AfroMyth: A Fantasy Collection: AfroMyth, #1

By J.S. Emuakpor, N.D. Jones, Brittney Sankofa and 8 more

Afrocentric Books presents twelve tales that will transport you from Regency England to Post-Apocalyptic Africa. From the lofty branches of a mythical tree to the depths of the underworld, Afromyth explores fantastical worlds through the eyes of characters of indigenous African descent. Meet men who transform into lions and women who transform into birds. Sea creatures, witches, falling stars, fallen gods, and a leprechaun in Alabama. Each story promises an Afrocentric theme, but not all take place in Africa. Indeed, not all take place in this world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Afrocentric Books
• Release date: Oct 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781524213022

J.S. Emuakpor

J.S. Emuakpor was born and raised in West Africa. She is a married mother of four, a scientist, and owner of Afrocentric Books. She currently lives in North Carolina and is very much allergic to it. Most of her writing draws upon the spiritual beliefs of the ancestors who frequently whisper in her ear and on the superstitions that she refuses to relinquish.

Book preview

Afromyth

Afromyth

A Fantasy Collection Vol. 1

J.S. Emuakpor Darrel Duckworth Sarah L. Byrne Clive Tern James Pyne Mallory St. Cloud Brittney Sankofa Gary Priest Lela E. Buis Marija Smits N.D. Jones

Edited by

J.S. Emuakpor

Afrocentric Books | Mugwump Press

Anthology copyright © 2017 Mugwump Press LLC.

Individual contributions copyright © 2017 by the contributing authors.

Cover art copyright © 2017 by Lubov Dubikova

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission from the publisher and the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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Afrocentric Books | Mugwump Press

2136 Ford Parkway, #8018

Saint Paul, MN 55116

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www.afrocentricbooks.com

www.mugwumppress.com

Contents

Introduction

Under the Kolboba Tree

Fishing Lake Tanganyika

A Drop of Comfort, a Slice of Heart's Desire

Sins of the Sister

Yemayah

Descent

The Black Birds of White Oaks

Starfall

Intangible Evidence

The Cradle and the Scribe

Death in Nairobi

The Eyes of the Goddess Herself

Author Bios

Introduction

I could bore you with a long introduction, but Lord knows creative nonfiction is not really my forte. So, I’ll just tell you why we’ve done this anthology. There is a dearth of color in today’s (and yesterday’s) science fiction and fantasy. In recent years, we’ve seen more people of color starring in successful movies and television shows, but the literary industry, specifically in the genre of speculative fiction, has been slow to follow. This lack of representation in speculative fiction has been, for me—a person of color—frustrating at best. Afrocentric science fiction and fantasy books have been done, I know. But there are not many, and even fewer anthologies.

Afrocentric Books Presents: AfroMyth is a collection of fantasy stories featuring characters of the African diaspora. It is a platform to showcase promising new and emerging voices. When I selected the stories for this anthology, I did not focus on the author’s race, merely the content of the tale. As such, not all of these stories were written by authors of the African diaspora or even authors of color. In compiling the anthology— written by authors of various races—I not only hoped to dispel the all-too-common belief that white authors cannot write characters of color (yes, some of the authors are of European descent), but more importantly, I hoped that this anthology could be part of a movement showing the world that the African diaspora is an integral part of society at every level. I hope, as you journey through the pages of this book, you will see us, hear us, and get to know us.

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J.S. Emuakpor

African Diaspora, 2017

Under the Kolboba Tree

Darrel Duckworth

Grandpa Joba was the oldest man I’d ever known. He was already old when I was a little girl. He was even older when I arrived with my husband and my own little girl to be with him when he died.

He wasn’t really my grandfather, but everybody in the family called him Grandpa Joba, even my real grandparents. The truth was, no one knew if he was even biologically linked to our family. His skin, although paled some by extreme age, was still darker than anyone in the family. And his features definitely carried more proto-African traits than any of us.

Sorry, that’s the geneticist in me talking.

But, biologically linked or not, he felt like Grandpa Joba to me. And to everyone else.

Which was why every member of our far-scattered family traveled from wherever in the world they were to come here when they heard he was dying.

I was the last to arrive, being one of the farthest away.

I crept into the hospital room, eager to see Grandpa Joba again but also afraid of what I might see. Watching Grandma Connelly, my mom’s mother, die of cancer had been painful. I wasn’t sure I could watch Grandpa Joba go. But I also couldn’t bear the idea of not seeing him one last time.

So here I was.

I held my own little girl tight in my arms, clinging to her like a security blanket. My husband walked in behind me, one hand gently touching my back in support.

Neither one of them had ever met Grandpa Joba, and suddenly, I was aware of how many years it had been since I’d seen him last. Now, I regretted those lost years.

Representatives from four generations of our family had gathered around his bed, pushing the limits for maximum number of visitors allowed. Mark noticed our entrance and looked up, relieved to see I had arrived. Everyone turned, smiling that we had made it in time, but smiling sadly all the same. The people nearest to us parted like a curtain, and I saw Grandpa Joba lying there, propped up in his hospital bed, wearing one of those silly gowns that was far too small for his massive frame.

He didn’t look like a dying man. He looked like Grandpa Joba.

His broad face was smiling, like it always did. His big, bald head was shining in the light from over his bed. His giant shoulders, his tree trunk chest, his gorilla arms . . . they all looked the same. And when he turned and looked at me, his eyes were bright and dancing like they always were.

I expected him to swing his legs out of that bed and sweep me up into his massive arms like he always did.

The fact that he didn’t get up was the only sign that the sweet, magical energy we call life was finally leaving his body.

Judy, he said, his voice as quiet, deep, and calm as it had always been.

And it was like I was five years old again. I wanted to crawl into his lap and cuddle my head against his massive chest like I had as a little girl. Just sit there and listen to his heart beating. So much for the maturity of a thirty-one-year-old geneticist who was supposed to be a rising star in her field.

He raised one massive arm and hand out to me.

Maturity be damned. I stepped beside the bed and laid my head and my daughter down on that tree trunk he called a chest. And there was that sweet thumping sound I had heard so many times, so many years before. I felt his hand rubbing my back, telling me it was going to be all right.

I almost asked him to take me to see the Kolboba tree one last time.

Over the years, Grandpa Joba had taken every child in the family on a trip to the Kolboba tree. Even my grandparents talked about it. It was Grandpa Joba’s best magic trick.

Family rumor was that Grandpa Joba had been a traveling magician or illusionist long ago, before he settled down and opened a natural healing store decades ago. But he never told anyone how he did his tricks.

He had taken me to the Kolboba tree so many times when I was a little girl; each and every time I had asked him. Each time, he had smiled happily, scooped me up, and we had made the trip. Again and again, until some time in my twelfth year when I became a too-serious girl who decided that she was too old for that stuff, not even allowing herself to be curious anymore about how he did that trick.

Now, I was sad for that little girl, so hungry to be grown-up that she had sacrificed the magic of her childhood.

Grandpa Joba used to say that the journey was necessary for every child in our family. That our family was destined to produce thinkers and artists and other people who shaped the world. So, it was necessary for us to see the Center of the World, as he used to say, to know where our work fit into the world.

And he always said the Center of the World that way . . . with that dramatic tone. You could hear the capital letters on the words.

I guess this was his brand of gentle brainwashing. And it seemed to work because a lot of our family turned out to be writers, artists, entrepreneurs, scientists, special effects people . . . all sorts of creative types.

So, despite the fact that I could spot the mind-conditioning straight out of Psych 101, how could I be angry at a lovable old man with a magic trick who made me believe I could change the world?

Which was the other reason I was so eager to have my little girl here.

I wanted her to meet Grandpa Joba. I wanted her to feel his love, even if only for this short time. To remember him, if she could. She was only just halfway from two to three, a little younger than he usually took children on their first trip. But I wanted her to know him.

So, when I stood back up, I left my little girl lying on his tummy. He took his arm from my back and gently laid his massive hand on her tiny shoulder.

You must be Amanda, he said, smiling at her.

She nodded and looked at him, unafraid of this man who was a stranger to her. She didn’t even look to me for reassurance, the way she normally did when meeting new people.

I’m Grandpa Joba, he said.

Amanda crawled forward and cuddled against his huge chest. That was all the introduction any child needed to love Grandpa Joba.

He chuckled and cuddled her. He looked up at my husband, standing beside me.

You must be Brad, he said, extending one hand.

Brad, ever serious and silent, simply took that giant hand, shook it, and nodded.

They let go of each other, and Grandpa Joba went back to cuddling Amanda. He looked up at everybody.

Could Amanda and I have a few minutes to talk?

Everyone smiled, nodded, and began filing out, touching my arm as they went. I realized Grandpa Joba had probably been having the same talk with other family children. I grew excited for my little girl.

Brad watched them go, his eyes wary.

I tapped his arm and indicated that we should also leave. His eyes darted to Amanda, and it was clear that he wasn’t prepared to leave our daughter alone with this stranger, no matter who he was to the family.

It’s all right, Judy, Grandpa Joba said quietly. You should stay. Might be good for Brad to see this as well.

Suddenly, I was very excited. Grandpa Joba had always been alone with a child when he took him or her to see the Kolboba tree. Now, Brad and I would get to watch him perform his magic trick.

Inside me, the excitement of seeing how he did it competed with the excitement for my little girl, about to go on her first trip.

I remembered how magical my first trip had been.

Twenty-eight years before, Grandpa Joba had sat me on his lap and shown me the old, worn drawing of the Kolboba tree. It was a simple line drawing in some sort of black ink on an animal skin, soft and tan. The picture showed a massive tree with a huge trunk and thousands of branches spreading out above it, forming a giant umbrella. At the base of the trunk was a pair of tiny stick people.

At first, when I had looked at it with my little-girl eyes, the drawing had looked simple, just lines. Then I started seeing things in the branches. Animals. More and more animals. Until I saw all the animals of the world. Then somehow, the branches had leaves. The stick tree had blossomed with leaves and life.

As I had sat in his lap seeing . . . everything . . . with all the wonder of childhood magic, Grandpa Joba had gently stroked my head and told me to close my eyes. I did and felt myself floating somewhere warm and nice until he told me to open them again.

And I found myself standing beside him, underneath the Kolboba tree.

Except it wasn’t a drawing anymore. It was a real tree. The biggest tree I had ever seen. We were so tiny next to that massive trunk.

The bark was dark and rich and rough. And filled with squiggly shapes and lines. Some of them were like the maps Mommy had shown me in books. Shapes of places, of the world. But like it was long ago. There were other swirling, intertwining patterns that wouldn’t make sense to me until years later in my university classes. And other shapes with lines crossing lines in ways my eyes couldn’t understand.

Dizzy from the lines, I blinked and looked up.

Up there, above us, I saw the animals again but real this time. All the animals in the world. Relaxing or playing on the giant branches. Lions and monkeys and birds. Elephants and horses and dogs. Lizards and swarms of insects buzzing. And things that looked like they belonged in water, but they were swimming among the leaves.

On other branches, I saw animals from fairy tales and things I didn’t recognize at all. Farther away, deeper in the branches, there were more that I could feel but couldn’t see.

It all felt wonderful, not at all strange to my child’s eyes. As though it were perfectly normal for horses to rest on tree branches a few feet from unicorns and for fish to swim among leaves way up in the air.

We stood in the cool shade of the tree’s huge, leafy umbrella. Far beyond that soft shadow, harsh light beat down on a landscape that I would later come to think of as the Serengeti, the way they showed it on those nature shows. Other things moved out there in the blinding light, but I couldn’t see what they were.

And still other things crept around in the deeper shadows surrounding the roots under the tree, just out of sight. But I wasn’t afraid of them the way I was afraid of the things in the dark in my bedroom.

Here, by the Kolboba tree, we all belonged.

And it all seemed as real to me as the things in my own house.

I heard the breeze in the leaves and animal noises above us. I smelled the tree beside me and the earth under my feet. I felt the rough bark and the roots as we sat down with our backs against the tree. I felt the cool of the shade and the heat of the sun beyond it.

All my child’s senses told me that it was real as I sat there with Grandpa Joba, cuddling close to him, feeling his massive arm around my tiny body, listening to him tell the stories of the Earth.

And it felt just as real every visit after that. I nagged him to take me again and again, to tell me the stories over and over. And he always did. Happily.

Until I foolishly decided that I was too old for magic tricks.

We never realize what we sacrifice to pride until it’s too late.

Today, in the hospital, he showed me another magic trick: to my amazement, he pulled out a rolled-up animal skin from under the hospital blankets.

I thought it was destroyed in the house fire years ago, I said, stunned.

He chuckled. A little, old fire can't destroy this.

He unrolled it and showed it to Amanda.

Amanda pointed excitedly to the simple drawing of the Kolboba tree.

Horsy!

Ahh, Grandpa Joba said. You see them already.

Amanda nodded and pointed at more spots, naming animals. Every second, she apparently saw more and more things among the stick lines of the crude drawing.

He chuckled. You got good eyes, Amanda. You see a lot. This here is the Kolboba tree. It’s a special tree at the Center of the World. Would you like to go see it?

Amanda nodded eagerly and pointed at something else she had just spotted.

Brad craned his neck, trying to see what she was pointing at. Like me, all he was seeing was the crude, stick drawing.

Grandpa Joba stroked her hair. Well, then. Why don’t you and I go see it? Just close your eyes for a few seconds. That’s a girl.

He looked up at Brad and me.

We'll be back soon, he said, smiling.

And they disappeared.

My heart stopped.

The beige blanket settled slowly down onto the mattress, dropping through the empty space where his body had been.

Cold fear stabbed into my stomach.

Amanda!

My baby! He took my baby!

It was the worst fear I had ever felt.

Brad dove forward, slapping the mattress and pillow where Grandpa Joba and Amanda had been lying. He spun around and stared at me. In his eyes, I saw the same panic I was feeling.

A little-girl voice spoke inside my head. It’s Grandpa Joba. He won’t hurt her. He’s just taken her to the Kolboba tree.

It’s a goddammed magic trick! the grown-up inside me shouted back, panicking. There is no tree! It’s just a goddammed trick!

She’ll be back, the little-girl voice said. He always brought you back.

Brad started to shout for a nurse, but I grabbed him. My hand was shaking.

He’ll be back, I told him, staring at the empty bed.

Maybe, I was saying it to myself.

He’ll be back. He always comes back.

Brad stared at me like I’d lost my mind. He spun half round and pointed at the bed.

Back? Where the hell did he—

And Grandpa Joba was suddenly there, lying on top of the blanket that had fluttered down in his absence. Amanda was curled on his chest, smiling.

I dove forward and snatched her up, hugging her close while doing that mother thing of checking her all over to make sure she wasn’t hurt, making sure she was really there. I clung to her, keeping her from disappearing again.

Mommy! she cried out happily. I saw big tree. And horsies. And monkeys. And—

Her voice was muffled as Brad and I crushed her between us, Brad glaring down at Grandpa Joba.

Grandpa Joba lay there in the ridiculous hospital gown that barely covered his modesty. He smiled at me.

What were you worried about, Judy? he asked. You knew where we go.

I stared at him stunned. I didn’t think it was . . .

Real? he finished for me.

I nodded.

You used to know it was real. Afore you got grown up inside.

He smiled and rolled up the animal skin drawing. He extended his arm and handed the animal skin to Amanda who clutched it in her tiny hand.

Now you can go there any time you want, Amanda. Maybe you can take Mommy there sometime.

He breathed heavily, like he’d finally finished some long task.

Now, I got to rest a bits. Would you excuse me for a while?

Shaken, we nodded. I leaned down, still holding Amanda tight in my arms, and hugged him again. He hugged us both, and we left him to his rest.

As we exited his room, we saw a nurse approaching with a tray of meds. She entered the room across the hall from Grandpa Joba.

Judy? Brad said, his eyes still wide. What the hell was that? How did he . . . just disappear?

I wanted to say that Grandpa Joba used to be a magician. That it was just an illusion trick . . . of some kind. But I couldn’t make my mouth say the words. I just stood there, shaking my head slowly. Amanda tried to unroll the animal skin in her tiny hands.

I saw big tree, Mommy, she said, managing to open the picture and pointing to it. I saw big tree.

I gently took the picture away from her. It was irrational, but I was afraid she’d disappear into it.

The nurse walked across the hall with her tray of meds, into Grandpa Joba’s room.

Brad continued to stare at me, waiting for an answer I didn’t have.

From inside Grandpa Joba’s room, the nurse shrieked.

We started to rush back in, but she was already running out. She ran headlong into Brad who grabbed her.

He disappeared! she shouted. I was handing him his meds . . . and he smiled . . . and . . . and he just disappeared!

And that was it. Despite a doctor trying to calm her down and despite all attempts at logic, she stuck to the same story. Grandpa Joba had just faded away right in front of her eyes.

In the room, lying on the bed, were his gown and the plastic hospital bracelet. The plastic bracelet that couldn’t have slipped over his massive hand was uncut.

The funeral and the family gathering after it were a peculiar mixture of sad and hopeful. Somehow, it didn’t feel like Grandpa Joba was really gone. Not like if we had seen him breathe his last and close his eyes forever. But he also wasn’t there with us, smiling at us, like he’d always been. For as long as anyone could remember, he’d been with us, smiling.

And, wherever he was now, he wasn’t here anymore.

Four generations of family tried to help each other say goodbye to an old man