A Gift in the Blackwater

Dev had never felt such cold. The air seemed more frozen than the wintry landscape he looked out on. He had never experienced snow before, and yesterday’s knife-sharp winds and clear skies hadn’t prepared him for the never-ending blanket of whiteness that draped itself all over everything.

He looked up at the sky. It was a gentle gray. The sun tried its best to pierce through the thick cloud cover to no avail. No snow was falling at the moment, but more than a foot had fallen overnight. According to Dad, there would be double or triple the amount by nightfall.

There was wood under a tarp where the porch wrapped around the side of the house. Dad had said to bring as much as he could inside so that the fire in the center of the great room would burn constantly. The wood in the hearth was already burning quite slowly with the touch of Dad’s magic. Dad had told him earlier that he would show him how to bespell the wood he brought in today to do the same.

The thick gloves he’d put on did nothing to stop the cold from seeping into his hands. He didn’t understand how anyone could live in a place like this. It was about as far as you could get from the hot, humid heat of the Caribbean. Before he could wrap the sheet-sized scarf Auntie Camilla had given him about his head, an icy breeze flitted across his face, bringing with it a sharp, iron scent, which reminded him of blood.

A frozen, inhospitable world that smelled of blood.

Dev shook his head. No one should live in such conditions.

He looked at the wall of snow that stood up on its own now that the door was open. He hoped the boots and layers of pants he’d put on would be enough to guard him from the snow and took his first step outside.

The world shifted on its axis.

The snow was gone. The sun shone bright in the sky. It was too big, too heavy, though at its peak. The air had grown hot and thick, dripping with humidity. Dev looked down. His feet were bare.

For a moment the fact didn’t register. Then it seized him. Panic. Cold clarity. He’d been wearing boots. Heavy boots. Layers of thick socks and long johns and pants tucked into them. How had he—

When he looked at his bare soles pressed into the dark water, he knew. The shift had unmade them. Or he’d shed them the way a snake sheds skin, the way one sheds a world.

The water cradling his exposed feet was black. Not like that of night or shadow, but something deeper as if the water had been steeped in the essence of the Amazon itself and had absorbed all its secrets, all its dark rich decay. Yet, it was strangely transparent. He could see his feet distinctly beneath the surface, their warm brown tones glowing against the liquid darkness. Like looking through a window into something ancient and infinitely deep.

The cold of it shocked him. It wasn’t like the biting freeze from the snow, but something ancient and still. He felt every nuance of it on his bare skin. He knew this water. Or rather, his bones knew it—this was the blackwater of Guyana. Of home. But he never felt it like this: a threshold of sorts. The shore he stood on was not sand but something darker still, and the water reflected the sun so perfectly it seemed less like reflection than like a mirror to some other sky.

He was home. He was nowhere near home. Both were true.

“Ah gone! All dem two ting true. Come ‘ere, bai. Is good fuh ketch yuh eye at long last,” came his great grandmother’s voice.

“Granny Patsy?” he asked looking up.

There she sat on the surface of the water in her signature yellow simple shift dress with a thin white shirt underneath it. She wore a red scarf about her head. Her smile took up her whole face, accentuating her deep wrinkles. Dev hadn’t seen her since he was a little kid.

She pushed her glasses up her broad nose and reached out towards Dev. “Give wan ole lady a hand fuh get up.”

He sloshed through the eerily still waters and bent down, grasping her near her armpits. Her hands clasped his broad shoulders.

The sun was gone.

The sky was littered with stars. The Milky Way carved a silver river through innumerable constellations. Dev looked into his great grandmother’s equally milky eyes, which had grown unnaturally big until the reflection of her cataracts gave way to tiny little stars and then full galaxies where her pupils and irises should be.

“Is time fuh yuh fuh tek up yuh power. Fuh feel we magic run through yuh.”

The forest around them came alive with the call of animals and insects. Their sounds, a crescendo that blended into chanting that filled the air. Dev looked down again. His feet were no longer submerged. He and Granny Patsy stood on the smooth surface of the blackwater, ripples emanating from where they stood.

Patsy hands moved from his shoulders and grasped his face. The galaxies in her eyes brightened. The stars blanketing the sky twinkled fervently. Wind picked up and whipped at them. The world began to quake. An ancient voice spoke through Granny Patsy. She didn’t utter any words, but Dev felt them. They shook him, reverberating through his bones. Vibrating his very being.

You are our future. Feel our power pour into you. Heed your father’s guidance for you are next.

Dev blinked.

He was standing knee-deep in the snow. Sheets of snow were falling around him. He did his best to blink the snow out of his eyes. Little crystals had formed on his lashes. He moved to wipe the snow from his eyes and dropped the large stack of wood that he’d evidently been holding.

“Dev? Dev?!” Dad called out. He heard his father’s heavy footsteps coming around the porch.

“Devendra James, the cabin is freezing. How long have you been out here? You left the door open and now—”

Dev had no idea what his father saw upon rounding the corner, but Dad’s face broke out into a smile much like Granny Patsy’s. A light dusting of snow sat on top of Dad’s salt and pepper afro. The older man flicked his right hand toward the window next to Dev. It opened and logs from the pile began floating into the great room and stacking themselves in the hearth.

“Oh my sweet boy, who did you meet?” Dad asked, his smile never leaving his face.

It took a moment before Dev could find words. “What happened?”

“Who’d ya meet, son?” Dad asked again.

“Granny Patsy,” Dev answered.

Dad trudged through the snow and wrapped Dev in a tight hug. Dev’s mind flashed to when his Dad used to tower over him, but now he was slightly taller.

“You, my boy, were given your blessing. It’s time to start your training.”

Dev stepped back and looked at his father in wonder. “For real? Like powerful magic?”

Dad wrapped his knuckles on Dev’s chest. “Real powerful magic. Now let’s get inside where it’s warm. I don’t understand how people choose to live in the cold.”