Page 22

Asha Avery

“Look at Solo,” I pointed at the TV screen with a smile. “He looks…good in a suit.”

Isis shrugged.

“He’s okay.”

We sat in front of the TV screen in Isis’s room watching the funeral services being streamed live from the big city. Everything seemed so…formal. I mean, I get it was a funeral but I don’t know. It was snowing outside again and seeing Solomon standing in a suit in front of the black painted steps made me smile. It felt like seeing a long lost brother.

I may not understand the whole… Sirens are a family thing but… Looking down at my phone, I poked my lips out at the unknown number texting saying to LOCK ME IN. SOLO KING . Everything was starting to fall into place. I couldn’t wait to lay into his ass about what his ancestors and family did to my people…and smoke, and chill. He always had the good shit. So nah, I don’t understand the family thing with sirens but seeing him finally on my phone felt familiar in a good way .

“What are they doing?” Isis asked. I looked up as I watched Dr. Marvin T. Holmes in front of the reporters talking while armed men carefully circled the church. “Those are sirens…”

“ Huh ?”

“Those are sirens securing the church,” she pointed. “See? You can see how some of them are walking…They’re sirens…but why are they the ones securing the church? Why are they even in uniform?”

“ISIS?! THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?! LET’S GO!”

“Shit! We have to go!”

Isis jumped up from the edge of the bed as she raced out of the room. I could hear Quan talking to her brothers downstairs, and hear footsteps up the steps but I kept my eyes on the screen. Solomon was shaking hands with Dr. Marvin T. Holmes before turning to the camera to talk. Maggie didn’t want us to come since her and Namir themselves were crashing the funeral. She would text us as soon as she got out to spill the details of the family drama.

“ASHA?!” Isis yelled out. “Let’s go! The car is here!”

I got up, cut the TV off and grabbed my last duffle bag before walking out. Souxie was still out doing God knows what. She texted us to say she’s okay and she’ll see us when it's time to return back to the school. Her bedroom door was still open and you could see things floating around, clothes folding on its own and things being packed by itself. Some sort of timed spell I bet. She was probably on her way back.

“Sisterrrrrrr!” I playfully called out into her room. “Thank you for taking me in! I’ll be in South Carolina to come pick out my bed!”

A book that was hovering in mid air suddenly dropped to the bed while her socks being rolled up tumbled to the floor. Laughing, I adjusted my bag against my shoulder and kept moving as the spell casted in her room started once again. All that shit I talked and now, I’m legally in the process of being her sister according to the Underground Laws.

“What were you going on about up there?” Quan fussed as he grabbed my bag. Suitcases were packed and loaded at the door, most belonging to Isis and Souxie. Maggie’s things were already gone and Lovely…Well… We still never went into that basement to find out.

“Nothing in particular.” I told Quan with a content sigh. “So you’re staying with us?”

“Yeah for now anyway. I’ll probably go above ground to handle business…”

Peering at him with suspicious eyes, I wondered what Quan’s life was really like? Most of us were already suspecting that what he told us about him being cursed was a lie but why lie? For what reason exactly ?

I stepped out into the snowy front yard of the Wisteria House, and started to wrap my locs with my Little Mermaid scarf. The black Escalade truck was packed with Isis waving for me to get in. Her brother, there’s no telling which one he could be out of the seven, was in the front seat talking on the phone.

“So first things first,” Isis said as I dropped down in the seat beside her. She gave me a blue ID card with my picture, and her address. “We got this made at the last minute but here you go. You’re gonna need it for a few places when we get home. Did you hear from Souxie?”

“Nah but her things are being packed in the room so she should be coming soon.”

“I told her let’s link up at the house the day before and recap our winter break.”

The truck shook as Quan squeezed his big ass in and without so much as a goodbye to the house, we were off. My entire life in New York…seemed…I can’t explain it. I wondered if my friends…my people, my homies even thought about me or asked around? Could I even tell them about this place without looking crazy?

“I got tickets to the museum too,” Isis said as she showed me her phone. “So whenever you’re ready, we can go see this siren museum and figure out what you need to know about your past. I bet someone that works there will tell you everything. ”

“What does she need to know besides her being, ancient history?” Quan let out from the passenger seat. “What? You wanna see fossils and bones of your people?”

“Would you stop?!” Isis snapped but when he laughed, I couldn’t help but laugh too because I knew the moment we got out? I was smacking the fuck outta him. Fuck you mean… Fossils ?

Isis grabbed my arm with pure excitement and energy, she peered into my eyes with her wide eyed saucers.

“What is your deal, girl?” I laughed while shoving her off me.

“I’m just excited you get to see the Wetlands for the first time. Crystal City is beautiful but–––”

The truck shot underneath a tunnel full as I looked out the window at the trailing line of lights flashing alongside our windows. I knew Isis had her phone out, waiting to record my reaction and I purposely rolled my eyes until we burst out into the opening. The blue waves above reflected and bounced lines of light and water against the buildings as my mouth dropped. I hadn’t realized my face was stuck against the window like a kid and frankly didn’t care. We weren’t underwater but the sky above was nothing but water waving about as we drove onto the highway like regular 5 o’clock rush hour traffic. The highway was split into two, coming and going out the tunnel and just in between was a wide river of boats and yachts. Even tiny floating homes along the river as we slowly made our way further into the city of Wetlands. I looked at Isis who kept the phone in my face.

“Now that the sirens are coming back, this place is fucking packed again,” Isis’s brother complained. Quan held his phone up where he was watching the live stream of the funeral and it showed a few people walking out of the church, being escorted by sirens.

“Is it over?” I asked, leaning over the shoulder of his seat to look at the video. “I don’t see Maggie or Namir.”

“I think it is over. Some are starting to leave…Dr. Holmes made his bullshit speech.”

I sat back in the seat and found myself looking out the window again at the wide river with trees and greenery growing in between like mini islands.

“This river runs throughout the entire city,” Isis said with a proud tone. “We can rent a boat and I can show you around and we can even visit the floating market. It’s mostly for the tourists…this is a heavily toured city for everyone.”

“This is amazing,” I said in awe. The people I could see along the river were almost impossibly attractive from the long braids, and jewels adoring their skin to curvy bodies. To the built muscles and bodies, the men and women looked unreal.

“They’re all sirens?” I asked. She nodded .

“For the most part. Some half, or partial but they all came with Solo. They’re under his reign. They love him for some unknown reason.”

I looked back at her, stunned before looking out her side of the window to eye the river once more. Everyone here was for Solomon? Under the sea Kodak Purple Solomon King?

“Asha was a fool not to get with him,” Quan retorted. “She could have been sitting on all of this.”

“I wouldn’t even know what to do with all of this!” I exclaimed. “This is…far beyond what I could even…I barely paid my rent back home!”

Isis leaned forward towards my side to point at a large building with the letters UNICO in red on the side. “You see that building? That’s what Solo owns…one of the largest banks in the Underground, if not the largest.”

“Who cares?” Quan grumped. “He inherited the bank. He didn’t exactly put in any work to have it. He was just born and picked by some people.”

“SOOO?!” Isis and I shouted together before laughing.

You would never know we were technically underwater until you look up and see the ripples and waves as the sky. Everything was translucent and some sort of blue and green hue with the air smelling moist…Like the smell of rain about to fall but it never actually did. One minute we were driving through the ma in city the next, we were in the back roads of neighborhoods covered in trees and vines looping from one end to the other. Isis said the vines were a way to keep water moving and flowing as an energy source. I even saw a movie theatre and some sort of shopping mall.

“This is beautiful,” I said, eyes looking up and out the window. I stared at the vines looping out of the trees before catching the hidden homes in between branches. Isis tapped my arm before pointing to the iron gates that showed a peek of what looked like an estate. I saw the balloons and signs saying my daughter is a DCU student decorating the mailbox when we came to a slow stop to wait for the gates to open. Isis leaned in between the seats to look out the front window and sang out loud.

“Home sweet homeeeee.”