The Rise of Issa Igwe

Chapter 1

A Slumber Party

Issa often wondered if she was a magical mistake.

Not that Issa thought she’d be able to skip through life like normal girls. She knew she wasn’t normal, but she did think she’d be able to keep it together for one night. Aunt Sabrina, the family oracle, rubbed anointing oil on her forehead, and Aunt Cedella lined her sequined ballerina duffel bag with warding salt. Then they both sprayed her from head to toe with a protection mist, some new recipe Aunt Cedella had made from the tea of calendula leaves, John the Conqueror root, and Warm Vanilla Sugar from Bath & Body Works. It was an untested blend, and tonight would be the test. If protection spells were sports pads, she’d look like the goalie on a peewee hockey team, just one with pink- and blond-tipped braids. All of this for a simple slumber party.

I look ready to have fun, Issa said. It was true, and she knew her aunts needed the encouragement. They were happy to help, but they all knew it should be her parents doing the preparations. Wherever they were in the world, it always was the aunts who picked up the slack.

Aunt Cedella bustled Issa out the door and dropped her duffel bag in the trunk. Just don’t have too much, okay. Good fun. Clean. Safe fun. That’s what we’re going for.

Safe wasn’t really in Issa’s vocabulary. All her aunts’ protections did nothing to change the fact that she was a conduit. She’d always been told it was a special power. Unique. She wasn’t a medium, which most people had heard of, but something outrageously rare, less stable, and much more trouble. With her power she got all the razzle without the dazzle if a ghost decided to take her body for a ride. While a medium could quietly usher an unruly ghost to the other side to everyone’s benefit, conduits got to be the voice of the undead, mostly to everyone’s irritation. Messages from beyond the grave were rarely good news.

Now Ms. Moultrie said her family has a dog, so you might want to avoid her. The pupper tends to attack people who smell like cat, and with Miss Purrkins being your favorite thing in the world, I don’t want you to have any trouble, Aunt Cedella announced from the front seat. This was the second red flag.

The first red flag had been the invitation itself. LeAnne Moultrie, Issa’s classmate, hadn’t invited Issa to this slumber party at all. Her mom did. Barbara Moultrie and Aunt Ionie, Aunt Cedella’s sister, worked together doing university stuff that Issa didn’t care about. She was willing to bet that Aunt Ionie had told Ms. Moultrie that Issa was having a hard time making friends over pimento cheese sandwiches at lunch or something. Next thing Issa knew, she was being dropped off at a slumber party with girls from school she rarely talked to. It would be worth it, though, if she were able to make a few friends.

Issa was nervous as Ms. Moultrie welcomed them inside the apartment, and her nervousness only grew once her aunt kissed her goodbye. At least she’d been able to negotiate a new pair of pajamas out of the deal. Neon-green silk with leopards dotted all around. Aunt Sabrina said they made Issa look like a lounge singer for a kid’s disco on one of those gambling cruises in Biloxi. Issa loved that.

You play Minecraft? LeAnne asked as soon as Issa walked in.

No.

Roblox? she tried.

Unh-uh, Issa replied.

LeAnne took a deep breath. You like TikTok?

I’m not allowed to have social media, Issa replied while Nyla, LeAnne’s best friend, rolled her eyes.

You’re so weird, Nyla said.

Shut up, Nyla! My mom said be nice! LeAnne hissed.

They all stared at each other for a beat too long to be comfortable.

I like music, Issa offered, and thank God she did, because then they had something to talk about. After some back-and-forth, Nyla found a tutorial online for some dance Issa had never heard of. They spent the next four hours making up routines and tagging everyone in class so they could get Nyla’s views up. Ms. Moultrie ordered pizza and made brownies. Issa’s stomach was full of Coke and cheese and fat and sugar, and she was loving it. She gorged herself and laughed and sang and danced, and it was high-key perfect. So perfect that Issa should have known it was going to blow up in her face.

A ghost doesn’t just appear. It lets you know it’s there. The temperature drops and the air becomes thin. If Issa was paying attention, she might notice the hair on the backs of her arms stand up. If she was somewhere quiet, the feeling would be unmistakable. She usually got goose bumps, and it would feel like someone was standing right behind her.

But now, she wasn’t somewhere quiet. The music was blasting, and LeAnne had just tried to drop down into a split and had ripped her sweatpants. Nyla was laughing so hard that tears were rolling down her face, and she had to run to the bathroom so she wouldn’t pee herself. For her part, Issa couldn’t really laugh too loud because her mouth was stuffed with her third nutty fudge brownie. It was the most fun she’d had in months, and she couldn’t imagine things going any better. She snort-giggled and nearly choked, so she reached for a bottle of water before she literally died of laughter. That’s when she felt the first familiar shock of possession. It stung—no, burned, like the accidental singe of a curling iron against your ear, shocking and sharp. Her spine went rigid and her face went slack.

Issa? LeAnne asked. Her face was twisted in concern.

Issa wasn’t surprised. She knew she looked weird, with her mouth half-open and brownie dripping out onto her kitty-kat pajamas.

No! Issa shouted, but no sound came out. She was in the passenger seat now. She didn’t have control over her mouth. She could see just fine, and felt the bottle of water in her hand, cold and plastic. She heard Nyla come back from the bathroom and the thump of the bass from a Beyoncé song pouring through the speakers.

Turn that mess off, the ghost said, using Issa’s mouth. It was one of the strange phenomena of possession that Issa’s voice changed too. It still sounded like her, but altered.

It was Aunt Rose—LeAnne’s great-aunt Rose, whose ashes were sitting on the mantelpiece. Issa knew that now, not because anyone told her, but because Aunt Rose knew it, and Issa knew everything Aunt Rose did. Even after Aunt Rose left her body, pieces of her memory would probably linger. They usually did. Those little bits of ghost-given knowledge were helpful. They made Issa great at geography lessons and a wiz with languages, but the trade-off for a bit of trivia was hardly worth it.

Don’t do this, she begged Aunt Rose from inside herself.

Hush, the ghost replied. I’m only going to need you for a few minutes, and then you can go back to your gyrating and carrying on.

This isn’t fair. You should ask people before you just jump into their body.

You think this was my first resort? Aunt Rose asked. I’ve been looking for a way to communicate with Barbara for years, and I’m sorry, honey, but I’ve got to take this opportunity. I might not get another.

You don’t understand. They are going to hate me after this. They’ll never talk to me again.

That’s ridiculous.

What do you know about being a conduit? You think everyone wants to hang out with someone who gets possessed by their dead aunt?

Aunt Rose ignored her and then ordered a terrified LeAnne to go get her mother.

Issa tried to move her arm on her own. It felt like she was swimming through pudding. Even with all of her strength, all she could manage to do was move her pinkie up and down. If she didn’t struggle, she could feel what it was like to walk like Aunt Rose, slow and shuffling, and talk like Aunt Rose, with a hill country accent straight out of Kentucky.

You’d think it would take a while to convince a forty-year-old grown woman that the twelve-year-old you just helped tie a silk bonnet on is your eighty-six-year-old decades-dead great-aunt.

It took ten minutes.

Ms. Moultrie’s family was from the Appalachian mountains, so she was no stranger to ghosts. When Aunt Rose told her about some stocks her uncle had left to her, she cried with excitement. True to her word, though, Aunt Rose slipped out of Issa on a hiccup, one hour after she’d jumped into her skin. It felt like someone ripping off her favorite coat in the middle of a blizzard. The shock of all that sudden feeling made her shiver as her body temperature dropped and her teeth chattered. And, well, Nyla and LeAnne never looked at her the same again. Ms. Moultrie was so excited about her new financial come-up that she didn’t even notice that they’d made Issa drag her sleeping bag out into the living room. There she wrapped her arms around her knees and watched old episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air until she fell asleep.

She was worse off than when she started. Before the girls at school only thought she was weird. Now they had no doubt.

Chapter 2

A Punishment That,s Not a Punishment?

A few days after the slumber party, it was Election Day, one of those holy days off from school that didn’t get its own parade or family feast but was nonetheless appreciated. Issa had been imagining she’d sleep in, in her own house, in her own room. Her parents would finally be home from their work trip. Her dad might sneak her a bit of chicory coffee, and she’d make friendship bracelets with her mom using some of the beads she’d collected from her travels. But that was before the field trip.

Yesterday’s trip to the Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon sealed her fate. Well, that and the ten-day suspension because of it.

"So you’re telling me that your ghost rider was a sixteen-year-old enslaved boy who jumped into your body, called the teacher a blood-soaked thief in eighteenth-century French, and then made you run into traffic? her father, Tope, asked. And if I’m hearing the story right, Theo had to cast this boy out of you before you both got hit by a Range Rover?"

Tope’s beard still had a bit of clay in it from their home pottery studio, which told Issa that he hadn’t slept at all last night. He and Issa’s mother, Thalia, had flown in yesterday evening, found out about the field trip incident, and then stayed up all night stewing.

Issa was expressly forbidden to go on field trips. And normally, she would have stayed home and avoided the whole thing, but it was the Monday after the slumber party, and if she didn’t show up at school, she knew LeAnne and Nyla would feed the rumor mill and she’d never get the bullies off her back. It was always best to face the rumors head-on and get your own story out there. She’d constructed a perfect lie to explain herself, and Miss Ceta at the Night Market swore her special warding powder—crushed Iranian beetle wings and cornflower starch in a cracked petal-pink Fashion Fair compact—would work, even in a super haunted place like the Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon. Issa should have known the three-dollar cure was fake.

It wasn’t my fault, Issa argued as she plopped down on one of the kitchen stools at the family house on Bay Street. She was a Tatterly on her mother’s side, descended from a long line of Bika, magical people who pull their power from ancestors with deep roots in Charleston. There were mediums and telekinetics and psychics on both sides of her family, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have regular jobs. Her mom and dad were both artists like her aunt Sabrina, but they focused on divination sculpture and fine jewelry. The last two excursions had them in Guadalajara, where they ran into New Nana’s brother, Issa’s uncle Byron, and spent an extra week to visit. When her mom texted her that they weren’t coming back on time, she ate not just a slice but the entire tin of dark chocolate honeyberry loneliness pie that Aunt Cedella developed just for her.

Things just got out of hand really fast, she said, and her parents looked at each other, communicating in their special silent way, which frustrated Issa so much. Maybe if they were home longer they’d all develop some secret silent family language. For a split second Issa thought she might cry, but she stopped herself. It never helped anything.

When her parents were out selling their art, Issa stayed with her cousin Theo and the aunties in the family house. She was there so much she had her own dresser and daybed tucked into one side of Old Nana’s sewing room. Sometimes she didn’t know how she felt about that. The aunts would always have space for her, but it wasn’t her space. There was always a festival or art show somewhere, and her parents would be gone again. Even though they always came back, there was this niggling feeling that one day they’d drive away and never return. She’d get all nervous when they said goodbye and then feel stupid a day later when they’d call from Houston or Morocco or wherever.

We know it’s not your fault that it happened, but you did go on the trip when you were explicitly told not to, Thalia chimed in. Then she kissed Tope on the cheek and handed him a plate as he conjured himself a heaping breakfast of fried potatoes, grits, and eggs. Tope was one of the most powerful conjurers in the nation, but it seemed to Issa that he used his ability only to make food.

I don’t know why you insist on testing your limits like this, Tope said. Issa didn’t say anything. It wasn’t a question you were meant to answer. Instead, she finished folding a paper napkin into a frog. She didn’t have a pen nearby to write the right symbols to animate the animal, and given the situation she probably shouldn’t even if she could.

Young lady! her mother chimed in.

Issa perked up. Apparently she was supposed to answer. If I don’t test my limits, how will I know how far I can go? Everyone’s just so scared of what I’ll do and how other people feel, but no one cares how I feel.

Tope and Thalia looked at her as if that was the dumbest answer she could have come up with.

And there’s the slumber party problem to fix as well. There’s been a parent complaint at school.

Issa was shocked—not that there was a parent complaint about her; that had happened at her last school and the school before that. She was surprised at Ms. Moultrie.

Ms. Moultrie swore she’d keep my secret and made LeAnne do it too! Issa huffed.

She didn’t say a word. It seems that Nyla’s mother wasn’t so easily convinced. And I know that wasn’t your fault, but we’ve had to make a hard decision.

So am I gonna finally be homeschooled and get to travel with you? What’s my punishment? Issa said as she folded her hands across her chest. Homeschooling was one of her most fervent wishes. She could see the world and create short-term friendships with kids at RV parks and hotels. They’d email each other and video chat, and they’d never be in danger of knowing who she really was. It would be perfect.

Wouldn’t you like to wait until all the pleasantries of breakfast have concluded? her father asked as he sat next to Issa at the counter overlooking the kitchen.

Sooner is better than later. I’m no coward, Issa responded. It was best to get it over with so she wouldn’t have to tie herself in knots worrying about it all day.

You know that we love you, yes?

Of course, Daddy, she said automatically. That’s what you say when your parents ask a question like that, because what’s the alternative? On her worst nights alone she did wonder if they really believed what they said. She’d never outright ask them if they loved her, because she wasn’t at all convinced of the answer.

Good, because we don’t want you to think that we pick on you. But you must learn to be more careful, and you seem to do the opposite, especially when we’re away.

Maybe you don’t have to go away then, she thought, but she knew better than to suggest that, so she just stared into her empty plate. Miss Purrkins jumped up into her lap, and Issa scratched her under the chin, more to calm herself than the cat. Miss Purrkins was a gift from Nana Mae, and while the cat wasn’t as magical as her cousin Theo’s pet snake, Rupert, she did have a supernatural ability to alter Issa’s mood.

Her mother leaned against the counter and popped a mini muffin into her mouth, chewing as she added, We’ve decided not to punish you.

Issa’s head popped up. Really?

Yes, we’ve decided that negative reinforcement has been counterproductive. It’s only resulted in more rebellion and more reckless behavior, and we thought a different approach might be in order, her father announced. Usually, when Issa messed up, she’d be grounded, and if they were really mad, they’d impose fashion restrictions as well. There was a month last year where she’d been forced to wear a white T-shirt and jeans every day to teach her discipline of the mind after she’d wandered away at the state fair and gotten herself possessed by a carnival barker.

Issa nodded, agreeing with this train of thought. Then she grew suspicious. What’s the catch?

No catch, her mother said. We thought shielding you from your gift was the right approach, but maybe we should be leaning into it. You’ve never had more than a few weekend conjuring classes and camps at the Night Market. So, to start, we’ve signed you up for a semester at the Siren School.

Issa’s heart skipped a beat as she nearly fell out of her chair. Witch prison?!

The Siren School was famed in Bika circles for being the strictest magical academy for girls on the eastern seaboard. Parents threatened their daughters with enrollment to keep them in line. The gossip at the Night Market, where Bika in Charleston went to trade goods, learn, and join in fellowship, was that girls who went to Siren School were rarely seen again. And if they did come back home, they were unrecognizable; their personalities had been wiped and they were docile, upstanding members of the magical community. It was like invasion of the body snatchers. Issa had never heard anything good about the place.

Issa’s mother rolled her eyes.

It is not that bad. Aunt Sabrina just had a bad experience, which was entirely her fault, if you ask any of the other girls.

How do you know? Bika don’t send their kids off to boarding school, Issa protested.

And you know all there is to know about Bika, do you? her mother asked. Issa knew it was a rhetorical question. While all Bika girls were witches, not all witches were Bika. Bika magic had its roots in Africa, and that affected how Issa’s family and community practiced. Education was one to one and based on an apprenticeship system. Families usually found a family friend to teach their kids in small groups in maroon communities far away from the prying eyes of nonmagical folks. You can’t flunk out of an apprenticeship. You can’t be expelled from your auntie’s weekend conjuring class at the Night Market. The Siren School was another animal altogether, and Issa had never done very well with formal schooling.

Issa’s mom planted her hands on her hips. "I wish they had sent me. The Siren School is one of the best preparatory academies for young girls in the world."

Didn’t they kill a girl? Issa countered.

"A vicious rumor spread by another training academy. You know how petty these circles can get. The girl disappeared. And they later found out that it was just a misplaced spell that caused