Chains of Time

Chapter 1

I know what’s going to happen.

    I can see the ship though it has not yet arrived. It cuts through our waters so savagely, white cloth suspended from ropes, enslaving the wind and forcing it to push the vessel toward our shores. I can see Van Owen on the deck. He is taller than the others. Tall and gaunt, ghostly white. All sinew and vein. The others are bearded and filthy and rank, yet he is clean, his face hairless, his garments bright and unblemished. He is holding something to his eye—a long black pipe with a piece of curved glass at the end. He points it toward our land and gazes through it as if he can see everything though he is still so far away. As if he can see me staring back at him. I almost turn away, but he is not here. Not yet. This is only a vision—my first one. He is not even near.

    He is the first one off the ship. The others follow him—twenty of them, thirty, maybe more—into tiny boats that are lowered from the side of the large one. The men carry weapons. Nets, sabers, whips. The tools for hunting animals. Strange, angry objects hang from their hips. Somehow, I know what these things are for—to put holes in human flesh. They are called guns. Van Owen puts his hand to his hip and holds his gun steady as he steps from one of the smaller boats into the ocean. The water rises almost to his knees, much higher than he had expected. He turns back, berating his men silently with a scowl. They cower in apology. They treat him as our people treat my father. Like a king.

    Soon there will be other kings here—other kings and their followers—for today is the day of my wedding ceremony. I lie awake at sunrise, waiting for my cousins to bring me libation and face paints and jewelry, for my mother to come with the blessing, for my father to tell me again of the importance of the day—how this marriage will unite two warring peoples, bringing peace where there has been only conflict for generations, how the child of my betrothed and me will be blessed, the firstborn of a new family. My father always speaks with such certainty of my child’s future, though the child has not yet been conceived and though my husband and I have not even met.

    My betrothed is Kwame—son of Berantu, leader of the Merlante people. Three days ago, father and son came here for the making of the contract. They were not what I had imagined. My father is such a large man, taller and stronger than any man in our village. I assumed that all kings must be like him, but Berantu and Kwame were barely taller than I. Yet they walked with such confidence. They came alone, without guards or weapons. My father met them by the adansonia tree that marks the entrance to our village and then led them to the spirit cave. Kwame waited outside while the two kings ventured within, neither one looking back. My father and Berantu remained in there for so long. Or maybe it only seemed long to all of us who watched and waited from afar. Then there was a flash of fire from the mouth of the cave and stout voices and the sound of laughter, and the two kings exited the cave, all smiles and mirth. Kwame turned toward me, and, for a moment, our eyes met. My mother tugged on my arm and told me not to look upon him—that he and I were not yet joined and must observe custom. Berantu scolded Kwame too, pulling him away so fast, warning of curses brought upon those who loved before their ceremonies.

    I remember my father’s hand on my shoulder as we walked the silt path back to our home. “Now our peoples will be one,” he told me. “Now we can face the might of Glele, who picks away at both of our clans. Now we will stand strong.”

    But he was wrong. There will be no unified clan to face the tyrant Glele. There will be no child. And there will be no marriage. For the slavers have come. Van Owen has come.

    If I were to stare out at the ocean now, past even the sun, I might see it—the faint shadow of a ship on the horizon, and the silhouette of a man who will haunt my family forever.

    I know what’s going to happen.

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