Chapter Two: Oxtails & Unspoken Things
906 Words
The smell of oxtails filled the small kitchen — thick, rich, and slow like the jazz station humming from the old radio on top of the fridge.
Waiya moved with that sharp grace — barefoot, slides kicked off, hoodie sleeves rolled up just enough to show her wrist tattoo: a single wolf tooth, inked bold.
Justin sat at the table, hands folded, eyes following her in silence.
Not in a creepy way. More like he was… listening. With his eyes.
“You always this quiet?” she asked, not looking up.
“Only when I don’t got nothin’ worth ruining,” he replied.
She paused, blinked once, then gave a short laugh.
“Aight, poet.”
She plated the food and slid him a bowl like it wasn’t a big deal, even though it kinda was.
She didn’t feed just anybody.
But something about him… she couldn’t place it.
Familiar and not. Solid, but soft where it mattered.
“So what you do? Like, for work?” she asked, sitting across from him.
“Used to do carpentry. Some custom woodwork. Not much call for that now.”
“You got hands then.”
“I do.”
She smirked. “Just don’t think I’m easy ‘cause I like a man with calluses. I also like a man who knows how to use salt water and prayers.”
He blinked.
“Salt water and prayers?”
“Mmhm,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Cleanses everything but guilt.”
They ate in a silence that didn’t feel awkward — just layered.
Now and then, their eyes met. Not flirty. Not tense.
Just… searching.
Like they were each trying to read the other’s bones.
“You live alone?” he finally asked.
She nodded.
“By choice. Peaceful. No one leaving hair in my sink or lying to my face.”
“You’ve been through some shit.”
“Haven’t you?”
He didn’t answer that. He didn’t need to.
Instead, he looked down at his empty bowl, then back up at her.
“This is the best thing I’ve tasted in a long time.”
Waiya didn’t blush. That wasn’t her style.
But something shifted in her chest. Just a little.
“You want tea or somethin’ before you go?” she asked, already standing.
“What kinda tea?”
“The kind that lets me read people better while they sip it.”
He chuckled.
“Then maybe I’ll pass.”
They both stood at the same time — a quiet collision of energy in the small kitchen.
Neither moved.
Just stood there. Barely inches apart.
No sparks flying. No swelling music.
Just stillness.
And that strange feeling.
Like maybe, just maybe, they’d been here before — not in this kitchen, not in this life — but somewhere older than memory.
She stepped back first.
“I’ll walk you out.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
Outside, the night air was heavier than it should’ve been. The kind that made your skin feel watched.
Justin noticed it too. His jaw tightened.
“Your porch feel… different.”
“That’s ‘cause it knows you now,” Waiya said, locking eyes with him.
“Good different or bad?”
“TBD,” she said. “Ask again after the moon shifts.”
He started down the steps but turned before reaching the sidewalk.
“You gonna be alright?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Always.”
“Just checkin’.”
She stood there long after he was gone, arms crossed, the street quiet.
Then, from the edge of the porch, her candle flared for just a second.
She turned slowly.
And saw the faint outline of a sigil — burned into the wood near her doorframe.
Waiya didn’t gasp.
She just whispered:
“Donquavious… you really tryna play again?”
She stepped off the porch slowly.
Squatted low.
Ran two fingers across the sigil burned into the wood — still warm.
Whoever marked it hadn’t been gone long.
It wasn’t just a symbol.
It was a summoning.
“Real bold of you,” she murmured.
Her pulse didn’t race. Her fear didn’t rise. She wasn’t the same girl from three months ago. And whoever left this? They weren’t ready for who she’d become.
She went back inside, calm as ever.
Snatched a bowl from her altar shelf — ceramic, rimmed in obsidian dust.
In it, she dropped:
• A pinch of salt from her father’s old tin.
• Crushed basil.
• Two dried bay leaves — one for vision, one for boundary.
• Marigold petals, faded but still humming with sun.
• And just a single drop of her spit.
“Ain’t nobody callin’ spirits through my damn doorway,” she muttered, lighting the mix.
Smoke curled upward in a tight spiral.
She carried it back to the porch, barefoot now — toes brushing the cool wood, breath steady.
Waiya circled the mark, let the smoke kiss it, then spat again.
Right in the center.
The symbol sizzled. Flared orange.
And died.
She stood, cracked her neck to the side.
“Come back if you want, demon boy,” she whispered. “But next time? I won’t be caught slippin’. And I damn sure won’t be alone.”
She turned and walked inside — not looking back.
The door closed behind her with a clean, final click.
- Writer
