“I love you, Juicy-Mo,” her baby brother said, the pistol in his hand dangling at his side. “Jimmy-Jo loves his Juicy.”

I woke up fighting the sheets. It was still dark outside and G was asleep with his back to me. The powder blue nightgown I had on was soaked with sweat, and so was the mattress on my side of the bed. I struggled to catch my breath, gulping air through my mouth and hoping G didn’t hear me. I rolled over onto my stomach and pressed my face into the pillow. A scream was trying to come out of me and I squeezed my eyes shut and bit down on my lip. But the fear still gripped me, had a tight hold on me, and I crawled from the bed and tried to stand, my knees weak, my entire body shaking.

“Girl, what’s wrong with you?”

My legs nearly gave out at the sound of his voice. There were a million reflections of me in the mirrors as I did my best to calm my breathing. “Nothing, G.” I pulled the wet nightgown over my head and let it drop to the floor. I stood there naked. Shivering. “I had a nightmare, that’s all. Hag musta rode me.”

G snorted, then turned over and squinted at me. “I done told you about all that mojo and superstitious bullshit. Your grandmomma done fucked your head up with all that mess. Next thing I know you’ll be sprinkling salt across that goddamn threshold to keep the evil spirits counting until the sun comes up.” He snorted again, then dug himself deeper into the softness of the bed.

I kept quiet. G mighta been right if it had a’ been a hag riding my back. But the spirit world didn’t have nothing to do with what I had just experienced. This was pure-dee prophecy. Warning before destruction was something Grandmother swore by, and sure enough bells were ringing dead in my ear. Our nightmare wasn’t over. Somebody was gonna catch a bad one, and that somebody was either Jimmy or me.