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THE AIR IN the cemetery is charged. Unsettled. Even the leaves on the trees stir and shiver, like the whole place knows I’m here for root.

I wait in the unmarked grave section after last class, feeling more bold than frightened.

Two figures in light jackets approach over the gravel path. I recognize Patricia immediately; as she comes closer, I can see that her scarf is a deep copper. Beside her, Mariah is in jeans and fur-topped boots, sleek poof exploding into a puff of curls that add at least eight inches to her petite height. She carries a basket of offerings, just as I’d asked.

“Bree,” Patricia murmurs, clutching me in a tight hug that soothes my nerves. “Your call scared me. You said it was an emergency? Are you all right?”

I pull back and swallow hard, take a deep breath. “I will be. Thank you for coming today. Both of you. I know the way we left things was… I’m sorry. I’m sorry for my behavior.”

Patricia tilts her head, and her eyes roam my features before she nods. “Apology accepted.”

“Same here.” Mariah shifts the basket to her other arm. “As long as you tell me what we’re doing here? Not that I don’t mind a graveyard, of course, but I don’t come to one lightly.” She peers around me. “Restless spirits follow me home if I’m not careful, then I’ve got to clean house, and it’s just a whole process… ugh.”

“I need your help to speak to someone in my family.”

Patricia and Mariah exchange glances. “Bree, what’s going on?”

I tell them about my mother’s box, and I don’t hide any of it, even the Bloodcraft. In the moment of silence after I finish, the wind picks up Patricia’s scarf, Mariah’s curls and my own.

Patricia has been studying me, and I’m worried she won’t help after all. “You deserve to know why this bargain was struck. But even though I want to, I’m afraid I won’t be of much help. Bloodcraft among our people is so shunned that those who practice it keep it secret. I don’t know how your abilities work or where they came from.”

“I know. Which is why I need to speak to an ancestor of mine who can explain. I want to know more about what I am and why.” I take a deep breath. “I don’t want to get lost in the past. I want to embrace it and understand.”

Mariah shrugs. “I’m down to help, but I can’t promise you’ll hear from anyone,” she warns. “And even if you do, there’s no promises about who shows up, remember? Could be your mom, could be someone else.”

I say hastily, “I actually don’t want it to be my mom. I need to go further back.”

Patricia considers this and nods slowly. “Okay, Bree.”

Five minutes later we’ve settled into a triangle, hands linked, our knees faintly touching around the offerings in the middle. Since I didn’t know what offerings my ancestors would prefer, I’d asked them to bring a small bowl of fruit, some candy, a glass of juice, and nuts. Things my mother liked and I like too.

Patricia repeats her previous instruction in a low voice. “Focus on your love for your mother, to start.”

I pull up an image of my mother from memory and there’s almost no pain, just a tiny smidge of it around the edges like a bit of burned paper. I see my mother in the kitchen, humming and mixing a bowl of deviled-egg fixin’s. She dips a pinkie in to taste and calls me over to test it too. It feels like we’re making magic. That’s how it always felt when we made food together.

Patricia whispers, “Now imagine the love stretching to your grandmother, and stretching back again.”

“Like a strong thread,” I murmur.

I hear the smile in her voice when she says, “Yes.”

I imagine the thread, thick and wound tight, from my mother to my grandmother—and it stops. I can’t go any further. I’m blocked…

By a wall.

I’ve known that this image, this internal construct of my own making, was part of my survival toolbox. I just hadn’t found any reason to take it down.

But now I do.

Now I have to.

I imagine my wall crumbling to pieces, one brick at a time. I pull down the chains, the metal, the steel. I peel it all away until I can see beyond it to find that hard, tight knot of pain in my chest, the one wrapped in layers of bright, unending fury—the part of me I call After-Bree.

And then I unwind her.

One strand for my mother.

One for my father.

One for me.

I unravel the rage until it courses through my veins like fuel in an engine. I let it become a part of me, but not all of me. Hot, scorching pain under my skin, under my tongue, under my nails. I let it spread through me—until there is no more “Before” and no more “After.”

I am her and she is me.

“I’ve got the thread,” Mariah says excitedly. “I’m following it.”

I feel warmth pulling at my fingers, like the tide of the ocean is inside me and it’s flowing out to Mariah.

“I hear someone,” Mariah whispers. “A woman.”

I take a deep breath and focus on the thread. Please, please. Please help me.

“She’s powerful. She has a lot to say,” Mariah says, her voice strained. “No, a lot to do. Oh wow, oh wow—” She stops speaking abruptly, and her fingers curl into claws around mine, squeezing the bones of my pinkie and forefinger. I open my eyes to see hers rolled back in her head, her rapid breathing.

“Mariah?” Patricia leans over, but does not break our connection. “Mariah?”

I start to call her name too, when the ocean comes rushing back through my hand so quickly that it sears up my wrist and forearms and swirls in a hot whirlpool in my chest. I cry out, but I can’t let go.

A low voice burns into my ears and onto the back of my eyelids. White curls, bronze skin, barely any wrinkles, my mother’s eyes and my own. She cracks a wry grin.

‘Took you long enough.’

It’s a strange sensation, having a whole other person inside your skin. It feels like I’m a human-shaped glass fish tank, and every step makes the water of my grandmother slosh up my sides, almost tipping over the edge.

Patricia holds on to my elbow. “Bree? Talk to us.”

“I’m…” I blink several times, in what feels like slow motion. “I’m okay. Except I feel drunk.”

‘And how do you know what being drunk is like?’ Grandmother says, jabbing at my ribs somehow.

“Ow,” I say, and grab my side. “Is it supposed to feel like this?”

Mariah shrugs. “I wouldn’t know. Possession is really rare. It’s never happened to me, personally, but my uncle Kwame gets possessed all the time. Family spirits take his body for a spin, or sometimes they sit inside him and the two of them just talk and fellowship awhile until the ancestor leaves.”

“Not every Medium gets possessed?” I cry, panic rising slightly.

“Nope. Mediumcraft is a branch of root with its own sub-branches. All different because ancestors themselves are different.” Mariah peers up into my eyes. “Wowwwww. I can definitely see your grandmother in there.” She stands back and raises her hand for a high five. “Welcome to Club Medium!”

I can feel my grandmother frown at her gesture, so I frown too. It all makes me a little woozy. “Thanks? I don’t understand, though. Why didn’t I find out I was a Medium when I was a kid?”

“Perhaps it’s the Bloodcraft, and the original nature of that spell. You’d have to speak to an ancestor who knows and, as your mother said, you’ll need to go back further than your grandmother.” Patricia hums speculatively. “Your mother practiced Wildcraft, which is a different branch. Different power. As a Medium, your power is wound tightly with death, and as your family’s Bloodcraft is triggered by death, perhaps the two branches intertwined in you until they became tied together in unpredictable ways. I’m afraid I’m not certain.”

Mariah cocks her head to the side. “But why didn’t both of your branches manifest when your mom died?”

The answer appears in my mind before I even finish the question. “That’s my fault.” I see the truth of it in my mind’s eye. “That night at the hospital was the birth of… this version of myself that I named After-Bree. The…” I look to Patricia, and she nods for me to continue. “The trauma created her, but I spent all of my energy containing her.”

Patricia nods. “Sometimes our brains protect us until we’re ready. The most important thing is now you know. And right now, you have help from Mrs.…?”

“Charles,” I say instantly. The name sprung into my mouth like it had been launched there.

“Mrs. Charles. So nice to meet you,” Patricia says warmly, her accent slipping in slow like molasses. “Will you be stayin’ long?”

“No,” I reply. “She’s just here to act as a lighthouse.” I pause and try to turn my vision inward to ask a question. “A lighthouse?” I hear an answer. “Oh, a signpost for an older mother. She’ll pass the request on to the ancestor who can show me how to control my power, and where it came from. All she can do is ask. I will have to wait for the answer. It may take a while.”

Patricia bows her head. “I understand. Very generous of her. Thank you, Mrs. Charles.”

I take another two steps, and the sloshing feeling gets worse. “Jesus, Grandma. Can you get, like, more dense?”

Somehow, she slaps me in the face. I blink, chin twisted over my shoulder. “Ow!”

‘That’s for taking the Lord’s name in vain!’

“Wow.” I stare at Mariah. “Did you know your ass can get called out from the grave?”

“Girl, yes.” Mariah nods in sympathy. “Happens to me all the time. The worst, right?”

I nod. “I’m just…” I stumble slightly, hands out for balance. “I need her to calm down or something. I’ll never make it home like this.”

“Here.” Patricia hurries over from where we’d been sitting. “Eat this.” She shoves a pear into my hand and the glass of juice. I eat and drink, and I swear I feel my grandmother’s mouth moving long after mine has stopped. After a moment, she seems happier. More settled, like she’s found a nice rocking chair in there and has decided to sit awhile.

“Okay.” I stand upright, testing my legs. I feel full but not unbalanced. “That’s better.”

“You need a ride?” Mariah asks.

I nod as emphatically as I dare. “Yes, please.”

When Mariah pulls up to the lot by Old East, she stops me before I get out. “Remember, you need to focus. You gotta keep her from spilling out, but keep your guard up so other ancestors from your line don’t come knocking,” she warns, squeezing my hand. “The hardest part of being a Medium is closing the doors once they’re opened. The unsettled spirits, the eager ones, look for ways in and you’re much more open to your ancestors now. And listen, this is the South; there are a lot of unsettled Black folk in the ground.”

I nod. “Thank you for helping even though you barely know me. It means… everything.”

“And so it is,” Mariah says with a smile.

Before I get out of the car, Patricia’s warm fingers rest on my cheek. “Thank you for letting us in. I’m proud of you, Bree. I hope you find your answers.”