Evil

“You see, Ife mi? The tea. I tell you child, the tea,” Auntie said, hand pressed to her cheek.

“Aye, Auntie. 'Tis so.” Ife grinned, the knot in her chest loosened as Tunde traced lines in the dirt.

She bent and pressed her cheek against his.

“Bowl!” Tunde pointed to an uneven circle. He drew a second figure with his twig. “Mama.”

Tunde traced a long, flowing line from the head of his drawing, his little fingers lingering on the dirt where he’d etched the shape of her heavy braids. Ife watched him carve crooked circles and dirt squiggles, right up to the crescent moon he captured perfectly.

“Moon,” he whispered, pointing at the drawing before rubbing his eyes.

Ife sat in the candlelight, paring her nails with the machete and filing them with the whetstone. Tunde and Auntie rattled long, heavy snores.

“Ife, come,” Whistler called.

Ife stepped outside. Eban and Philip stood with the Englishman. Moonlight caught the polish on Whistler’s boots, and his smallsword pressed against his hip. Eban and Philip braced muskets across their shoulders. Ife took a sharp, quiet breath while the palm trees shivered in the dark.

“We’re here for the boy,” Whistler said, hands resting on his hips.

The blood drained from her cheeks, but her face remained stone. She brushed her braids over her shoulders, gripping the locks to hide her twitching fingers. Eyes fixed on the treeline, she waited for the coquí to whistle over the cricket’s chirp before she drew her next breath.

“Go and bring us the boy now,” Eban said.

With a parched tongue, her entire body pulsed—from her temples to the balls of her feet. She filled her belly with another deep breath and turned around. With a visible shudder in her arms, she picked up Tunde and cradled him close—his head on Ife’s shoulder, his skin clung to hers.

From her dark pallet, Auntie gazed into the candlelight . Ife squeezed Tunde tight, locking eyes with the old woman.

“You leave me no choice but to enter!” Whistler yelled from outside, making her flinch.

The Narrows began to rouse. Tent flaps slapped against thatched frames and footsteps padded through the dust.

"That is the way, Ife mi." Through the candle's glow, Auntie echoed Omotola's voice from half a score before, "We are born, we work, and then we move on.”

Ife bolted from the hut and dashed beyond the boulder, its surface scarred by the past. Every eye in the Narrows watched her vanish into the grassland.

Between the rows of towering cane, she ran, bracing her sleeping Tunde against her chest. The sugar grass, thick like the darkness of the crop aisles, swayed behind her tailwind with dirt flinging from her stride.

Whistler's voice roared for her to halt, but his voice fell away, turning instead to the other captives. No pursuit followed. As the shouts thinned into nothing, the sugar canopy swallowed her in absolute darkness.

With his nose snuffling in her ear, Tunde remained asleep. Ife slowed and, with a ragged breath, turned. At the farthest edge of the crop aisle a tiny fire glimmered. As the shadowy figures crept towards her, she pushed further into the dark.

When she reached the edge of the cane, Tunde stirred, jolted awake by her flight. Ife calmed him with a smirk and dodged past the trees. Night birds flapped from the branches; boas slithered into the brush. Her heavy stride silenced the crickets and coquí.

The forest thinned into a rocky foothill. Ife skidded to a halt, chest heaving, and scanned the slope. The green mountain rose into the black sky. Tunde began to weep against her chest. The sugar mill lights flickered down the ridge; and in the other direction—the salt-heavy air of the open sea.

“Tunde mi, do not cry,” Ife whispered.

Tunde’s head whipped toward the sound—snapping branches, rustling leaves. Ife pressed a finger to his lips.

“Down here.” Ife stooped, scuffing the soil with her belly crawl as she slipped Tunde under the rocky overhang and then herself. The tiny cave, cool and dry, had shrunk since her last visit during the storm. Back against the stone, holding her breath, she waited.

The whites of her little boy’s eyes flared up at her. Outside in the night, the monster crept—its three eyes of fire burning, inching closer—closer.

The flames emerged from the forest edge. Moonlight pulsed off the caged embers carried by the Whistlers and Eban—each one a carrier of fire.

The three men faced the ground, their lanterns casting distorted shadows. Slowly, their chins lifted, following a trail of freshly churned dirt that led directly to Ife’s hiding place.

Ife clamped a hand over Tunde’s mouth. The men hissed to each other. Eban and Philip aimed their flames, their muskets heavy across their backs. Ife shook, but the men’s gazes were fixed—right at her. Richard Whistler set down his lamp and drew his blade. The metal seared in the moonlight, cold and sharp. Tunde whimpered. Ife squeezed him close.

“Ife, come!” Whistler roared into the dark.

Ife didn't move her palm from Tunde's mouth; his frantic breath, hot with slobber and mucus, soaked into her skin. Whistler leveled his sword, its tip so sharp she shut her eyes.

“Ife, now!” he screamed.

Dirt gritted between her teeth. Ife pushed her chin to her chest, shutting her eyes tight, holding the tension, forcing the storm to blow past.

But when her eyes opened, the men stared back at her from behind their lamps.

A shot rang out from the flintlock. Smoke drifted upward, scattering a flurry of winged creatures into the night. Ife gulped. Her hand jerked away from Tunde’s mouth. His scream erupted, raw and wet with a full stream of tears.

She crawled from her dusty tomb. Footsteps lunged from the shadows behind her, and before she could turn to drag Tunde out, her sobbing child was ripped away.

Ife fell to her knees, seizing Philip’s leg.

“No, please!” she shrieked, her face twisted and unrecognizable.

“No!” Philip roared, and his boot slammed into her chest.

“Mama!" Tunde cried. "Mama!” He pushed his arms out to Ife while the men retreated back to the forest.

Ife sprang from the ground, blurry-eyed and frantic. She staggered after them.

"An evil deed!" she wailed, clawing at Philip. Her fingers brushed Tunde’s as the men pulled away, carrying her crying son into the dark.

"An evil deeeeed!" She held on, her deathgrip locked around the Englishman’s arm, until Eban reared the butt of his musket and smashed it into her skull.

Next Chapter