A Chorus Rises Page 22

  I’m not a crier, and thank God. When I closed my eyes just now, a tear would totally have slipped free.

  They’re still there.

  I breathe in and out, eyes closed, and feel a faint throb behind my sternum. I listen to the voices that become portraits, to the sounds that become energy. Because I’ve confessed my worst thing and I can still hear them.

  I come back to myself and Courtney’s studying me. He’s still here, too.

  “Between Tavia and me, it’s too messy to pick a blameless victim,” I say, looking back at the little girl being doxed on Knights of Naema. “But it isn’t between Tavia and me anymore. These are pictures of people who have nothing to do with this; they’re not siren or Eloko.”

  But they still belong to us.

  That one’s all Ancestors.

  “What are they even gonna do with this information?”

  As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know I can’t just wait and see. This subforum is supposedly brand new, but the research clearly isn’t. This might have always been the endgame. Maybe if I could’ve seen any of the private messages, or someone had explained how the ranks were going to work, I’d have seen this coming. Because there’s more than one member posting, and they’re encouraging people to add to the collection.

  The artist is here, too. The user who made the time-lapse video of a portrait of me. The one who didn’t know whether or not he agreed with trying to figure out my location. He’s in the new subforum dedicated to exposing the location and personal information of women and girls who have decidedly not posted their own photos, complete with supposed clues as invitation.

  “You don’t have to have proof,” Courtney reads aloud. “If she fits the profile and you get a feeling, post her here.”

  They’re saying they’ll take the recon from there. Which means at least the user who started the page is definitely Portland local. NaemasNobleman is from my town.

  “I’d be on here,” I say. “If they didn’t know I was Eloko. If it wasn’t Justice For Naema, they’d be coming for me, too.”

  “No doubt.”

  “I have to go back to Portland. I have to tell somebody.”

  “Yep.”

  I snap the laptop shut, and the room goes dark and quiet. For a moment. “Uhh.” Courtney smacks his lips. “How I’m ’posed to find the door, Sheba.”

  Chapter XXIII

  Tavia Philips is the last person I ever expected to call, and when Courtney and I land at PDX the following afternoon, hers is the first number I dial. And then I close the app without completing the call.

  I start at least three different text messages, too, but can’t get the tone right.

  Attempt number one is like, I still think you’re a POS, first of all, but can you give me a call.

  The second attempt feels more reasonable, if only slightly: If I could afford to waste any time at all, I would not be reaching out to you, please believe.

  Draft number three begins with You’re lucky I don’t put my hands on people, and at this point I just have to admit that a phone call could have been started and finished in the time I’d already spent typing and deleting. So while Courtney—pardon me, Precious Heart—coos over Mommy’s belly as he drives her car home from the airport, I just do the deed, knot in my stomach, and a hot stone ready to turn to a stream of cusses in my throat at the sound of her voice.

  “Hello?” She seriously must have answered on the first ring. Absolute monster. “Naema?”

  “Yep,” I say through a sigh, because breathing deep feels very necessary.

  “Wow, hi,” she says, like we haven’t chatted in such a long time, versus We Never Chatted On The Phone But You Did Text Me That One Time Because You Used Your Siren Call On A Cop. Oh, and We Haven’t Seen Each Other Since You Made Your Sister Turn Me To Stone And Then Awakened Me So The Ancestors Might Still Need To Hold Me Back.

  Somehow her “Wow, hi” just doesn’t capture it all.

  “Are you back?” she asks.

  “What?”

  “Are you back in Portland? I heard you were—on vacation.”

  “Right, this is not a social call.”

  Her voice disappears and a soft static fills the vacuum.

  “I met an old woman before I left, I think she’s the head of the network in Portland,” which is a ridiculous thing to say because I know she is, “and I need to know how to get in touch with her.”

  “Oh,” Tavia says, but she sounds hesitant.

  “I know I’m not in the network anymore,” and then I lower my voice, just in case Courtney and Mommy are only pretending to be caught up in conversation in the front seat. “This isn’t about wanting to get back in. I just need to talk to her. Like, today.”

  “Something’s wrong.” It’s not a question, and the delicate, overly polite tone she’s been using so far tightens.

  “Yes, Tavia,” and I enunciate, “I’m on the phone with you. Something’s wrong. Can you get in touch with her or not?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got it. I’ll call you back.”

  “You can just text—” And she’s gone. “Fine.”

  * * *

  Tavia Philips is the literal worst.

  She doesn’t text. She does not, in fact, call.

  Instead, she shows up at my house. Which is where I immediately went because until I do what I came back to Portland to do, I don’t want anyone else knowing I’m here. So when the doorbell rings, I let Courtney answer it. Which was apparently a bad idea. He doesn’t come back for several minutes, and when I get tired of waiting with our show paused, I go to investigate.

  What I find disgusts me.

  Courtney is super casually leaning in the entry, one leg crossed in front of the other, one elbow holding his weight against the wall, his blond coif hydrated and coily, and his fade clean because he doesn’t go eight days without a touch-up.

  I don’t immediately see Tavia because she’s hidden behind him, but when I call his name, he jumps like he got caught, and there she is.

  Tavia Philips. Or should I say mini–Camilla Fox. She’s wearing a striking African print headwrap around her topknot, big statement earrings, and a simple white tank with knee-length jean shorts. She certainly looks like an influencer now, and the outfit is fire, but I can’t help rolling my eyes.

  “Naema,” she says, and her hands go behind her back, her posture straightening.

  “I thought you were gonna call.”

  “Can we talk?” she asks without missing a beat, and annoyed is an understatement.

  “It looks like you’re already doing that,” I say, shifting my disapproving gaze to Courtney, who doesn’t even have the good sense to look guilty. So much for familial loyalty, I guess.

  “I didn’t wanna be rude,” my cousin says, but he’s speaking in a disturbingly unfamiliar voice, sticky sweet like someone poured Uncle Deric’s homemade barbeque sauce all over it. It’s disgusting.

  “Rude is answering the door at someone else’s house and not announcing the guest before you invite them in.”

  “Dang, Sheba,” he says, and I shoot him a look. “Sheba” is for family. And Tavia Philips is not family.

  “I know you hate me,” Tavia blurts out, and draws our attention. “And it makes complete sense. Obviously.” She’s wringing her hands together behind her back, which I know because she’s also apparently wearing what sounds like a small army of bamboo bangles. The girl is thorough, I’ll give her that. “I’ve wanted to talk to you ever since … I just didn’t think I had the right to reach out to you, but then you called—”

  “I’m gonna stop you,” I say, and stretch my neck from one side to the other, before letting my head fall back so I can stare at the ceiling while I mutter, “I do not want to be having this conversation.”

  Tavia opens her mouth again, and I throw up my hand. Despite the fact that I’m not as averse to difficult conversations as I once was. I don’t think it’s gonna overwhelm me the way it did at the Ninja Warrior place,
and I know sometimes they’re necessary if I want to hear the Ancestors clearly. But that doesn’t mean I have to put up with it with Tavia Philips.

  “No, seriously,” I tell her. “You’re not gonna sweep in here and make this your story, Tavia. I know you think it always is, but this isn’t your big apology scene. I mean I got to see your remorse played out against a thoughtful montage of emotional indie music in the movie, with the whole staring out at the Willamette and standing on bridges”—I exhale and roll my eyes—“which just felt very extra, and I sincerely hope you didn’t really do that.”

  “I’m sorry, Naema.”

  “What did I just say—”

  “I mean, about the movie, too. I can see how it might’ve been salt in the wound.”

  My eyes drift around the room. I don’t have an answer for that, which is annoying.

  “I didn’t really get how much license they take with those things, and once the ink is dry, ‘meaningful consideration’ and ‘consultation’ are apparently really subjective phrases.” She says it all like she’s still upset about it, her gaze slipping to the side.

  “Buyer’s remorse?” I ask, eyebrow raised.

  “Yeah,” she says through a sigh. “You could say that. I mean, it’s been really useful, I guess. It’s not all bad. I liked everything about Effie.”

  “Yeah, well, that doesn’t surprise me.” I cross my arms and feel my shoulders relax a little. Courtney seems to notice, too, which is when I remember that he’s here. “Don’t flirt with my cousin, by the way,” I say, and lead them into the living room.

  “Naema, no one’s gonna replace you in my heart,” Courtney says as he drapes his long legs across the ottoman. Luckily my mom’s gone to a doctor’s appointment, because Precious Heart or not, he’s wearing sneakers and despite the fact that his foot is actually dangling clear of the upholstery, Simone Bradshaw’s superpower is sensing dirt that might not even be there.

  “I’m not gonna dignify that,” I say before turning to Tavia. “So what do you want? I mean other than apologizing for the way your movie made me basic and jealous, which I have a hard time believing they did without any input from you.”

  “The only input I had was asking that your character not be Eloko. Just. So people wouldn’t assume—”

  “Wait, you did that?” I run my tongue over my teeth while I smile and nod. “Leona Fowl is foul. She made it sound like that was her decision,” I tell Courtney.

  “You know Leona?” Tavia asks.

  “Yeah, I’ve had the pleasure. She wants to make a movie with me.” And then I see the confusion on Tavia’s face. “Lemme guess. That doesn’t add up with whatever she said about me during your movie.”

  Tavia frowns like she doesn’t wanna say.

  “Girl, please, now is not the time to act like you’re above the drama.”

  “Fine, Naema, yeah. That’s a surprise. I didn’t think she was a fan.”

  “Oh, I can promise you she’s not anymore,” Courtney interjects, wagging one of his feet, and looking like a lazy prince sprawled across the furniture.

  “But then it seems her loyalties depend on the current paycheck,” I say, snorting. “You’re really not gonna ask me what I mean, Tavia? We’re still doing that squeaky-clean, meek-mouth thing?”

  “I showed up to your house unannounced, and you won’t let me apologize to you, and you haven’t told me why you called in the first place, except to say it’s not good, so no, I’m not gonna interrogate you. If you want to tell me, I’ve no doubt you will.”

  Courtney’s eyes volley between us, and he has a stupid smirk on his face.

  “I don’t need you to apologize to me, Tavia, because I don’t forgive you.”

  The words may as well smack her in the face. Which is honestly fine by me.

  “That’s not really a thing you can apologize for, in my very humble opinion. You can’t snatch someone out of the world and pin them in stone and leave them there, nowhere, and then go all neo-soul and want to walk it back. As you profit from Awakening me. And things turned out pretty spectacular for me in at least one particular way, but you don’t get the credit for that. Me thriving can’t make you right. It just makes me a queen.”

  She nods like maybe it’s not the first time she’s considered that, which. Good. What we’re not gonna do is start thanking our attackers for our personal growth.

  “Plus, sure, I’m the mean girl. But she’s your sister. Did you ask Effie to forgive you? For using her power without her consent?”

  Tavia’s eyes are low, though they occasionally flick over to Courtney. I’m sure she wishes there wasn’t an audience for this, but I mean, if she thinks Courtney’s gonna politely excuse himself and go to another room, el oh el.

  “Yeah,” she says almost too quietly to hear. “But that’s not really a thing you can apologize for, either.”

  She surprises me again, and the room falls quiet for a moment.

  “But you guys are fine, right? I mean. Wherever she is, there’s still that mutual obsession, that folie à deux you two do so well.”

  “Yeah, we’re still everything,” Tavia nods, but she doesn’t make eye contact. It’s not that the change in her isn’t obvious, it’s just that I refuse to do the whole Maybe the Real Feud Was The Friends We Made Along The Way, Made for TV reconciliation.

  Still. Whatever her equivalent of being knocked out of my bubble and Eat, Pray, Listen to the Ancestors-ing my way through what I can’t believe has only been the last week, Tavia’s nothing like the girl I went to school with. Let alone the girl at prom.

  Which reminds me.

  The calm, constant rush of Ancestor voices, or just presence at this point, has been swelling and dissipating ever since Courtney and I boarded the plane to PDX this morning. Now I feel it more concentrated, as though despite how long they’ve been in residence inside me, now they’re closer. Bolstering me.

  “I regret what I wore to junior prom,” I say, and then clear my throat. “The collar.”

  When her eyes settle on me, mine flick away, but I force them back. I force myself to look at Tavia Philips, even when I can feel Courtney’s intensity beside me. He’s as bad as my mother. But as comforting as the Ancestors.

  “I won’t ask your forgiveness, ’cause that’s too big an ask, too,” I say. My hand wants to reach for my necklace, but I keep it in my lap. I don’t let my eyes roll, even to break up the tension. “But I have to apologize.”

  “Thank you.” Tavia’s face doesn’t look like it’s gonna crumple into tears, and she isn’t wearing that Woe Is Pretty Me expression I thought was an irreversible feature these past couple of years.

  “I guess it’s only fair that you get to apologize, too, so.” Now I roll them, Courtney snorting softly.

  “Good. Because I really am sorry, Naema,” she says. “That’s not the kind of power I want. It’s not the kind of person I want to be. I’ve done a lot of thinking, about myself, and. If I’m gonna use my voice, how big a responsibility it is. I know you’ve had followers a lot longer than I have. I didn’t know how intimidating it can be. The way loyalties can change, the way one article declares you a heroine and the next calls you dangerous. But I’m worried about me, too. I worry every time I open my mouth. Is it a good use of my platform, is it true, did I do enough research?”

  “I think you guys have really different channels,” Courtney mutters, and I hit him. “Where’s the lie?”

  “I wanted to do a video about your support in Portland,” Tavia says, like it’s the perfect segue. She even reaches out and then withdraws her hand.

  “What support?” I ask her, and I want to cut my eyes at Courtney, warn him not to mention the Knights before she has a chance to tell us what she knows.

  “The stickers that started popping up? I saw it for the first time today, before you called, actually.”

  “What stickers?” I roll my finger, trying to hurry her along.

  “The JusticeForNaema stickers? I mean, I only saw o
ne, but I doubt somebody made just one.” She pulls out her phone and searches the hashtag. When she turns it toward me, there’s a whole account devoted to it.

  Someone’s going around Portland taking pictures of what are clearly brand-new stickers affixed to lampposts, sidewalks, and even windows. Not one of them has faded, or had their color bleed from rain or, I don’t know, urine. Someone did this recently.

  Someone.

  In the last twenty-four hours.

  Even the account is new. Fewer than fifty follows, and only following one account. One called Knights of Naema.

  “This…” I don’t know what to call her. But the Ancestors don’t even have to confirm that it’s Leona. “She’s really not gonna stop.”

  I look from Courtney to Tavia, but they’re both waiting—Courtney, for me to say what he’s not at liberty to share, and Tavia, to hear what’s going on.

  “Did you get me a meeting with”—I almost say the network donna, before I remember that that’s not really what she’s called—“the old woman.”

  “Ms. Donna?”

  “What.” Shut up.

  “Little old lady who heads the network? Ms. Donna.”

  “I am a wizard.”

  “Uh … what?” Courtney asks.

  Tavia’s looking at me like there’s a sprite on my shoulder.

  “What? Sorry, that was just really funny.”

  “Whyyyy—”

  “Shut up,” I tell Courtney. “Can I see her or not?”

  “She’ll see you,” Tavia says with a nod.

  “All right. You better come, too.” And before she can act surprised or stutter like some charmingly incredulous pageant winner, I head to the car.

  * * *

  “I just wanna be clear that this is the car you drive.” Courtney looks ridiculous in the passenger seat of my beautiful Fiat. “And just for clarification, when we get out, we’re expected to like, juggle and stuff, right?”