WILL(A)OW | pt 1

Chapter 1 | Part 1

Many years from now, when Sally Hemmings of Saba | Nine came to testify in the House of Griots about the Elders of House Omega igniting the Second Civil War of Omega | Five (and Moja | One’s subsequent Third Revolution); she will half-heartedly muse that “this moment was the beginning of the end.” Whether she was right, depends on how you see history, yourself, and others. So, look. And, see...

Thomas Jefferson became a vampire at the age of eleven. This fact was hidden for nearly two and a half centuries in Tau | Seven, due to the age of his “alleged” maker: a kidnapped African woman trafficked into sex work by a close friend of his father. There is little debate about her consent in this case, as the blame lies squarely on the father. However, his father had done himself the service of forcing a Black body to do the patriarchal psychosexual violence against his son for him. Thus, Jefferson’s subsequent psychological turmoil and violence would always target Black women in his twilight years.

Case studies have suggested that victims of child abuse are more likely to perpetuate that abuse onto others, if left unaddressed. Those hooks from her maker becoming the horns of her demons; it’s what Sally feared more than The Change. Jefferson would always be with her, in one way or another. As her maker and president, he could move a finger, and summon her anywhere - at any time. Through magical fire, or I.C.E. And, if he wished, he could dispense an avalanche of patriotic hatred, commerce and manifest destiny to follow in its path. She could only hope he’d soon grow bored of playing with her, and move on. 

This, however, is not the habit of predators, like the president.

In a red, blinding flash of fire and sulfur - Jefferson had summoned her; teleporting Sally from the hidden prison in Monticello, all the way to the belly of another edifice, in an entirely different world. 

Unfortunately, Hemmings wasn’t taken outside, as she had hoped. She was in the belly of yet another building - this time, an abandoned factory somewhere cold, dark and snowing. The broken windows and unfinished floors had told her as much. Before she could take more in, Thomas Jefferson grabbed her arm. Tightly.

It was a discreet, but violent, intense feeling; one that she knew only when he got his worst.

Then, she felt the cold press of Jefferson’s steel dagger against her neck. A shot of adrenaline gripped her chest. What is he doing?? Does he know about the glasses?, Sally thought. Then at once, Jefferson’s grip on her arm becomes a cruel steering wheel, forcing her in between him and whatever it is out there beneath the shadows of this broken, cavernous place. “Any one of you savages come forward, and I’ll slit her throat in two, right in front of you!” Jefferson whelps out into the Blackness. Still. Nothing. 

Jefferson presses his lips to Sally’s ears. And, through stained stale, copper whispers, he confesses: “I’d never do such a thing, dear - just follow along would you, please, Sally? Thank you.” Then at once, Jefferson’s attention is back to the unseen horror ahead. “I say, do you hear me?”

A beat. Sally tries to peer into the darkness, but sees nothing. Then she hears a foreign, yet familiar tongue. Like Patoi, Creole and bits of Nahuatl mixed together. In the coming moons, she will learn to know this language, Moja, and the leviathan figure who speaks it. Al-Uzza, Goddess of the Qurayshites. The UnBending Knee.

“No.” A voice from the darkness says. “Perhaps I should come closer...” The latter part of this sentence is lost to Jefferson and Hemmings for now. 

Instead, their ears catch something else. From the distance, a rumble draws nearer. Wind tearing at cloth; desperate to hold on. Mountains of dust and debris sprout like geyser's behind some fast-moving invisible missile. Closer it comes. Then louder. And closer still. Sally narrows her eyes onto the incoming volley kicking up dirt - straining to see something. Anything. Then, carrying the momentum of 1,000 mph winds, some great invisible mass comes sliding towards Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings; stopping not more than a step behind them. In a flash, the steel dirk, along with Thomas Jefferson’s belt buckle and pistol evaporate. Jefferson’s pants fall to the ground. Something large grabs this neck. Then at once, he stiffens and starts to choke. 

“Pusss Ahh Nigga.”

These were the first words Sally and her captor would hear of UnBending Knee. In Omega | Two, the Qurayshites mark the day UnBending Knee first speaks in their presence, as a second birthday, and rite of passage in their transition into becoming an elder of their tribe. 

Nevertheless, what is known and what is seen, are often two different things. 

For what Hemmings and President Jefferson saw was only what they knew. And that, was the slow materialization of the decorative gold and ivory talons of UnBending Knee’s Hands of God gloves around his gullet. Jefferson’s anguish came less from asphyxiation of the wind pipe, and more of a surgical application of pressure from UnBending Knee’s fingertips, squeezing firmly upon his carotid artery, from behind. How. Big. Is this thing? Sally thought.

UnBending Knee will answer her thoughts, and fill her fears with new wonder. Out of the shimmer of something, and a flash of light, the God of the Qurayshites appears. Towering above them like parents to a child; UnBending Knee pulls off an Ochoosi Invisibility Cloak from her baddari. Eyes peering unblinkingly through her tagglemust, she whispers. “Ahh, I can hear you now...”