Of course, I trust you,” I smiled, making their gazes twist uncomfortably, though their laughs continued.

It was a simple titration lab, but the flask of acid lied beneath a burette of sodium hydroxide; highly corrosive, making it a sensitive experiment.

I watched with my head in my hands as the boys shoved each other idiotically, but I wasn’t worried one bit. I would get my grade. I was always taken care of. “Let his way be dark: let the angel persecute him,” I whispered more.

The room filled with disappointed exclaims as the flasks turned bright pink one by one, and ours was victim to the same fate.

The boys hit the table in anger, turning their back to the pink liquid, but the burette didn’t fully close; left open to continue dripping, so, so slowly.

My instinct was to stand and shut it, to scold them, but something eased me back into my seat. Just watch.

So, I sat, and I watched it spill, turning the acid a darker and darker pink drip by drip. I felt excited somehow, leaning forward with promise. “Let injury come upon him at unawares; and let his own net catch himself and let him fall into his own destruction.”

The blond laughs with the others that failed the experiment, complaining about how hard he didn’t realize it would be, begging loudly for a new flask, ‘just one more try’. His hand rested on the ledge on the table, elbow pointed towards the center.

I saw it before it happened, like an omen that made my heart race, my fingers twitch, my lips curl. “And my soul shall rejoice in reclamation.”

His friend nudged him over a joke, he swayed to the side, his elbow hit the flask.

The class filled with a scream, the pink staining the clothes on his body and soaking his hand, and when he returned to class after that weekend, his hand held memories of the chemical burn.

She was watching over me. There wasn’t a single doubt left in my body after that day, but this opened my eyes. If I could make something like this happen, manifest this fiercely, then what next?

It consumed me for nights, thinking of what I could do, what I could make for myself. I’d rummage through the cabinets at 3, 4 in the morning, looking for ingredients to put into jars and sachets to bring me all the things I could have ever wanted: the money, the beauty, the test scores, the dream job I deserved.

That last night before everything truly changed was a night like that; crouching in the dark kitchen with a tall black candle and High John the Conquerer in hand, in the background was another night of rain. But in the midst of my intentions, a voice stepped through the dark.

“I should have known when you took a sudden interest in that bible.”

I spun around quickly, dropping the root onto the counter. I hadn’t even heard her coming, no sound, not even another light lit in the house other than the dimness of the candle flickering.

“Granny-“

“No! I told you to put this shit to rest!” She approached me quicker than I had ever seen her move, staring me down even when I was a whole foot taller than her. “Leola, I will not hesitate to kick you out this house. Never again!” She took the root from me with white knuckles and stormed through the front door.

“Granny, what are you—” I followed her out, stepping onto the wet porch with my bare feet. My hair clung to my face instantly, Granny’s nightgown already soggy and heavy from the horizontal rain.

She tossed the root out into the backyard. I watched her look out at it in the grasses, laying pathetically idle in the wet field. Her walk back was filled with a silence that felt loud even with the storm above, letting both of us sink in the distance I had created even when she stood right in front of me.

She breathed heavily through her nose, lip taunt as she stared at me with a disgust that rotted my gut. “You in a nice school, surrounded by people that love you, Leola. I have never felt more disappointed in you; throwing your life away for a murderer.”

A wetness fell from my eyes, washing away with the rain instantaneously before the world could even register it as a tear.

“You can’t make a life out of this, can’t support yourself. Just stay in school, become a doctor. Don’t let her corrupt you.” Her lip quivered weakly as she continued to speak, but it suddenly tightened. “But if you do choose that path, you can forget about staying here with me. Go on back home with her, she can take care of you.”

I knew I couldn’t argue with her, not when she had given me so much.

Maybe she was right. I never got the answers when I questioned my mother. Maybe there is something corrupt about my mom that she’s been avoiding telling me.

So, I went back. I tried so hard to go back.

I stopped the prayers, put the herbs away in the attic, I buried whatever was left. I tried being a normal student again, but each day I saw his burn marks sitting next to me was like a reminder; a reminder that awoken those voices in the back of my head.

I’m powerful, more powerful than this. I couldn’t…

It started slowly.

The first I remember, the batteries in my toothbrush stopped working. Then, things began slipping from my hands, like my phone, or the plastic blueberry basket at the grocery store that would make for embarrassing clean ups between me and the cashier.

My dreams felt stressful again, like I was always running from something chasing me, or my teeth falling out, or trying to call for help on a phone that was always just too slow to dial. I’d wake sleeplessly for class every morning, trying to push through with little energy.

One night, I sat at the kitchen table, textbook laid out to study from, while I snacked at a later hour than I should have been.

I felt a warmth behind me; Granny.

“What are you doing up so late?” I asked without bothering to look up, eyes following a line of the tiny words in the book.

She didn’t answer, only her warmth seemed to move, coming closer to me.

That’s when I looked up, turned around to face her, but there was nothing there, only the emptiness of the living room, the warmth suddenly gone.

It felt hard to sleep that night, no matter how much I tried to ignore it. I lied with my back towards the wall, not trusting it to the open, but not wanting to close my eyes, in fear than when they opened, something that was not there before would become real.

The morning sun came slow, but the feeling never left. I didn’t feel that usual comfort that the light would expose the shadows and draw away my enemies. Instead, it felt like they were only hiding in smaller spots, obscured intelligently from my view.

“Where you goin’, Leola?” Granny narrowed her eyes at me from the stove.

I slung my purse over my shoulder. “Got an exam I gotta take. Big one.”

She watched me slip my shoes on by the door. “Alright, well, good luck. Drive safe, baby.”

She didn’t say it how she usually did, like she detached from me since that night, but was trying her best to accept me back. She was a woman of many grudges, but I never thought I’d be one to make that list one day.

I eased the door shut behind me, stepping down from the porch, before quickly retracting my foot at the sound of a hiss.

I stared down at a small snake that quickly scurried away from the crack in the wood and into the small grass field beside the house. I’d have to tell Granny to watch out for that later.

The drive to the university took longer than it normally did. Every light I passed turned red, and construction was down my usual route. To make matters worse, my air conditioning disappeared on the hottest day of the week, leaving me with a car repair to pay for soon.

I made it to the testing center with only five minutes left to spare.

I could feel my hair sticking to the sweat of my neck, only adding another layer of stickiness and heat to my skin.

I pulled down the sun visor to see if the humidity had unfurled my hair, but I jumped at the feeling of leathery skin on my fingers.

A scream erupted from my throat when a snake fell into my lap. I reached for the door, practically tossing myself and the animal out of the car and backed away, spine shivering as I watched it slither beneath the vehicle and my stomach dropped at the idea of it finding its way back in later.

I quickly shut the door. I didn’t have time to look around for it right then.

My feet danced around the car, in case the thing decided to lunge at my toes as I passed by. Then, I panted as I ran to the front door, ignoring how shaken I was from the whole situation, on top of getting hardly any sleep from the past few nights, but I screamed once again when the handle that led to the entrance contained that same slippery skin.

The door hissed at me, fell to the ground to swirl around my skittish feet, before it was joined by another one.

Bouncing off one foot, I hopped over them to the other door, yanking it shut behind me to make sure they couldn’t make it in, but darting fast in case they tried.

My fingers shook, clutching my purse strap and looking around to see if anyone had witnessed the unnatural event, but no one was there.

My head was spinning, caught between how much concern I should have over the animals and only having seconds to spare for the exam.

I made my way through the empty building, only the sound of my sandals squeaking across the tile floors. I followed in the direction of the arrows, until I finally saw one pointed towards rooms 105-110, but when I turned the corner, my phone almost dropped out of my hand.

The long hall, lit only by two LED lights like the ones that line the ceilings of psychiatric hospitals, was filled on every piece of tile with snakes.

I felt like I couldn’t move, couldn’t believe I was even seeing the scene with my eyes. I could practically feel them sliding up my spine at the sight. It couldn’t be real, why would it be real? How could it be?

All I knew is that I needed to be on the opposite side of that hall in less than a minute.

I tried to close my eyes, pretend I wasn’t there, but every step in, I only felt them wrapping across my feet. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t spare the time.

I told myself it was a nightmare, tried shaking myself awake, but morning never came. Even the horrific dreams I had that week were nothing compared to this horror. It felt too real to be a dream.

My fingers clenched into hard fists, as if it would save me from having to feel them slip along my limbs, but a scream came from me, when the ceiling caved in halfway down the hall and what felt like a bucket full of the reptiles came falling down onto me.

They were everywhere, their leather sticking to my sweat glazed skin, sliding in the curls of my hair and on my scalp, falling beneath my shirt.

“Mom, please! I can’t!” I yelled, and at that point I didn’t care, I ran the rest of the distance.

My hand finally reached the knob and I pushed through, trying desperately to lock myself away from the creatures, so I could shake the remaining ones off my body, but when I went to do so, they were gone.

I leaned against the door, confused with a pounding heart and lung gasping for air, and then—

The room was staring at me, every student from the science class silent or holding back snickers.

“Ms. King, please take a seat, quickly and quietly,” my professor urged with warning eyes, marking my name present on the sheet before him.

I couldn’t even read the questions on the exam and my hands were too unsteady to circle the correct answers.

If I wasn’t getting sleep before, I certainly wasn’t getting it after that. Even when the hauntings seemed to stop, my alertness never rested, enough so that I had taken my concerns to my doctor.

It was a poor choice looking back, but in the moment, something had to be done. They prescribed me antipsychotic medication, and I took them, but it never felt right. I knew it wasn’t right.

Granny felt sorry for me, started bringing me to church more often to help get things off my mind and pray for my recovery, but I never told her why I was prescribed the pills to begin with.

“This is my granddaughter, she’s gonna be a doctor,” she’d brag to all her ‘friends’. A doctor that was one wrong word away from being sent to a mental hospital.

I came back from the bathroom just in time to hear the pianist play out the beginning of a gentle melody while the pastor spoke. I say beside Granny on the dark blue cushioned bench with a weak breath, moving to flatten the wrinkles out my dress.

“Tell somebody, tell Him. You shall obtain it—” The pastor exclaimed, the drums kicking in the emphasize his words, the choir supporting his message with echoes of praise.

It’s a song I recognized, a message I had heard before, clothes I had worn again. The room smelt of that familiar wet, stale Florida air, but I had never felt so different, so out of place, so lost.

The music built louder, stronger, and for some reason, maybe for the first time, I heard it.

“Call it in the spirit. Lift your voice and say I decree it!”

The choir rung in the air, holding out a high note with all the might left in them.

I had always adored the sound of the choir, the way they delivered in such passionate ways, but even then, I never felt it so clearly. I was too young to understand the message, too distracted. But now, I saw it in a new light, from a sense of experience, longing, and tingling anticipation.

Suddenly the music cut, leaving only the slow message of the pastor and the gentle keys of the piano. I couldn’t help but lift my head and watch.

“You are what God designed you to be.”

The choir repeated the chorus over and over again, drilling it in, soothing it over the mental of everyone in the church.

‘I am what God designed me to be.”

The words made my eyes falter away, carrying a heaviness with me even long after service.

Whatever higher power may have been up there— they made me exactly who I am. They gave me my roots, my talents, my mother. If I was meant to become a doctor, why would God place me in my very mother’s womb? Why was I born to not honor her, to forget her? For what purpose?

No. My mother was my roots, my soul, my blood. She had been guiding me all along; giving me the answers, passing down her knowledge, and trying to protect me from the sterile rules of modern medicine.

I was gone completely from then. Honestly, I was gone long before then, but didn’t acknowledge it until that day. I broke down, hearing voices I couldn’t anymore ignore and feeling an itch in my veins that burned through my skin.

The pill bottles piled up on the edge of my desk, filled with the evidence of my attempts to suffocate a gift greater than anything that could have been taught in a classroom or purchased in a store. I didn’t hesitate to hurl them out of my sight, leaving them to roll across the wooden planks that held my room above the kitchen.

“What was that, Leola?”

I didn’t answer.

My hands yanked through my closet, and stuffed a bag with everything I needed, everything I ever cared about. Then, I went downstairs, but didn’t bother to explain myself this time.

Granny sat up, eyes wide as she watched me storm past her. “Leola—”

“I’m leaving,” I declared.

She placed her glasses on her face, standing, but I was already out the door.

“Leola!”

The screen door rattled in it’s frame. My arms launched my bag through my car door, landing it on the passenger seat. “Im going home.” Tears felt like acid on my cheeks, as I took one last look at the very woman that had kept me from my purpose for twenty years. “I’m going back to mama.”

She couldn’t decide what to think; confusion, anger, it was all there in her face. “You gonna throw away everything for her?” She spoke with a threat, with disappointment, but she didn’t move an inch closer to me, her eyes only gazed down me as slow as the words leaving her lips.

“She’s gonna take care of me,” I inhaled sharp, trying to savor the sting and taste the moment I finally decided to listen to myself.

She straightened her back and not a word more came from her. She let me go.

I thought, maybe I’d be back one day, if Granny was still here, but I felt in no hurry. My mama had been gone for most of my life, our home long abandoned, but when I crossed into the Alabama territory, when the streetlights and cement disappeared until there was nothing but loose gravel, the light of the moon, and the thick kiss of mossy, mosquito air, I knew I was gonna find her there.

I pulled up slow to the forgotten residence, twigs snapping loud under the tires in a fashion that made me second guess if something was going to wake up from the sound. Even after I shut off the vehicle, my footsteps felt too loud.

For one moment, one single moment, I nearly backed out, felt that urge in the pit of my stomach to drive back home and forget it all happened.

I stepped carefully through the dirt path, watching for any critters that would scurry quickly away. Then, I stood at the entrance.

The last I saw of the house was my mother being carried away, right before they killed her. They yanked my little arms and drug me with her like I had committed a crime of my own. They were ruthless.

I held my phone’s flashlight up, turning the rusted knob slow. The door creaked open like it was due to break off its hinges at any moment. When I stepped inside, I saw all the memories of my childhood come rushing at me. In fact, most of her things were never even touched after that day it seemed.

The tallest shelf in the kitchen still held her bottles; dusted and filled with oils or glasses of rich blue. Her candles never melted and her jars never caught mold. The counter held a note: brown paper with black ink from her hand; a message half written and smeared away.

It felt like home.

My feet carried me out to the back of the wooden house, my soles causing the planks to groan from my weight until I reached the edge of the dock.

The water appeared before me like a black portal to no where, but I wasn’t seeking any kind of escape.

“Hi, mama,” I greeted the air with tears in my eyes. My legs brought me to my knees and I folded them carefully beneath me, before closing my eyes. I could feel her there, engulfing me like a blanket on a winter’s day.

I sat there for hours, only concentrated on her touch, her direction. That was where I was supposed to be, and she thanked me for coming back, held me in her arms as I fell asleep.

Only hours later, I felt the familiar string of heat rays on my cheek, peering through the trees to wake me.

My gaze found the wood of the dock first, before feeling a gentle tickle across my arms. But as my eyes came slowly into focus, I suddenly heard a rumbling click beside my head.

I shot up, coming to face a reptile the size of my body, teeth brown and unforgiving as a rusted knife, and a jaw stronger than any muscle group in my body. But it wasn’t the only one.

I stayed there, too afraid of any sudden movement, as my heart beat into my eardrums. I looked slowly over my shoulder, seeing another at my feet, but the alligators seemed to hardly move at all. Not only this, but I then noticed the layer of dandelion fluff which had covered me like a fresh snowfall.

Carefully, I stood to my feet, the small seeds floating about in the air, before being carried off by the wind, but it was hardly the most important thing on my mind in that moment. I took handfuls of seconds to move each inch around the heavy creatures until I made it off the dock entirely, but again, they didn’t even flinch.

The water held plenty of them, all pointed inward at the place I used to lay, like gargoyles guarding a sacred castle.

Only once my feet touched the grass did they move, slipping into the water until the surface ripples flattened entirely, and only then did I brush off the remains of the flowers.

Surprisingly, I sat on the dock often after that, listening to the voices of the grass and the sky, nothing but the wind at my side, but I was never alone. I only became stronger, my ears only became more sensitive, and the creatures never seemed to bother me. They felt more like protection, if anything.

This was the life I dreamed of, not a lab.

“Thank you, mama. For showing me this life. I couldn’t have survived a lab my whole life,” I’d speak to her, but she always had an encouraging response to keep me on track. “You’re right, I can survive anything, but I much prefer this.”

In the house, I found journals that were written by her; scratchy notes of half thoughts about the herbs and oils she used. With her guidance, I was able to piece things together quickly, until I was able to come up with spells on my own. Though, even then, I didn’t have all my answers. That was when I came across a name in one of her books, one I could have sworn I recognized.

It took me a while to trace, but it eventually led me to a home near the city.

I stood outside the door and knocked gently, until an older woman came to answer it. I couldn’t help but crane my neck at her. She felt so similar to my mama, and for a moment, it seemed like she recognized me too.

I explained to her how I found her in my mama’s books, and the second I stated my name, something seemed to click in her.

“Come, come in,” she urged, opening the door for me.

Her home looked normal at first, but the deeper in she brought me, I noticed the details: the mirror near the door, salt dust, the blue bottles on her porch, the deck of playing cards near her working space. She practiced too.

“Leola, sit,” she urged, sitting beside me on the small couch. “Your mother was much more than you even know.”

I listened closely, already intrigued by the strange woman. “What do you mean?”

She took my hand in hers, caressing it gently. “Your ancestors have been calling to you, they want you to learn their gift. They say that with practice, many of them were able to escape years of enslavement by moving to the waters.”

My eyes narrowed at her. Something in her words felt so right, but when I felt like I understood, it would slip again. “How? How did they escape into the waters?” I asked.

She took a deep breath. Her eyes studied me with a long silence, before she let go of me to reach for a drawer nearby. In her hand, she pulled out four rusted orange railroad spikes and placed them into my palms without a word. From there, she stood and moved to the kitchen, filing around the cabinets.

“Your father was a difficult man. Your mama loved him dearly, but she found he had a wife back home… She was protecting you, honey. He wasn’t a good man,” she explained.

I gazed hesitantly at the spikes, careful not to move them as if they would come to life if rustled, but she was quickly back.

“Now, listen and listen well. I sense something coming to you, Leola. Paint these with oil and put them at each corner of your home.” A small glass bottle of red, thick oil slipped into the crevice of my arm.

As confused as I was, I would be a fool to not heed her warning. When I returned home, I wasted not a single second to do as she said, and nailed the spikes into the mud that surrounded the shack; from the dirt driveway, to the start of the dock.

A few weeks went by, I slept lightly, expecting some terrible danger to find me, but nothing ever came. In fact, after I had gotten over the anxiety, I went back into mastering my craft.

I explored the woods for trash, leaves, bones, anything I could find, it was all useful. Other times, I’d have to travel to the shop a few miles up the road for other supplies.

“Hey, little lady. Ain’t seen you around here,” I was greeted one day.

The boy was curious to me, skin light, but tanned from the high sun and hair a shaggy brown.

“I just moved here,” I said smoothly.

He raised his head, looking over at my car; the license plate. “Whatchu doing all the way out here, Florida girl?”

A grin found my face. “Visiting family.”

He was a nice boy, Walker, slightly younger, but not drastically. He seemed to always be in the shop after that, there to say hello. I never told him everything, of course, but something drew me to him.

“Don’t it ever get lonely out there?”

My head perked up. “Hmm?”

He leaned against the counter, eyeing the glass bottles, twine, a few groceries I placed in front of the cashier, but his face felt flat today. “Don’t you live by the river? S’brave. Most people don’t, too many gators.”

I chuckled, blinking to get myself to focus on pulling my cash out. “They don’t bother. My mama always liked them, said every animal carried a spirit inside it. Everything around us is family.”

“That’s nice,” Walker responded. Then, his arm reached over me to grab one of the metal tins of coffee from the popular items shelf near the checkout. “For Pa,” and he smiled brightly.

He walked me to my car and I went to bid him a good afternoon until a man stumbled our way. He was older than the two of us, no doubt, but the way he moved seemed out of character even for someone his age, like something caused from an injury or an illness.

“Son, what’s takin’ so long?” He pestered, but he did so with a calm grin, that was before he looked at me, then his smile got wider. “Oh, didn’t mean to interrupt.” The man coughed out a chuckle, but his eyes stayed on me.

Normally, I would have laughed with him or greeted the older man myself, but something about him made my head tilt.

“Oh, nah. This is Leola, dad. She comes by the shop sometimes.”

Instinctively, the man held out his hand and I reached through my car’s retreated window to shake it. I moved to smile, but I couldn’t. The second my hand collided with his felt like a shock, like my gut had sank beneath the vehicle, like every cell in my body was retreating as far away as possible. Then, I heard her voice.

That’s him.

That was him.

I didn’t understand it at first, but then again, maybe I just didn’t want to believe it. But the idea cemented when he squeezed my hand hard. I gazed between us, and when I looked back up, his eyes were narrowed, like a warning.

“S’pose I’ll see you next week for your supply run?” Walker joked, but my reaction found me late.

“Yeah… See you then.”

But our eyes never left each other’s. He felt it too, he knows that I know.

It was a bold move, but I needed the answers. I needed to hear him confirm my fears with his very voice. So, despite my mom’s warnings, I went to visit him.

The night was late, but I found myself near town, guided by nothing but the whispers in the trees and a pointed, clear crystal hanging from a chain until I saw a familiar pickup truck outside a small family home.

I knocked, bracing myself for Walker, but instead it was the older man that opened the door.

He paused a moment, but feigned his surprise once again. “Must be here for Walker, I presume?”

“No,” I whispered, straightening my back. “I wanted to speak with you.”

That sharpness from earlier came back to his stare. He tilted his head up to look at me and it was as if the mask he wore had gotten permission to slip away. It was disgustingly eerie and I was torn between heeding my mother’s words and finally satisfying the answers I’ve had since I was a little girl. I, of course, chose the latter.

“I was always told you were dead,” I breathed into the dark distance between us.

“I’m sure that’s what your witch mother wanted.”

My body stilled, mouth went dry. “You recognize me then?”

“I see her in your face.” He grunted, sitting atop the tallest porch step. He sat so unbothered, like there wasn’t life changing information being revealed to us just then.

A knot formed in my voice; words that couldn’t quite come out without force. “So, what happened?”

He took a slow inhale, without rush or without even looking at me. “I don’t want nothing with that harlot. She almost took everything from me: my wife, my son, my job. Leave me and my family alone.”

My neck craned, my lip curled. “So, that’s it? You’re just gonna sit here like some kind of saint? She warned me about you; you abandoned us. You tried to hurt us.”

But he replied without hesitation. “That demon got everything she deserved. I don’t want her or any of her possessed offspring near my damn home. Now, go off, before I make any calls.”

I felt that sickly kind of disappointment in my throat, the kind when you realize something is even worse than you ever could have imagined. To this day, I’m not sure exactly what I was hoping to get out of him, but I left, not because I was scared, but because I knew something had to be done. Something would be done.

I wanted to confront Walker after, tell him I was his sister, partially in hope that it would cause an uproar in our shared father’s otherwise perfect, lying, cheating life. So, I waited for him in the store on our usual Tuesday morning meeting time, but I didn’t see him at the store that day.

My hands tapped slow patterns on the steering wheel, mind fuzzy like it had felt all day. Something felt off and it wasn’t just anxiety, but maybe it was just an off kind of day.

I pulled the car out of the parking lot when a black pick up truck pulled out simultaneously.

I drove with the radio on low, but it wasn’t until I was down one of the last roads that I noticed the truck still following behind. No one ever came to those parts.

For a moment, I wanted to drive somewhere else, but there was nowhere else to go. I pulled into the path to the shack and watched the truck pass in the rearview mirror. I sighed, taking my bag in hand and bringing myself inside.

Above, a bird flapped it’s wings, landing on the tree over the house. It was a crow. I stopped to admire it for a moment, until I watched it swoop down into the window I hadn’t realized I left open.

Crows are such beautiful birds. I never saw them as bad omens, but something about that day— it felt different.

I didn’t feel called to go inside, instead I walked beneath the branch the bird descended from, just by the dock.

“Hi, mama,” I called out, about to ask her for guidance, but the air felt empty. She didn’t answer, it’s like her presence wasn’t there at all. “Where are you?” I mumbled under my breath.

It’s was like she was trying to warn me.

“So, it is true.”

I turned around fast, Walker was standing at the edge of the driveway, but he was coming closer. He smiled at me, but it never reached his eyes.

The moment happened in a blur.

He grabbed me, pushed me down. I tried to shove him away, but he only pushed my face into the dirt, making it clog my nostrils until I could hardly breath at all.

“It was you,” he spat, eyes red as the blood running through his flexed arms. “In the court that day, weeping over that bitch that poisoned my dad. He told me everything. You thought you could come back and keep terrorizing us— everyone in this town?”

My heart was beating faster by the second, panicking as I felt my will slip further and further into his hands.

“God will make you pay for your sins, witch,” he snarled.

I looked my brother in the eyes, but his hands restricted my vocal cords. He let up just enough for me to gasp for air, to attempt to blow the dirt from my nose, before I felt a burn on my ankles.

He took me into his arms, over his shoulder. I flailed, but I couldn’t move, not with the twine I had just bought wrapped around my feet.

“Walker! Put me down!”

I screamed and screamed, but there was no one to hear, no one to help.

“Stop fucking moving!”

Then, his hand slipped.

In my last moments of life, I saw my blood on his fingers, his dark gaze as he watched me fall from his grip, then the clouds as my neck snapped in the direction of the sky when my head hit the piling.

My blood seeped into the swamp waters, embraced by the spirits of my ancestors, as I sunk deeper and deeper into the blackness.

I don’t remember the days I spent at the bottom, but I remember their protection. My skin rotted, and the wounds grew mold, but the fish never touched me.

That must have been what my ancestors spoke of; the freedom of the water, a place to escape to when the world you trusted did nothing but walk all over you. In the water, I was free.

I felt it in my chest first, like a clawing from within, something that wanted out from it’s cage, and now. My eyes opened to the green abyss and my spine was sore, but it was somehow easy to ignore.

I swayed there, legs still tied, and I was confused. Why was I alive? Why was I here? And why am I not rushing to the surface?

My hands felt different. My nails were sharp and my skin appeared grayer and clammy, webbed even.

I swam without hurry and cautiously pulled myself out. I was worried if I pulled too hard, my body would crumble, but somehow it felt stronger and older at the same time.

Claws pulled me along the dock, before I sat to take the rope from my ankles, but I saw no threads, in fact, there were no legs at all, but instead the tail of a fish or water serpent in it’s place; slimed with a brassy kind of green.

A breath caught in my throat, like I should panic at this revelation, but she quickly intervened. ‘It’s alright,’ she seemed to say, as if the tail was natural, needed, a gift.

But then the ache in my abdomen began again. Something had awakened inside me and it wanted to feed.

‘There is power in freedom, but it comes with a debt.’ She sounded so clear in my head now, clearer than I ever heard her. ‘Flesh for freedom.’

Mama taught me well, guided my hand into a life that I never thought possible, into power I never thought possible.

I stepped out of the forest green onto the road, heels clicking along the gravel as I followed a path to a Sunday church service inside a small, wooden building across the street.

Granny made many of my church hats since I was younger. I had on one of the white ones she weaved together. It was wide, but subtle, not too loud, with a small floral piece on the brim. It matched with my dress that morning. She always told me to be in my Sunday best.

I sat beside a woman who greeted me kindly, even complimented my beauty.

The Alabama heat was sickly that morning, as it tended to be. The crowd moved like a soaring eagle, as the paper fans fluttered like quick breaths in the air: ‘He has risen’ written above praying hands printed atop each one.

I watched the pastor, hiding behind the rim of my hat, but I felt eyes on me. My head tilted just enough to gaze to the opposite side of the benches.

I smiled at him and watched the blood drain from his face. He was sweating long before I had arrived, but it had nothing to do with the temperature of the building. A man in church, praying to his savior only days after murdering his own blood, praying he wouldn’t be caught.

He looked as if I had shot him right then and there and he stood in a panic, abandoning his precious mother and father’s side to scurry towards the exit.

“Whoever dwells in my shelter will rest in my shadow.”

I gave him time to run, time to hide. Then, I stood, apologized to the woman to my left as I scooted past her and calmly followed.

The sun blazed down, the parking lot full of cars, but I could smell him. He left a trail of panic and tactlessness, and the pathetic stench of hysteria that comes from thoughtless decisions. I could feel him as though he were right behind me, even when he was yards away.

“You will not fear the night.” The heels twisted in the gravel once again as I followed back into the woods. “Nor the danger that stalks in the darkness,”

The vibrations of his fleeing breath trembled through my fingertips, into the bones that held me tall, and from my hand slipped the fan, sticking to the mud like a lawn sale sign.

He led me straight into my domain and I caught his foot just before he passed the damp mud around the nearby lake.

I had never been so satisfied to hear a scream, with no one to help just as he had done to me, but then he froze as I crawled up his body, finally able to see my transformed body in all its glory.

“Jesus, save me,” his shaken voice whispered.

It brought a smile to my lips. “I assure you, ain’t no Jesus up in here, honey.”

He wanted to cry, he wanted to yell, he didn’t know what he wanted to do, but he had known so clearly what he wanted the day he killed me. What happened?

“A thousand may fall at my side—”

“Stop.”

“A thousand at my hand, but it will not come near me.”

“STOP!”

“IT’S NOT FOR YOU!” I clawed into his jaw, gritting my teeth. “It’s not for you, it’s for me.”

His breath puffed against my palm, not daring to move.

“You think I’d let him do that to my mother and let you do the same to me? To silence me— silence us?”

Then, I felt him shake, nails collecting dirt beneath them as he dabbled the idea to run and I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought.

“You’re afraid I’ll kill you,” I whispered through my smile; an ironic feeling for him to fear. “Don’t be afraid of dying. Be afraid of how long I keep you alive.”

And as I thought, that’s what had pushed him to fight against me.

My skin stretched beneath his hands, but it never tore, and my arms stayed rooted at his sides like poles that held a ceiling up, and I launched.

I brought him to my home; the swamp. That’s when he knew he was a fool to come back to me for revenge.

I perched his body on the center tree, like a man on a cross, and tied him until he couldn’t move. It was dark; the sun could hardly reach the forest depths where I resided, only lit by the plethora of candles I had about.

It was my nest of Hoodoo charm, of spells from the years and protection rituals I mastered.

My feet carried me slowly across the shallow edge towards him, a bundle of small white flowers in hand and red splatters across my once white dress.

He chokes on his own trembles, his blood falling from a wound on his temple, a wound that matched my own. But a gasp left his lips when the ties on his arms began to move as living things. The rope that held him hanging was not twine like the kind that had sunk me to the depths of my own waters. No, I had friends now.

Another raspy scream ripped from his lungs when he saw the cords of living reptiles wrapped tightly around his limbs, tickling his ear with their forked tongues with the promise to bare their teeth should he fight against them.

“You know this flower?” I began, waving the delicate plant between us as I silently ordered my family of snakes to squeeze him tighter until a dreadful grunt was pushed out of him. “Lily of the Valley.”

My brother breathed harder when he saw me approach, spitting the blood that fell over his lips, but I only smiled at his refusal to answer and stalked closer until I was only a hair away.

“It’s used for inviting in love and considered to be a sign of renewal and purity. Perfect for wedding bouquets, don’t you think? You’d never guess how poisonous they are.” I twirled the stem in my hand, before caressing one of the tiny, silky blooms against his lower lip. “They contain cardiac glycosides, which in medicine, strengthen the heart; make it beat slower in patients with arrhythmia.”

He attempted to back away from the small plant until the serpents warned him otherwise. His pupils were blown in both pain and utter shock as he watched me, his chest expanding quickly with every panicked breath. “One taste can slow your heart entirely, clot your blood, make you go blind. I put it in Dad’s coffee this morning. He should be having cardiac arrest in your mother’s arms right now.”

Walker growled at the thought, but before he could speak a single pathetic word to me, my claws slipped through him, holding his heart in the palm. “I hope your mother misses you, the way I missed my own, because both of her men chose our wrath over our love and left her abandoned in their lies.”

His veins pumped hard, but his breath died slow.

The musk of algae swarmed me like a wasps nest, beading my skin with sweat and sticking the hairs that attempted to wisp away to the sides of my face. Then, the coppery sweetness touched my nose, warmed my hands like a glove, and I couldn’t help but reach out to taste.

It was like a sweet tea after playing out in the sun; you drink it all, and yet you’re left more thirsty than before. The hunger wasn’t satisfied. So, I kept going until I felt that his skin needed to be flossed from my teeth, and he screamed again, even louder than the first time until there ceased to be anything left at all.

Mama taught me to never waste, that there was purpose to everything, so I made use of him.

His tongue was tied to a plate, needles piercing through it to keep the town hushed on what had happened. His blood served to nourish my growing mugwort and rosemary. I scattered his hair around his weeping mother’s property to warn her what would happen if she came snooping. And when I had used everything up, I snapped his fragile fibulas and dangled them from my ears as jewelry, so that I could always hear when my enemies were coming.

He needed it, painful enough that even our father could feel it in whatever afterlife he was in.

“I finished the job, mama.”

I didn’t want to kill, but I had to protect. The souls in my blood needed to feel avenged, for once, not forced to stay quiet and obey for another lifetime.

So, my teeth seeked the most wicked, and there were plenty to spare in this world, and each one decorated the branches around the swamp that birthed me, feeding me meat and capability until my form adapted even further: the swamp siren, the venomous serpent, the robust jawed reptile.

In my mother’s hands, I was guided into a higher intuition that surpassed even her own. She smiled down on my new wisdom and foresight. My ancestors had led my way when a world of money, ego, and undying cruelty had covered my eyes, but I found my way into that natural lifestyle I had craved since the second I set foot in University; the lifestyle my grandmother tried to take from me.

I was born to be free of their rules, unbound to the riches they served day and night. I was a true kind of doctor, though not the one you find in any hospital. I was a mother, though not one that nourished a child in her womb, but one that sung the trees to sleep and built legacies from a single seed, returning man back to nature what man had unrightfully taken for so many centuries.

In the furrows of my death, I had grown a strong tail to navigate the lakes and rivers; my physical body transformed in a new kind of entity, but never trapped; my sides cold in forgotten waters, but never alone, always by my mama’s side.

Credit: EnchantinglyJade

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