Who Fears Death (40 page)

“I could look at them all day,” Mwita said.

“But this hand is useless,” I said, making a fist with my right hand. “Or should I say dangerous.”

“So when do you think we’ll be, well, moving on?” Luyu asked.

“Luyu, I can barely walk,” I said.

“But you’ll be able to soon enough. I know you,” she said. “I’m in no hurry really. It’s nice here. But in a way I am. I . . . I was talking to some men. They told me things, about how it is in the West.” She paused. “I know something has happened to you.” She took a deep breath and steadied herself. “I pray, I pray to Ani, I swear to Ani, that you better be the real thing. You have to be the one prophesied.” She paused, looking with wide eyes at Mwita, then me. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean . . .”

“It’s all right,” I said. “I’ve told him.”

Mwita cocked his head, eyeing me. “You told her before telling me?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Luyu said. “What matters is that it has to be true because what’s happening over there, what waits for you to put an end to it, is of the oldest evil. I used to think it was the Nurus. They were born ugly and superior . . . but, it’s deeper than humans.” She wiped her eyes. “We can’t stay here too long. We have things to do!”

Mwita took Luyu’s hand and squeezed it. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Ssaiku’s tent was warm and comfortable. There were empty plates around us. We were alive. We were where we needed to be in that moment. I pushed aside my growing doubts and reached forward and took Mwita’s and Luyu’s hands and, with our heads down, we instinctively shared a prayer.

Then Luyu let go of our hands. “I’m going to go . . . socialize. If you need me come to the tent of Ssun and Yaoss.” She smirked. “Call out before entering.”

I soon fell into a warm black recharging sleep. I woke up with sun in my eyes as it shined through the tent’s flap. My body ached a hello. Mwita’s arm was clamped around me. He was softly snoring. When I tried to move it, he held me tighter. I yawned and brought up my right hand. I held it in the sunshine and willed it to sprout feathers. With great great ease, it did. I turned to Mwita and met his open eyes.

“Has it been twenty-five hours yet?” I asked.

“Can you wait another hour?” he asked, reaching between my legs. He was disappointed when his fingers came away bloody. My monthly had arrived. As if from the realization, the womb pain descended on me, and I suddenly felt nauseated.

“Lie down,” Mwita said, jumping up and wrapping his waist with his rapa. He left and came back with a bundle of clothes and a fresh rapa.

“Here,” he said and placed a tiny dried leaf in my mouth. “One of the women gave me a small sack of it.”

It was bitter but I managed to chew and swallow it. I got up, took care of myself, and then lay back down. My nausea was already decreasing. Mwita poured me a glass of the remaining palm wine. It was sour but my body welcomed it.

“Better?”

I nodded. “Now tell me a story.”

“Before I say anything, note that we’ve
both
been keeping secrets,” Mwita said.

“I know,” I said.

“Okay.” He paused, pulling at his short beard. “You can travel the way you do because you have the ability to
alu
. You’re . . .”

“
Alu?
” I said. The word had a familiar sound to it. “You mean like Alusi?”

“Just listen, Onyesonwu.”

“How long have you known?” I asked, frantic.

“Known what? You don’t even know what you’re asking.”

I frowned but held my mouth shut, looking at my hands.
So going “away” was called alu,
I thought.

“Your mother is close to the Ada,” Mwita said.

I frowned. “So?”

Mwita took my shoulders. “Onyesonwu, be quiet. Let me talk. You listen.”

“Just . . .”

“Shh,” he said.

I sighed, putting my hands over my face.

“Your mother is close to the Ada,” he calmly said. “They talk. The Ada is Aro’s wife. They talk. And you know what Aro is to me. We talk. This is how I know about your mother. It’s good that it happened this way because now I can tell
you
.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” I asked. “Why didn’t my mother tell me?”

“Onyesonwu?”

“Talk faster, then,” I said.

“I’ve thought about it,” he said, ignoring me. “Your mother knew exactly what she was doing when she asked that you be a sorceress once you were born and a girl. It was her revenge.” He looked down at me. “Your mother can travel within, she can
alu
. The word for the mythical creature we know of as the Alusi comes from the actual sorcerer’s term ‘to
alu
,’ to ‘travel within.’ She . . .”

I held up a hand. “Wait,” I said. My heart pounded hard. It all fell into place. I thought about the
Kponyungo
that had taken me
alu
. Its voice had sounded familiar but I didn’t know why. This was because it was my mother’s, a voice I’d never really heard.
She loved Kponyungos
, I thought.
How did I not know?
“The
Kponyungo
was my mother?” I whispered to myself.

Mwita nodded. Another thought occurred to me:
Maybe that’s why I couldn’t make myself the same size as her when she took me
alu
. Maybe, when
alu
one can’t outgrow her own parent.

“So I get the ability from her?”

“Right,” he said. “And . . . this may have caused . . .” He shook his head. “No, that’s not the right way to put it.”

“Don’t make it easy,” I insisted. “Just tell me. Tell me everything.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said quietly.

I scoffed. “If you haven’t noticed, I can take pain fairly well.”

“Okay,” he said. “Well, the fact is your mother would have passed initiation. This is what Aro believes after talking to both your mother and the Ada. It has something to do with your grandmother. Do you know anything about your grandparents?”

“Not much,” I said, rubbing my face. What he was telling me felt so unreal, yet it made sense. “Nothing like that.”

“Well, that’s what Aro believes,” he said. “You know how you felt when you met Ting and Ssaiku, that repellence and attraction? There is always energy between your kind.” He paused. “It’s why your mother chose to live when she realized she was carrying you. It’s part of why you and your mother are so close. And it’s probably why Daib chose your mother to impregnate. Your mother can become two beings, herself and an Alusi—she can split herself.

“Aro didn’t tell you because he didn’t think you needed more surprises. Plus you hadn’t shown any hint of going
alu
back then
.
I don’t think he’d have ever imagined you’d have the ability so strong.”

I sat back, my mouth hanging open.

“While I’m telling you all this,” Mwita said. “I might as well tell you the rest of what I know about your mother.”

I wish it was my mother who told me what Mwita went on to tell me. I’d have loved to hear it from her. But my mother has always been full of secrets. It was that Alusi side, I guess. Even when she showed me the green place, she preferred to do it without me knowing it was her. My mother never told me much about her childhood, either.

All I really knew was that she was close to her brothers and her father, Xabief. Not so much her mother, Sa’eeda. My mother’s people were Salt People. Their main business was selling salt extracted from a giant pit that used to be a salt water lake. My mother’s people were the only ones who knew how to get to it. Her father used to take her and her older brothers along on the two-week journey to collect and bring back salt. She loved the road and she couldn’t bear to be away from her father for so long.

According to Mwita, my mother’s mother, Sa’eeda, was also a free spirit. And though she loved her children, motherhood was not easy for her. To have all her children out of the house for those months suited her well. And it suited her husband well, too, for fatherhood came easily to him and he loved and understood his wife.

On the Salt Road, my mother learned to love the desert, the roads, the open air. She used to drink milky tea and have loud raucous conversations with her brothers and father. But there was more to these trips. Wherever she was out there in the desert, her father would encourage her to fast.

“Why?” she’d asked the first time.

“You’ll see,” her father had replied.

I wondered if maybe she even met a
Kponyungo
here, too, as it rose out of the salt beds.

I closed my eyes as Mwita told me these things that my mother had told the Ada and never told me.

“So she had perfect control of this even back then?” I asked.

“Even Aro looked envious when he told me about how many places your mother has traveled to,” Mwita said. “Especially the forests.”

“Oh, Mwita, it was so beautiful.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Mwita said. “So much life. Your mother . . . how all that must have touched her.”

“Mama is . . . I never knew,” I whispered. “But who asked for it to be so with her? If she would have passed initiation, someone had to ask for it to be so.”

Mwita shrugged. “My guess is that it was her father.”

“Something terrible must have happened for him to have asked.”

“Maybe.” He took my hand. “One last thing. When we left Jwahir, Aro was considering taking on your mother as his student.”

“What?” I sat up. The healing cuts on my chest and the bruises on my legs throbbed.

“And you know she’ll say yes.” Mwita said.

ALL MORNING I FELT STRANGE IN MY SKIN. My body ached horribly from Daib’s evil thrashing. I was full of doubt about my own abilities and purpose. My monthly made my womb hot as a rock fire stone. My hands were covered in juju drawings. My right hand was dangerous. My mother was more than I’d imagined and what she was was in me. And the same with my biological father. But life never stops.

“I’ll be back soon,” Mwita said. “Can you manage?”

“I can,” I said. I felt awful but I wanted some time alone, too.

Minutes later, as I was slowly stretching my legs, Luyu came running in.

“They’ve gone!” she screeched.

“Eh?” I said.

“They left when the sandstorm stopped,” Luyu babbled. “They took Sandi.”

“Stop, wait, who?!”

“Diti, Fanasi,” Luyu cried. “All their things are gone. I found this.”

The letter was written in Diti’s squiggly handwriting on a piece of torn white cloth.

“Sandi felt they needed her more than we did,” I whispered, tears dribbling down my face. “The sweet camel. She doesn’t like either of them much.”

I looked up at Luyu. “I’m with you to the end,” she said. “That’s why I came.” She paused. “And that’s why Binta came.”

Ting rushed in. “Ssaiku’s back,” she said. “You’re dressed? Good.” She ducked out. A moment later, she returned with Ssaiku and a nervous looking Mwita. He was followed by someone draped in black robes. My legs went weak.

LUYU SLIPPED OUT AS SOLA CEREMONIOUSLY SWEPT IN. He was much taller than I’d have expected him to be. The only two times I’d seen him, during my initiation and just before leaving Jwahir, he’d been sitting. Now, he seemed to tower over even me. I couldn’t tell because of his long heavy robes but I think he was long-legged like Ting, for she too looked much shorter when sitting.

“Onyesonwu, get us palm wine,” Sola ordered, sitting down.

“Just outside,” Ssaiku said. “You’ll see it.”

I was glad to have a reason to get out of there. Diti and Fanasi were gone. Over a day away. They had Sandi with them but I wasn’t sure if even she could keep them alive. If one of them got sick . . . I pushed the thought from my mind. Whether they lived or died, they were gone. I refused to wonder if I would ever see them again.

The palm wine was next to Ssaiku’s camels, packed with other supplies. I pulled out two of the green bottles. When I reentered the tent, Ting got up to get glasses. “Follow my lead,” she mumbled, moving past me. She handed a glass to Sola and then I poured, then Ssaiku, then Mwita. Then she held a glass out and I poured for her and then myself. We sat on mats in a circle, our legs crossed. Mwita on my left, Ting on my right, and Ssaiku and Sola across from us. For too long, we all sat drinking and staring at each other. Sola took very small sips of his wine. As before, his robe’s hood came over his head to hide the upper part of his face.

“Let me see your hands,” Sola finally said in his dry thin voice. He took my left hand and hesitated slightly before taking my right. He ran the pad of his thumb over my symboled skin, holding his yellow nail up so as not to scratch me. “Your student is gifted,” he told Ssaiku.

“You knew it before I did,” Ssaiku said.

Sola smiled, his teeth were white and perfect. “True. I knew Ting before she was even born.” He looked at me, “Tell me how it happened.”

“Huh?” I said confused. “Oh . . . well, we were out there near the edge of the storm and . . .” I paused. “
Oga
Sola, may I ask you one question first?”

“You may ask two, since you’ve just asked one.”