Seraph the Living Nganga

When Eddie was younger, he was "scratched" in Palo Mayombe and received his Lave tet ceremony in Haitian Vodou. The focal point of his living room was not a TV, but his Met tet, “Master of the Head”. A statue of Chango Macho stood beside a clay pot wrapped with a red bandana, arms raised holding double-sided axes, as well as multiple horned god statues: Herne, Cernunnos, and Baphomet, with mala beads wrapped around them.

They were Eddie’s Ikenga, symbols of personal strength and power.

There were phalluses carved from wood, stone, and crystal, all “anointed” by Eddie himself.

A Black Lives Matter sign and a chart of the zodiac were propped up behind cauldrons with dried herb bundles, branches, and feathers sticking out of them.

In front of the pot was a standing talisman of the Navagraha with the nine planetary magick squares on it. Around this central shrine were more Nkisi—other, smaller cauldrons and clay pots filled with mysteries, spirits of Nature and the dead that walked with Eddie.

This was his primary altar. The second was his boveda espiritual in the kitchen, where La Madama liked to work, nestled into a corner of the counter space. He had a red-and-white checked placemat with nine glasses of water on it, one of them large with a metal crucifix submerged in it.

Little figurines of his Madama, his Congo, and his Taino guides sat in front of the glasses. There was a statue of the Seven African Powers, a candle for the Seven Taino Powers, a small Bible, and the “Collection of Selected Prayers” by Allan Kardec.

Because Eddie worked with a variety of spirits, he separated them all according to their traditions. Finally, his altar for La Virgen de Guadalupe and Santa Muerte faced east, looking out through his living room windows.

Eddie was Puerto Rican but had a strong affinity with Mexican Folk Magick. He had ancestors from the Yucatan peninsula appear in his DNA test. He had been baptized Catholic and left the Church young, but he would still pray the Rosary for Mary, light candles, and put out a Corona for her.

He gave Santa Muerte Jose Cuervo Especial Silver Tequila. The shrine was decorated with Día de los Muertos sugar skulls and figurines. There was a little mariachi band of skeletons playing for a dancing dead girl beside a bottle of Jean Paul Gaultier perfume.

Those were the big shrines. Other figurines and religious décor were scattered all over the apartment.

There was a statue of Hecate here, and some Faerie statues there. Eddie’s home was a cross between Botanica and Pee-wee’s Playhouse.

Eddie was a Brujo, a Puerto Rican male Witch, and his home was one big shrine to his Ancestors.

Two days later, back home in Northampton, Eddie lit a stick of incense and put it in a stand. He gazed into the white, seven-day glass candle that flickered over the altar.

“Tata, I need help. I need to know how to fight this sorcerer,” Eddie said. “I’ve never seen magick like that before.” Seraph was listening. The waveform held still on his wrist, gold and quiet.

Just as Eddie got ready to begin his consultation, he felt a fatigue coming over him like nothing he had ever experienced. He felt a wave of heat on the back of his neck and immediately broke a sweat across his brow.

“Holy shit,” he said. “I need to lie down.”

Eddie’s anxiety increased rapidly. “Am I under attack?” he thought to himself.

The waveform on Seraph’s bracelet was beaming gold light.

He stumbled into his bedroom and ripped off his white cotton undershirt. He collapsed across his comforter, face-first. Then he managed to muscle himself onto his back.

Staring up at the ceiling, he felt like everything was fading to black.

“Oh God, please…” Eddie whispered as he fell into a trance.

Eddie’s body spasmed. It jerked so hard he opened his eyes to see that he was far away from his bed. He was lying on a patch of dirt, surrounded by plants, trees, and forest. He quickly assembled himself and looked around. He knew this forest; he had visited here before.

“This is Africa!” Eddie exclaimed.

Eddie didn't pass out; he had been overcome by ancestral forces that pulled his spirit deep into the Earth.

He was standing on a road. Not asphalt, but a path of rich, red-orange dirt, packed hard by generations of footsteps and baked by a sun he could feel but not see.

The light here was a deep, bruised-green twilight, filtered through a canopy of trees so high and dense it blotted out the sky.

This was the monte. The wilderness. But it was not the familiar, tame forest of Western Massachusetts. This was ancient. This was the source.

Massive trees, whose names he didn't know, towered over him, their trunks as wide as his car. Their bark was a rough, scarred map of time.

A tangle of thick, woody vines, some as thick as his arm, snaked from the canopy, hanging in the air like sleeping pythons. The jungle floor was a chaotic carpet of enormous, broad-leafed plants, their greens so vivid they seemed to pulse in the dim light.

And the sound. A million insects sang in a single, high-pitched, electric thrum. The call of an unfamiliar bird echoed from the high branches, followed by the distant chatter of monkeys.

Something heavy rustled in the undergrowth just off the path, a sound that made the hair on his arms stand up.

He was alone, but he was not scared. This place knew him.

The red earth felt familiar under his bare feet, as if he had walked this path a thousand times before. He looked down and saw his elekes, bright against his skin, glowing with a faint, internal light, like embers. His Idé and biosensor bracelets hugged his left wrist.

He knew where he was going. The path guided him.

The air grew hotter and thicker. Up ahead, where the path ended, was a clearing. And in the center of the clearing sat a hut.

It was a munanzo built from the forest itself. The walls were a deep, reddish-brown mud, packed hard and smooth around a frame of gnarled, silver-gray wood. The roof was a thick, perfect thatch of dried, golden grasses, so dense it looked like a living pelt.

There was no light from within, but a presence. A low, iron-black door, marked with a firma he recognized, stood open.

It was an invitation. This was the source code.

This was the Nganga that inhabited the depths of the Machine World.