Changer's Daughter (4 page)

Ay, now I am in Arden: the more fool I; when I was at home, I was in a better place: but travellers must be content.

—Shakespeare

“
T
he driver,” Anson says to Eddie, as the two men depart the bush taxi in Monamona and watch it speed off, throwing up clouds of dust in its wake, “charged three times the going rate and said that he refused to stop here for longer than the time it would take to drop us off.”

His announcement, even spoken as it had been in the calmest, most thoughtful of tones, destroys the feeling of contentment that had been clinging to Eddie since their departure from Lagos. Despite his earlier dread, Eddie had enjoyed the trip north and west from Lagos. The Peugeot 504 had not been full. The only other passengers had been two men who had sat toward the front and chatted with the driver. This arrangement had left Anson and Eddie with five seats for themselves and their luggage, an unprecedented luxury that Eddie had enjoyed without question, choosing to believe that either Anson had successfully bribed the driver or that they were simply ahead of even the early-morning travelers.

Now, as he studies Anson’s expression, all memories of the more pleasant aspects of the day’s journey vanish to be replaced by an unfocused but no less intense sensation of dread.

“The driver didn’t want to stop here?” Eddie asks. “Did he say why?”

“He say there a great trouble in Monamona,” Anson says, still calm. “That he don’t want to stay too long.”

“And you didn’t think to mention this to me?” Eddie’s tone is colder than he had intended.

“What could you do about it?” Anson says reasonably. “I couldn’t do anything—what could you do? So I think I not worry you, let you enjoy the scenery, tell you what is what when we get here.”

“Maybe I would have wanted to stay in Lagos.”

“Alone? While I go into trouble?” Anson chuckles warmly. “I no think that, my friend.”

Eddie frowns. “I would have liked to make my own choice.”

“Okay. I give you the choice. You want to go to Lagos or you want to stay here and help me find my friends?” Anson shakes a long thin finger at him. “Remember, whatever trouble is here, I may end up in the middle of it. So, what do you do?”

For a moment, Eddie feels a surge of raw anger. Then he begins to laugh, realizing that Anson has just explained how he had concluded that Eddie would not leave his friend to venture on alone. When his laughter stills, Eddie replies.

“I’ll stay with you, Anson, but,”—and Eddie shakes his finger in deliberate mimicry—“next time you no leave me in the dark. You tell me what I need to know, and I’ll decide whether or not to worry.”

“Ah, okay,” Anson says, slightly aggrieved. “I was just trying to spare you.”

“If you don’t promise,” Eddie says, “I’ll never stop worrying.”

“Eh?” For once, Anson looks confused.

“Yeah, if you don’t promise to fill me in every step along the way, I’ll be worrying the whole time about what you’re not telling me.”

A smile splits Anson’s face, white teeth against dark skin.

“You have me,” he says, laughing, “and my promise. Now, come, we go into the city and ask some questions.”

Chris has only just taken off his coat when he is summoned from his office by the sharp rapping of the front-door knocker.

There are times, he muses as he hurries down the hallway toward the cathedral-ceilinged entry foyer, that he might have been smarter to move into the hacienda as Arthur had suggested when he’d taken this job.

However, the ruler of the athanor is too demanding a boss. Chris knows that if he had been in residence, he would be expected to be on call twenty-four hours a day—much as his predecessor, Eddie Zagano had been. He isn’t ready to surrender his autonomy to that extent. Neither, apparently, is Eddie.

Undoing the deceptively simple lock on the front door, Chris pulls it open as the knocking starts a second time.

“I’m here!” he says, a touch testily. “Hold your...!”

He stops in mid-phrase, for the person standing on the sandstone stoop is not the Wanderer, as he had expected, but a rather plain Anglo woman. Her dull black hair is cut short: blunt bangs over dark brows and darker eyes. Blue jeans, work boots, and quilted denim jacket do nothing for a figure that might politely be termed “average.” Her button nose is cute, though, and her smile both witty and sly.

“Good morning, ma’am,” Chris says, hoping that politeness will cover for his initial rudeness. “May I help you?”

“I’m here to get the Changer,” the woman says in a pleasant, melodic voice. “I said I’d be here early this morning. Is he ready?”

Chris swallows his initial incredulity, remembering what Bill had said after yesterday’s phone call, remembering, too, some of the things he has learned about the athanor since taking this job. He steps back and motions the woman inside.

“I just got here myself,” he says apologetically, “and haven’t had a chance to check who is where. Would you like to wait or come along to the kitchen for some breakfast?”

“I’ll take breakfast,” the woman says, shrugging out of her jacket, revealing a green-and-black flannel shirt underneath. “Do you know if Arthur’s awake yet?”

“He should be,” Chris says, taking her jacket and hanging it in a hall closet. “He may even be in the kitchen.”

As he turns to lead the way, Chris is halted by a firm but gentle pat on his shoulder. Surprised, he looks back and finds the woman smiling up at him.

“Good recovery, Chris,” she says. “Very good. Keep it up and you may convince even Arthur that there’s some use for humans.” She chuckles, and it’s a warm, musical sound. “That’s something many of us have been trying to tell him for a long, long time.”

Later that morning, when the Wanderer is in conference with Arthur and the Changer, Chris tells Bill about his early-morning encounter.

“It’s a good thing you told me about that phone call,” he says, “or I might have made a complete ass of myself. I wonder if he—I mean ‘she’—pulled the appearance switch just to jerk my chain?”

“Who knows?” Bill says. “I’m only sorry that class made me miss the show.”

“Show!” Chris snorts. “I’d like to know if you would have done any better. No one bothered to tell me that the Wanderer is a cross-dresser!”

“I checked his/her file,” Bill says. “The Wanderer—or the Vagrant as he/she is commonly known—is listed as a limited ability shapeshifter—not a transvestite.”

“Still,” Chris grumps, “someone could have told us.”

“I suspect that getting surprised is going to be par for the course for this job.” Bill grins. “Remember how we both felt when we learned that ‘Rob’ Trapper was really ‘rebecca’—and a sasquatch to boot?”

“Stunned,” Chris says, remembering and smiling despite his pique, “scared, and positive we didn’t want to show any of it. I’ll never forget.”

“At least the Wanderer is one of the athanor who likes humans,” Bill continues. “The ones I’m afraid of are those who think we’re spies just waiting for our chance to reveal their big secret to the world.”

Chris rises and paces; halting, he strikes a mock-solemn, stagy pose, miming as if reading from a sheaf of notes.

“‘Immortals Among Us,’” he pronounces in the tones of a television news anchor. “‘Myths and Monsters Real! Film at Eleven.’ Damn it, Bill. We wouldn’t live twenty-four hours if we told, no matter what kind of insurance we tried to take out.”

“But the important thing is,” Bill reminds him, “that we don’t want to tell. Right?”

“Right,” Chris says, slumping back in his chair. He wonders at the lack of conviction in his own voice.

“Witches! I say that witches brought the illness that killed my baby!” weeps Aduke, still half-mad with grief and rage. Her infant had been buried that morning, wrapped in a cotton shroud dotted in red, black, and white. A deep cut had been made on the lobe of his right ear. “That baby wanted to live. He was no
àbikú
, longing for the other side!”

Oya, knowing that the mutilation of a corpse already ravaged by disease had been the last straw for the young mother, gathers the girl in her arms and hugs her to her ample breast, crooning as she does so.

“Easy, easy, little mother. We on the earth do not know what fate the soul chooses before birth, only Olodumare knows this, and he tells only Ifa. When you are stronger, we will go to the
babalawo
and have him cast the palm nuts for you. Then you will know how to name your next son.”

Aduke sniffles something incoherent and Oya continues:

“Don’t blame the old mothers for marking the boy before he was returned to the earth. They did it for love of you and love of him. If your next son is born with the same mark, then you will be warned and know to take precautions against those companions from the other side who try to lure him back to them.”

Aduke raises her head. Her pretty face is smeared with tears, but she is no longer crying.

“I understand, Oya,” she says meekly.

Oya is an odd woman. When first met, she introduces herself as Oya, adding no family name nor praise name. That the name she gives is that of one of the old Yoruban goddesses is quite interesting. That she gives the name not as part of the
àbíso
name given by her family, as would be common enough, but as if it is her own name is fascinating.

This adoption of a goddess’s name would be impertinent except that the name fits Oya so very well. Some of the old people mutter that this woman who calls herself Oya is the goddess come among them in these bad times. No one, not even the chiefs or diviners (who between them claim to know the answer to every mystery) contradict this.

In this moment of intimacy, Aduke almost asks Oya who she is and where she lived before she came to Monamona a month or so before. The words are on her lips, but they shrivel into silence as she meets the older woman’s knowing eyes. Instead she says:

“Oya, when can I consult the
babalawo
?”

“Not today,” Oya says firmly. “We will wait until you are a little farther from death.”

“But if there are witches!” Aduke protests.

“Shame, shame!” Oya tuts. “And you educated at the best schools and even the university in Ibadan. What would your professors and white friends think if they heard you talking about witches?”

“They might laugh,” Aduke says defiantly, “but they have not had their baby taken by a disease that is supposed to be dead. They have not seen what walks the streets of Monamona or how we are bound into ourselves by a conspiracy of silence.”

Oya chuckles softly, not in mockery, but a warm sound, like the clucking of a sitting hen.

“I forgot, little one, that you are not only an educated woman, you are the child born after twins. The gods have given you power and, it seems, they have given you wisdom as well. Very well, Aduke Idowu, we will go to the
babalawo
soon and inquire after witches and other such dangers.”

“I am ready now,” Aduke says, surging to her feet.

“Wait,” Oya cautions. “If there are indeed witches attacking Monamona, then we must take precautions. Do you remember what you said when the boy had just died? You accused someone then, and not just a witch.”

Aduke’s eyes grow wide as she remembers. “I said that the King of Heaven had taken my son,” she whispers.