tumble down buildings with blown-out windows that looked like great gaping mouths. I ran into the mouth of darkness, clutching my doll but when I closed my eyes, searching for the light, Yera was waiting on the other side.
That is when I knew I could never escape her. My sister is always with me.
Before the Descension, our people once lived in a land of great sweeping black and green fields, land filled with thick-limbed, tall trees and flowing rivers of cool waters, some sweet and clear, others dark as the rich, black soil. Our oma says when our ancestors could no longer live on the land, when the poisons had reached the bottom of every man, woman, and child’s cup, they journeyed on foot and walked back into the sea, back to the place of the old gods, the deep ones.
But before they left, they lifted their hands and made a promise. That if the land could someday heal from its long scars, the wounds that people inflicted, that they would return again. In the meanwhile, one among us, one strong and true, must willingly descend into the depths to join the ancestors. This one, our people’s first true harvest, will know from the signs and symbols, the transformations that only come from the blessing of the ancestors, when the stars in the sky above align themselves just so. Yera is that first harvest. She has wanted this honor her whole life. And from her birth, the signs were clear. Her lungs have grown strong, her limbs straight and tall, she does not bend and curve like the rest of us. My sister has the old gods’ favor and when Oma Day ends and the Descension is complete, she will join the waters, and rule them as she once ruled the waters of our mother’s womb, she will enter them and be reborn as an ancestress.
The ceremony has not yet begun and I am already tired. I am tired, because I spend much of my time and energy devoted to breathing. For me, to live each day is a conscious act, an exercise of will, mind over my broken body’s matter. I must imagine a future with every breath, consciously exhaling, expelling the poison because my brain thinks I need more air, and signals my body to produce light, even though my lungs are weak and filled with the ash of the old gods. Unable to filter the poison quickly, my body panics and it thinks I am dying. My knees lock, and I pull them up to my chest and hold myself, gasping for breath like our oma said I did, waiting in my mother’s womb.
Oma gives me herbs. She grinds them up, mortar and pestle in her conch shell, and mixes them in my food. When I was smaller, she made me recite the ingredients daily, a song she hummed to lull me asleep. But as I grew, the herbs worked less and less, and my sister did things to them, things that made me finally give them up. I have given so much to her these years.
And I have created many different ways to breathe.
I breathe through my tongue, letting the pink buds taste the songs in the air. I breathe through the fine hairs on the ridge of my curved back and my arms, the misshapen ones she calls claws. I breathe through the dark pores of my skin. And when I am alone, and out of my oma’s earshot, out of my wretched sister’s reach, I breathe through my mouth, unfiltered and free. My fingers searching the most hidden, soft parts of myself and I am light air star shine, light air star shine, light—
In the suns before Oma Day, I spent a lot of time sleeping. My breathing tends to be easier if I sleep well, and so I slept. My lungs are filled with poison which means there’s no space for the light, the good clean air. I have many different ways to expel the poison, and meanwhile my body goes into panic because my mind thinks I’m dying, so between controlling the exhalation, telling my mind that I am not dying, inhaling our oma’s herbs through her conch shell, I am exhausted since I do this many times a day. And then there is Yera. Always my sister, Yera. I must watch for her. I know my sister’s movements more than I know myself.
This night, on the eve of Oma Day, which is to say, the eve of my sister’s descension, I can feel Yera smile, even in the dark. It is that way with sisters. As a child I did not fear the night. How could I? My sister’s voice filled it. Outside, the baji birds gathered in the high tops of our oma’s trees. Their wings sounded like the great wind whistling through what was left of the ancestors’ stone wall towers. They chattered and squawked in waves as hypnotic as the ocean itself, their excitement mirroring our own. And I too was excited, my mind filled with questions and a few hopes I dared not even share with myself. Would I still exist without my sister? Can there be one without two?
As more stars add their light to the darkness, I turn in my bed, over and over again like the gold beetles burrowing in our oma’s soil. I turned, my mind restless while Yera slept the sleep of the ages. For me, sleep never comes. So I sit in the dark, braiding and unbraiding my hair and wait for the day to come, when my world would end again or perhaps when it might begin.
The past few days I’ve been aware that braiding makes me short of breath, and I realized that I am very, very tired. Last night I was going through my patterns, braiding and unbraiding them in my head, overhand and underhand, when I remembered what the elder had once said to our oma. That she had done a lot in her life, that she, already an honored mother, had raised felanga on her own, and it was all right if she rested now. And I thought that maybe that was true for me, the resting part, which is perhaps why today I feel changed.
“Hurry, child. Hunger is on me.”
Our oma calls but even she is too nervous to eat. Her hair is a wonder, a sculpture that rises from her head like two great entwined serpents holding our world together. My scalp is sore. My hands still ache in the center of my palms and I am concentrating harder now to breathe. I rub the palm flesh of my left hand, massaging the pain in a slow ring of circles.
Yera has not joined us yet. She refused my offer to help braid her hair. “You think I want your broken hand in my head? You know your hands don’t work,” she said. I remember only once receiving praise from her for my handiwork. I had struggled long, my fingers cramped, my temple pulsing. I braided her hair into a series of intricate loops, twisting off her shining scalp like lush sorcadia blooms. Yera did not speak her praise. Vocal with anger, she was silent with approval. Impressed, Yera tapped her upper teeth with her thumb. Oma, big-spirited as she was big-legged, ran to me. She lifted my aching hands high into the air as if the old gods could see them. Now dressed in nothing more than a wrap, Yera’s full breasts exposed, nipples like dark moons, her mouth is all teeth and venom. “You have always been jealous of me.”
“Jealous?” I say and turn the word over in my mouth. It is sour and I don’t like its taste. I spit it out like a rotten sorcadian seed.
She turns, her thick brows high on her smooth, shining forehead. “Oh, so you speak now. Your tongue has found its roots on the day of my descension?”
Inside, my spirit folds on itself. It turns over and over again and gasps for air, but outside, I hold firm. “Why should I feel jealous? You are my sister and I am yours. Your glory is my glory.”
I wait. Her eyes study me coolly, narrow into bright slits. The scabs on my shoulder feel tight and itchy. After a moment, she turns again, her hands a fine blur atop her head. She signals assent with a flick of her wrist. Braiding and braiding, overhand, underhand, the pattern is intricate.
I have never seen Yera so shiny.
I take a strip of brightly stained cloth and hand it to her. She weaves it expertly
