FROM OUR BLOOD Chapter One
To celebrate my new website, I am posting the first chapter of my debut novel, From Our Blood!
BEFORE
When people ask what it felt like to burn, I tell them it’s the feeling of nothing that scares you.
Not the stench of burnt flesh, or the tickling of the flames as they engulf your body completely. I felt no pain as the flames licked up my legs. I knew that to survive this was to be altered so immeasurably that the true scars would never heal.
I could only lay there, let the fire surround me, and stare into the burning sky. I knew that the building was destroyed, but, worst of all, I knew that the girl beside me, whose head was tilted towards mine, mouth agape with a silent scream ripped from her throat, who lay with one brown hand mid-grab, was dead.
So, when they ask me what it felt like, I’d say it felt like wanting death and hearing Death’s laugh as they refused.
CHAPTER ONE
As the Pennsylvanian northern red oak forests melted into the green ash indigenous to Eschaton, New York, I repeated the few lies that would become the fabric of my new life until they felt true in my mouth.
I didn’t remember what happened at my last school. My mother was dead. I was grateful to be at Easton College.
That last one was the easiest to believe.
I was grateful. I only hated the reason why I’d finally applied.
When I left my house, my mother was still asleep. I had snuck across the hall, careful of where the wood gave and creaked. Having taken this route many times, I had it memorized. Take one shallow step out of my bedroom door, avoid the middle of the hall, and arrange myself as close to the wall as possible.
I had pushed the door open with my foot and peered down at my mother. Her loud snores drowned out any misstep or creak of the door. That familiar childhood fear of waking her welled up inside of me.
I would not wake her this time.
I would escape her worry, her shouts for me in the dark, the pain in her eyes as she read the last note she’d ever get from me. I packed up and took a taxi to the train station knowing that if I ever saw her again, it would be with her disappointment for me etched onto her face.
The sky had been dark and endless then, and now, upon entering the Eschaton Station, the brightness of the day suffocated me. A couple on my left held onto one another before stepping onto a train. A white woman picked up her yapping dog, her face scrunched. I ducked out of her sight, unwilling to becoming a target of her distain. My mother’s words echoed now, “Don’t give them a reason.” I was well-versed in the ways people made their discomfort with you known. My mother taught me, perhaps indirectly, one could never be too cautious. Only she disagreed with my methods. I found all the ways I might alienate myself and whittled them away. It was easier to reform myself than to keep guessing which pieces of myself to hide away. I would not become the reason.
Eschaton was a small, woodland-encircled town barely larger than the college within its borders. And small towns, especially outside of the New York City area, carried with them the legacy of being predominantly white.
I grabbed a brochure on the train and googled to fill in the rest. Some wealthy landowners took the land from the Indigenous peoples here, renamed it, and lured in people who would be glad to ignore all that came before. The wealthy and white had a way of wanting to forget all the shit they’d done.
And now, I seemed no better than them. I accepted Easton’s offer and asked no questions. I figured I’d take as much advantage of Easton as its council would of me. Only, I didn’t know what they wanted from me, or if I could afford to give it to them.
I scanned the busy station until I found the only sign among the stream of bodies. On it read my name. I scanned the long arms and locked eyes with the sign’s holder. He was young, white, and tall with light brown hair that shimmered in the sun and fell into his eyes. I focused on the firm outline of his jaw and watched as his lips formed a small smirk once he caught me looking.
I refused to look down, even as the heat rose to my cheeks, and made my way toward him. Easton College had sent him to drive me to campus.
“You must be Arden Gnight.” He paused between each word as if to savor the taste of them. He held out his hand. His fingers were pale, and long enough to cover mine as I shook his hand. An emerald signet ring on his third finger shone under the fluorescent lights.
“I am, and you are?”
His smile was bright and brilliant. His eyes a sea of blue and green. I didn’t miss the shimmer of amusement that flickered there.
“Dorian Hastings. Diggory RA. My friends call me Ian.”
“Why Ian?” I asked, watching him bend down to grab one of my suitcases. I didn’t have much to bring, but the case was still heavy. He picked it up with ease.
“I never asked. But anything is better than Dorian.”
I stifled my grin and let him lead me out of the station.
I had only seen images of upstate New York in movies and magazines. I imagined great blue lakes and rolling green forests; large houses and long SUVs – a picturesque version of the East Coast. Eschaton lived up to this imagining, but in looking exactly how I’d envisioned it, I found myself at first disappointed.
Along the road were large houses with long winding driveways and a framing of trees that allowed passersby only a glimpse at the massive house just beyond and out of reach. The houses belonged to those rich people who despised the descriptor but enjoyed the privileges. I always thought I’d live in one of those houses back when my dreams were bigger than a little Black girl could manage.
“Thank you for picking me up.”
“Of course.” Ian rapped his fingers against the wheel. “I’m glad you accepted Easton’s offer.” He turned to me. “I heard you’re an artist.”
I nodded. “I’m hoping to remain one after graduating.” I cast my eyes down. “Plus, having tuition and room and board paid for made transferring easier.”
Ian cocked his head. “Free tuition is enough to leave home for?”
Yes, I wanted to say. Money was more than enough. “My hometown has one art gallery. It would have been easy for me to get a piece in, no competition, but I couldn’t bring myself to apply. Visiting the same place year after year, seeking inspiration amongst the same few artists. I didn’t want my work anywhere near that place. For what? All that work for no one to see it?”
“I’m not sure Eschaton has any galleries….” Ian chuckled.
I bit through my smile. “No, but it has the people that choose what goes into galleries. New York, Chicago, Boston, L.A. even. That’s why I came. I came for them to see me.”
It was strange to say this out loud before I had admitted it to myself. No, the plan wasn’t for them to see me, but for my art to speak for me. I needed their eyes to linger there long enough to see that my skill was worth it. Worth allowing a Black girl into their ranks.
When Ian asked me about myself, I was careful about what I told him. I didn’t want to keep track of new lies after memorizing the last few.
“You won’t miss Pennsylvania?”
I shifted in the seat. I didn’t want to lie about this. For better or worse, my existence was inextricably tied to my hometown. To lie about freezing treks along the dead lake or the drives through vineyards to the Cherry Fest felt inexplicably like betrayal. Even here, I could still smell the trees surrounding my house, hear waves of wind that filtered through their leaves. I wondered if the birds that woke me each day here would sound the same, or would they be entirely unrecognizable like everything else?
“I can’t give you Pennsylvania, but I can ensure that your stay here will make you never want to leave.”
I stared at him until his mouth split into a grin, and I couldn’t help my own. I laughed, relaxing. He was flirting with me. And whether it allowed him to do his job better or was simply a part of his personality, I decided right then, that I liked it. “We’ll see about that...Ian.” I grinned, enjoying the sound of his nickname – the one his friends called him – and twisting it around with my tongue.
I knew this kind of attention was dangerous. Easton gave me the one thing I wanted above all else – an escape. I could change myself into whomever I wanted to be. I could leave the shy girl behind and exchange her for an improved, confident version. For the first time, I could pretend to be someone I didn’t hate.
***
As Ian drove up to the Diggory Estate, the sun hitting the orange brick reminded me of a fever. When everything’s too hot, and your vision blurs. When your eyes burn and your head aches. But everything seemed to burn me now.
Diggory was a grand Elizabethan country house at the top of Eschaton’s tallest peak. I was assigned to Diggory, of which Ian was the head resident assistant. From what I could tell there was nothing Diggory residents had in common other than we had gotten lucky in the lottery, chosen to live at Easton’s most preferred house.
Ian led me into the foyer, searching for something, as I sized him up. Ian wore a navy t-shirt under a brown bomber jacket that made the blue in his eyes and the pink in his lips stand out. He was broad in the shoulders but not bulky in build. His long legs had cleared the entrance with ease.
He walked with the self-importance being wealthy afforded some. Life was carefree when the world was made for you. I bet his mother never cried at the kitchen table, overdue bills in hand, too tired to hide her tear-soaked face from him while he snickered because that was all he could think to do.
I knew by the end of the year, the world wouldn’t suddenly feel made for me too, but I’d hoped to better navigate it.
“I asked my friends to meet us.” Ian’s eyes softened right when his mouth did, an offering of sympathy.
The sounds of the other students moving in echoed across the hall. I moved aside as students who filed past us. “Maybe they don’t want me here,” I suggested, only half-joking.
Ian pulled out his phone. “They’re eager to meet you. We rarely get transfers. You must be special if Easton wants you for your final year.” His pink lips curved pleasantly.
There he was flirting with me again. That same heat, which was becoming familiar, flooded my face. Ian looked at me a second longer before shouting out.
The door to the left of us slid open and a slight, white girl emerged. She wore all black. Her inky black hair was cut into a soft bob, long enough to cover her face. She slid a hand up to brush a loose strand away. She had a small, doll-like face, olive skin, and very pink lips that protruded from her face in a pout. Her eyes widened when she saw us. “Oh, Ian,” she said sleepily, “I thought you wouldn’t be back for a while.”
“No, Lily,” he sighed. Her misunderstanding must have been a common occurrence. She looked like she was coming down from the sky and that it had been too high for her to reach. “It’s only thirty minutes away.”
“When you’re driving,” another voice said.
A tall, white girl leaned against the banister of the grand staircase. The rich, bloody red carpet flowed down into the foyer. The girl stuck out, a pearl merged in the red of the room. Her long silvery-blonde hair parted like streams of a waterfall, revealing red, grinning lips. The hem of her dress flowed down with her as she stopped on the last step. She looked a graceful swan landing from flight. There was a great distance between us that neither threatened to close.
I felt underdressed standing between them. But it wasn't my choice of clothing that ensured this. I was the only Black person in the room. Being one of the few Black people in a room was like walking into a fight without knowing when or where the attack would come from, only the overwhelming breeze at your back, telling you that there was no one coming to fight with you.
But the students at Easton weren’t just white. They were rich. I couldn’t tell if it was the rich whites I resented more or the ones who bent over backward for them, upholding white supremacy as if it worked for them. All anyone could do was to educate themselves on how their world worked and some people couldn’t even do that. Then again, to them, their race truly was the only thing separating the white trash from the Black. Otherwise, they’d be here at the bottom alongside us.
Ian turned to the girl on the stairs. “Claire, where’s James?”
The girl, Claire, shrugged and walked down the rest of the way, her heels clicking on the floor.
She turned towards me. A smile rose to her lips. She appraised me slowly, her ice-like eyes cutting down and up my body.
“Claire Valentine.” Her smile was tight as if she were being puppeteered like some ghostly marionette. The puppeteer loosened their grip, and she stuck her hand out.
I grabbed hold of her hand which felt bony and cold in my own. “Arden.” I smiled tightly back at her. “Are you related to the Valentines of New York City?”
Her pink lips curled. “The very same.”
I wasn’t surprised. As little as I could find on Easton, two things were for certain. Easton was selective and the alumni all kept their mouths shut. I’d first heard of Easton in an interview with the artist Eliza Lawson. She had let it slip out so quickly – I attribute my success to Easton – at first, I thought Easton was a person, a fellow artist I could find and perhaps train under. Then the whispers became leads, each tunneling me deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole. No one, not even my professors, had heard about the school. I knew I had one year and once chance.
“I’m Liliana Castor, but Lily works just fine,” the other girl said, at last. I shook her hand. It was small and soft. She wasn’t much shorter than me. Both of us looked minuscule compared to Ian and Claire. I wondered selfishly if she and Ian were related. “My family’s lived in New York even longer than Claire’s,” she snickered. The blonde girl stiffened. “Are you from New York, too?”
“Oh, no.” I shifted in my boots. “Pennsylvania.”
“Who are your parents?” Claire asked. “I didn’t catch your last name.”
“It’s really just me and my mother, Ann. Was, I mean.” That name, despite being real, tasted fake in my mouth. I didn’t want them to know anything about my mom. Besides, after I graduated, I would never see her again. I’d do the one thing my mother always wanted: for me to end my delusions. About being an artist. About acting white. Now she wouldn’t have to see me succeed…or fail.
“And my last name is Gnight,” I answered finally. The two of them deflated as if there was a wrong answer and I had said it.
A group of white guys stepped into the foyer, laughing with bottles of beer and champagne in their hands. One had his sleeves rolled up revealing the beginnings of a snake tattoo. He was the only one to pause when he passed, his white face glancing at me over his shoulder before his eyes narrowed in confusion.
What was this Black girl doing here, his eyes seemed to say. I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know exactly why, either.
Then, her voice crept through me as if she was standing beside me, lips whispering in my ear. Why are we the only melanated ones here? She srek, and yet it never
Throughout my life, I took on academia’s whiteness with Ava. We had grown up together, her sharing stories about watchful nuns while I told her all about how white public-school teachers loved comparing themselves to M. L. K. It had been nice to have someone that understood.
But Ava wasn’t here. I was on my own. And I had no one to blame but myself.