It is 1993, and Ariel is just learning to walk. She remembers this moment well into her future because she is badly injured after just a few steps when she stumbles and hits her forehead on the corner of a table. When her mother finds her screaming in a puddle of her own blood, she panics and rushes the toddler to the hospital.
It is 2010. Ariel is self conscious about the scar on her brow as she prepares for the prom. “Ain’t nobody gone see that,” her sister says from behind her. “You look good, stop stressing and go have a good time.” Ariel does have a good time, but after the prom, when she is at a bonfire deep in the woods with her friends celebrating their last year of high school, she has a strange experience that will eventually be lost to her memory. She is drinking late into the night, in comfortable clothes after stashing her prom dress in her car, and she wanders to the darkness to pee in private. As she wanders back to the group, she notices a firefly, a lightning bug, whizzing around her and she extends a hand toward it. It lands on her pointer finger and maintains the light of its abdomen for longer than she’d ever seen a lightning bug maintain its light. She smiles at it and then it changes, it is no longer a bug, but a tiny person whose entire body glows to produce the circle of golden yellow light on her finger. The tiny person waves at her and Ariel waves back with her free hand. Then someone calls her name and she takes her eyes off the tiny person of light for a split second and in that time, it reverts back to a bug and flies off. Ariel smiles and rejoins the party, sure that she is enjoying a great high.
Ariel is performing in the city; it is 2014. She is nervous. Not about the performance, nothing gives her more of a rush than being on stage, she feels like a person made of golden yellow light, and since she’d arrived in New York, she knows that she is making the right moves for the career she wants. She is nervous about how she will afford her rent that is due by the end of the week, and how she will afford the cost of the new uniform at her job that her boss was making the waitresses pay for, and what she will eat tonight considering that the minifridge in her room is empty.
It is 2022 and Ariel is walking on cloud nine. Her face is everywhere, her songs are always issuing from speakers. Her first show at the Third Heaven Music Festival went so perfectly that she is sure it was a dream or hallucination, until she is in a limousine with the legendary producer, Jess Mess who tells her that she is the voice of her generation. There are nerves, but everything is happening so fast that she can hardly keep up. One minute she is with Jess in the limo, then with Seraphiel in the recording studio, it is all nonstop surreal.
It is 2025 and Seraphiel is in the aerie on an inner ring of Endla when Ariel arrives.
“It’s about time you showed up.” Seraphiel says. He is tall and attractive, dark skin with an almost metallic sheen. His eyes are big and expressive, warm and inviting, and his smile conveys confidence to all who see it.
“What did you do with the calabash?” Ariel asks easily as she lands before him. He is taller, but the black wings at her back seem to dwarf him.
“I told you, Rel, you don’t need to worry about this stuff. It’s between the old Supremes and the Fonlands…”
“See, if you had just answered my question, I wouldn’t be so skeptical right now. But Leilar ain’t trusted you since day one and she said you been acting tricky. But you just seraphim, you can’t do nothing with the calabash or any of the artifacts that keep coming up missing. You wouldn’t know about a missing pipe either, I bet.”
“Come on, Rel, we known each other for so long. Yo mama said you was conceived to my music…”
“That’s gross, and I won’t ever forget what you and Jess did for me, y’all changed my life for real, but I know better who I am now which means I’m seeing things more clearly. You and Jess used me to try to get some leverage over the mmoatia, but I been showing out since Jophiel took me to Endla, haven’t I? Y’all don’t know what to do with me now. “
“I think you’re confused,” Seraphiel says. “Jess, me, the archangels, we ain’t never been nothing but friends to you…”
“The calabash!” Ariel yells forcefully and it makes Seraphiel startle.
“I don’t have it, I promise. But maybe Jess know, he get more access to information than me.”
Ariel approaches Seraphiel who seems extremely nervous but tries to stand his ground, but the vision of Ariel’s black wings eclipsing the light around them as she approaches makes him nervous.
“The Dark Witch Coven,” he stammers and Ariel stops, then tilts her head with curiosity. “They took the calabash, they probably got the pipe. They coming after y’all, and I was scared of them, but I’m more scared of you. Protect me and I will tell you everything I know. Take me to the aziza mound for safety.”
She has never heard of the Dark Witch Coven, but she can see the sincerity on Seraphiel’s face as she stops before him.
“I can’t stand niggas that play both sides,” Ariel says and lifts a hand, raising her pointer finger and moving the middle amd ring fingers until a spark of golden yellow whizzes from her fingers and smashes into his face, decapitating him. The rest of his body crumples to the ground and a light blue mist of Divine Essence gathers above the body.
“Quit murdering people,” Ariel hears a voice say. She turns and Mey is standing before her oth a smile on her face. Mey is shorter, presumably younger than Ariel; she presents as a girl of no more than fifteen years old, but she is an Aziza and could be much older. Ariel and Leilar had recovered Mey on Ariel’s first trip to the Endlands when it seemed she was the last remaining Aziza on the Disc of Agê.
“Pultine would be proud,” Ariel says. “He was nothing anyway, making up shit. Dark Witch Coven.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Mey says. “One of the old Supremes mentioned them, I think they’re in the Deep. Let’s go before it’s too late. We have to get Tracia’s calabash back, it’s the only way to stop this craziness.”
“We could ask for help,” Ariel says. “Tracia probably would have it back by now, and nobody knows the Deep like Ahdis…”
“But we got it, though,” Mey says. “Let’s go find this coven.”
Ariel apprehensively follows Mey as she flies away, but Ariel hasn’t actually taken flight.
It is 2025 and Ariel wanders the jungle near the Aziza mound.
“She done lost her damn mind,” Zana says.
“Who is she talking to,” Zazel asks.
“This magic shit!” Zana says angrily. “Y’all better get my sister, wandering around these damn woods looking crazy.”
“Keep it together, Zana,” Agiel says. “We can’t get close without getting caught in whatever she’s caught in.”
“I’m with Zana,” Coffey says. “I don’t know how much more of this I can watch. We can’t just let her wander around like this.”
“We don’t all have to be watching her,” Leilar says. All of the mmoatia are gathered in thick bush, some sitting on branches, others standing behind them. “I’ll keep everyone posted on what she does. I’m just sure she’s on some mission and if we follow her we might be able to figure it out. Talking to her directly just confuses us, we have to figure it out from a distance.”
“Well, I’ll stay with you,” Zana says. “When shit pop off I wanna be here. Coffey, you should get back to the forest, Santer at the mound waiting to talk to you.”
Coffey nods solemnly. “I’m just a thought away,” she says then flies away.
“I’d love to stick around,” Agiel says, “but that means Zazel has to go sit in the mound since Coffey is in the forest.”
“Fine,” Zazel says. “I don’t mind watching over the mound, and I’ll be the closest so call me first if anything changes.”
The mmoatia agree as Zazel flies away.
“We’ve got a good team here,” Agiel says. “And we are all on the same page. We can’t allow Ariel to continue this way. If she is on a mission, it is possible that when she completes it she will cause horrible things to happen without realizing it. I’m going to bring Ahdis here, she is the old Supreme I think I can find the quickest because she’s on Earth. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Be well, sisters.”
Agiel puts a loving hand on Zana’s shoulder, then he takes off into the jungle.
“We’ll figure this out, right?” Leilar asks and looks at Zana who takes a deep breath.
“This shit ain’t gone take my sister.”
PRL Serials 