Cover

Dedication

For the Jedi of Chosen Ones

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And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

—ANAÏS NIN

PART I

The Joker

He rises from a horizon of chaos. An eternal conflicting force disrupting the balance of things. The God of Opposition, a cosmic Darth Vader dressed as a clown to prevent you from seeing the true darkness of his antics. A trickster—look at the wicked smile on his face—mocking, unsettling. He knows. He thrives off disorienting the living. His purpose is to destroy from the inside out until pain rolls down like water.

He’s the ultimate test for Luke and the Jedi of Chosen Ones. He wants to know what their souls are made of, to test whether they have the strength to answer the call, survive his madness, and complete the mission.

CHAPTER ONE

Someone is watching me. It’s not my mother’s Jesus, who hangs in blissful peace above the desk in my dorm room, or my roommate, Amanda, aka Mandy, aka Manda Panda, which her closest friends have painfully named her. There are many watchers and they are always white. My mother warned me about “lookin’ ass white people” that follow you in stores and stare at you on the sidewalk when you’re in the wrong neighborhood, attempting to control your entire existence with their eyes. I’ve learned from Children of the Corn, The Hills Have Eyes, and Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th movies that white people are always watching, especially when they are about to kill you. I don’t think anyone’s trying to murder me, but I am concerned.

Dartmouth has more white people than I’ve ever seen in my life. Sometimes I just walk around campus marveling at how many there are. Prior to being here, I thought most of the world was Black, like my neighborhood in Cleveland. I was wrong. The real world is white and they are all watching me. Dean Harrison, the dean for first-year students, who also happens to be Black and talks in riddles and quotes, says everything happens for a reason, but she wasn’t in math class with me last week when I caught a group of students blatantly staring at me. The only possible reason for that is intimidation.