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Beep! Beep!
His phone went off in his pocket.
Jamal fumbled for it and hit silent, then jerked his head around to look back at the shop. But the Voodoo Emporium had passed out of sight, along with the odd dolls.
Probably just my imagination, he thought, though his heart was still pounding. Dolls couldn’t move like that. But he couldn’t shake the image of their eyes locking on to his face. To distract himself, he fished his phone out. His gaze landed on a new text message.
TO: MALIK & JAMAL
FROM: MOM
HOPE YOU HAD A GREAT DAY AT SCHOOL. YOU EACH RECEIVED A SPECIAL GIFT FROM YOUR GRANDMOTHER’S ESTATE. WE’LL OPEN THEM WHEN YOU GET HOME. LOVE & KISSES, MOM
Jamal had explained to his mother that she didn’t need to sign her text messages—that he knew who was texting by the contact name on top. But like most adults, she wasn’t very tech savvy.
He scanned the message again, feeling a shiver run up his spine. His grandmother had lived in one of those big old houses in the Garden District. She died just last month from a stroke, and they’d attended the funeral and wake. He could see her so clearly in his mind—black veils hiding her face and trailing long enough to cover her body, her gloved hands clutching a knobby cane.
Grandma had been allergic to sunlight and kept her whole body covered. He’d never even seen her face outside of the pictures the family had from before he was born. In those she was pretty, with dark skin already starting to wrinkle, and a wistful sort of smile. Now, she always kept herself hidden under veils. She also never left her house. According to his parents, his grandmother was a recluse.
As the bus barreled into their quaint little neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, heading for their house, Jamal stared at the text and another shiver rushed through him. He had never received a gift from a dead person before.
What could it be?
The smell of gumbo hit Jamal’s nostrils as soon as he stepped through the front door behind Malik. Rich, garlicky, spicy, meaty. It was unlike any other smell in the world. To Jamal, it smelled like home.
His mouth immediately started watering. Their dad, tall and broad-shouldered, with his hair freshly styled in perfect short twists, was stirring the contents of a big cast-iron pot on the stove with precision and loving care. That pot had been in their family for generations, same as their secret family gumbo recipe.
The screen door slammed shut behind him with a thwap!
Their mother looked up from a stack of bills on the kitchen table, a colorful scarf tied around her hair to protect her dark curls, the way she always wore it on days she worked from home. “Go wash up, boys. Dinner will be ready soon.”
The local news blared on the small television wedged onto the kitchen counter. “Hurricane Donald threatens New Orleans…. The category three storm is gaining strength as it barrels through the Gulf…. Could become a category five.” Jamal’s eyes locked on to the image of the distinctive cloud formation swirling over the ocean, tracking toward their city. He felt a tingle in his fingertips. That was so strange. He had just been thinking about the devastating storm that had destroyed his childhood home, and now another one was coming right for them.
Hurricanes had always fascinated him; they were another science puzzle he wanted to solve. They formed when warm, moist air from the ocean encountered cooler air. A hurricane was caused by the convergence of divergent forces that, when put together, could produce extreme devastation.
“Carter, turn that off,” Mom said when she caught Jamal watching the screen. She dropped her voice. “We don’t need to worry the kids. You know what we went through with that last storm. They’ve been through enough already.”
She didn’t need to lower her voice. Jamal knew what they had gone through. How could he forget? The water had rushed up from their basement, flooding the house. That was why they’d had to move to the outskirts of town. This house was farther from where their grandmother had lived in the Garden District, too. She’d died only a few short weeks after their move, before the city had even finished cleaning up from the storm. Jamal had always wondered if her stroke had something to do with the storm that had battered her beloved New Orleans.
Jamal followed Malik through the living room, where there was an old sofa and matching chairs, both a hideous shade of orange their mom considered stylish. The fireplace mantel was filled with family photographs. Jamal’s gaze skimmed the familiar images. They all featured Malik doing something impressive—playing basketball, performing on trumpet in a concert, holding up a perfect report card
. If Jamal was in the pictures at all, he was always in the background.
It was exactly like the yearbook. Just like everything else in his life. Malik stood out, while Jamal lurked in the shadows. He tore his eyes away from the family pictures, but not before he caught sight of a recent group photo of all his smiling cousins, aunts and uncles, and at the center was his grandmother, covered in black veils.
Jamal shuddered again. While most of his friends had warm, loving grandparents, his grandmother had been different. In fact, they had barely ever spoken. His mother always made excuses for her mom’s odd behavior. “She’s been through a lot. She prefers silence and darkness now.”
But what had she been through, exactly? Why was she a recluse? Why did she refuse to leave her big, drafty house? Why did she hide under all those black veils, even when the sun wasn’t out? What—or whom—was she hiding from?
But none of these questions had an answer. At least, not an answer he could get from his parents. His mom didn’t like to talk about their grandmother.
He followed Malik into their bedroom. Two twin beds and matching dressers took up most of the room. Malik flopped onto his bed, covered with a superhero comforter, and flipped through his yearbook.
“You get any good ones?” he asked, holding the book open to a page filled with signatures from his fan club.
Jamal felt envy singe his heart, even though he knew it was wrong.
“Yeah, a whole bunch,” he said, quickly stowing his yearbook in his dresser to hide the lie. “Uh, I’ll show you later.”
