“So you have this big problem and you don’t know how to fix it,” Ms. Leola says. “So you ran here for a bite to eat?”

My cheeks burn in shame.

“Listen, baby, them folks over there said you gotta do it.” She pokes my chest. “You. I want you to think about all that means for your Ancestors to say you are the one to do it. Think about what they’ve been through, all they’ve overcome. Your Ancestors on your mother’s side, too. You’re bred from the best stock, child. It doesn’t get any more rich or capable or tenacious. Dr. King marched down them streets, dogs attacking his legs. Rosa sat on that bus, went to jail for it. Your daddy’s people were chased into hiding on that island, killed off, stolen from. And yet, still… what Maya say?”

Heat flushes my cheeks. “I rise.”

“Consider everything those Ghizoni have seen in their lives and they believe you are the one to lead them through it. You think they don’t know what they talking about?”

“I don’t know the first thing about any of this. I screw up time and time again. And now my people at each other’s throats and I don’t know what to do. I have no idea how we can survive this. This ain’t me, Ms. Leola. It’s too…”

“Remember when you took that trip up to Brown University with your mama?”

I nod. We ain’t have extra money for a hotel or plane ticket so Moms packed up the car and we drove it straight, slept in the car, did the tour, and drove back. It rained the whole way, but when I stepped out on that campus, the sun had chased all the clouds away. And I knew I was meant to be there.

“And you remember what you told me right there…” She points at the doorway. “In front of yo mama?”

Tears sting my eyes. I do. The truth of it knots me up inside. I’ve been here before, not literally but in so many other ways. “I-I said if that school let me in, I’d figure out how to make it there.”

“You woulda been a fish out of water then, too. What you know about your people over in Ghizon?”

“That the Ghizoni name came from the God of Light when they gifted magic to my Ancestors to fill the world with good. I know the armor we wear is trimmed in ripples to mimic the ocean around our homeland. The carvings and gems embedded into the metal signify the power and richness woven into who we are.” I sit up straighter. “I know we pray to the gods for favor and again always in thanks. We keep our right sides bare.” I touch the ring in my hair. “To honor love and the role it plays.”