The Year of Return

Chapter 1

Istood alone on a bailey by a row of cannons overlooking the sea. Nasty, rusting artillery aside, I had a lovely view. Water bluer than blue, interrupted by bright white sea foam; earthy rocks coated with green moss protruding from the shallow seabed; the horizon line separating the blue of the ocean from the blue of the sky.

"Ugh, I can just feel the spirits of my ancestors in this place!" A voice behind me effused, in an accent that dripped of Brooklyn, breaking the spell of the view.

Faster than I could control it, my face twisted into something between a grimace and a smirk. Thankfully, I was still facing the sea, my expression hidden from the tourists behind me.

I looked down in shame. All the years of trying to unlearn the reflexive snubbing of African Americans that I’d picked up from my mother, and still so little progress?

But my irritation—and not necessarily at the tourist—was just as challenging to quell. I was sure this sort of reaction was what the Ghanaian government was trying to capitalize on, which made the Year of Return initiative feel much more disingenuous. Unethical, even.

Before college, I’d spent my whole life in Ghana, and nobody had even mentioned the year 1619 in my presence. Suddenly, on its 400th anniversary, the government was marketing itself as if nothing weighed heavier on the hearts of our leaders than the violent dispersal of Black people from Africa. It felt like a weird publicity stunt designed to make money off people who earned in dollars. I might have found it amusing if I wasn’t worried about how many Americans were buying into it. The initiative felt even more like a scam now that it was December—the climax of the commemorative year and peak holiday season.

You’re being cynical, Adwapa, I admonished myself. Just like your mother.

Every time I heard the words, Year of Return, I had to suppress a groan. But here I was at Cape Coast Castle anyway, because my friends had flown down with me from the US to visit my country, and they wouldn’t leave without this quintessential experience.

I had already done two Ghanaian slave castle tours in my twenty-six years of living and had no intentions of making that three. I was content to loiter around the open-air spaces of the castle while my friends completed their guided tour.

It occurred to me that I hadn’t taken a single picture since I’d come up here, having been lost in my head until the Brooklynite’s interruption. But the scene before me was too beautiful to leave without capturing. I reached for my phone.

No sooner had the imitation shutter click sounded than I felt a shiver crawl through my body. I could have sworn the temperature dropped several degrees in mere seconds. And yet, my shiver had not been one of cold. It was the kind of chill you got when you were convinced death was waiting to pop out at you from within the shadows.

I looked around, trying to see if anyone else had sensed the atmospheric shift, but I was the only one paying attention to the sea. Unsettled, I returned my gaze to the water—and nearly dropped my phone.

There was an object in the distance: a vaguely human figure floating upright above the waves, its brown tint contrasting with the blues of the water and horizon.

It wasn’t just the sight of it that shocked me. It was the sudden conviction that this thing, whatever it was, was the source of all my discomfort. The more I looked at it, the more nauseous I became.

Hey, Dwaps, you good?

I jumped at Charlene’s voice and whirled around to find her, Randy, and Oneisha approaching me, freshly out of their dungeon tour.

You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Charlene added.

I forced myself to focus on my best friend’s face—her wide deep-set eyes, her golden-brown skin with almost orange undertones—to banish the image of the figure on the sea.

A few moments too late, I snorted back at her, "I look like I’ve seen a ghost? You’re the one who just stepped out of a real-life haunted house."

Charlene shrugged. Eh… Touché.

So… I drawled, spreading my attention between all three of my friends. How was the tour?

It was great, said Randy. His pinched face begged to differ. All the color had drained from his cheeks.

Don’t lie to her just because she’s our host, Charlene admonished.

I half-expected Randy to defend himself, but he’d become preoccupied with Oneisha. He wrapped one arm tightly around her. Oneisha herself stood as still as a statue, eyes open but empty, as if she’d gone somewhere and left her body behind.

It wasn’t until we were all back in our rented Prado, driving away from the Cape Coast Castle, that Oneisha began to bawl like a child awoken from a nightmare.

I was so startled that I nearly hit the brakes right in the middle of the road.

A glance into the rearview mirror showed me Oneisha folded protectively into her boyfriend’s arms, trembling and sobbing against him. Her huge, curly brown wig almost obscured his mouth, but I was just able to read his lips: Keep going. And so I did.

Oneisha was still crying by the time I pulled into the car park of the Golden Glow Beach Resort—our residence for the weekend. It was at least five more minutes before she felt composed enough to leave the car.

As for me, I was still secretly mulling over whatever I thought I’d seen over the water and wondering why anxiety was gathering in my chest like a brewing storm.

I made my way along the edges of the hotel room, flinging all the curtains as wide open as I possibly could. I still hoped that the sunlight would drive away my residual chills.

Charlene slouched in our room’s armchair, her absurdly long goddess locs spilling all over her torso. She didn’t say a word about my strange behavior, and that was how I knew just how much that tour had affected her. Gone was the forced levity she’d displayed back at the castle. Now, this woman who always had a snarky comment ready at the tip of her tongue just watched me, listless, as I fought my war against the shadows.

The morning’s tour hadn’t been Charlene’s first experience of this kind. But visiting a slave castle wasn’t like getting chickenpox; you didn’t go through it once and then face all subsequent exposure with immunity. I had thought opting out of today’s tour would preserve my emotional health, but that strange illusion and all its effects had messed me up almost as badly as Charlene looked.

Once the room was awash with daylight, I took a deep breath and perched myself on the edge of my bed.

The bathroom door that connected mine and Charlene’s room to Oneisha and Randy’s slowly swung open. Oneisha emerged through it, cradling a mist diffuser in her palms. She had probably curated the essential oil blend within it long in advance.

Charlene’s eyes trailed Oneisha as she plugged the diffuser into the wall. Water vapor began to fill the air with several scents I struggled to identify, besides sage. Charlene cocked an eyebrow at me when she thought Oneisha wasn’t looking. She didn’t yet understand that Oneisha never needed to look.

Oneisha lowered herself into a cross-legged position on the floor with her back against the wall. She looked so self-possessed that it was hard to tell that