The Blue Room

“Have you been anywhere else in the house…?” I looked puzzled at the direction of that voice, yet I was unaware of where it came from. “You hoo silly, I am over here.” I leapt to my feet desperately searching, as I scrambled to the lamp, almost knocking it over. “Hel…hello…,” I attempted to say while eagerly yanking the drawstring, that dangled from the lamp. The living room was already lit by the outside porch light, which struggled to make its way through the pane of the window—but I needed more light. “Is… is, someone there…?” My voice cracked, as I was barely able to complete my speech. “Hello,” I said again this time calming down with what may have been my imagination. It was a bittersweet thing coming to my Auntie Anna and Uncle Glen’s house, deep in the Appalachian mountains. They lived in a region of it that got the nickname Inska, but I never really knew why. The drive to get there was so amazing, seeing the colorful vistas of nature and the perfectly created man-made roads, which swiveled around the forest. It always did something interesting to my heart. My mother thought it was good for my development if I left the inner city and spent some time where I would be “devoid of signal,” as she would always say. What little did she know, because last year I found a spot in the attic where if I positioned myself well enough, a signal could be found.

Ever since my father disappeared my mother has been wanting me to reconnect with her side of the family. She says his side was toxic, but I disagree, they were just different. Marcus was four years older than me making him twenty and Effie was three years younger. They were my cousins who she talked about the most. When we were together we were inseparable, and my mother hated it. She always judged them cause two summers after my dad’s disappearance, I was hanging with them by Shiloh’s Creek and fell off the side of the mountain. I broke my leg in three places and it never healed right, causing me to walk with a slight limp. She blamed them for the accident, and I tried numerous times to convince her that I just slipped. She just says it’s me lashing out but that wasn’t the case, so in a way staying with my Uncle and Auntie every summer since, was my way of getting away from her and the stress she brought.

There were several places in their mansion that I would go to and some I wouldn’t go to. It wasn’t like I was scared or anything it was just a little creepy and since I was usually alone, I just wouldn’t. I spent most of my time in what they called the Drawing Room, but I realized it was just what white people called a living room. I would sit on the couch and be on my phone, reading a lot of books, looking for signal…not finding any, and just watching tv. The long corridors and the fact that they had so many ancient artifacts, when I did walk the halls, distracted me for hours—it was like the Smithsonian in DC there. I spent the majority of my time downstairs, only going upstairs when they were home, and even then barely.

It had a feeling about it, like going into an old, dilapidated home in the city, just to be met with squatters. Yet, there weren’t no hobo’s up there. I think the thing that truly bothered me was one summer, I went up there and faintly saw a flash of a blue light coming from out of a green door. I didn’t investigate it—black people don’t really do that, and I stuck with that stereotype; so I just avoided it altogether. Besides my occasional exploring of the downstairs, eating the leftover food that Auntie made, and gaming with the newly installed internet, this was pretty much how my two months went.

I decided I wanted to change that mundane cycle, this time around as I listened for that voice once more. “Hmph,” I uttered, going back to playing Tekken on the PSP. Periodically I glanced up, thinking I saw something listening for anything creepy, coming from the corridors leading out of the drawing-room. “Hey, you…boy, hey boy.” I heard a whisper on the left side of the room causing me to jump upwards. I looked around the room, knowing plain as day that I heard something. Out of my better judgment, I investigated it. “Aye, come here…” I heard it again, as I stood there looking in the dimly lit room. I was frozen, paralyzed in a sense hearing, Lee my favorite Tekken fighter get the life beat out of him, in a series of kicks and punches. “You did, it was me…” The voice said, sounding like a young woman. “I am young,” she retorted as I saw a shadow move out of the corner of my eye. “Hey, Hey…no….no,” I said regaining control of my body while backing up slightly.

“This can’t be real, I have to be dreaming—no, no, nope…” I protested to the shadows through the speeches of the mysterious voice. “Okay, Ughmm, how can I help you…?” I said a little frustrated. “Ugh okay, what’s your name…?” I said to her. “Do you have any candy?” “Candy?” I said a little startled by the question. “No..?” “Oh, okay.” “Where are you,” I felt a sense of easiness grip my body, reassuring me that it was okay. In the air, I smelt a fragrance like honey and spices that the African store around where I lived always smelled like. I felt a nudge on my back, as I turned around still shocked at the fact that I was oddly so calm now about the situation. “Don’t freak out,” the voice called to me, ensuring that everything would be okay. “I’m going to come out of my hiding place…” I felt another sensation topple that one, taking me by the hand with imaginative suggestions as to what it was. I saw a woman, actually, a little girl with curly hair appear out of the reflection of the sliding glass door leading to the patio.

“My name is Isa,” “Isa,” I murmured back while staring at her unable to say anything else. “This is the part you tell me yours,” she giggled as I stared at her. She had skin like mine which made me calm and trusting so I relaxed a little more. She looked no more than thirteen, with an innocent face yet held a dominating personality. The night’s air which crept in through the window swam into a crescendo with her effulgence that covered her skin. I was stunned by her, as she smiled at me and said. “Boy,” popping me out of my transfixion. “Yeah…yeah sorry…” I managed to say still standing in place looking at her. When she walked closer to me my lamp lit up her body and for a moment I thought… I felt… as if I knew her—a presence so familiar I thought we were related. “Who are you,” I said to her as she just laughed again and said, “Isa, like Rae, like Issa Rae.” “You’re Issa Rae?” I stupidly said, knowing the fate of that question. “No silly, I’m just Isa,” she said slightly giggling. “You still don’t recognize me do you…” “Should I …?” I said a little confused still analyzing her with sight and feeling.

“Well, are you gonna tell me your name …?” “Yeah, oh… yeah haha…sorry you feel familiar I got distracted.” She smiled again while walking to me and I then felt a connection to her— sensations—sanctioning in sections of my heart. “I know you…” I said, still not answering her question trying to figure it out. At this point, she was close enough to see fully for the light of the lamp embraced her body illuminating her natural glow. Her skin was kissed in the pools of melanin, dribbled in the decadence of the color chestnut. Her eyes looked like caverns of optic gold tapestries, sparking from a light emitted through her heart. Her hair was curly slightly bouncing in front of her face every time she turned her head to face or look away from me. She epitomized beauty… yet I could feel her spirit too—something I hadn’t felt since the disappearance of my father—light up the inner dark corridors of my heart. “I know you”, I said again, staring at her as she reached out her hand to my arm embracing my cold skin with the warmth of her body. “And I know you, Sya.” She said to me, sending a wave of vibratory pulsations up my arms as they continued through my back. I fell into her endless gaze, like a wanderer finding an oasis, amidst a dry gloomy desert. I fell into her heart, connecting to the cyclical rotation of the longevity of her life, I saw her, something I only heard that people were able to do in the endless Toltec books that I read. She was a Nommos, I hadn’t known how I knew it but, it was like I sensed it. She was an entity of the water able to appear as something familiar to one’s heart.

We connected there in that room as she said, “Okay, that’s enough…” again giggling before letting go of my arm. “Huh, I blurted out.” “That was one hell of an introduction, don’t you think?” I looked at her confused. “Why are you confused?” She said demanding an answer… “Why do you think I am confused…?” I said wondering where she got that notion from. “Huh, you didn’t realize by now,” tossing a hand on the side of her hip. “Realize what…?” “Really, we’re gonna do this….? I can read your thoughts.” I looked at her analyzing what she said thinking back about Effie and Marcus. While at Shiloh’s Creek we had a conversation about some entities and their abilities of what they knew. My father Daniel before his disappearance was into the occult and spiritual things of Kemet, because of the time he spent with a Sorcerer in some African village, that I forget the name of. He spent a great deal of time there, first for work where he was an environmentalist studying nature for a project his company NATUS, was working on. After being there for some time he didn’t come back the same, as my mother puts it. When he and my mother finally hooked up they then had me. I was named Sya—he was the one who wanted to name me Sya and so my mother agreed to it, thus I became…

Marcus and Effie always loved my dad and Marcus’s stories were different. Their mother was my dad’s favorite sister cause she was just like him and so I learned things I didn’t know about him before. The sorcerer that he spent time with his son … who died at the age of nine was named Sya and so my dad named me that to honor them. Well back at the Creek that day I broke my leg, Effie told me of water entities that came with the spirit of a person to life to help them. She said, based on a lecture she watched one Sunday, there was a Dogon man named Iritah that spoke about the Nommos saying the West didn’t know what they were and then mentioned that spirit. Effie said that he said, “When men are born a female entity is also allowed to come with them and when a woman comes it’s a male. They help the person in life and even give the go-ahead in the womb of a mother for the water to break. Cause they are water entities they have a special relationship to it and so that is the kingdom of which they dwell.”

Isa was looking at me and by what she said I could tell she was listening. “Are you one, mine?” I said hesitantly. She nodded her head and continued to smile. “Then why do you look so young?” I chuckled as she coughed and then turned around to leave. “Hey, wait a minute, where are you going?” I said following after her. We walked through some of the halls of the mansion and up a flight of steps, going into areas of the house I didn’t usually go to. When we hit the hallway, I heard a loud meow that I wasn’t ready for and nearly jumped out of my skin the way cats would do in those old Halloween cartoons. Isa turned back to me and giggled, just to keep walking straight. At the end of the hall, I again saw a blue light flicker out of the room with the green door. I wiped my eyes making sure I really did see it and continued to follow her to it. “Are we going in there?” I said, hoping we wouldn’t, secretly holding a desire to see what was in there too…

Isa just stood in front of the door with both of her hands erected as the palms were facing the door. The hall was dimly lit due to the occasional night lights and other emitting hallway lights that aligned their mansion. I noticed Isa was speaking some incoherent words to the door, as the door seemed to vibrate to her voice. After several minutes of marveling, she knocked three times, then backed up—the door slowly opened. The hinges sounded like they hadn’t been bothered in years, as a creaking sound flew in the air. I followed her to the door as she was engulfed by a blue light coming from inside the room. Whatever that blue light was I felt a connection to it, as it told me things in images that I had never seen ever before.

The light was blinding me, for no longer did I see her, just the enticing navy blue that dribbled over my body. So, I held my breath, why I couldn’t begin to tell you, it just felt right and went inside. The room looked like the downstairs drawing room, except it actually had canvases along the walls and different murals of many symbols and figures that I had never seen before. In the corner were a few stones in a circle, along with sand in and around it. The stone in the back of this was bigger than the two on the side and the one in the front. I saw her standing by it as I looked at the pictures, and realized I too had a connection with the paintings. They animated when I looked at them, like the portraits in that Harry Potter movie. I waved at them, as when I walked they followed me. The room began to expand, while transfixed in the corridors that designed the chambers of the room, I saw different geometric symbols engulf and open in the sound of Isa’s voice.

“Ugh, this is nice and all, but why am I here…? What is the whole purpose of this?” She began to hum a melody that I hadn’t heard in years… “Wait a minute,” I said turning to her. She turned to me too, looking a lot older than thirteen now. I stood in front of a woman, with marvelous eyes like white opal in the light. She had one of those plates wedged in a slit of her lips like the Mursi tribe of Ethiopia. The inside of it began to swirl, like the Milky way with colors of emerald, vermillion, sangria, and bumblebee. Her skin was coated in a dark elegance like nocturnal rivers, patterned with green lines drawn in the furrows of her skin. Her curly hair grew and protruded upwards like the tops of baobab trees, exposing ancient symbols wedged in those lines. I looked at her, stunned and speechless as she bore a mirror from the palm of her hands. I couldn’t help but look cause its dazzling configuration, was like looking into the Atlantic ocean. I saw many spirits wading through the tides, and swimming in the womb of the ocean as it became a dimension of water completely inhabited by entities, that the west calls mermaids.

I stood there watching them, as the inner chambers of the mirror took me through a mirage of visions, perplexing my imagination and drawing me closer. She continued to chant, as I continued to gaze standing firm in this drawing-room. A mere few minutes felt like an eternity as the mirror swiveled back and forth going deeper and deeper. My mouth leeched open as her chants became louder, invoking my spirit. I felt my body tingle with numerous mysterious sensations, as my skin became wet with a liquid that consumed both the drawing-room that I was in and the world that she showed me. I could see myself now encapsulated by a translucent age, emitting light all around us. I looked away for a moment, seeing the walls of her room dissipate into the kingdom of water. All around us were chants, of those entities I hadn’t seen and those who looked at me. Inside of this egg we swam to a tree wedged in a nook of the garden of the see. Under it I saw a man reading what looked like a book, abiding principles that I was unaware of. I stared at the man for some time, looking at his familiarity … looking at his familiarity. He then closed the book, looking at the cover of it for a while before slowly tilting his head up, meeting my eyes. I knew then, at that moment as my heart raced who that man was…