Brown Girl in the Ring

The heaviness of loss in her heart hadn't eased, but there was room there for humour, too.

The African powers, child. The spirits. The loas. The orishas. The oldest ancestors. You will hear people from Haiti and Cuba and Brazil and so call them different names. You will even hear some names I ain’t tell you, but we all mean the same thing. Them is the ones who does carry we prayers to God Father, for he too busy to listen to every single one of we on earth talking at he all the time. Each of we have a special one who is we father or mother, and no matter what we call it, whether Shango or Santeria or Voudun or what, we all doing the same thing. Serving the spirits.

How you mean, ‘doughnut hole’?” Ti-Jeanne had asked. “That’s what they call it when an inner city collapses and people run to the suburbs,” he’d answered.

You never know what Legbara going to take it into he head to do. Him is a trickster. The Eshu-them too love to play games.

Blushing, she took it from him. She dared not put her nose to it; like everything that Tony had ever given her, this gift had thorns.