Thunder raised a feathered scepter. A ball dropped into the game. The spirit lord who appeared in the form of Vai tapped it up and down on his knees, never letting it touch the dirt. It was no rubber ball. It was a head with black hair tied into a club. Its waxy features stared.

We were playing batey with the head of the cacica, Queen Anacaona, the mother of the twins Prince Caonabo and the exiled Prince Haübey, called Juba.

But I was the hunter’s daughter. I had to admire their ruthless maneuvering.

Let it begin.

I dashed in and caught the head on my elbow, stealing it away from the spirit lord. As I passed the ball to the boatman, I caught the lord’s ankle with a sweep of my leg and tripped him. He fell as I dodged past. He grabbed my ankle, yanked me down hard, and rolled us over so I had my back to the dirt and his weight and attractively bare torso pressed on top of me.

“You’re not going to play fair, are you?” I demanded.

With his lips a breath away from my own, like Vai about to press a kiss onto my mouth, he spoke. “Where do yee think this shall end?”

“Not with you winning!” The pulse of the game made my heart race and my blood burn.

Voices surged like the sea around us. The footfalls of the running players made a constant tremor, shivering out on all sides through the beaten earth of the court.

I kissed him. His lips were dry; mine were dusty. Surprised by my riposte, he forgot himself, and another face spilled through Vai’s features too quickly for me to recognize before it settled back into Vai’s form. It was definitely not my sire.

I dug a knee up into his groin and shoved him sideways while he was yelping. As I scrambled up, I scanned the ballcourt. The ball was flying back right at me, the dead face frozen in a grimace. I struck the head with a flip of my hip and angled it toward Aunty Djeneba’s husband. Then we ran, never letting the head drop. The ebb and flow of play meant that the head bounced between sides. Here in the spirit world, the players were too good ever to let the ball touch the ground.

You would think they did nothing but play across the ballcourt of eternity, and maybe that was all they did. I wouldn’t mind doing that. A gal could play batey all day and lose all track of time if her limbs never grew weak and her throat never croaked with thirst. My cheeks were flushed, and my heart was singing.

I caught sight of the face of the man who wore the features of my husband. He was smiling arrogantly in exactly that triumphant way Vai had when he knew he’d bested you.