Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson

Author:Nalo Hopkinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: S&S/Saga Press
Published: 2024-08-20T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

The carriage jolted them through the streets to Thandiwe’s compong. It made too much noise for Gombey and Veycosi to talk with ease, so they mostly kept silent. Gombey stared intently out at the road ahead, as though watching at it would make it roll by faster.

Veycosi still couldn’t quite believe that Kaïra was one of the missing, but Gombey swore this was the second night now she hadn’t returned to her home or sent word to her mam.

What the backside Kaïra was up to now? Some Mamapiche trick, probably. If Thandiwe didn’t tan her hide for him when she came back, Veycosi might be tempted to raise a hand to his intended’s picken his own self.

Gombey said something. The wind took the words away. “What?” Veycosi asked him.

“We didn’t worry at first!” he shouted back. “Mamapiche, you know?”

“I know!” Mamapiche Festival. The cullybree chicks would be hatching soon, and then it would be time for the parade, led by crewes of Carenage Town’s pickens. Every year the crewes tried to come up with something more spectacular than the year before. Pickens always got secretive and scarce around this time of year. Huddling in groups. Whispering and laughing quietly with each other. Looking over their shoulders and scowling at any not of their number who came within earshot of their plotting. Disappearing for hours and returning with mysterious things caught in their hair and their garments: powdered chalk, melted glass, chicken feathers. And objects would go missing from people’s houses. Thandy hadn’t been able to find five of her six precious silver spoons for days now. Coming up to Mamapiche, wasn’t rare for a picken to be gone for a night or two, and to return home back looking tired and preoccupied. They started asking strange questions, too. What was that Kaïra had asked Veycosi the other day—something about throwing burning oil into water?

His heart clenched in his breast. Mama-ji, please say the picken hadn’t hurt herself by trying it, wasn’t lying somewhere secluded, too injured to help herself. But alive, yes? Alive. Kaïra was hasty, but she mostly had sense. And she heeded Veycosi. “We will find her,” he said to Gombey.

At the sound of Veycosi’s voice, Gombey snapped his head around to look at him, as though startled to find someone there beside him. Apparently, his preoccupied thoughts were only on Kaïra. Gombey cupped one ear. “Say again?” he shouted over the noise of the carriage.

Veycosi raised his voice. “We going to find Kaïra!”

Gombey nodded a vague yes and turned his eyes immediately to the road again.

Mamapiche was an overturned time.

The carriage clattered past a group of people, laughing and talking as they walked the street. Veycosi only glimpsed them in the dark, but he had come to recognize that swaying form. He rapped on the ceiling for the carriage to stop.

“Stand!” yelled the driver to the horse. It came to a halt.

“What you do that for?” said Gombey. “We have to get to Thandy!”

“Just one moment,” Veycosi replied.

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