“Yep.”
“Oh! Speaking of which!” Maggie reached in her bag to pull out a piece of paper before planting it in the center of the blanket. “Apparently these are the books I need to look for to help me with the study of curses and spells. I feel like some of these from what I looked up, I could probably teach myself.”
“This is for what?” Isis asked, looking at the list.
“My parents. This is what I know so far. Marvin Holmes put a blood contract on my granny, right? My mom still works at the same place since I’ve been here. Same job, same everything. I’m the only thing that’s different in her life. Why is it that nobody else is asking about me around her? It has to be some sort of faulty spell right?”
“A blockage perhaps?” Isis let out while Souxie cleared her throat. I lowered my head, unsure of what to say while Ayira looked at us, reading the room like an open book. I wanted to say you just got here, pipe down and know your place. Then that’s when a dark overcast of a shadow appeared, covering us like a shaded tree. I turned around to see a tall man with round gold rim glasses wearing a t-shirt and basketball shorts, and bare pale brown feet with thumb looking toes on each foot. I looked up again, hating that I noticed the knot poking through the shorts because why? Is it ever that serious?
“Harvey, what are you doing?” Souxie asked as she opened her cup of cut up fruit. “I thought we agreed to not speak to one another in public?”
“I never agreed to that,” he said as he stepped between Maggie and I to sit next to Souxie on the other side. He leaned his back against the tree with a short uninterested nod towards us while she sighed.
“Harvey this is Ayira, Asha, Isis and Maggie. Quan was just here a moment ago. Everyone else…this is Harvey…He’s…” looking at him as if she was trying to figure him out. “He and I have sex from time to time.”
When his eyes suddenly blinked black, I cocked my head back as his lashes fluttered for a moment until his eyes returned back to their natural dark brown color.
“Ohh he’s the incubus,” Isis nodded with a cheesy grin. “Ohhhhhh I see now…”
“Stop it,” Souxie brushed off before reaching to touch his chin. “He’s practically harmless. Harmless Harvey is what I call him.”
“Y’all, we need to come up with a game plan about my parents? What are we going to do and when? I’m ready. Thisschool is getting weirder by the day, and I promised Ayira we’d go see Atlanta. It’s not New York but it’s something.”
“No where close to New York. The food scene alone is trash compared to ours,” I laughed out loud. “Ayira, I will take you to New York. I’ll show you what a real city looks like. Don’t let her taint your view with Atlanta. Shawty this and shawty that. We’re not going for none of that up north.”
“Okay first of all…” Maggie started as she shook her growing white hair free. “This is what they’re like…Yo check it.”
“Check what?” I laughed. “Huh?!”
Maggie shot up with her arms crossing over her body like she was about to bust a rhyme. We all watched as she began mocking New Yorkers on the corner of whatever block she imagined in her head.
“Ayo! Lemme get a ham and cheese!” She hollered out as I fell into Isis with laughter.
“Naaaaaah awhat?!” I wheezed in laughter.
“Ayo ma! Mama! Papi!” Maggie called out. This girl here…Forever the light, the antics, and the goof ball. She dropped back down on the blanket while we tried to collect ourselves. It was really starting to feel like school, the essence of this whole magical shit show of a place. We were sitting underneath the tree without a care in the world laughing, talking, exchanging information. Harvey hadn’t said much of anything outside of eating before leaving after seeing his friends, so it just went back to us girls. Maggie hadn’t mentioned her parents and Ayira was always telling us a story about her life in the palace….If it really exists.I still think she’s some nutjob that probably woke up in a hospital with little to no memory of who she really is, but what do I know? I’m just Asha Avery. So when it was time for us to pack it up and part ways for our separate class, that peaceful picturesque college brochure moment we just had. The onewhere black women in all shades sat underneath the tree vibing while eating? That shit came to a crashing end when someone called out to Maggie.
“Hey! I heard they’re going to broadcast Marvin Holmes’s death live!” Someone shouted. Maggie was in the middle of picking up her bag when she looked over.
“Ignore him, Maggie,’ Isis whispered. “He’s just trying to get a rise out of you.”
“Why are they trying to record though?” I asked out loud, seeing a few people sneak their phones in the air towards us.
“First Family is finally going down and you’ll be the last one to go with it! Should have never been able to go to this school!”
“What is he saying?” Ayira asked, confused. “What is this about?”
“I’m not paying it no mind because nobody knows what that man has done to my own parents,” Maggie said with a swing of her bag against her back. She flipped her thick white curls back from her face, struggling to keep her hair together but at this point, it was growing like weeds down her back side. “I’m not shouting back and forth about something that has nothing to do with me or my family.”
“That’s right,” Souxie agreed.
“So the one representative on the Grounds can’t respond to a general statement?!”
I turned back around to see the same guy from earlier…the one that heckled Ayira, coming up in a suit and tie with books at his side. He flashed an easy-going smile with those stupid bright pink lips, and caterpillars for eyebrows growing thick across his face. Students were starting to gather around as he came walking over towards us, keeping a respectable distance on the grass with his hands behind his back like someone with secrets to hide.
“I’m hosting a meet and greet debate about the status of the Underground and who should be next in line to control the affairs, I would love for you to join us seeing as you’re…One of them,” he said. Maggie hadn’t turned around, but the way Isis’s eyes widened with a slight shake of her head, I knew something was off.
“Maggie let’s just go,” Isis whispered.
