that to you. You is his brother, after all.' And that was me stuck with it. Not that I minded much, not then ...
But come the time A. C. was seventeen, I was a full-time working man and didn't have a lot of spare time for him.
Poppy was on his very last legs; in fact, I couldn't see how the Old Boy was still hanging in there! And my brother... well, he be just a handful!
There was this girl in trouble in Port de Paix (not that that meant a hell of a lot, 'cos she had something of a reputation anyways), and A.C. was smoking a lot of the wrong stuf. Also, I suspected he was big in a gang on the wrong side of the law. And you got to remember, Harry, The Law out there in them days wasn't the same as here in England! No sir! Men was dying for their political beliefs, or just disappearing of the face of the earth, which amounted to much the same thing. But worse than these things, I also figured A.C. was doing some obeah, or trying to do it, anyways.
I spoke to Poppy'bout it, and he said, 'Son, it's what I feared. The blood will out. Obeah's in my blood, and in you and your brother's blood, too. Except I knows that if A. C. gets it he'll use it wrong. But I also knows that you is there to block him. So long as you is alive my obeah's split two ways, between you and your brother. So wherever he goes, whatever he does, be there to square it with the Powers That Be. I mean, the powers that govern obi. Just be there, and Arthur won't have full command of his skills. But son, I feel I has to tell you this ... your brother is strong in obeah. I has known it for, oh, many a long year. I reckon it's why I hangs on: 'cos I know he doesn't come fully into his own till I is passed on ...'
Now Harry, that's a night I'll remember always, 'cos when I was leaving the Old Boy be in his obeah house, I saw a shadow sneaking away along the garden, and that shadow was shaped like my brother ... Wel, Poppy died a few days later, all curled up like an old leaf and clutching his belly as if he ate something that didn't agree. I had my suspicions, but God, I couldn't see A.C. doing that! I just couldn't...!
A couple years went by, and Poppy was right: his obi came down to me and A.C. But as I said before, I got a little and my brother got a lot - and all of what he got, bad!
A.C. was nineteen and wanted by The Law. Not for any thing you could specify; mainly for being against the so-caled 'authorities.' If they'd got him he was a goner for sure, and A.C. knew it. That alone was enough to turn him against any kind of genuine authority from that time on. He wanted to smuggle himself out of the country, and he had the contacts to do it. Al he needed was papers, which weren't hard come by to someone who could do a few favours, some obi tricks for folks, to get them. And he got papers for me, too.
See, I minded my promise to Poppy, that 1 would go along with A. C. wherever he went, and watch him whatever he did. He was my little brother, after al. So we came to England. I suppose we was illegal immigrants, since our papers were faked and al; anyway, they never did catch us. Luck - and obeah - were with us.
And there's a lot of island folk over here, you know? There's always someone who be ready, willing, and able to protect an obi man. I suppose I was looked after 'cos people liked me, and A.C. 'cos ... 'cos they feared him.
But trouble folows trouble, Harry, and here in UK, A. C. just couldn't keep his nose out of it, same as back home. Black gangs and what al, pilfering, drugs ... he was just a bad lot; he was into everything! I would a given up on him for sure, but for my promise to Poppy. And I knew that he'd be a lot worse if I wasn't there to keep a balance. But it seemed my.obi balanced his and kept