Bacchanal

by Veronica G. Henry

Even those lost lambs who don’t recognize it practice it all the same. She calls it Yoruba. Other children of Africa label it Santeria, candomblé, even voodoo. Name doesn’t matter, though; they’re all follicles from the same nappy head.

Mo pe awon dudu emi.

But the small-minded can puff up a story till it’s got no kinship whatsoever to the truth.”

Every performer who joined the carnival seemed to drag in two sets of baggage: one you could see, and the other, trickier variety, all tussled up on the inside.

she drifted into a loose and disquieted slumber, her dreams rising and falling to the carnival’s collective heartbeat.

When Liza was a child, she believed that her tears held a power that might bring dead creatures back to life. But it had never worked, and this time was no different.

“The soul would have no rainbow if the eye had no tears.”

Storytelling. Animals, African spirits, people . . . each had stories that needed telling. An audience to listen and do the retelling. In this way, you were never forgotten.

White people had no idea how to coexist with the earth. They ravaged it, used and abused it, and wondered why it sometimes bit them back.

Liza decided not to correct him. Sometimes, the cloak of marriage was a useful one for a woman.

To Liza, the sight of her little sister was like the uncaging of a flock of doves. Her mind flooded with precious memories; her mouth went slack and dry. Liza dropped to her knees. There was caution in Twiggy’s eyes, then a recognition that spoke volumes. When Liza held out her arms, Twiggy came to her and folded herself into Liza as if Liza had left her only the day before. Time and distance had done nothing to break their bond.

“Where is the child?” he asked. All traces of the jovial man with the wide, good-natured grin crushed beneath the weight of his wife’s betrayal.

“She who invokes a storm on her own people cannot prevent her house from destruction.” Liza spoke in her grandmother’s husky baritone.

none were surprised when she sent a telegram to Dutch’s hospital bedside that read, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

The marriage ended, and though the details are murky, Hamid was shot in 1938. Queenie was charged and convicted of attempted murder, but she denied it. In another infamous quip, she said, “If I had wanted him dead, he would be dead.”