It's Never Black and White

It’s been a week since the funeral and we are still cooped up in the house, wondering when things will get better. I finally mustered up the courage to look through his belongings, which were solemnly resting in the corner of our basement in a blue container. As the eldest, I felt like I had to hold back my tears, but really, what was the point. I found a Kobe Bryant shoe box, ironically holding some of our dad’s personal effects. As I opened the box, a painful ringing consumed my brain and I dropped everything in an instant. Although it felt like something was trying to rip my soul out through my brain, the pain lasted only three seconds. I gathered myself, looked down at a picture of the five of us, and reflected on how grateful I was to be a part of this family.

My brother and sister finally made their way down after hearing dad’s stuff hitting the ground. They came over to check things out, but within an arm's length away, they both collapsed on the ground holding their heads. After the same three seconds of screaming passed, they crawled over in a confused and shocked orientation to the scattered remnants of our dad’s life. Three objects immediately stood out to us individually. Pure gold pierced our eyes as I reached for a chain, Josiah reached for a ring, and Lanaea reached for a bracelet. We had seen dad wear all three of these before, and for a brief moment, we felt comfort in these seemingly meaningless items. Then Nay, as we endearingly called our sister, found a mysterious notebook. This was a foreign object to all three of us, and as she opened the book, that same demonic, banshee-like pitch attacked our brains. Right on queue, three seconds passed and we were back to normal. Frightened, suspicious, yet intrigued, we decided to proceed with exploring this weathered notebook. Nay turned to the first page but laughed after seeing it was written in Arabic. She passed me the worn-out, white notebook because she knew I could read it.

Now we aren’t Muslim, but Dad vehemently encouraged us to learn Arabic growing up. He always said our descendants came from royalty and a grand Islamic empire where the language was the key to our power. As a child, I was confused because we are half-Black Americans raised Christian, and our relatives came from the slave trade. He told me very vague stories about this ancient empire in Western Africa, and how we descended from the richest man in human history. These stories inspired me to become a history professor and teacher of Arabic. And now, as I connect these obvious dots of Dad’s fascination with Islamic culture, I read the first page of the notebook out loud. There were only a few sentences, but they caused the hairs on the back of our necks to rise:

“For whoever reads these words, you are of Mali-Koy Kankan Musa’s blood. The king of kings, Lord of the Mines of Wangara, Emir of Melle and the Conqueror of Ghanata. His blood gives you power, and your token combined with the gold key fuels your destiny.”

I explained to my siblings that the inscription was about Mansa Musa, potentially the richest man ever, and the king dad told us we were related to. He ruled over the Mali Empire, which encompassed the modern country of Senegal: the area where I traced back our roots. This sparked Si and Nay’s curiosity and I continued to flip through the notebook. The book was filled with nothing but dates, places, and coordinates, but even more than that, three-quarters of every page was ripped off. It was the weirdest thing. I made my way to the back of the book, where there was a drawing of a coin, with the word “KEY” written on it. Filled with excitement and mystery, we ran upstairs to Mom and asked her if Dad kept any gold coins away in a safe or lockbox. She was shocked:

“Yes, your dad told me that this day would come.”

She went into the lockbox in her room, sitting on a shelf underneath our dad’s urn. She grabbed four gold coins with Arabic on it and told us:

“Your dad said that you would know what to do with these.”

We hugged and kissed her and ran back downstairs with confidence that we knew what to do with them.

It was obvious that a coin belonged with the notebook. There was a depressed, horizontal notch on the front, perfectly designed for a coin to fit inside. Sitting together in the corner of the basement, akin to our childhood days where we would play Duck Hunt and Sonic the Hedgehog, we came together with this delusion of excitement, like we cracked the code to curing Cancer. Nay offered to put the coin in the slot and see what this “gold key” opens. Holding her breath, while Si and I cringed with one eye open, she put the coin in the slot: nothing happened... Who knows what we were expecting, but we sat there with a sigh of relief, laughing. Then Si mentioned the other coins:

“There are still three other coins, remember!? The inscription said the coins are keys for our tokens.”

We realized the notebook was Dad’s token, and when it came to us simultaneously, as we shouted:

“THE CHAIN!”

“THE BRACELET!”

“THE RING!”

In that moment, we realized that we chose the tokens meant for us and that each token had a specific place for a coin to attach. We took a deep breath, and together we counted down before attaching our coins:

“FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE…”

And everything went black.

I opened my eyes to an endless field of an unknown green crop. The sun was rising and the crisp morning air filled my lungs with both terror and a sense of freedom. I turned to both Si and Nay, who were still knocked out unconscious. I started shaking them and quietly, but firmly, said their names.:

“Si...Nay...Wake up!”

I checked for a pulse and they were fine. I looked beside Nay and the notebook was no longer white and cracked. It was more of a faded black. All of a sudden the wind blew it open to a restored page. Still in Arabic, it read the following:

“Welcome children. If you’re reading this, I want you to know I love you all so much. On the back of this page is a map to 20,000 gold coins. This is your inheritance. This is your birthright.”

Before I could finish reading, a bullet flew right by my face and crashed into the plants beside me. I screamed at Si and Nay and frantically attempted to wake them up. They both woke up in a confused panic.

“Gabe! What's happening!!!” Shouted Nay.

“Stay down and run!” I screamed at them.

We dashed into the field and ran like crazy. Bullets were coming from what seemed like everywhere, but the shots were actually quite infrequent. The sound was deafening and echoed throughout the air. We were terrified beyond belief and in our mad sprint, we crashed into someone. It was a fellow black man, dressed in clothes that made our hearts sink. With his rake, he kept us at bay.

“Stay back!” He screamed in sheer terror.

“The masters are gonna kill me.”

“Masters?!” Nay shouted in complete disbelief.

Another bullet whizzed by, but thankfully the ringing and disorientation started to dissipate. But to add to our panic the sound of dogs barking was increasingly getting louder.

“Let’s go!” Si shouted.

Nay and Si kept running towards the nearest treeline and before I started running I asked the man:

“Excuse me sir, what year is it?”

“It’s 1700 and 12, sir. Now run and leave me be.”

Without hesitation, I grabbed him by the arm and told him we were his saviors. As I stood up, and pushed him along, another loud bang consumed my ears. It felt like someone punched me in the back and then I collapsed on top of our new friend. I could faintly hear my brother and sister screaming my name. I looked down and saw I was shot, but there was zero pain. The bullet went through me and hit the worker. With the dogs literally steps behind us, Nay appeared out of nowhere, and grabbed the rake. She tried to defend us, but the dogs were relentless in their attack. As Si was running towards us, a bluish force field started to form around the dogs. Si’s loud scream rifled through the field and with a burst of energy the dogs were sent flying into their owners chasing us. I looked down at my stomach, the chain started to glow and my wound instantly healed. Wincing in pain from the severe dog bite, Nay grabbed my arm. While Si was attending to her wound, Nay’s bracelet lit up and before I could blink, we were instantly surrounded by tall trees.

Everything happened so fast that there was no time to comprehend what happened. I helped Si attend to our sister’s leg and just like my bullet wound, her leg started to heal as my chain was glowing. We looked around and the mysterious man was nowhere to be seen. Nay grabbed our arms and we teleported just a few feet away.

“I think only we can teleport, because of these tokens,” she exclaimed.

“Well I don’t know what mine was, but there were some crazy blue force fields,” Si responded.

“Before we figure out what this is, you guys gotta check out what dad wrote in this book.”

I read aloud the part about the gold and I kept going:

“If you three don’t know by now, you’ve inherited special powers activated by your golden tokens. Our powers trace back to King Musa’s Empire and mine, time travel, was passed down through this black notebook. Since this isn’t your token, the three of you must be together with your tokens to activate this gateway. Pages can only be restored when you travel to that time. You can only travel to the dates listed and the coordinates or places that or associated with that date. Our bloodline is now in your hands. More will be uncovered once you find the gold located on the back of this page. I love you and I’m always here with you.”

We sat there in silence and in complete shock. Then we heard the faint barking of dogs. I flipped the page and a map illuminated in gold.

“Well, we’ve made it this far. Let’s see what we find.”

We gathered in close, and noticed that Luray Caverns was marked. Dad took us through the Shenandoah National Park and the Caverns every summer for hikes and camping. The Caverns were a special place for our family.

“Can you visualize the Caverns, Nay?”

“Yup, I got this.”

We came in for a family hug and started our countdown.

“FIVE...FOUR...THREE...TWO...ONE….for Dad!”

We thankfully end up safely in the Caverns. Si raised his hands thinking he could possibly find something.

“Maybe I’m like Magneto,” he said jokingly.

And with his intense concentration, a chest surrounded by Si’s blue electric field came shooting out of the water. He brought it to us, broke the lock with his powers and there it was, 20,000 gold coins, very similar to our keys. Laying on top of the gold were multiple complete pages similar to the notebook. I opened the notebook and the pages instantly attached to the end of the book. But before we could read the pages and even consider how we were going to get home, we heard a familiar voice behind us:

“Hey kiddos.”

We turned around and in complete shock we all shouted:

“UNCLE?!”