Lagoon (12 page)

CHAPTER 28

THE PLANTAIN TREE

Adaora grasped her son Fred's hand as they watched Father Oke, who stood a few feet away. Someone had thrown a rock at him, and then one of the people in his flock responded by throwing a bottle of Coke toward where the rock had come from. Now the tall, sour-faced man who'd initially thrown the rock stood before Father Oke. The woman who'd been splashed with Coke and broken glass stood behind him, glaring angrily at Father Oke.

Father Oke raised his hands, pleading, “I . . . I didn't throw—”

The man slapped Father Oke hard across the face. As Father Oke went down, two of his followers surged forward, only to be yanked back by other followers.

“You may not have thrown it, Father, but you've kept my mother poor with your damned church,” the man who'd slapped him sneered, looking down at the cowering bishop. “Rubbish.” He glared at the stunned followers and spat to the side. “All of you are rubbish.”

“Look am!” a young man in the onlooking crowd said. “Na de idiot priest who go slap woman on YouTube! Na justice!”

“See how you like it!” a woman shouted at Oke. “Who winch now?!”

Adaora would have smiled if she hadn't been in fear for Father Oke's life. She despised him, but she didn't want him beaten to death by a mob. She squeezed Fred's hand harder, and he squeezed back. “Mommy,” he said, tears in his eyes. “Don't let go.”

“I won't.”

Near the front door in the yard, Ayodele was watching all the
wahala
in the crowd, a pleasant smile on her face. Anthony stood beside Ayodele, grasping Kola's hand as the little girl continued to film, holding the camera with her other hand.

Benson still stood outside the wrought-iron gate. “Shoot it!” Benson yelled to the soldiers on his left, spit flying from his mouth. He was standing beside Adaora, hopping from one foot to the other like a child about to have an accident, his eyes wide and wild. He was pointing at Ayodele. “Shoot it, Private Elenwoke! Shoot it
now
!”

“No!” Adaora shouted. Still holding Fred's hand, she turned to Benson. “No! Don't!”

Private Elenwoke looked confused as he raised his AK-47 and aimed through the gate at Ayodele.

Ayodele's eyes fell on him.

“Don't!” Adaora screamed.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

The smile dropped from Ayodele's face as she stumbled back and looked down at her abdomen. There were several holes through her white dress, at her belly and her chest.

“Kola!” Adaora screamed. Kola had been next to Ayodele, filming her, when the soldiers started shooting. Now she was sitting at Ayodele's feet. Her left arm was bleeding. Adaora let go of Fred's hand and pushed past Benson and Father Oke's white-robed followers, fumbling for her key ring. She shoved a key in the keyhole and opened the gate. The moment she was in, Fred ran to her and grabbed her hand. They both ran to Kola. Adaora heard people flooding into the yard behind her.

She reached her daughter as Anthony stood looking down at Ayodele, who'd begun shrieking and thrashing. Adaora picked Kola up and moved her away from the woman writhing on the ground.

Kola was whimpering as she sat, trying not to look at her left arm. “Is it bad, Mommy? Is it bad?”

“It's not bad, honey,” Adaora said, looking over her daughter's arm. Blood pumped from the gunshot wound to the beat of Kola's heart. It took all Adaora had to stay calm. “Relax,” she breathed. “Lie down, sweetie.” As Kola did so, Adaora took her arm and held it up. Gravity would slow the blood loss. She wasn't sure if she should apply pressure with the bullet possibly still in there. Beside her, Fred began to cry.

Adaora glanced at Anthony. He was looking down at Ayodele, who screamed and undulated and . . . began to melt. The sound of marbles on glass was everywhere, filling Adaora's head, the noise making it hard to think. Adaora could feel even the tiny hairs on her face vibrating and pulling. Her stomach shuddered and her head throbbed. Benson and five soldiers stood over them, pointing guns at Ayodele, expressions uncertain.

Benson was shouting at Ayodele; he'd been shouting the whole time. “Don't move! Just, just, just stay right there, now.”

A soldier knelt beside Kola with a first aid kit.

“Keep her arm up,” he said, opening up the box.

“Ah!” she heard Fred cry. She turned round to see Chris wrapping his arms around the boy, and every muscle in her body tensed.

“It's okay,” Chris whispered into his son's ear. “Shhh.” He looked at Adaora. “Is she okay?”

“She's been shot,” Adaora said.

They looked into each other's eyes for several seconds. Then Chris nodded at Adaora and she nodded back. The soldier was examining Kola's arm. The bleeding didn't appear to be slowing.

Yards away, Ayodele was still shrieking as Anthony stood over her, unsure of what to do. She had bled not a drop of blood. She wasn't just melting, she was
disintegrating
. Her skin was growing grainy, her hands and the lower part of her face losing their shape. Her dress melted away like cotton candy touched by water. She was staring at Kola, and Kola was staring at her. Then Ayodele looked up at Benson, her gaze moving wildly between him and the other
soldiers. Her left eye had dissolved to nothing, but the look in her still intact right eye was one of pure hatred.

Benson fired his gun, hitting Ayodele in the leg. Anthony leaped to the side. “Shoot it!” Benson yelled. “Kill it! Kill it!” Three soldiers opened fire on Ayodele again. They shot her in the thighs, chest, face, everywhere. Her fragile, graying body was hopping and jerking on the ground. Adaora pulled Kola close as the child screamed and sobbed. She hoped Chris was doing the same for Fred.

The sound of marbles grew so loud that she hunched over Kola to protect her from the harsh noise. She struggled to keep Kola's arm up. Through it all she could hear muffled screaming. The voices of men, not Ayodele. Then she felt more than heard a wet
pop!
, and hot liquid sprayed across her face. And then . . . silence.

She opened her eyes and immediately wanted to shut them again.

Where the soldiers had stood, heaps of raw meat wriggled and then became still. Her husband was covering Fred's face. The one soldier who had been tending to Kola's arm had his hands over his ears and his eyes shut. Anthony was on the lawn, mere steps away, his head pressed to the grass, his hands over his head. All of them were wet with blood. Adaora was the only one in the group who had her eyes open. There were people from the crowd in the yard, some running into the house, others standing yards away, staring. Most were still cowering, terrified by the gunshots and alien noise. However, Adaora focused only on her children, husband, the soldier beside her, Anthony, and . . . the alien. Ayodele slowly got up and stood tall before the veiny masses of yellow-white fat, pink-red tissue and muscle, bunched brown skin, and broken bone. She was whole, spotless, and now wearing a plain brown dress. She was scowling at Adaora.

Adaora looked up at her, pleading silently. She didn't know what she was asking for but she was pleading. These aliens had come in
peace
. Had come.
Had.

Ayodele turned to the bloody lumps, and Adaora hid her face in
Kola's neck. “It's going to be fine,” she murmured into her daughter's ear. She heard the sound of marbles again. And when she looked up this time, she hoped that Ayodele would be gone. She was not. But the wet piles of meat, the scattered clothes, even the spattered blood, were gone as though they had never been there.

In their place was a plantain tree, heavy with unripe plantain. Adaora stared at it, understanding what had happened. She felt like both vomiting and sighing with relief. Ayodele had taken the elements of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium that had been Benson and the other soldiers and rearranged them into a plant.
Does the soul transform too?
Adaora wondered. She'd never believed in God, but she was a scientist and knew that matter could be neither created nor destroyed. It just changed form.

“Are you happy with
that
?” Ayodele snapped at Adaora.

Adaora nodded.

“I am not,” Ayodele said. She walked toward the gate. In the emptying street, a few people were fighting, some were gawking, others crying, but most of them fleeing. Adaora's mouth fell open as she noticed this for the first time. She'd been so focused on what was happening in the yard that she hadn't realized that something worse had happened in the street! There were
bodies
lying on the road, wounded people crawling to safety, a car burning, people crying. Adaora could hear the sound of glass breaking.

“Don't,” Kola whispered. She cringed at the pain in her arm. She was looking at Ayodele, now halfway across the yard. “We need you.”

Adaora looked at her daughter, shocked.
No! No, leave us. Keep going,
she thought to Ayodele.
I beg you.

Somehow, over all the noise, Ayodele heard Kola's soft words. She stopped.

“I'm sorry that you hurt,” Kola said weakly. “So do I.”

Ayodele came back to them. Chris got to his feet and picked up Fred, backing away from Ayodele as she knelt beside Kola. There
were tears in Ayodele's eyes. Adaora put a protective arm around Kola as Ayodele looked at them. As Adaora watched, two tiny, dented metal objects fell from beneath Ayodele's brown gown; one landed in the grass beside her, and the other landed on her thigh and tumbled to the grass. It was still hot, but not enough to burn. A bullet.

Ayodele looked into Adaora's eyes. Adaora held her breath. The warm, curious, lighthearted being that Ayodele had been was gone. The eyes Adaora looked into now were those of an angry, bitter old woman. Adaora didn't move away with Kola as Ayodele leaned closer. It was instinct. Despite the look on Ayodele's face, Adaora knew this creature would not harm her child. Ayodele unwrapped the tight bandage from Kola's arm. Blood immediately began to seep out of the wound.

“Mommy,” Kola moaned. Adaora took her other hand.

“It's okay,” Adaora whispered.

The expression on Ayodele's face softened as she ran her hand over the blood on Kola's arm. Wherever her hand touched, it absorbed the blood like a sponge. Soon, there was only the bullet wound left. Adaora's stomach clenched at the sight of it. Ayodele lightly touched the injury, and her hand seemed to disintegrate into a colorful mist like the type one would see rising from a waterfall in the early-morning sun. Kola tensed as the mist sank into her arm.

“Does it hurt?” Adaora asked, trying to keep her voice calm.

“Feels like ants,” Kola whimpered. “I hate ants. I hate ants, Mommy!”

“They are not ants, dear,” Ayodele said, her voice gentle and soft, almost as it had been before. “It is me. I am
speaking
with you. Rebuild yourself, Kola.”

Kola closed her eyes, and Adaora could have sworn she felt heat pulse from her daughter. She smelled smoke.

“Good,” Ayodele said. “Become better.”

Kola was breathing heavily now and frowning, her eyes still shut.
Now Adaora could actually see the acrid-smelling smoke lifting from her daughter's arm. It was thick and white and rose lazily into the air like incense.

When Ayodele took her hand away, the hole was gone. Kola took one look at her healed flesh and then leaned forward and vomited, coughing between heaves from the smoke.

“It is overwhelming,” Ayodele said flatly. Adaora didn't think she sounded all that overwhelmed.

Something crashed, but not from the street. Adaora looked up at her house. “Oh my God!”

The smell of smoke hadn't come from her daughter's healed arm. Something in the house was on fire. Her husband, Anthony, and the soldier who'd been helping Kola ran inside. Ayodele followed at a walk. Adaora scrambled to her feet, hesitated, and then followed, dragging Kola and Fred.

While Ayodele had been transforming the soldiers, dispelling bullets from her flesh, and healing Kola's arm, looters had stolen Chris and Adaora's televisions and computers. They'd tracked in dirt and destroyed the back door. And someone had purposely turned on the gas stove and tried to set some yams from the pantry on fire. Chris put out the smoldering tubers with the fire extinguisher. The soldier, whose name was Hassam, helped too, though he had a glazed look of shock and confusion in his eyes. “That woman healed the child,” he said, turning the stove off and opening a window. “She kills
and
gives life.”

Adaora sat the children at the kitchen table, and Ayodele sat across from them. She made a fist and rested it on the table. To Adaora, this was worse than slamming it. She paused, glancing at her husband, who was a few steps away. Then she went to check on her lab. The lab's door was closed. A good sign.

“I hate humans,” Ayodele said. Adaora could hear her clearly, even though Ayodele was in the kitchen and she was down the hall. “I want nothing to do with you,” Ayodele continued. “Any of you.”

Adaora frowned, about to go back to the kitchen. She trusted Ayodele to not hurt her children, but that was as far as her trust went. Ayodele had caused those men to explode and then turned them into a tree. That's what one got for trying to kill her. . . . Could she even
be
killed? Adaora didn't know.
Maybe Ayodele responded so strongly because they made her experience pain,
Adaora thought.
The way she was screaming and thrashing, she was not just in pain, she was shocked to be in it.
Whatever the reason, it clearly wasn't good to get on her bad side. Adaora brought out the key to her lab as she grasped the door's knob. Her heart was racing.

“Do you hate all of us?” she heard Kola ask Ayodele. “You just saved me.”