We dress in matching blue plaid skirts, light-blue button-down shirts, and navy jackets with a blue-and-white tree etched on each jacket pocket.
I stop packing my schoolbag. “What else should I call them?”
“Mum and Dad, of course. They would love it.” She sweeps her hair up into a ponytail, her favorite style. “I would love it. Then we’d be real sisters.”
Her answer rolls around in my mind. I would like that, too, but calling them Mum and Dad, calling Elin sister, feels like I am shutting the door on Mama, Papa, and my brothers.
Elin has been my biggest source of comfort, much to my surprise. I really thought she would hate having to share her parents and life with me, but all she has shown is kindness. She takes care of me. Nightmares plague me often, waking me up in cold sweats, sheets twisted at my feet, my face slick with tears.
Each time, Elin is there in my room, having heard my screams. She gathers me to her and assures me I am safe and okay, that it is all over.
I want to believe her; really, I do.
But the nightmares are driving me insane. They are worse now than when I lived them, because in these dreams, Monsieur and the men from the Compound turn into ravenous monsters that devour me alive. And Paul. Paul is the devil incarnate. After Monsieur and the men consume me, I am sent to Paul in hell, where he torments me forever. He holds my family—Papa, the twins, and Ofori—in cramped cages above a firepit of boiling black oil.
The worst nightmares are when I fall into hell and see not only my birth family, doomed to his torment, but the Knights and Margot there as well. My worst fear is that I am now cursed and will visit upon them what my first family suffered. That I have no way to save them, failing as I did the first time.
Elin cradles me, begging, “Please, Nena. Please, what has happened to you? Tell me how I can help.”
I can never say.
After Elin falls asleep in my bed, I rummage under my pillow for the two items that give me a semblance of serenity, Hugo and Olay. I inhale the scent of them, biting down on my tongue to keep from crying out from the agony of missing my parents. Eventually, I, too, fall back asleep.
The obsession over my fears makes me withdrawn at school, where I am not popular or accepted by the students at first. There are other Black kids, like Elin, but they are all English born. I guess I look too “African” for them because my hair is natural and braided, twisted, or sometimes out in its full afro glory. My accent is different from theirs. I do not know the nuances of their rich worlds or the slang of their language. Most of them are from old English money, with ancestors of royal lineage or parents in Parliament or the government.
They ridicule me, trying to antagonize me, and call me names.
“Look at the little gorilla,” a boy named Silas taunts as I sit beneath a tree in the courtyard attempting to eat my lunch of tomato soup and grilled brie sandwich. The courtyard is one of the few places I find refuge from these loud children who hate me for no reason.
Silas has been exceptionally horrible to me. He is the one who calls me names, the one who reminds me of a little Robach. I add his insults to my tally: whore, bitch, Souris, and—
“Gorilla,” Silas finishes amid a chorus of laughter from his compatriots, lemmings who pretend his asinine jokes are funny.
I squint up against the sunlight.
“That’s what you do, innit? Live in bushes like wild people, naked, and shag animals?” he asks, his voice getting louder. Students crowd around, sensing a good show is about to commence.
“Bloody hell, check out the likes of you. You’re so black. The only time we can see you is at this very time.”
My fingers tighten around my spoon; images of using it to scoop out his blue eyes flash to mind.
“Silas Balderdash the Third.” Elin’s voice rings out. The crowd of onlookers makes way. There she is with her two besties flanking her. She marches through them right up to where Silas looms above me. Elin and I make eye contact, and for a moment, she sees murderous intent in mine. She holds a hand flat, a signal to say, Be calm. “You should leave her alone.”
“Fuck off. What’s it to you?”
“There are two things you should know, you mongrel,” she says, getting up close and personal to the boy. “You will stop teasing my sister and calling her racist names. You understand that?”
Silas laughs. “And what’s the second thing?”
She rocks back, cutting his laugh short when her foot shoots up and smashes into his groin. The crowd’s gasp is collective, and Silas is bowled over, dropping to the ground. His body curls into a tight ball, the pain so paralyzing he cannot scream or breathe.