Anesuishe was the daughter of a late 1600s Matapa Emperor and she wore the arms of the children tortured at the hands of the Portuguese around her neck like a necklace when she tried to stand against the soldiers who destroyed the orphanage that she founded and managed on her own.
There were many traumatic deaths in her time and consequently, many curses roamed the land of Zimbabwe. Her cousin Chenziri, who had died a century before, taught Anesuishe how to scatter the energies of enraged spirits to weaken their influence on the physical realm. She had to focus on them and feel them, draw them towards herself to create an elongated cloud of rage that she would not let touch her form for fear of corruption, but she held the energies while they slowly dissipated. This technique required a lot of time and Anesuishe was only able to break curses that she was strong enough to bind, to hold still and prevent their attack.
Wendy struggled with the technique, and if not for Anesuishe, she would have allowed the mangy family at the house on Rainbow Row to escape and bring havoc to someone else. Anesuishe contained the spirits inside the house and Wendy stood on the sidewalk in front, concentrating on the yellow sparks that gave rise to the chaos of colors that wafted off the house to observers capable of seeing it. She did not try to dissipate one ghost at a time, she saw them as one crowd of sparks that she slowly pulled toward her. As the energy stretched in her direction, sparks flew off and dissipated in their solitude. Slow and steady, Wendy thought.
She concentrated as intensely as she could while maintaining a sense of herself to passersby on the street who could not know what she was doing. She leaned against a palm tree and she wore shades that hid most of the strain on her face. The stream of energy from the house stretched from the interior to completely across the avenue, and the longer Wendy held it, the fainter it became as more of the sparks bounced off and disappeared. It took about an hour and when they were done, Anesuishe scolded Wendy who had a pounding headache and sat on the curb.
“You should have increased the momentum toward you and then manipulated it in three dimensions to control the speed, just like I showed you. I understand why you are so tentative, it is scary to imagine inundation by that energy, but it took so long because you drew it away so slowly. And I was floating up there holding them inside, that is difficult to sustain.”
When she caught her breath, Wendy stood and grabbed her head. The pink house on Rainbow Row was swarming with police and the two headed to Wendy’s house.
“I saw Cato wandering the river while you were away,” Great uncle said to Wendy.
“I’ll deal with him tomorrow,” Wendy said. She was extremely tired from her encounter and she collapsed on the living room couch.
“I hope your concentration is better tomorrow,” Anesuishe said.
Wendy drifted off to sleep and she awoke to sounds from the tv. It was well into the following day, and her ancestors were marveling at the news on the screen. There was a commotion at the market and Wendy recognized the man at the center of it. When she heard that he would be transported to MUSC, she took a shower and went to the campus. She returned home hours later with the man, Ivan Santana.
“That’s the possessed man,” Great uncle said earnestly when he saw him. “His curse is not the kind we are dealing with Anesu.”
“He’s not cursed,” Wendy groaned and as she was about to show Ivan around the house, there was a crash on the front lawn, like something had landed hard and shook the ground.
Wendy and Ivan rushed outside and stood in awe of the middle-aged black man surrounded by an aura that looked very different to each of them. Wendy saw the fortitude of his soul energies that seemed to echo his physical form in seven distinct layers of colors. Ivan saw the form of the man encased in a hard blue shell that glistened in the light like metal with a single horn protruding from his forehead. He stood in a crater that radiated around him, an indication of his impact on landing.
“I didn’t mean to land so hard.” He levitated and focused a hand down at the center of the crater and he seemed to struggle to pull his hand up. As he did, the crater shifted up and the ground was more flat than it had been. The man landed softly on top of it.
“I don’t know how stable that is but it looks better at least. Really, I apologize, I just felt the need to get here as fast as I could. I’m Kyrie. You Ivan?”
Ivan nodded.
“And you got rid of those crazy ghosts on the Row? What’s your name?”
“I’m Wendy,” she said and walked to shake his hand. She invited him inside and they sat in the living room.
“You know there’s spirits in here right?” Kyrie asked Wendy. He couldn’t exactly see them, he could feel them with effort and it was a skill he used often as he lived his life in Charleston.
“They’re my ancestors,” Wendy said, “I’m a medium.”
“Oh,” Kyrie said in awe. “I never met a real one before. Most of the ones I meet just scamming people. How you see em?”
“Apparently I always have, I just wasn’t paying attention. And then something happened and they needed me so they got my attention.”
Kyrie nodded thoughtfully. “Can you see the pink pterodactyl?” he asked like it was code for something.
“I don’t think so,” Wendy said tentatively as Kyrie stared into her eyes.
“Well,” Kyrie said, “we have to get that repulsion off Ivan, and then I want you to help me lift some curse energies. We can go up high and you can stretch it all up, just like you did at that house. Let it evaporate.”
“Were you there?” Wendy asked.
“I heard the story. I got eyes all over this city.”
“There’s a problem with your plan, though,” Wendy said. “I’m not strong enough to lift a city full of curse energy.”
“That ain’t what I heard,” Kyrie said seriously. “I heard you was scared and shaking and you still got rid of a whole curse family. That ain’t easy to do.”
Anesuishe nodded. “I agree with the glowing man. If you focus, you can channel my energy, layer it on you like he does, and you can be three times stronger.”
“What did she say?” Kyrie asked Wendy. He could not discern every word that spirits spoke.
“She agrees. I guess I should practice. Let’s go find Cato.”
They found Cato by the river and the group spectated while Wendy layered the soul energies of Anesuishe over her own. As Anesuishe stood behind her, she was slowly drawn into Wendy, and a double layer of dark blue and then a blue tinged purple emerged from her body. Wendy smiled at Cato who returned it as she easily stretched his curse energies to evaporate almost instantly. Cato was left as a smokey shade of his form; his place in the physical world was weakening.
“Thank you ma’am. Revenge is only good for a little while, then you realize it wasn’t ever good. I just want to rest.”
“You deserve that,” Wendy said as the ghost of Cato disappeared.
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