Filter House by Nisi Shawl Read Free Book Online

for fresh air. And leaned out of it, waiting.
    Like the lace of a giantess, leaves covered the housefront in a pattern of repeating hearts. Elsewhere in the neighborhood, sibling plants, self-sown from those she’d first planted around the perimeter, arched from phone pole to lamp post, encircling her home. Keeping it safe. So Mercy could return.
    At first Mom had wanted to move out. But nowhere else Negroes could live in this town would be any better, Dad said. Besides, it wasn’t all that bad. Even Aunt Elise admitted Cousin Alphonse was calmer, better off, here behind the vines. Mom eventually agreed to stay put and see if Dad’s promotion ever came through.
    That was taking a long time. Oneida was secretly glad. It would be so much harder to do what she had to do if her family moved. To come here night after night, as her eleke had shown her she must. To be patient. Till—
    Then.
    She saw her. Walking up the street. As Yemaya had promised. And this was the night, and Oneida was here for it, her one chance.
    She waved. Mercy wasn’t looking her way, though. She kept on, headed for Oneida’s house, it looked like.
    Oneida jerked at the handle of the front door. It smacked hard against the chain she’d forgotten to undo. She slammed it shut again, slid the chain free, and stumbled down the steps.
    Mercy was halfway up the block. The noise must have startled her. No way Oneida’d be able to catch up. “Mercy! Mercy Sanchez!” She ran hopelessly, sobbing.
    Mercy stopped. She turned. Suddenly uncertain, Oneida slowed. Would Mercy have cut her hair that way? Worn that black leather jacket?
    But who else could it be?
    “Please, please!” Oneida had no idea what she was saying, or who she was saying it to. She was running again and then she was there, hugging her, and it was her. Mercy. Home.
    Mercy. Acting like it was no big deal to show up again after disappearing for four years.
    “I tole you,” she insisted, sitting cross-legged on the floorboards of the empty living room. One small white candle flickered between them, supplementing the streetlight. “Emilio axed me could I come help him. He was havin trouble.…” She trailed off. “It was this one group of kids hasslin his friends.…”
    “All you said before you left was about how the Blue Lady—”
    “’Neida, mean to say you ain’t forgot none a them games we played?!” Scornfully.
    The price had been paid.
    It was as if Oneida were swimming, completely underwater, and putting out her hand and touching Mercy, who swore up and down she was not wet. Who refused to admit that the Blue Lady was real, that she, at least, had seen her. When Oneida tried to show her some of what she’d learned, Mercy nodded once, then interrupted, asking if she had a smoke.
    Oneida got a cigarette from the cupboard where she kept her offerings.
    “So how long are you here for?” It sounded awful, what Mom would say to some distant relative she’d never met before.
    “Dunno. Emilio gonna be outta circulation—things in Miami different now. Here, too, hunh? Seem like we on the set a some monster movie.”
    Oneida would explain about that later. “What about your mom?” Even worse, the kind of question a parole officer might ask.
    Mercy snorted. “She ain’t wanna have nothin to do with him or me. For years.”
    “Mizz Nichols—” Oneida paused. Had Mercy heard?
    “Yeah, I know. Couldn make the funeral.” She stubbed out her cigarette on the bottom of her high-top, then rolled the butt between her right thumb and forefinger, straightening it. “Dunno why I even came here. Dumb. Probably the first place anybody look. If they wanna fine me.” Mercy glanced up, and her eyes were exactly the same, deep and sad. As the ocean. As the sky.
    “They won’t.” The shadow of a vine’s stray tendril caressed Mercy’s cheek. “They won’t.”

    A disclaimer: the system of divination Big Mama teaches to Oneida is my own invention. It borrows heavily from West