"Ah, fuck me," Andrea complained as she found herself back in that hideous court of Anansi. "Why am I here, Anansi?"
The old god sat on his throne, invisible figures waving giant fans to save him from an imaginary heat. His smile, that grotesque and ugly-ass smile, grew as he looked down at her from his dais. "Is that the hello I get? Huh, after going out of my way to come and visit you," Anansi said before sucking his rotten, shark-like teeth. "Anansi is wounded, dear child."
She rolled her eyes. Andrea was not up for the theatrics of her family's debtor, but a day of making smoke in place of fireballs, and getting her ass beat again, left her in little mood for his games.
"Don't. Just don't. You're not about to come here and act like you're doing me a damn favor coming to fuck up my dreams the way you're doing."
The god tut-tutted as he rested his misshapen head on a hand. "Such insolence. I used to make mothers sacrifice their daughters for less, Andrea Bordeaux."
She folded her arms despite the threat. "Well, thank God I don't have a child, then."
He laughed and waved his hand, making the fans disappear as he stood up and jumped down from the dais, landing on his four feet with a loud crash.
"You insult and blaspheme in my presence," he said as he approached Andrea, towering over her. "And yet Anansi is here to bring you a warning."
Andrea raised an eyebrow. "A warning?"
He nodded his head, looking uncharacteristically serious. "Just so, girl."
If the goofy known as Anansi was willing to set aside the clown shoes, then Andrea felt that she had no choice but to listen to him. "A warning?"
His eyes—all eight of them—gleamed with dark amusement as he nodded his head. His grin grew and split across his face like the consequences of an earthquake. The smell was just as bad as Andrea remembered.
"Something is coming, Andy. Something awful."
She waited for him to expand on his point, and frowned when she realized that that was it. "Is that it?" Andrea asked, exasperated. "You fuck up my sleep to give me a warning that you don't want to properly explain?"
Anansi's grin fell away and his mouth morphed into a pout. "Come now. I had to go to great lengths to come and see you in your dreams."
She snorted as she looked around his decrepit court. "If you say so. This time around, I'd like to see my grandma if you wouldn't mind."
He hissed and leaned over her. "You will never be permitted to see Nothing's home. Do you understand me?"
She rolled her eyes this time, and moved toward the exit when she felt his hand wrap around her wrist. "Andrea."
Andrea pulled her arm, but it was like arm-wrestling a freight train. "You better let go of me."
He watched her feebly attempt to free herself before letting go. "I do not know exactly what it is that is coming, but something is. And I have a feeling that it will involve one of your friends."
That won back her attention, and so she turned to face him and said, "Okay. Which of my friends?"
"I do not know."
"Is it Aisling? Because she's the only person here I'd consider a friend."
Anansi shrugged. "Perhaps."
"Is it happening any time soon?"
He looked up to the ceiling as if God himself was speaking to him before he said, "Maybe."
Andrea turned to leave, and would have had he not appeared in front of the double doors of his court, now in his godly appearance. "You're really starting to annoy me," Andrea said, holding out her hand. "Move out of the way, or I'll be forced to burn your ass."
The beautiful man moved toward her slowly, holding up his hands as he approached. "I understand your suspicions of me, Andrea. But remember, we are on the same side, you and I."
She snorted as she took a step back. "And why should I believe you? Aren't you the one who enslaved my entire bloodline and want my momma's soul?"
He sighed and nodded his head. "I am. But I also am the very same one who needs more Bordeaux's to continue being a god. And seeing as how you are the last one…"
Andrea gritted her teeth before sighing and putting her hand down. "You got me there."
"I wish that I knew more," he said, visibly frustrated. "I once existed in every home and hearth in western Africa. But now I can barely see into the real world."
She cocked her head. "And how is it that you are able to see into the real world?"
He noted her suspicion and shrugged. "I can see through you, but only barely."
Andrea thought of ways to how that could be true before gasping. "My Grimoire!"
Anansi gave her a sheepish smile that almost seemed cute. Girl, this man just laid claim to your mother's soul the other day. Pull it the fuck together!
"Yes," he admitted. "But it is no different than what I have done onto your mother, or any other Bordeaux who formed a Grimoire before her."
Barging past the man was tempting, but Andrea was here now. And she was not about to leave without getting as much information as possible.
"So you can see the real world through me?"
He folded his arms—his two, muscular arms—and pondered on her question. "Well, yes and no. Yes in the sense that you are my tether to the world. Think of it like a very far doorway. I can hear things on the other side of the door, but that is about the extent of my presence there."
Andrea's eyebrows furrowed. "Oookay… and the no part?"
He grinned at her. "You're not strong enough for me to actually enter into the world through you."
She vented her frustration with a punch sent into his abdomen; the man ate it like a flick to the forehead. "Even in my fucking dreams, y'all are coming for me! When are y'all gonna let me breathe?"
He shrugged again. "I meant offense."
Her frown deepened. "You mean you meant no offense."
"I said what I have said," Anansi grinned. "But that is partially the truth. I was able to enter the real world in the hospital on account of your mother and her faith in me."
It was a statement so absurd that Andrea had to laugh in his face. "My momma is a good Christian woman, Anansi. She is enslaved by you; but you are not her god."
Anansi folded his arms, his grin still firmly set into his handsome face. "Whoever your deity studies master is will have a lot of work cut out for him. You truly know nothing."
She rolled her eyes again and turned to walk back toward his dais. "Uh-huh, tell me more about knowing nothing whilst knowing exactly zero about this thing you're trying to warn me about."
She did not see the expression on his face, but she was certain that it was priceless as she sat down on his throne. "Explain yourself better."
Anansi surprised her with a smile. "A throne suits you," he said, before appearing right next to her. "I could make you one of your own, beside mine."
Andrea gagged. "I'd rather kill myself—Immediately. Today. Now explain what you meant about my mother."
He pouted before shrugging and clapping his hands. Andrea found herself at the bottom of the dais once more, and Anansi back in his throne. "Your mother is a Christian woman. Good is another matter entirely."
"Speak English, Bruh," Andrea snapped. "I'm not about to waste my time playing with you, insect."
"Arachnid," Anansi said. "But fine. She worships your Christian God that is true. But she believes in me as a god as well. A god who holds power over her family and holds sway over her. This especially became the case after her use of the Court."
Her hands began to ball up into fists. "And so?"
He laughed. "This upsets you? Does it offend your Christian sensibilities, eh?"
She cooled herself by trying to exhale her rage. Do not give him the satisfaction…
"So, forcing her to give up her soul let you waltz in through that door?"
Anansi tapped his many fingers on the armrest of his seat. "A good enough explanation. Yes, but her belief in me is what truly took it to the next level."
Andrea could reconcile with that. Her mother was not throwing away her faith in the only religion Andrea had ever been taught to believe in. But rather, her believing in Anansi was a factual thing, more secular than religious. She believes in him in the same way as she believes in the Cowboys, Andrea thought, they are real and they exist. Doesn't mean she's a fan or thinks they gonna win the Super Bowl…
She shrugged. "Okay, but what does that have to do with my door? If it were up to me, there wouldn't be a damn door between us in the first place."
Anansi smirked. "Oh? Would you rather we stand side-by-side, hand-in-hand, with no barrier to stop us?"
Andrea cringed. "No. As in I want nothing to fucking do with you."
His smirk turned into a mocking pout. "Andrea! I'm starting to believe that you do not want us to get along. To become the friends I know we can be… perhaps, even something more…"
She was now well and truly creeped out, and was hoping and praying that her phone would go off and her alarm clock would bail her out. "In your dreams, Anansi, maybe if every man on earth up and died. Every woman too. Shit, if it weren't illegal and I was a worse human being, I might throw in half the fucking animals."
Anansi stood up and T-posed whilst laughing. "Oh come now, Andrea, I have noticed how you look at me in this form. You think that I am handsome."
She shrugged. "What of it, Bruh? I think that Jared Leto is handsome. It don't mean shit if I think you're both lunatics with ugly souls. But anywho," she said, eyeing him up and down. "I know what you really look like. And you have a face only a mother could love. And even then, bless her heart if she ain't blind to boot!"
His reaction surprised her. It was a blank and stoic expression that was unbroken by neither movement or sound for a long while before he finally said, "I do not know what I actually look like."
She frowned. "What the fuck are you on about, Bruh?"
He shrugged, his expression still blank. "I am a creation of man, Andrea. I am what the people who worship me made me to be—to look like. And more often than not, what that is, is dependent upon the person."
Andrea raised an eyebrow, confused as to how she should conduct herself with an Anansi who was so… devoid of reaction, of sass, of anything really. "So you're not a disgusting, eight-eyed, eight-legged, eight-armed incel-looking freak?"
His raised eyebrow mirrored her own as he folded his arms over his powerful chest. "Yes and no. That is no doubt how your mother sees me. And in turn, how you saw me when she used the Court."
Andrea was ready to admit that a part of her wondered why it was that he did not choose to look like this all the time. Instead of the dusty, musty, yucky, ugly ass thing she usually had to come across. "Okay, but then why do you look like this now?"
He surprised her again with how sheepish he looked, before he cleared his throat. "To put you more at ease," he said. "I know that we did not start off on the best note, you and I. But I wish to change that. To help you survive this schooling year, and all other dangers to come."
Andrea was not born yesterday. She knew that this was not out of the kindness of his own heart, but because it matched his own self-interest. The longer she lived, the more likely she was to have more children. And have more Bordeaux's to fill up this ugly-ass court…
The thought of having children just to throw their lives away to feed Anansi made her stomach crawl. "Yeah well, I'm not exactly sure if I want your help."
He waved away her words like swatting at a gnat. "Want is irrelevant. Need is where we find ourselves, girl. You cannot even complete a single fire spell, Andrea. And if what is coming is as bad as I think it is, I do not even think that you will make it to the end-of-year exams anyway."
That stung to hear, and stung all the more that he was right. She was up to making some smoke, sure, but smoke was not going to cut it for her first exams come December. Andrea needed to be able to get the hang of things, before it was too late and her peers—who were already years ahead—got any more ahead of her.
She could not face him as she said, "Hypothetically, what would you have in mind?"
Despite being in his supermodel form, his unhinged grin returned as he leaned off his throne. "We could deepen our bond. And open that door."
Andrea's eyebrows furrowed once more. "I already believe in you, Bruh. I know that you exist; I know that magic exists, and I know you own my momma's soul. What more can I do?"
Anansi stood up, his dark eyes focused so intensely at her that he started to drool. "You could worship me."
Andrea's confusion very quickly turned to anger. "I worship one god and one god only, and he is the God. I'd rather die than pray to your lame-ass!"
He seemed hurt by her words, before his face morphed into an anger that matched her own. "Your Christian God won't save you from nothin'! You traitorous coons never learn! He didn't save y'all when y'all were in chains. He didn't save y'all when they was wearin' blackface and makin' y'all take tests just to vote!" He snarled before sitting back down and trying to regain his composure. "You left him for me, and for what? To be as oppressed as you would have been still worshipping me?"
"I worship him," Andrea said. "Because he is a lord of hope. He loves me irrespective of all my flaws and weaknesses. You can't love me, and even if you could, I'd have to sell my entire bloodline to get it."
Anansi glared at her and Andrea did not know what to expect next. In his eyes were a cocktail of emotion. Anger swirled with sadness, hurt mixed in with desperation. Eventually, he sighed, morphing back into the hideous form that had greeted her.
"Fine then. Keep your religion, and keep your worship. I will try and save you myself."
Andrea was about to say something, but he held his hand out and said, "Be gone." And Andrea woke up with a gasp. She looked around her dark dorm room. Separated by bedside tables on both ends slept Aisling and Zoya. Her trunk with her belongings was at the end of her bed. And across from her was Helga's bed, a Bulgarian first-year from a different class.
She reached out for her phone once her breathing got under control and checked the time. "Shit…" she complained, 4:41 a.m. left her little sleep to catch up on, and she wondered if it was not better to just stay up and scroll through Instagram.
She thought against it as she curled up to sleep, but Andrea did not catch another wink of sleep that night.