Zahrah the Windseeker

  "You won't believe where I went today," I said proudly. My door was closed and my parents were talking, so I wasn't worried about them hearing.

  "Where?"

  "The Dark Market!"

  There was silence, and then I heard scrambling as Dari ran back to his computer and sat on his bed. The picture shook as he put it on his lap.

  "What? You're kidding! Forget your hair! Get over here and talk!"

  I laughed, running back to my computer and setting it on my lap. I turned my music down a bit and maximized Dari's face to the size of my entire screen.

  "Dari, it is a magical place," I whispered, looking out the window at the blowing trees. I had been terrified when I was there, but after I got home and was able to sit and think about it, I realized that the Dark Market was wonderful. There was strange magic and even stranger people. And because I wasn't supposed to be there, well, underneath the guilt, I was excited.

  "See? How many times have I told you," Dari said, grinning widely.

  "I know. But I was so scared."

  "Of course you were scared, " Dari said. "It's a scary place! Why'd you go, anyway?"

  I laughed and shook my head. "I needed oil for my hair, and the oil lady was stationed there today."

  "How far in did you go?"

  "Far, kind of. I dunno. What's far?"

  Dari paused to think. "Did you see the man selling mirrors that show jinn if you look into them?"

  My eyebrows rose.

  "No! Thank goodness."

  "I didn't think so. It would have been the first thing you told me about. He's near the middle," Dari said. "He likes to trick people into looking at his mirrors by telling them they have something on their face."

  "Oh how cruel!"

  "Did you see the lady selling the bush hoppers?"

  "Yes," I said grinning. "She was next to the oil lady today."

  "Wow, you went much farther than I did my first time!"

  "I thought about buying one of them. I've never seen them before."

  "Don't bother," Dari said. "Bush hoppers are neat, but they're just like grasshoppers; the first chance they get they escape. And since those things can jump over two thousand feet in the air, you won't be able to recapture them."

  "Wow!" I said, fascinated. "I wish I had bought one anyway."

  "You can buy one the next time we go," he said.

  I grinned but didn't say anything. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go there again.

  "So what else did you see?"

  "There was a fish who spat water at me and sang like a rainbow spirit," I said, leaning back. "The man selling it laughed so hard, he almost fell out of his seat. And I saw where they sell the personal peppers, and ... oh! How could I forget, there was a woman with many baboons! She was beautiful but not in the usual way."

  "I've seen her," said Dari.

  I frowned and bit my lip. "You have? Are you sure?"

  Dari nodded. "She has really short hair, and some marking just below her neck."

  "Yeah, that's her," I said. "I stopped and asked her if she knew where the oil lady was, and then she talked to me a bit ... did you know she is dada?"

  Saying the word made me think about my ability to float. I hadn't thought about it since I'd gone into the Dark Market. All the strangeness there made my own strangeness seem normal, almost forgettable. But now it bothered me again.

  "Really? No, that can't be right, she doesn't—"

  I said, "She cut hers."

  "No," Dari said.

  "Yes."

  Dari ran his hand over his rough hair.

  "Her hair is shorter than mine," said Dan.

  "Yeah."

  "That's sad," he said. He paused and then shrugged. "Maybe she just wanted to be normal. No. She still stood out, from what I remember."

  We both sat there for a moment, quiet.

  "Dari?" I said.

  "Mmm."

  I was going to tell him.

  When I'd gotten home and gone to the backyard to water the plants, a strong breeze blew by, and my feet completely left the ground! I thought that I'd be swept away! Thankfully the breeze died down and I landed on shaky legs a few feet away between my mother's favorite disk flowers. No one saw me. What if it happened again when I was walking to school or just out in public? Imagine the talk that would spread.

  Dari was very observant and he picked up on my new anxiousness. I stared at his face on my screen; his thick lips were slightly smirking like usual, and his dark brown eyes were looking into mine. He seemed to be looking right into my eyes, his mind perfectly understanding mine. I could tell him anything, and he would know what to say and do. But I was still scared and confused, not ready to talk about it. Instead I shook my head.

  "Nothing," I said.

  Dari rolled his eyes. "OK, Zahrah. Anyway, have you finished your Ginen history homework yet? I'm way ahead! All that stuff about all those southwesterners who migrated south during the Carro Wars and were never seen again, that was so amazingly interesting. Did you know that some people speculate that they actually walked into another world called Earth? But there's no proof that Earth exists. No one who has supposedly gone has ever returned and..."

  I settled back, glad to let Dari talk about one of his favorite subjects. I hadn't done my history homework yet. I knew that I probably wouldn't have to after listening to Dari.

  Chapter 6

  The Pearl

  I was like a tree clam rolling a pebble under its tongue until it made a pearl. I was meticulous, thorough. I liked to gain some sort of comfort with things that bothered me before I discussed them with others. That was just me, I guess. And so it was a while before I spoke my secret aloud. Three weeks, to be exact.

  Whatever had started happening to me that day was still very much happening. The only difference was that my control of it increased. I could truly levitate. I began to relax and even enjoy it at times. It was nice to sleep an inch off the bed. The air was more comfortable than my mattress! And I could water the delicate green flowers that grew near my ceiling much more easily.

  As I grew a little more used to being able to float, I realized that I didn't feel as bad at school when Ciwanke and her entourage of friends gathered around me in the hallway and talked their nonsense. Their words sounded sillier, more childish. Still, I wished they'd quit it, though. Why did they have to be so cruel? Sometimes I thought about levitating right in front of them and watching them all run away screaming. They often called me "swamp witch," so why not do something witchlike? Just the thought was enough. Of course, I'd never do such a thing.

  Telling my mother or my lather was a laughable idea. I was sure that they'd just make a big fuss and then, before I knew it, they'd decide that I should be taken to the hospital where doctors would stick me with needles or make me swallow pills. Or equally horrible, they'd take me to the witch doctor, who'd make me drink some foul-smelling concoction.

  I considered asking Papa Grip if he knew anything about what was happening to me. He certainly wouldn't laugh at me, plus he was old, and old people tend to have a wide range of knowledge about a wide range of things. But I knew Papa Grip would tell my parents after I spoke to him. Or if he didn't, he'd say that it was only right that I tell them, and then I'd either have to tell my parents or lie to Papa Grip. No, I'd just have to keep it to myself.

  I thought about going back to the Dark Market and asking Nsibidi, the dada woman. But what would Nsibidi know? She'd cut her dadalocks off. And what if being dada had nothing to do with my ability? And even if Nsibidi knew something, I wasn't about to go back to the Dark Market without Dari.

  I had to tell him first.

  We were sitting in the baobab tree behind my house, studying for our organic mathematics class. The baobab tree was our favorite because it grew wide and low and had sturdy thick branches from the bottom all the way to the top. Of course, I stayed on the low thick branch due to my fear of heights, and Dari was on the one above it. Whenever we studied in it, I brought
my potted glow lily, which provided a soft pink light. The light was easy on our eyes. We'd been silently engulfed in equations, numbers, cells, and patterns when I said, "Dari?"

  I was tired of thinking about it. Doing so wasn't yielding any answers.

  Dari smiled. I think he knew his patience had finally paid off.

  "Yeah?"

  I hesitated, picking a bit of tree bark from my orange dress and looking at myself through one of the small mirrors sewn into the sleeves. Then I chewed on my pencil. Dari continued trying to memorize the cellular patterns of the four subphyla of CPU seeds and magnetic diatoms as he waited for me to continue speaking.

  "What is it, Zahrah?" he said closing his book.

  I paused again, the words stuck in my throat. What if Dari thinks I'm weird after I tell him? I wondered. The thought of losing his friendship made me feel sick.

  "Just tell me. Goodness." He looked down and then back at me. "Your parents won't hear."

  "You promise you won't think I'm weird?"

  "I already think you're weird."

  I frowned.

  "Just tell me. How long have we known each other? Have you no faith in me? I'm insulted!" Dari said with a laugh. "You think me monstrous, like ... like an elgort!? Vicious and simple-minded? Shallow? Unthinking? Ignorant? Insensitive?"

  I laughed.

  And then carefully, hesitantly, slowly, I told Dan about the breeze, the coming of my menses, and that night.

  "Show me," he whispered.

  And right there in the tree, hidden among the leaves, I showed him. Dari gasped as I quietly lifted a few inches off the tree branch. When I finished, I looked at him, waiting to hear the words he'd speak. It was a rare moment. Dari was at a complete loss for words.

  When he finally found some, all he could say was "Do it again! Do it again!"

  Chapter 7

  The Library

  Dari liked me for several reasons.

  "I like how you always think before you speak," he'd said once. He probably admired this because it was something he had a hard time doing. He usually ran his mouth, rarely considering before he spoke. Of course, Dari was very clever, so this wasn't much of a problem.

  When he was in a good mood, which was most of the time, he couldn't help but spread the joy by telling jokes, overblown stories, and just talking. At school even his teachers let him ramble on and on during class for longer than they should. People just loved to listen to him.

  These same people said I was creepy with my "strange" hair and quietness. But Dari didn't care either way, and that day, when we were seven years old, I had caught his interest.

  "You were frowning and staring at the jungle," he said. "I've seen you on the playground before. I just thought it was odd that no one was saying a word to you and you weren't saying a word to anyone either. I was curious."

  Dari said his father once asked him why he'd befriended "that dada girl." Dari shrugged and said, "She's thoughtful and nice." His father nodded and said, "That's true. And she's sharp too." Both of his parents thought I was nice, bright, very polite, and dressed civilized, even if I was born with that strange hair. When Dari told me this, I was very pleased.

  Dari loved me in the way only a best friend could love a best friend. It was as if I were his other half. We completed each other. But Dari had a lot of friends and knew girls who wanted to date him.

  I sought him only before and after school and once in a while during midday break. But most of the time, I preferred to keep to myself, finding a nice spot under a palm tree to be alone with whatever it was I was thinking about. Our classmates didn't even know that Dari and I were so close.

  I liked the silence and didn't really care to bask in Dari's sunshine at school. I didn't need him to vindicate me. And anyway, there was often a crooning, purple-beaked dove in that palm tree I sat under that would sing the loveliest songs, but only when it was quiet. If Dari were around, he'd make too much noise with all his talk and chatter. Dari and I understood each other.

  That Friday, Ciwanke and one of her friends slowly walked past me as I waited for Dari at our usual spot a little ways down the road from school. I rolled my eyes at the sound of her voice and looked away.

  "Whoo, look at that ugly monster on her head. Who knows what's growing in it," Ciwanke said, stopping. With my peripheral vision I could see the wooden pick she always wore in her large Afro. A wooden pick that would break if I tried to comb my hair with it.

  Her friend, Amber, dramatically grabbed Ciwanke's arm with a grin and said, "Don't get too close to her. Who knows what bad luck will rub off on you."

  I only looked at my hands. The thought of looking up and speaking to them made me nervous. To speak to them would keep them there longer. Plus my mother always said that silence was the best answer to a fool.

  "Ugh, pathetic and disgusting. I don't know why you're allowed to attend this school," Ciwanke said, walking away and patting her soft halo of black hair.

  Some steps away, I could see Dari saying goodbye to a few people. Ciwanke glanced back as he began to walk over.

  When he got to me, he dropped his backpack on the ground, put his hands on his hips, and looked at me.

  "Was she—"

  I shook my head, a signal that I didn't want to talk about it.

  "Doesn't matter," I said. "Nothing unusual."

  "Hmm," he said frowning. But he left it at that, knowing that I didn't like talking about Ciwanke and her harassment. The less I talked about it, the less of a role she played in my life, which was fine with me.

  "I don't have much homework today, do you?" I asked.

  "Nah."

  "So you want to come over or something?"

  "How about ... we go to the library?" he asked.

  I shrugged. "I don't have anything I need from there. Do you?"

  "Well," he said slowly, "we could go to look up stuff about, you know, your ability, if you want."

  I paused, biting my lip.

  "I don't think there's anything in the library about ... it," I said. But I wasn't sure. Actually, my instincts were telling me that we might find something, but I was not one to follow my instincts. I didn't trust them, plus the idea was so sudden.

  "Well, we'll never know unless we look."

  ***

  The Kirki Public Library was a huge five-story building with a cluster of impersonally grown computers on each floor. The traceboard leaves, monitors, and technological sophistication were all cultivated to suit the "average user." Dari and I both hated using them because the trace-boards—large, moist, sensitive leaves that you traced commands on—were not made for our long, skinny fingers, the monitors were too big, and they functioned way too slowly. But at least the computers did what they had to do.

  I hoped with all my heart that we would not have to venture to the fifth floor. We learned a lot about the Kirki library in history class. It was grown and nurtured forty years ago by an artist turned architect named Cana. Cana was obsessed with the beauty of glass and thus began his greatest masterpiece, a building made entirely of glassva, a transparent plant! It took Cana years to turn his idea into reality because the glassva plant was very fickle.

  After years of failure, Cana threw down his hoe and watering pod and gave up. Still, he couldn't help visiting the plot of land where he'd planted the glassva plant every day and wallowing in his failure. A month later, as he was walking to his place of barren neglect, a strange blue lightning bolt struck the plot of land. The next day, when he returned, he was shocked to find that his plant had begun to grow.

  From that point on, the plant flourished and Cana was able to cultivate it as he pleased. To this day, no one has been able to repeat the floral miracle. The building is one of a kind. Well-known authors from all over Ooni often give their readings at the Glass House of Knowledge, the name Cana gave his library masterpiece. Once, I even got to meet the author of the Cosmic Chukwu Crusader Series there! And tourists still travel to Kirki just to see the library. It's one
of the most beautiful places rn the world during sunset.

  But because the library looked as if it were made entirely of glass, it made me very aware of how high up I was at all times. Especially on the fifth floor. The ceilings of all the floors were very, very high. Many say that Cana made them this way so that women wearing dresses and skirts wouldn't have to worry about people looking up from the floor below. In all my years of going to the library, I had never gone past the fourth floor. It was simply too high. If I needed a book from the fifth floor, I asked one of the librarians to get it.

  "Just relax," Dari said. "Don't think about it until you have to. What are the chances, anyway?"

  We browsed through the catalog on the computer and found books about birds, the history of the Ooni Palace, a field guide to the flies of Ginen, but nothing about human beings who could levitate at will or even fly. Nothing even close. We sat at a study table and slouched in our seats, exhausted from typing and thinking. This was when it popped into Dari's head.

  "Ah, I've got it!" he exclaimed. "Why didn't we think of this before?!"

  We had been looking up facts. But what if what we sought wasn't believed to be a fact? What if people thought it was only a myth or legend?

  Still, Dari's inspiration proved far less fruitful than we expected. Only one book popped up which dealt with the myth of dadalocks. It was called Ooni Fashion Magazine's Best of the Year. Dari frowned. "What could this have to do with the dada myth?"

  I shrugged, scribbling down the call number. I froze when I saw where the book was located. Dari laughed.

  "Oh come now. We are not calling the librarian! You're a big girl. It's about time you got over your fear of heights, anyway."

  I didn't agree with him, but I didn't say so. I knew my fear was childish and embarrassing, but that didn't change the fact that I was afraid. Instead of begging Dari to just get the librarian, I followed him up the stairs.