Jackal

by Erin E. Adams

“Do you like my dress?” “Yes.” Caroline slouches and I guide her upright. That was the wrong answer.

“You know what they say. If you think you saw something out here…no, you didn’t.”

Myths are as much a part of the slipstream of Black life as joy. Yes, Black folks are masters of joy. Trauma isn’t the only thing carried in DNA. Blackness, like any Golden Fleece, is both a birthright and what lies at the end of a quest. What myth lay just beyond Kayla’s fingers?

The trees held both healers and hunters.

Despite the wash of it, that’s one thing you can always count on whiteness to do: destroy a threat.

The enemy of the shadow isn’t light. It’s sight.