The Writer Formerly Known As Goddessofthundathighs

It was something much worse.

The road to Annie’s shop lay just ahead, looming, narrow and rugged. Dirt kicked up from the wheels, a thick cloud of red dust and exhaust smoke that billowed into the sky and disappeared into the trees.

Seven years had gone by. Seven years of Chicago winters and tear-stained letters. Seven years of ache. Seven years of keeping his brother safe. And seven years without the woman who kept them both alive. 

He and Stack shared a lil’ kitchenette apartment in the blackbelt. They ran jobs for Capone, hoarding money, gold, and hooch, and stashing it in a dilapidated warehouse. It was risky business, sure— but Chicago was always a means to an end.

It meant no more busting ass for the white man to roll up a few days after Christmas, cigar in his mouth, smirk on his face, just to tell him he still owed him money after picking his cotton all fucking year.

They had plans. Big ones. They’d open a place where their people could enjoy themselves. Not some raggedy shit that ran out of a plantation shack. They’d buy that old sawmill, patch it up, turn it into a juke joint. 

He’d put his share of the profit into something more stable— a funeral home on Issaquena, running hearses from there to Mound Bayou. And Smoke, he could finally build his wife that house they both dreamed about. Something real peaceful. Two stories, a kitchen, a garden, a picket fence, pigpen and a chicken coop. They could live off the land and fill the house with babies. Little chocolate cherubs with his dimples and her eyes.

He’d begged her to follow him. He said he’d go ahead, set everything up for them, take a job at the stockyard. He’d work his way up and buy them a place over in Bronzeville. Something comfortable, with a view of Lake Michigan. A fresh start.

She refused. Told him that blood kept her bound to the land. That she wouldn’t leave their daughter’s grave untended. She poured her soul into his mojo bag before he left. He’d press his lips to it sometimes, when the ache started to feel tangible. He could still taste the salt from her tears, like she blessed it with them.

He kissed her hard and fucked her slow the night before. Then he tucked his hat and held her softly as she wept on his chest. 

“I love you.”

He didn’t apologize or make promises. He didn’t need to. Their understanding went beyond what words could explain. When she looked up at him, doe eyes red-rimmed and watery, his chest tightened. Her gaze pierced his soul. He kissed her trembling lips once more, then he walked out the door. 

Smoke’s truck stopped short of the house. He took a deep breath. Then he cut the engine, and stepped out of his truck. He looked around, taking it all in slowly. The porch still sagged in the middle; a wayward floorboard still hung loose on the steps. But the garden was tended. The faint scent of rosemary she used to sweep the porch still hung in the air. 

He looked to his left and froze. A little mound of earth. A stone with a small handprint. A bottle of fresh milk. An Egun stick...she taught him that. And a rusted tin for flowers. He took off his cap, the bundle of flowers trembling slightly in his hand.

He couldn’t remember how long he’d been crouching before he noticed the wind had stopped blowing. The throaty flute of a windchime sounded and pollen danced around his head, but he could feel no breeze. A chill ran down his spine. The same chill he felt during long nights in Chicago, when the danger felt close and the longing got rough. Nights he swore he could hear her calling his name in narrow alleyways and the back of speakeasies. 

His voice was thick, heavy with the weight of things left unsaid. 

“How you be?” 

Annie shifted her weight, leaning against the doorframe. 

“No misery’s worth complaining about.” She spoke with a rawness that brought him to his feet.

When he finally turned to look at her, his breath left him. She looked regal, leather belt cinching her waist, blue skirts moving like tide. She stood perfectly still inside the doorway, looking like a force to be reckoned with. Like a current.

Grief, longing, love and ache all channeled into something that looked more like peace on her. Acceptance. Purpose.

This wasn’t the woman he left seven years ago, the one who left teardrops on the leather of his mojo bag. Certainly not the woman he met 13 years prior— a shy young woman of 18 whose words were spoken quietly but carried weight.

This woman was different. Born of water and baptized in fire. She stood in front of him, a formidable woman. A pillar, a beacon. Unbridled, unapologetic.

Reborn.

The air was thick, sweltering with a lust-filled heat that rivaled the Mississippi’s. Wet smacks and low grunts echoed off the wall, jars and vials clinked as they fell making room for the slick joining of two bodies drunk with need. 

Smoke wasn’t gentle. He spun her around and shoved her dress up, putting her exactly where he wanted her. There was no formality, no softness— just a raw need to be close. He pushed in with one long thrust that filled her completely. The stretch was overwhelming— he was thick and long, and it made her face twist up in ecstasy. Her hands reached out, her fingernails digging into the warped wood. 

“Nuh-uh, where you goin?” 

Smoke pulled out, angling her hips, spreading her wider. He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her back onto his dick. This angle hit deeper, making Annie see stars. She squealed in pleasure.

“Ah! Elijah!” 

He set a punishing rhythm, the wet slap of skin spurring him on. He licked up her neck, then buried his face in it, growling in her ear. 

“Who pussy is this?”

“Yours!” 

“Say it,” he gritted, feeling her clamp down on him.

“Ah—this p-pussy belongs to you papa!” 

“Mhmm.” Smoke slowed down his strokes, letting every thick vein glide against her sensitive walls. 

“I’ma fill you up,” he said breathlessly. “Leave you leakin’. Want you walkin’ around that juke full of my nut.” He pulled her hair back, making her arch into him. “You want that baby? Want me to make a mess in you?”

“Yes papa,” she moaned. “I want it drippin’ down my thighs.” 

“Ask nicely,” he grunted, tilting his head. She was squeezing him again, her pussy working hard to milk that nut out.

“Please papa,” she whined. “Please make a mess in me.”

Smoke groaned. “Good girl. Such a good girl for me.”

He sped up his strokes again and Annie started screaming. “Come on baby,” he barked. “Fuck me back. Show me how much you missed papa’s dick.” 

And like the good girl that Annie was, she followed her papa’s orders.

A Few Hours Later… Smoke and Annie pulled up to the mill just as the sun began to set, the sky the color of a bruise. He cut the engine, going over the events of the night. Annie tried to listen, as he went on about roulettes and Irish beer, but her thoughts kept drifting like something reached into her brain and yanked.

“Smoke, what time is it?” 

Smoke looked down at his watch. “4:32,” he grumbled.

She grabbed her haint beads.

Smoke raised a brow from the driver’s seat. “You good mama?”

Annie hesitated. “Sun rose at six this mornin’. Ain’t due to set for another hour.”

Smoke rubbed her shoulder as Stack approached the truck. “What you thinkin’?”

Annie looked at Smoke dead in his eyes, “This place give me the willies.” 

“Hey sis-in-law, long time no see,” Stack said as he opened the passenger door. He removed his hat and helped her out. 

“Hey Stack,” she said, bringing him into a hug. 

“Thanks for comin’ tonight.” 

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Annie said, still tugging her elekes. Just as she slipped into the building she looked up— three vultures sat perched on the roof. 

Music was flowing, plates were selling, bottles of beer and mason jars of wine and whiskey clinked in the air. Annie stood behind the bar, looking at what her husband and his twin put together for their community with a sense of pride. Still, she couldn’t help but feel an impending sense of doom. 

It wasn’t too often people her color were allowed prolonged happiness. There would always be some white person who came along and disturbed their peace just because they could. That’s what they did— they lived to reduce them to nothing but hard laborers and strip any sense of joy they tried to cultivate. That was their formula— break ‘em before they think they deserve more.

But this…this was something different. 

It felt older— older than Jim Crow and much more sinister.

As soon as Sammie struck his first chord, she felt it.

The veil wasn’t just thinning, it had split wide open.

🎵See I’m full of the Blues, Holy water too… I know the truth hurts, so I lied to you…🎵

“Ain't no way of bringing nobody back once they gone, that don’t involve evil. Best thang we can do for ‘em is free they spirit from the curse.” — Annie Moore

Club Juke turned into a mix of blood, fangs and fire.

Stack emerged from the shadows and lunged, pinning Annie to the ground. 

“No!” Smoke darted towards her, but was intercepted by Remmick. 

“Elias, not Annie!” 

This is it, she thought. She knew when she threw her bones it would come to this, it just hurt to think it’d come at the hands of Stack. That the man in charge of her demise would wear the same face as her husband.

She thought about what she could have done. Then she thought about what happened the last time she didn’t let things play out the way they were supposed to. She thought about Smoke, about what she made him promise. He was screaming her name, pleading with Stack while she sobbed quietly. She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t bear to witness the pain on his face. 

“Not you,” Annie whispered between tears. 

Stack pulled her jaw towards him. His eyes shined bright, a chilling pale blue. His mouth twisted into a smirk, drool dripping slowly from his fangs. He smirked wider when she squirmed, taunting her. He was enjoying this, seeing her uncomfortable, hearing his twin plead for her life. He took his time, watching her try to wiggle out of his grip with amusement. Annie braced herself as Stack lowered his head. 

The screams faded. The shooting, snarling, crackle of fire, all dulled like the world was holding its breath. Annie squeezed her eyes shut, praying quietly as she felt fangs tease her neck. 

“Asé.” 

Click-click. BOOM! 

Smoke was freed from Remmick’s grip.

Click-click. BOOM!

“Annie!”

Annie’s eyes flew open to find Pearline standing above her reloading her shotgun, the barrel still smoking. 

“Annie! Get up!” 

Smoke all but dragged her up off the floor, putting a stake in her hand. A not-so-subtle reminder that the fight wasn’t over. Not until they got Sammie someplace safe. “Come on baby, ain’t done yet.”

October 16, 1932 The air felt thick, like the morning after a storm. It smelled of iron, ash, and the morbidly-sweet rot of a juke joint stripped of its soul and forced to its grave. Death moved through the floorboards like a presence, lingering in corners and clinging to walls like shadows that bent wrong. The sun was still on its ascent, the pale light of morning peaking through the rafters, smoking the vampire bodies in its path. 

The shooting stopped five minutes ago, but Annie couldn’t tell. Time here felt like it was holding its breath— like she was standing at the edge of something she couldn’t name, but recognized its shape. Like someone split the veil open and something older stepped out. 

Annie sat on top of the bar, trying to quiet the sounds of pain, horror and surrender that echoed in her head. She was slouched, breath stuck in her throat, limbs trembling under the weight of grief and guilt. Her face was covered— a layer of dust, blood and sweat like a second skin. Her eyes were red-rimmed, raw and filled with tears that cleared a path where they fell like a map no one asked for. Her dress was in tatters, shoes long gone— lost somewhere in the fight. 

Delta Slim’s body was in literal pieces on the stage. Mangled and completely drained of blood, it was a chilling testament to the terror that tore through the night. His harmonica lay amidst a chaotic pile of splintered wood, shards of glass, and blood splatter like a shiny, silver headstone.

Her shoulders shook, tears spilling down her cheeks. The place that was supposed to be somewhere for their community to enjoy themselves became a vehicle of violence and destruction. Of course the klan were involved. Smoke took them out by himself. Picked them off one by one, just like he promised. The mill door creaked open and he stumbled in clutching his side. 

“Baby,” Annie gasped, “you hurt?!” 

Smoke shook his head. “Just a graze. But we gotta go. I got the truck ready.” 

He scooped Annie in his arms and pressed his forehead to hers. His white undershirt was stained red, his pants caked with dirt and gunpowder. His eyes were wet with unshed tears, his hands trembling where he touched her. He had Stack’s dogtags wrapped around his wrist.

“Thought I was gon’ lose you for good,” he murmured. “Ain’t livin’ without you again.”

Annie cradled his face, her tears still flowing. “Ain’t goin’ nowhere. Not without you.”

“Then let’s go home, Mrs. Moore.”

They burned the mill and every trace of what transpired there to the ground until the land was as dark as the blood and ash that soaked it. Black fumes billowed in the air for miles, the smell so vile it burned their eyes. They drove until they couldn’t smell it anymore. Then they kept driving until they saw Spanish moss and swampland. Louisiana.

Her parent’s cottage was still there. Long unoccupied, but still standing. It had a wide porch, a large backyard, and her grandmother’s wind chimes still hanging by the front door. It felt like peace, like this was home now.

Annie swept the floorboards with rosemary and performed her protection spells while Smoke beat the rugs out back and hid their stash under the floorboards. 

They bathed together, her back to his chest, his arms wrapped around her waist. They held each other a little tighter that night, the kerosene lamp throwing gold shadows against their skin. He laid behind her and slid in slowly. The thick stretch of him, the power in his strokes made her shudder with pleasure. He was still buried deep when they drifted off, tangled in the sheets, bodies slick with their love. And when the light of dawn made their eyelids flutter awake, he took her again.

Three Months Later January 31, 1933 

Life was joyfully slow. Annie fed the chickens and tended her shop. Smoke found honest work on the railroad. Every morning they watched the sunrise together. Every night they’d hold each other close, listening to the bullfrogs and crickets compete for sound. He’d fuck her filthy every chance he got. Talk her through it, leave her leaking. She stayed so full of him, he filled her with babies, too. 

The kitchen smelled like garlic and saltpork. Annie stood at the stove, apron tied loosely over a faded green house dress that fit a little more snug now that she was showing. She smiled down at her growing belly, rubbing it with one hand and stirring a pot of butter beans with the other. Her hips swayed slowly to the song she hummed under her breath. Smoke sat at the kitchen table, watching her with a tender heat. He crossed the room in two strides, pressing himself against her back.

“I’m hungry,” he said roughly.

“Mmm,” she hummed. “Supper’s almost ready, baby.”

“Nah,” he muttered. “My food right here. Been marinatin’ all day.”

He dropped to his knees and pulled up her dress. No panties. 

“Mhmm.” He smacked each ass cheek. “Arch that back, baby.”

Annie whimpered. She arched her back.

He licked his lips and dove in tongue first.

October 15, 1933  Smoke sat in the living room, rocking their daughter. She babbled and cooed gently as he held her on his chest, just above his heart. 

Annie kneeled at her altar with a heavy heart, eyes wide with unshed tears. She laid a spread out in front of her like something sacred.

A pearl for Pearline. A flask for Slim. An old button from a pair of overalls for Cornbread. Bo’s keychain. And a paintbrush for Grace.

She thought about Cornbread. How Therese had to raise their child alone. Thought about lil’ Lisa, how her parents never came home. She thought about Pearline, a woman just trying to find some escape and got caught in the crosshairs. 

Then she thought about Slim. Thought about how he laid down his life for Sammie. Welcomed death with open arms.

“He’ll be visitin’ Sammie,” she whispered. “Watchin’ him play.”  Then she thought about everyone else at the juke. Her community who came there looking for freedom and fun, and ended up getting burnt by the sun. Those people left behind children, siblings, parents, friends, lovers, lives, legacies. She still remembered standing there next to Smoke, watching the mill burn to ash and feeling the souls stuck on that land, rotting, cursed.

“I think about y’all all the time,” she said to the empty room. “I wanna help y’all crossover proper…just don’t know how.”

A tear fell onto her bottom lip. She licked it, tasting the salt of her pain.  

“I need you grandma, great-grandma,” she pleaded softly. “Please.” 

She bowed her head and cried. “So many people lost that night,” she sniffled. “Just gone. It ain’t right.” 

A windchime sounded outside, but Annie didn’t hear it. The room got colder, the candles flickered once then held steady.

That’s heavy work, baby girl. 

Her head snapped up. “Grandma?”

Abeni. 

That was a different voice.

Annie paused. “Who are you?”

The stolen one.

A third voice. Annie thought for a moment, the constant tears shedding clouding her eyes and her mind. 

“Great-grandma?”

It was silent for a beat. Then—

The flood. The voice said.

Annie gasped. “The one on the other side.”

Your spirit looks sad.

“I could have done something,” she whispered.

Wouldn’t have stopped it no way. That kind of creature, they love to feed on a woman with your gift. Makes ‘em more powerful.

“How do I start? What can I do?”

A body is a good start.

“So they have to be alive?”

That kind, they may walk this earth, but they ain’t alive.

“But I can set their spirits free?”

You can guide it around what’s feedin’ on it. But it ain’t easy. Gon’ take a lot from you, just like it took from me. Their soul has to want it. And some souls, they like bein’ fed on— no matter what they say. Their type— they’re tricksters. Don’t confuse a spirit that wants to be set free with a rotted flesh that wants to lure you in.

Nine Years Later October 25, 1941 

The living room was…loud. A cacophony of toddler babbling, baby cooing and the high pitch of children’s voices. They huddled around the ham radio, turning the knob until they heard the smooth hum of the radio station.

“Hush now! Don’t y’all wanna hear cousin Sammie on the radio?” 

A chorus of yes sir’s rang out. Five to be exact.

“Then be quiet ‘fore ya mama send y’all back to bed,” Smoke barked out. 

Annie appeared from the back room, baby Ezra suckling her breast. “Now why am I in it?” 

Smoke pulled her into his lap, resting his chin on her shoulder. “I just wanted you out here, baby. Missed you when you was gone.”

Annie giggled, moving Ezra to her shoulder to burp. “I been gone for five minutes, Smoke.”

He nuzzled her ear, then kissed her on the cheek. “Five minutes too long.”

Smoke squeezed Annie’s waist when a familiar bassline came over the radio.

🎵Somethin’ I wanna tell ya, ‘fore a long time… It might hurt ya, might lose ya mind…🎵

They looked at each other with recognition. The painful memories of that night still haunted them— Smoke would wake up gasping, covered in sweat. He’d grab his gun and check the locks twice before crawling back in bed. Sometimes Annie would see burning bodies when she closed her eyes. Bo, Grace, Pearline, Cornbread. Slim’s mangled body. His harmonica that laid on the stage like a grave marker. 

Stack came around sometimes. He’d leave candy for the kids, whiskey for Smoke and flowers for Annie. Him and Mary settled across the river in New Orleans, living in the shadows of narrow alleyways, rotting churches, and abandoned mills. They could be around their own kind down there, a certain kind of freedom if you squinted your eyes and looked real close. 

Sammie wrote to his cousins every two weeks. He made it to Chicago and recorded “I Lied to You” at Columbia Records the following year. Took him a whole week to get it done ‘cause the equipment kept shutting down mid-session. He told Annie that sometimes, when he was alone in the booth, he’d smell a whiff of corn liquor, followed by the faint thrum of a harmonica and a familiar cackle. He wrote a song for his old friend that day, the man who sacrificed himself so he could be free. It’d go on to be the second single on his debut album. Called it “Magic (It’s What We Do).”

December 7, 1985 The room held its breath. 

The oxygen machine hissed. The heart monitor beeped rhythmically. Their children, all six of them in their 40’s and 50’s now surrounded Annie’s bedside.

Smoke sat in the chair next to her, staring at the woman he loved since 1919. He was bald now, wrinkled, even walked with a cane— but his presence still filled a room and pressed into the corners. 

“Thank you,” he whispered, just so Annie could hear it. “For givin’ me this life.” 

Annie smiled weakly. “You mean havin’ all your bighead babies?”

Elijah Jr, who looked like he could have been Smoke and Stack’s triplet, spoke up. “Now mama, why we gotta be big headed?” 

Smoke chuckled, rubbing her hand gently. “For lovin’ me. For givin’ me another chance,” he said softly. “And havin’ all my big headed babies.”

Annie choked out a laugh that turned into a cough. 

Their eldest daughter Grace stepped forward, helping her mother sit up. “Mama, the doctor said relax. Don’t be workin’ yourself up.” 

Annie swatted her daughter’s arm. “Y’all don’t need to worry about me. Be laughin’ plenty where I’m goin’.”

“Mama don’t talk like that!” she hissed, voice thick with emotion. 

“Look here,” Annie started. “I told y’all this day would come. Everybody got a time. You just pray that your time come when you ready and not because somebody else decided for you.” 

“Mama….”

Annie sat up fully with Smoke’s help. “Now I want y’all to listen to me. I ain’t got long for this earth. And I ain’t scared. I feel a peace I ain’t never felt before. Know where I’m goin’, I get to see your sister again.”

Smoke squeezed her hand. 

“She would have been 62 this year. But she wasn’t meant to be on this earth that long. I had to learn to accept that. Took a while. Hurt real bad. Wasn’t my fault, or yo daddy’s. Not everybody meant to stay long. Some people shorter than others. Don’t mean they life didn’t mean nothin’. Your sister didn’t make it a year and I still remember her laugh like it was yesterday. Still remember what she smell like — milk and lavender.” 

Annie smiled to herself.

“It used to hurt thinkin’ about her. Thought I’d never think on her without it takin’ a piece of me. But now I feel joy.” She paused. “That’s how I want y’all to remember me. Y’all have a piece of me in you, so whenever you get sad, just remember…you a part of me. I’ll always be here in spirit.” 

Annie looked around the room at her family, the children her and Smoke made out of love and wrapped up in it. She looked at her husband, a formidable man even in his old age. Their eyes held a silent conversation.

“I love you.”

Smoke kissed the back of her hand. “I love you too, mama.”

She winked at him, then she laid back with a smile and closed her eyes. The beep of the heart monitor slowly decreased.

Annie took her last breath that night. Smoke sat by her side— an ever steady presence amidst chaos. He didn’t cry. Didn’t even look sad as the room filled with sobs and screams of their children. He just adjusted her blanket like it would make her more comfortable, kissed her forehead and whispered in her ear. “I’ll see you soon.”

He wouldn’t make it to her funeral.

Stack came by that same night. He looked at his 87-year-old brother and saw the face of a man who ultimately lived life on his own terms. He saw a man who led a life so fulfilling, he was happy to leave it to spend eternity in the sky. He saw a man who he knew he’d never see again in person, not even in the mirror. 

They stood side-by-side under the old oak in the backyard, watching the warmth of the house lights spill out the windows. 

“How’d she go?” Stack asked.

Smoke dipped his head, the corner of his mouth turning up. “Peacefully,” he said quietly.

Stack nodded. “You next,” he said, not a question. 

“It’s my time,” Smoke said with finality.

Stack turned to face his brother. “You know I ain’t good at goodbyes,” he said with a shaky voice. “That’s why it’s never goodbye, always see you later.” He tried to chuckle, but a sob came out instead. “But it’s fuckin’ me up that I won’t be seein’ you later ‘cuz of this…curse,” he choked out. Stack took a deep breath to calm himself. “Maybe Annie can conjure up somethin’ from the spirit world, have me swallow some herbs ‘n shit so I can see y’all again.” 

Smoke looked at his forever 35-year-old twin with a profound sadness. He saw a restless spirit. He saw a 9-year-old Elias, terrified to walk this world alone. He saw a 23-year-old Stack terrified to go to Little Rock alone. His heart swelled. There were so many emotions he wished he could convey, but they all got stuck— like they were meant to be left unsaid. Or maybe because Stack already knew. “I’ma miss you,” was all he could manage to get out.

They pulled each other into a hug.

“Ain’t no me without you,” he sobbed. “I can’t do this shit without you.” 

“You can and you will. You gon’ do it for me. For my lil’ ones. Make sure they don’t get in no trouble.”

Stack chuckled low. “Thought I don’t know how to watch my own back?”

“You ain’t gotta choice now fool,” he laughed. “Annie gon’ put belt-to-ass, even from the afterlife.”

The SmokeStack twins stood under the stars, reminiscing about their glory days and the nights that still haunted them. New York. France. Chicago. Clarksdale. They talked until dawn threatened the horizon. 9 decades. Two brothers. Two paths. Split for eternity. When Smoke turned to the house, he looked over his shoulder one last time and saw tear stained cheeks that matched his own. 

“I love you, lil’ brother.”

“I love you too, big brother.”

As Stack watched his brother slip back into the house, something came over him. It wasn’t a breeze. More like a feeling. A prickling of his skin, like when the temperature drops suddenly. Then her scent wrapped around him— lavender and vanilla, the smell so strong it made his nose tingle. He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. 

“Knew you’d come through,” he whispered into the darkness, tears still falling. 

Elijah “Smoke” Moore passed three days later. Peacefully. Just like Annie had. As he took his last few breaths, he smiled weakly at the ceiling. “Told you,” he whispered softly. “I ain’t livin’ without you again.”

It was something much worse.

The road to Annie’s shop lay just ahead, looming, narrow and rugged. Dirt kicked up from the wheels, a thick cloud of red dust and exhaust smoke that billowed into the sky and disappeared into the trees.

Seven years had gone by. Seven years of Chicago winters and tear-stained letters. Seven years of ache. Seven years of keeping his brother safe. And seven years without the woman who kept them both alive. 

He and Stack shared a lil’ kitchenette apartment in the blackbelt. They ran jobs for Capone, hoarding money, gold, and hooch, and stashing it in a dilapidated warehouse. It was risky business, sure— but Chicago was always a means to an end.

It meant no more busting ass for the white man to roll up a few days after Christmas, cigar in his mouth, smirk on his face, just to tell him he still owed him money after picking his cotton all fucking year.

They had plans. Big ones. They’d open a place where their people could enjoy themselves. Not some raggedy shit that ran out of a plantation shack. They’d buy that old sawmill, patch it up, turn it into a juke joint. 

He’d put his share of the profit into something more stable— a funeral home on Issaquena, running hearses from there to Mound Bayou. And Smoke, he could finally build his wife that house they both dreamed about. Something real peaceful. Two stories, a kitchen, a garden, a picket fence, pigpen and a chicken coop. They could live off the land and fill the house with babies. Little chocolate cherubs with his dimples and her eyes.

He’d begged her to follow him. He said he’d go ahead, set everything up for them, take a job at the stockyard. He’d work his way up and buy them a place over in Bronzeville. Something comfortable, with a view of Lake Michigan. A fresh start.

She refused. Told him that blood kept her bound to the land. That she wouldn’t leave their daughter’s grave untended. She poured her soul into his mojo bag before he left. He’d press his lips to it sometimes, when the ache started to feel tangible. He could still taste the salt from her tears, like she blessed it with them.

He kissed her hard and fucked her slow the night before. Then he tucked his hat and held her softly as she wept on his chest. 

“I love you.”

He didn’t apologize or make promises. He didn’t need to. Their understanding went beyond what words could explain. When she looked up at him, doe eyes red-rimmed and watery, his chest tightened. Her gaze pierced his soul. He kissed her trembling lips once more, then he walked out the door. 

Smoke’s truck stopped short of the house. He took a deep breath. Then he cut the engine, and stepped out of his truck. He looked around, taking it all in slowly. The porch still sagged in the middle; a wayward floorboard still hung loose on the steps. But the garden was tended. The faint scent of rosemary she used to sweep the porch still hung in the air. 

He looked to his left and froze. A little mound of earth. A stone with a small handprint. A bottle of fresh milk. An Egun stick...she taught him that. And a rusted tin for flowers. He took off his cap, the bundle of flowers trembling slightly in his hand.

He couldn’t remember how long he’d been crouching before he noticed the wind had stopped blowing. The throaty flute of a windchime sounded and pollen danced around his head, but he could feel no breeze. A chill ran down his spine. The same chill he felt during long nights in Chicago, when the danger felt close and the longing got rough. Nights he swore he could hear her calling his name in narrow alleyways and the back of speakeasies. 

His voice was thick, heavy with the weight of things left unsaid. 

“How you be?” 

Annie shifted her weight, leaning against the doorframe. 

“No misery’s worth complaining about.” She spoke with a rawness that brought him to his feet.

When he finally turned to look at her, his breath left him. She looked regal, leather belt cinching her waist, blue skirts moving like tide. She stood perfectly still inside the doorway, looking like a force to be reckoned with. Like a current.

Grief, longing, love and ache all channeled into something that looked more like peace on her. Acceptance. Purpose.

This wasn’t the woman he left seven years ago, the one who kissed left teardrops on the leather of his mojo bag. Certainly not the woman he met 13 years prior— a shy young woman of 18 whose words were spoken quietly but carried weight.

This woman was different. Born of water and baptized in fire. She stood in front of him, a formidable woman. A pillar, a beacon. Unbridled, unapologetic.

Reborn.

The air was thick, sweltering with a lust-filled heat that rivaled the Mississippi’s. Wet smacks and low grunts echoed off the wall, jars and vials clinked as they fell making room for the slick joining of two bodies drunk with need. 

Smoke wasn’t gentle. He spun her around and shoved her dress up, putting her exactly where he wanted her. There was no formality, no softness— just a raw need to be close. He pushed in with one long thrust that filled her completely. The stretch was overwhelming— he was thick and long, and it made her face twist up in ecstasy. Her hands reached out, her fingernails digging into the warped wood. 

“Nuh-uh, where you goin?” 

Smoke pulled out, angling her hips, spreading her wider. He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her back onto his dick. This angle hit deeper, making Annie see stars. She squealed in pleasure.

“Ah! Elijah!” 

He set a punishing rhythm, the wet slap of skin spurring him on. He licked up her neck, then buried his face in it, growling in her ear. 

“Who pussy is this?”

“Yours!” 

“Say it,” he gritted, feeling her clamp down on him.

“Ah—this p-pussy belongs to you papa!” 

“Mhmm.” Smoke slowed down his strokes, letting every thick vein glide against her sensitive walls. 

“I’ma fill you up,” he said breathlessly. “Leave you leakin’. Want you walkin’ around that juke full of my nut.” He pulled her hair back, making her arch into him. “You want that baby? Want me to make a mess in you?”

“Yes papa,” she moaned. “I want it drippin’ down my thighs.” 

“Ask nicely,” he grunted, tilting his head. She was squeezing him again, her pussy working hard to milk that nut out.

“Please papa,” she whined. “Please make a mess in me.”

Smoke groaned. “Good girl. Such a good girl for me.”

He sped up his strokes again and Annie started screaming. “Come on baby,” he barked. “Fuck me back. Show me how much you missed papa’s dick.” 

And like the good girl that Annie was, she followed her papa’s orders.

A Few Hours Later… Smoke and Annie pulled up to the mill just as the sun began to set, the sky the color of a bruise. He cut the engine, going over the events of the night. Annie tried to listen, as he went on about roulettes and Irish beer, but her thoughts kept drifting like something reached into her brain and yanked.

“Smoke, what time is it?” 

Smoke looked down at his watch. “4:32,” he grumbled.

She grabbed her haint beads.

Smoke raised a brow from the driver’s seat. “You good mama?”

Annie hesitated. “Sun rose at six this mornin’. Ain’t due to set for another hour.”

Smoke rubbed her shoulder as Stack approached the truck. “What you thinkin’?”

Annie looked at Smoke dead in his eyes, “This place give me the willies.” 

“Hey sis-in-law, long time no see,” Stack said as he opened the passenger door. He removed his hat and helped her out. 

“Hey Stack,” she said, bringing him into a hug. 

“Thanks for comin’ tonight.” 

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Annie said, still tugging her elekes. Just as she slipped into the building she looked up— three vultures sat perched on the roof. 

Music was flowing, plates were selling, bottles of beer and mason jars of wine and whiskey clinked in the air. Annie stood behind the bar, looking at what her husband and his twin put together for their community with a sense of pride. Still, she couldn’t help but feel an impending sense of doom. 

It wasn’t too often people her color were allowed prolonged happiness. There would always be some white person who came along and disturbed their peace just because they could. That’s what they did— they lived to reduce them to nothing but hard laborers and strip any sense of joy they tried to cultivate. That was their formula— break ‘em before they think they deserve more.

But this…this was something different. 

It felt older— older than Jim Crow and much more sinister.

As soon as Sammie struck his first chord, she felt it.

The veil wasn’t just thinning, it had split wide open.

🎵See I’m full of the Blues, Holy water too… I know the truth hurts, so I lied to you…🎵

“Ain't no way of bringing nobody back once they gone, that don’t involve evil. Best thang we can do for ‘em is free they spirit from the curse.” — Annie Moore

Club Juke turned into a mix of blood, fangs and fire.

Stack emerged from the shadows and lunged, pinning Annie to the ground. 

“No!” Smoke darted towards her, but was intercepted by Remmick. 

“Elias, not Annie!” 

This is it, she thought. She knew when she threw her bones it would come to this, it just hurt to think it’d come at the hands of Stack. That the man in charge of her demise would wear the same face as her husband.

She thought about what she could have done. Then she thought about what happened the last time she didn’t let things play out the way they were supposed to. She thought about Smoke, about what she made him promise. He was screaming her name, pleading with Stack while she sobbed quietly. She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t bear to witness the pain on his face. 

“Not you,” Annie whispered between tears. 

Stack pulled her jaw towards him. His eyes shined bright, a chilling pale blue. His mouth twisted into a smirk, drool dripping slowly from his fangs. He smirked wider when she squirmed, taunting her. He was enjoying this, seeing her uncomfortable, hearing his twin plead for her life. He took his time, watching her try to wiggle out of his grip with amusement. Annie braced herself as Stack lowered his head. 

The screams faded. The shooting, snarling, crackle of fire, all dulled like the world was holding its breath. Annie squeezed her eyes shut, praying quietly as she felt fangs tease her neck. 

“Asé.” 

Click-click. BOOM! 

Smoke was freed from Remmick’s grip.

Click-click. BOOM!

“Annie!”

Annie’s eyes flew open to find Pearline standing above her reloading her shotgun, the barrel still smoking. 

“Annie! Get up!” 

Smoke all but dragged her up off the floor, putting a stake in her hand. A not-so-subtle reminder that the fight wasn’t over. Not until they got Sammie someplace safe. “Come on baby, ain’t done yet.”

October 16, 1932 The air felt thick, like the morning after a storm. It smelled of iron, ash, and the morbidly-sweet rot of a juke joint stripped of its soul and forced to its grave. Death moved through the floorboards like a presence, lingering in corners and clinging to walls like shadows that bent wrong. The sun was still on its ascent, the pale light of morning peaking through the rafters, smoking the vampire bodies in its path. 

The shooting stopped five minutes ago, but Annie couldn’t tell. Time here felt like it was holding its breath— like she was standing at the edge of something she couldn’t name, but recognized its shape. Like someone split the veil open and something older stepped out. 

Annie sat on top of the bar, trying to quiet the sounds of pain, horror and surrender that echoed in her head. She was slouched, breath stuck in her throat, limbs trembling under the weight of grief and guilt. Her face was covered— a layer of dust, blood and sweat like a second skin. Her eyes were red-rimmed, raw and filled with tears that cleared a path where they fell like a map no one asked for. Her dress was in tatters, shoes long gone— lost somewhere in the fight. 

Delta Slim’s body was in literal pieces on the stage. Mangled and completely drained of blood, it was a chilling testament to the terror that tore through the night. His harmonica lay amidst a chaotic pile of splintered wood, shards of glass, and blood splatter like a shiny, silver headstone.

Her shoulders shook, tears spilling down her cheeks. The place that was supposed to be somewhere for their community to enjoy themselves became a vehicle of violence and destruction. Of course the klan were involved. Smoke took them out by himself. Picked them off one by one, just like he promised. The mill door creaked open and he stumbled in clutching his side. 

“Baby,” Annie gasped, “you hurt?!” 

Smoke shook his head. “Just a graze. But we gotta go. I got the truck ready.” 

He scooped Annie in his arms and pressed his forehead to hers. His white undershirt was stained red, his pants caked with dirt and gunpowder. His eyes were wet with unshed tears, his hands trembling where he touched her. He had Stack’s dogtags wrapped around his wrist.

“Thought I was gon’ lose you for good,” he murmured. “Ain’t livin’ without you again.”

Annie cradled his face, her tears still flowing. “Ain’t goin’ nowhere. Not without you.”

“Then let’s go home, Mrs. Moore.”

They burned the mill and every trace of what transpired there to the ground until the land was as dark as the blood and ash that soaked it. Black fumes billowed in the air for miles, the smell so vile it burned their eyes. They drove until they couldn’t smell it anymore. Then they kept driving until they saw Spanish moss and swampland. Louisiana.

Her parent’s cottage was still there. Long unoccupied, but still standing. It had a wide porch, a large backyard, and her grandmother’s wind chimes still hanging by the front door. It felt like peace, like this was home now.

Annie swept the floorboards with rosemary and performed her protection spells while Smoke beat the rugs out back and hid their stash under the floorboards. 

They bathed together, her back to his chest, his arms wrapped around her waist. They held each other a little tighter that night, the kerosene lamp throwing gold shadows against their skin. He laid behind her and slid in slowly. The thick stretch of him, the power in his strokes made her shudder with pleasure. He was still buried deep when they drifted off, tangled in the sheets, bodies slick with their love. And when the light of dawn made their eyelids flutter awake, he took her again.

Three Months Later January 31, 1933 

Life was joyfully slow. Annie fed the chickens and tended her shop. Smoke found honest work on the railroad. Every morning they watched the sunrise together. Every night they’d hold each other close, listening to the bullfrogs and crickets compete for sound. He’d fuck her filthy every chance he got. Talk her through it, leave her leaking. She stayed so full of him, he filled her with babies, too. 

The kitchen smelled like garlic and saltpork. Annie stood at the stove, apron tied loosely over a faded green house dress that fit a little more snug now that she was showing. She smiled down at her growing belly, rubbing it with one hand and stirring a pot of butter beans with the other. Her hips swayed slowly to the song she hummed under her breath. Smoke sat at the kitchen table, watching her with a tender heat. He crossed the room in two strides, pressing himself against her back.

“I’m hungry,” he said roughly.

“Mmm,” she hummed. “Supper’s almost ready, baby.”

“Nah,” he muttered. “My food right here. Been marinatin’ all day.”

He dropped to his knees and pulled up her dress. No panties. 

“Mhmm.” He smacked each ass cheek. “Arch that back, baby.”

Annie whimpered. She arched her back.

He licked his lips and dove in tongue first.

October 15, 1933  Smoke sat in the living room, rocking their daughter. She babbled and cooed gently as he held her on his chest, just above his heart. 

Annie kneeled at her altar with a heavy heart, eyes wide with unshed tears. She laid a spread out in front of her like something sacred.

A pearl for Pearline. A flask for Slim. An old button from a pair of overalls for Cornbread. Bo’s keychain. And a paintbrush for Grace.

She thought about Cornbread. How Therese had to raise their child alone. Thought about lil’ Lisa, how her parents never came home. She thought about Pearline, a woman just trying to find some escape and got caught in the crosshairs. 

Then she thought about Slim. Thought about how he laid down his life for Sammie. Welcomed death with open arms.

“He’ll be visitin’ Sammie,” she whispered. “Watchin’ him play.”  Then she thought about everyone else at the juke. Her community who came there looking for freedom and fun, and ended up getting burnt by the sun. Those people left behind children, siblings, parents, friends, lovers, lives, legacies. She still remembered standing there next to Smoke, watching the mill burn to ash and feeling the souls stuck on that land, rotting, cursed.

“I think about y’all all the time,” she said to the empty room. “I wanna help y’all crossover proper…just don’t know how.”

A tear fell onto her bottom lip. She licked it, tasting the salt of her pain.  

“I need you grandma, great-grandma,” she pleaded softly. “Please.” 

She bowed her head and cried. “So many people lost that night,” she sniffled. “Just gone. It ain’t right.” 

A windchime sounded outside, but Annie didn’t hear it. The room got colder, the candles flickered once then held steady.

That’s heavy work, baby girl. 

Her head snapped up. “Grandma?”

Abeni. 

That was a different voice.

Annie paused. “Who are you?”

The stolen one.

A third voice. Annie thought for a moment, the constant tears shedding clouding her eyes and her mind. 

“Great-grandma?”

It was silent for a beat. Then—

The flood. The voice said.

Annie gasped. “The one on the other side.”

Your spirit looks sad.

“I could have done something,” she whispered.

Wouldn’t have stopped it no way. That kind of creature, they love to feed on a woman with your gift. Makes ‘em more powerful.

“How do I start? What can I do?”

A body is a good start.

“So they have to be alive?”

That kind, they may walk this earth, but they ain’t alive.

“But I can set their spirits free?”

You can guide it around what’s feedin’ on it. But it ain’t easy. Gon’ take a lot from you, just like it took from me. Their soul has to want it. And some souls, they like bein’ fed on— no matter what they say. Their type— they’re tricksters. Don’t confuse a spirit that wants to be set free with a rotted flesh that wants to lure you in.

Nine Years Later October 25, 1941 

The living room was…loud. A cacophony of toddler babbling, baby cooing and the high pitch of children’s voices. They huddled around the ham radio, turning the knob until they heard the smooth hum of the radio station.

“Hush now! Don’t y’all wanna hear cousin Sammie on the radio?” 

A chorus of yes sir’s rang out. Five to be exact.

“Then be quiet ‘fore ya mama send y’all back to bed,” Smoke barked out. 

Annie appeared from the back room, baby Ezra suckling her breast. “Now why am I in it?” 

Smoke pulled her into his lap, resting his chin on her shoulder. “I just wanted you out here, baby. Missed you when you was gone.”

Annie giggled, moving Ezra to her shoulder to burp. “I been gone for five minutes, Smoke.”

He nuzzled her ear, then kissed her on the cheek. “Five minutes too long.”

Smoke squeezed Annie’s waist when a familiar bassline came over the radio.

🎵Somethin’ I wanna tell ya, ‘fore a long time… It might hurt ya, might lose ya mind…🎵

They looked at each other with recognition. The painful memories of that night still haunted them— Smoke would wake up gasping, covered in sweat. He’d grab his gun and check the locks twice before crawling back in bed. Sometimes Annie would see burning bodies when she closed her eyes. Bo, Grace, Pearline, Cornbread. Slim’s mangled body. His harmonica that laid on the stage like a grave marker. 

Stack came around sometimes. He’d leave candy for the kids, whiskey for Smoke and flowers for Annie. Him and Mary settled across the river in New Orleans, living in the shadows of narrow alleyways, rotting churches, and abandoned mills. They could be around their own kind down there, a certain kind of freedom if you squinted your eyes and looked real close. 

Sammie wrote to his cousins every two weeks. He made it to Chicago and recorded “I Lied to You” at Columbia Records the following year. Took him a whole week to get it done ‘cause the equipment kept shutting down mid-session. He told Annie that sometimes, when he was alone in the booth, he’d smell a whiff of corn liquor, followed by the faint thrum of a harmonica and a familiar cackle. He wrote a song for his old friend that day, the man who sacrificed himself so he could be free. It’d go on to be the second single on his debut album. Called it “Magic (It’s What We Do).”

December 7, 1985 The room held its breath. 

The oxygen machine hissed. The heart monitor beeped rhythmically. Their children, all six of them in their 40’s and 50’s now surrounded Annie’s bedside.

Smoke sat in the chair next to her, staring at the woman he loved since 1919. He was bald now, wrinkled, even walked with a cane— but his presence still filled a room and pressed into the corners. 

“Thank you,” he whispered, just so Annie could hear it. “For givin’ me this life.” 

Annie smiled weakly. “You mean havin’ all your bighead babies?”

Elijah Jr, who looked like he could have been Smoke and Stack’s triplet, spoke up. “Now mama, why we gotta be big headed?” 

Smoke chuckled, rubbing her hand gently. “For lovin’ me. For givin’ me another chance,” he said softly. “And havin’ all my big headed babies.”

Annie choked out a laugh that turned into a cough. 

Their eldest daughter Grace stepped forward, helping her mother sit up. “Mama, the doctor said relax. Don’t be workin’ yourself up.” 

Annie swatted her daughter’s arm. “Y’all don’t need to worry about me. Be laughin’ plenty where I’m goin’.”

“Mama don’t talk like that!” she hissed, voice thick with emotion. 

“Look here,” Annie started. “I told y’all this day would come. Everybody got a time. You just pray that your time come when you ready and not because somebody else decided for you.” 

“Mama….”

Annie sat up fully with Smoke’s help. “Now I want y’all to listen to me. I ain’t got long for this earth. And I ain’t scared. I feel a peace I ain’t never felt before. Know where I’m goin’, I get to see your sister again.”

Smoke squeezed her hand. 

“She would have been 62 this year. But she wasn’t meant to be on this earth that long. I had to learn to accept that. Took a while. Hurt real bad. Wasn’t my fault, or yo daddy’s. Not everybody meant to stay long. Some people shorter than others. Don’t mean they life didn’t mean nothin’. Your sister didn’t make it a year and I still remember her laugh like it was yesterday. Still remember what she smell like — milk and lavender.” 

Annie smiled to herself.

“It used to hurt thinkin’ about her. Thought I’d never think on her without it takin’ a piece of me. But now I feel joy.” She paused. “That’s how I want y’all to remember me. Y’all have a piece of me in you, so whenever you get sad, just remember…you a part of me. I’ll always be here in spirit.” 

Annie looked around the room at her family, the children her and Smoke made out of love and wrapped up in it. She looked at her husband, a formidable man even in his old age. Their eyes held a silent conversation.

“I love you.”

Smoke kissed the back of her hand. “I love you too, mama.”

She winked at him, then she laid back with a smile and closed her eyes. The beep of the heart monitor slowly decreased.

Annie took her last breath that night. Smoke sat by her side— an ever steady presence amidst chaos. He didn’t cry. Didn’t even look sad as the room filled with sobs and screams of their children. He just adjusted her blanket like it would make her more comfortable, kissed her forehead and whispered in her ear. “I’ll see you soon.”

He wouldn’t make it to her funeral.

Stack came by that same night. He looked at his 87-year-old brother and saw the face of a man who ultimately lived life on his own terms. He saw a man who led a life so fulfilling, he was happy to leave it to spend eternity in the sky. He saw a man who he knew he’d never see again in person, not even in the mirror. 

They stood side-by-side under the old oak in the backyard, watching the warmth of the house lights spill out the windows. 

“How’d she go?” Stack asked.

Smoke dipped his head, the corner of his mouth turning up. “Peacefully,” he said quietly.

Stack nodded. “You next,” he said, not a question. 

“It’s my time,” Smoke said with finality.

Stack turned to face his brother. “You know I ain’t good at goodbyes,” he said with a shaky voice. “That’s why it’s never goodbye, always see you later.” He tried to chuckle, but a sob came out instead. “But it’s fuckin’ me up that I won’t be seein’ you later ‘cuz of this…curse,” he choked out. Stack took a deep breath to calm himself. “Maybe Annie can conjure up somethin’ from the spirit world, have me swallow some herbs ‘n shit so I can see y’all again.” 

Smoke looked at his forever 35-year-old twin with a profound sadness. He saw a restless spirit. He saw a 9-year-old Elias, terrified to walk this world alone. He saw a 23-year-old Stack terrified to go to Little Rock alone. His heart swelled. There were so many emotions he wished he could convey, but they all got stuck— like they were meant to be left unsaid. Or maybe because Stack already knew. “I’ma miss you,” was all he could manage to get out.

They pulled each other into a hug.

“Ain’t no me without you,” he sobbed. “I can’t do this shit without you.” 

“You can and you will. You gon’ do it for me. For my lil’ ones. Make sure they don’t get in no trouble.”

Stack chuckled low. “Thought I don’t know how to watch my own back?”

“You ain’t gotta choice now fool,” he laughed. “Annie gon’ put belt-to-ass, even from the afterlife.”

The SmokeStack twins stood under the stars, reminiscing about their glory days and the nights that still haunted them. New York. France. Chicago. Clarksdale. They talked until dawn threatened the horizon. 9 decades. Two brothers. Two paths. Split for eternity. When Smoke turned to the house, he looked over his shoulder one last time and saw tear stained cheeks that matched his own. 

“I love you, lil’ brother.”

“I love you too, big brother.”

As Stack watched his brother slip back into the house, something came over him. It wasn’t a breeze. More like a feeling. A prickling of his skin, like when the temperature drops suddenly. Then her scent wrapped around him— lavender and vanilla, the smell so strong it made his nose tingle. He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. 

“Knew you’d come through,” he whispered into the darkness, tears still falling. 

Elijah “Smoke” Moore passed three days later. Peacefully. Just like Annie had. As he took his last few breaths, he smiled weakly at the ceiling. “Told you,” he whispered softly. “I ain’t livin’ without you again.”