Page 45 of Wings of Ebony
You shouldn’t have brought her here.The Chancellor’s words are a broken record in my head.She’s far more like them than us.
“And then?” she asks.
“And then he apparently came to get me and told Ms. Leola to give methis”—I point to the box—“if she ever saw me again.”
“Well open it! I’m dying to know what’s inside.”
My stomach flips. Why am I nervous? It’s just Aasim. Probably some kind ofOh, I wish I was a better dadgift. I resist the urge to roll my eyes, and click the latch on the box open.
There, against a bed of black velvet, sparkles a single golden cuff and a thin golden necklace with a curvy pendant dangling from its end.
I stumble up from the table. “N-no, i-it can’t be!” I back away.
Impossible words claw their way up my throat. “That’s the necklace Moms was buried in.”
CHAPTER 14
MOMS’s favorite color wasyellow.
The sheets on her bed were the color of fading sunshine and she had a pair of yellow and black high-top J’s she’d wear when she was trying to do it up. Her lucky sneakers, she’d called them. Bright yellow, soft grayish yellow, browner yellow like deep mustard, and even greenish yellow like chartreuse—she loved every shade. She even had a yellow striped coffee mug with a chip on the handle that made holding it sort of awkward. Coffee stains on the bottom were so bad you never knew if it was clean or dirty. But that’s the only mug she’d have her morning coffee in. You’d never catch her in silver jewelry either, because gold is its own shade of yellow. She thought being around the color yellow brought happiness—luck even. She could be superstitious like that sometimes.
The yellowish gold necklace glimmers in the dim light against the velvet box.
And this necklace, this very one, she neverevertook off. Not when she showered, not when she went to work. It never left her chest.
It was her way of sportin’ something yellow every day.
Or so I thought.
“G-go ahead, p-pick it up.” Tasha had heard the commotion, saw the necklace, and flipped out too.
“I-I just don’t understand,” I say, hesitant to move. “She wore it the last time I saw her. A picture from the day of her funeral (which Aasim made sure I got a copy of) showed her wearing it then too. Which is normal because—”
Tasha loops into my arm. “Because she never took it off.”
Exactly.“Ms. Leola, how’d you get this?”
Ms. Leola fidgets her earring. “Now, I never want it to be repeated beyond this room.” She lifts her chin. “I only did what I did because I had to.” She sighs. “I-I kissed her goodbye one last time before they closed the casket and plucked it from her neck. Nobody saw me, of course. Tucked it right in my fist with my Kleenex.”
Wow.
Bri peers closer at the bauble with narrowed eyes.
“Ms. Leola robbing a casket?” Tash whispers. “NowthatI didn’t see coming.”
Worry lines dent Ms. Leola’s brow. “All I know is she was gone and lord knows I ain’t want nothing to happen to you, too. Your daddy said to make sure you wore it. So I did what I had to do to get it.”
Make a way out of no way. It’s our way of life.
I hug her. “It’s okay, Ms. Leola. Your secret is safe with us.”
Bri is still tapping her foot, silent.
“So you’re not mad?” Ms. Leola asks.
How could I be mad? Shocked, sure. But mad, no. “You just did what you thought was best. It’s like we have a piece of her—”
“Sorry,” Bri cuts in. “Not trying to be rude, but can I see that?”
