Chapter 11: Prophecies and Passed Keys
1316 Words
The trees thinned as they drove, and the Grove faded behind them like a dream dissolving in sunlight. Justin’s hands stayed steady on the wheel, his jaw set in quiet thought, but every so often he glanced sideways—just to be sure she was still breathing steady.
Waiya sat curled in the passenger seat, arms folded loosely, her braid draped across her chest. Her eyes had fallen closed not long after they left, exhaustion pulling at her like tidewater. She hadn’t spoken much since she woke—just whispered a quiet thank you and stared out the window for a while, lips tight like she was holding something in.
Now, she slept.
Justin didn’t disturb her.
Not even when she started mumbling under her breath.
⸻
In the dream, there was sunlight. Not the harsh kind that cracked pavement or scorched the backs of necks—but soft, golden, like it’d been filtered through something sacred.
She stood barefoot on a wooden porch, fingers brushing a wind chime shaped like a crescent moon. Laughter rose from the backyard—kids playing. Not just any kids… her kids.
Her hand rested on a rounded belly.
And when she turned, Justin was there. Not shadowed by pain or guarded by trauma—just there. Barefoot like her, a towel slung over one shoulder, tattoos faded slightly by time and sun. He was holding a bowl of peaches, grinning like they were the richest people in the world.
Peace hummed around them.
No demons. No scars pulsing like wounds. Just being.
Just love.
Waiya blinked at him, and he stepped closer, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Told you we’d make it.”
She opened her mouth to respond—
—but woke instead.
⸻
The car had stopped. Her house.
A familiar quiet wrapped around it, worn with memory. The little purple shotgun home tucked between two narrow lots on the West Side, chain-link fence out front, and the wind chime her auntie hung still swaying on the porch.
She wiped at her eyes. “How long was I out?”
“Long enough,” Justin murmured, cutting the engine. “You talk in your sleep.”
She tensed slightly, eyes narrowing. “What I say?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t sound like words. Just… peace.”
Waiya stared out the window again. “This was my auntie’s house. She was a medicine woman—real one. They say her dreams never lied.” She hesitated. “When she passed, the house came to me. Didn’t want it at first… but now? It feels like she knew I’d need it.”
Justin leaned back, looking up at the house with something like reverence. “It feels safe.”
“It is.”
A pause.
Then, quietly, “Stay.”
He turned to her. “You sure?”
Waiya nodded, voice barely above a whisper. “Just… not in the bed. I ain’t ready for all that.”
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t smirk. Just gave a small nod. “Couch is fine.”
The moment hung between them—thick, but soft. Something unspoken was taking root. Not trust, not yet.
But maybe the soil had been cleared.
Justin stepped out first, scanning the street with a quick sweep of his eyes, his instincts still ticking like a watch that never quite quieted. Even in the calm, even when nothing stirred but tree branches and old wrappers blowing across the sidewalk, he stayed alert.
Waiya unlocked the front gate with a key that had her auntie’s old Thunderbird keychain still dangling from it. The rusted metal clicked softly, and as they stepped through the gate, she paused. The porch light flickered on without being touched.
“She always said this house listened,” Waiya murmured, not looking back.
Justin followed her up the creaking steps, hands in his pockets. The wind chime above them twinkled like a whisper, as if recognizing her return. She unlocked the door with slow care, and it swung open like it’d been waiting.
The scent hit first—sage, wood, cedarwood, and something older, like ancestral memory soaked into the walls. The air was thick with it, warm and grounding. A handmade quilt still hung on the wall, and the framed photos of women from generations past lined a small altar near the door, next to a chipped pottery bowl holding cornmeal.
Justin paused just inside, the toe of his boot hovering over the threshold. “This ain’t just a house,” he said low.
“No,” Waiya replied, stepping out of her shoes. “It’s a keeper.”
She dropped her bag by a weathered armchair and moved through the space like it still knew her. Like it greeted her. She touched her fingers to the altar as she passed, whispering a greeting under her breath in Diné bizaad, so soft Justin didn’t catch the words, but he understood the meaning.
He lingered by the doorway, eyes catching the dried herbs hanging above the kitchen archway, the feathers tied with red thread, the way the corners of the room didn’t feel empty. They felt watched. Protected.
“House got a name?” he asked, almost teasing.
Waiya smirked faintly. “She never told me, but I feel like if you called her anything but ‘Ma’am,’ she’d get offended.”
Justin chuckled, finally stepping all the way in and closing the door behind him. “Noted.”
She walked past him and opened a small cabinet beside the couch, pulling out a folded quilt—deep purple with turquoise thread, hand-stitched stars across the surface.
“My aunt made this,” she said, smoothing it out over the couch cushion. “Told me it was for someone who needed grounding.”
Justin looked at it, then at her. “And you think that’s me?”
“I think the house does,” she said softly, and that was the end of it.
He took off his jacket and laid it on the armrest, then lowered himself onto the couch like he was settling into more than just a place to sleep. It felt like stepping into a dream—quiet, alive, waiting.
Waiya hovered near the hallway, not quite ready to go to bed. Her fingers toyed with the beads on a woven cord at her wrist.
“I saw somethin’ earlier,” she said suddenly. “While I was asleep.”
Justin lifted his eyes to her. “Yeah?”
“Future. Maybe. I don’t know. It felt too soft to be real, but… it was good. We were there. Together. Safe.”
A slow breath passed between them.
He didn’t speak immediately. Just leaned back and looked up at the ceiling like it might echo what he was feeling. “I ain’t never seen safety with somebody before. Not like that.”
Waiya tilted her head. “Not even once?”
He shook his head. “Not even close.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Maybe this ain’t just survival anymore.”
Justin looked at her then. Not with the heat of flirtation, not with any pressure, just a quiet kind of knowing. “Maybe it’s the beginning.”
She stood there a second longer before finally turning toward her room. “Night, Justin.”
“Night, wolf girl.”
Her smirk returned for half a second, tugging at the corner of her lips. Then she disappeared down the hall, leaving Justin in the warm hush of the living room, his body sinking into the couch, the quilt pulled over him like it’d been waiting just for him.
The house settled around them with a low creak and a satisfied hush, as if it had seen this part before in someone else’s dream.
And outside, the moon hovered over Detroit like an old grandmother keeping watch.
- Writer
