Chapter Three: Smoke Don’t Lie
1170 Words
The streets were still wet from last night’s rain, the kind of slick that made the West Side glisten like broken glass and broken promises.
Waiya kept her hood low as she walked — not to hide, but to listen. The city talked louder in the quiet hours.
The further she moved from her block, the thicker the air got — not in danger, but in memory. Her grandmother’s street always felt like stepping into a different time. Like the clocks ticked slower. Like the shadows watched in reverence, not malice.
She reached the rusted gate, pushed it open with the familiar squeal, and stepped onto sacred ground.
The house was small, painted bone white with green trim and a wraparound porch cluttered with dried herbs, wind chimes, and old mason jars. Smoke curled from the chimney — thick, fragrant, laced with pine and something spicier.
“She knew I was coming.”
Waiya knocked twice, out of respect.
The door opened before the third.
“Bout time, little wolf,” her grandmother said, not unkindly. “You always wait ‘til you got smoke on your heels before you come sit by the fire.”
Waiya exhaled — not a laugh, not a sigh. Something in between.
“You been dreamin’ again?”
“Hmph. You been stubborn again?”
She stepped inside and let the warmth wrap around her like a shawl.
The living room was dim, lit mostly by flame and amber glass. Candles burned in every corner. The walls were lined with books and beads and jars full of bones and stones. The air smelled like cedarwood, sage, and peppermint oil.
Her grandmother moved slow, but with purpose — like a river you couldn’t rush.
“You hungry?” she asked.
“Already ate.”
“You safe?”
Waiya paused. Then gave the truth.
“Mostly.”
She dropped her hoodie by the coat rack and sank into the old rocking chair by the fire — the one she used to sit in when she was five, listening to stories about women who could turn into smoke and men who forgot how to listen to wind.
Her grandmother poured tea into a carved wooden cup and handed it over without a word.
Waiya didn’t ask what was in it. She never did.
She sipped.
And waited.
“He’s back, isn’t he?” her grandmother said, eyes never leaving the flame.
Waiya nodded once.
“Marked my porch tonight. Real subtle-like.”
“Fool still playing with things that’ll eat him alive.”
“Yeah, well. He ain’t the only one sniffin’ around. Met someone new.”
Her grandmother turned her head.
“You bringin’ men ‘round your house now?”
“He ain’t just a man,” Waiya said before she could stop herself.
Silence.
Then the soft sound of her grandmother chuckling — dry, but knowing.
“Mmm. Soul feel different when he near?”
“I dunno.”
“You scared?”
“I dunno that either.”
The fire popped. The smoke shifted.
And her grandmother reached into her shawl, pulling out a small, knotted bundle wrapped in purple cloth.
“Then take this,” she said. “Keep it near your bed. If his spirit mean you harm, the thread will unravel before he gets close enough to try.”
Waiya took it with both hands. Respectfully.
“You think he could be like Donquavious?”
“I think you already know he ain’t.”
“Then what if he ain’t ready for what I am?”
“Then you’ll know by the way he stays. Or by the way he leaves.”
The rest of the night passed in tea, quiet, and low chanting that made the bones on the shelves hum.
Waiya didn’t stay long. Just long enough to breathe right again.
And when she stepped back out into the night, the wind brushed past her ear like a whisper:
“You ain’t alone no more.”
Justin’s P.O.V
Justin didn’t go home right away.
After she closed that door — that heavy-ass, spirit-watched door — he just stood on the sidewalk for a while, listening.
The air around her house had weight to it.
Not danger.
Not quite safety either.
Just… presence.
Like the ancestors were sitting on the porch too, nodding, letting him pass — but not before looking real close.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “I felt y’all.”
His building was a few blocks over — brick, three stories, noisy pipes. He’d only been in Detroit for two months, but the West Side reminded him of home in a crooked way.
Same sirens.
Same tired dogs.
Same half-lit liquor stores and women with tired eyes and too much power tucked into their hips.
He liked it here. It made sense.
But something about her didn’t.
Waiya.
She was soft-spoken but sharp, like a blade wrapped in linen. You could almost miss the steel until it nicked you.
She didn’t flirt. Didn’t overshare. Didn’t try to impress him.
She just was — unbothered, unhurried, but… haunted. Like she’d seen more than she ever said.
And yet, beneath all that, he could feel something buzzing beneath her skin.
“She don’t even know what she carryin’, do she…”
He lit a Black & Mild, cracked the window, sat on his bed, and reached under the mattress for the little pouch wrapped in red.
Old heads back home in Georgia used to say “Don’t trust nobody who don’t wash they hands after touching the dead or the living.”
And after tonight?
He needed to cleanse.
He pulled out:
• A charcoal disc
• Some crushed myrrh
• A pinch of rue
• And a feather with blood dried on the tip
He didn’t light it for show. Didn’t post it on no i********: story.
He lit it because he knew.
He felt that mark on her porch. Knew what kind of sigil it was — even smelled the sulfur that still lingered beneath the wood.
“Warlock,” he muttered. “Sloppy one, too.”
Whoever put that there had power, yeah — but lacked discipline.
That was dangerous.
Power without structure?
That’s how people go missin’.
That’s how cities fall.
He leaned back, watching the smoke curl toward the ceiling fan. He let it swirl in his lungs for a minute before exhaling slow.
His mind drifted back to her again.
“She ain’t ready for what’s comin’,” he whispered.
But he didn’t mean it like she was weak.
He meant it like… no one ever told her she was a gate.
A vessel.
A key.
“But I see it,” he added, tapping ash into the tray. “I see her clear.”
Downstairs, somebody slammed a door. Sirens howled again. A baby started crying.
Same old soundtrack.
But Justin didn’t move.
He just sat in the smoke, staring out the window, watching the wind carry the night away.
- Writer
