Akata Witch: A Novel

  The funky train stopped right in front of Orlu’s house. Chichi had only looked away when Sunny, Orlu, and Sasha tried to say good-bye. She was going straight to Leopard Knocks with Anatov.

  “I’ll see you all in two weeks,” Anatov said. “That Thursday in the P.M.” He too had been quiet through the trip. “Sunny,” he said, taking her hand before she got off, “did you have a good time?”

  “Best time of my life!” she surprised herself by saying.

  “Good,” he said.

  “You sure you don’t want me to drop you off in front of your house?” Jesus’s General asked. “It’s no problem.”

  “Oh, here is fine,” she said, quickly hopping off.

  They watched the funky train drive away. “What’ll they do to her?” she asked.

  “I think she’s going to get caned,” Orlu said. “That masquerade was bad, but the fact that she called it in a public place like that . . .” He shook his head.

  “This is what I hated back in America,” Sasha said.

  “What? That people get punished when they deserve to be?” Orlu said. “You should be going with her.”

  “I should,” he said, looking at his feet. Then he sucked his teeth loudly and kicked some dirt. “No one is willing to push the envelope. So what if she called up a damn Mmuo Aku and it went wild! She still did it! She still performed the most sophisticated juju any of them had ever seen.”

  “True, but you’re wrong,” Orlu said. “We can’t live in chaos. The ages are set for each level for a reason. You can be able to do something and not be mature enough to deal with the consequences. Just like—like a girl who develops breasts too fast. It doesn’t mean she’s mature or anything.”

  “Ugh!” Sunny suddenly said. “I’m going home. I’ll see you when I see you.”

  “Peace,” Sasha said, hugging her.

  “See you in class,” Orlu said, also giving her a hug. After a moment’s hesitation, he kissed her on the cheek. She touched her cheek and looked at Orlu with wide eyes. Sasha chuckled. She didn’t dare look his way. As she walked slowly down the street, she heard them start arguing again.

  Sunny returned home to music playing and her father’s laughter. His friend Ola was visiting and they were mildly drunk on palm wine as usual. “Good afternoon,” Ola said when he saw her trying to slip unnoticed to her room.

  “Good afternoon,” she said, trying to shake the dislocated feeling she was experiencing. It was like two realities fighting for dominance. “Hi, Dad.” She froze. The ghost hopper was sitting on his head.

  “How was your weekend?” he asked with a lopsided smile.

  “Um, it was good,” she said, working hard not to look at the ghost hopper. “Dad, there’s a—a leaf on your head.”

  When he brushed his head, the ghost hopper leaped onto the arm of the couch. She slipped away before he could say any more. She heard her mother laughing in the kitchen and speaking in rapid English. She had to be talking to her sister Chinwe, who lived with her African American husband in Atlanta.

  “Ah, you know you miss it,” her mother was saying. “You can’t even find half the ingredients there for a decent egusi soup.” Pause. “I know. Mhm. I plan to, but only when she’s”—she noticed Sunny come in and smiled—“ready. You want to talk to her? She just walked in. Hang on. Sunny, come and talk to your auntie.”

  Auntie Chinwe was one of Sunny’s favorites. Her mother said that she was the free spirit of the family, and that Sunny’s grandfather considered her a disappointment. In addition to marrying an “akata,” as her grandfather called her African American husband, Auntie had also decided not to become a doctor. Instead, she’d studied dance.

  Now she was a degreed professional dancer with a group called the Women of the Bush. She taught dance at Columbia University. The DVD of her shows was one of Sunny’s most prized possessions.

  “You must have had fun,” her mother said, kissing her cheek and giving her the phone.

  “It was great, Mama,” she said. “Thanks for letting me go.”

  She patted Sunny on the head.

  “Hello?” Sunny said, holding the phone to her ear. Her mother left the room to give them a little privacy.

  “Sunny,” Auntie said. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I hear you were out with your friends yesterday.”

  “Yeah. It was great. It was nice to be out of the house and all.”

  With her peripheral vision, she could see two ghost hoppers sitting on a bunch of plantains on the floor. One of them was munching on the stem. So there was more than one.

  “Well, I’m glad that you’ve made some good friends, and that my sister has finally loosened the leash. You’re a responsible girl and you should be treated that way.”

  Sunny felt a little guilty.

  “Auntie?” She stepped over to look into the hall to make sure her mother wasn’t hiding behind the door, as she often did.

  “Mhm?”

  She lowered her voice. “Tell me about Grandma—just a little bit. Something. Every time I ask Mama, she refuses to tell me.” There was a pause, a long pause. “Auntie? Are you there? Hello?”

  “Yes, I’m here,” Auntie said. “Where’s your mother?”

  “She’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Why do you want to know? Was someone teasing you?”

  “No,” she said. “No—nothing like that.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes,” she said. She heard footsteps. “Mama’s coming! Can you tell me—”

  “No,” Auntie Chinwe said. “I can’t tell you much of anything. Our mother—your grandmother—wasn’t crazy, but she was full of secrets that she took to her grave. She never let any of us really know her.”

  “But how do you know there were secrets?”

  Her mother walked in.

  “Because I have eyes and I have ears,” Auntie said.

  “Okay, Sunny,” her mother said. “Let me finish talking to my sister before her phone card runs out.”

  “Look in your mother’s side of their bedroom,” Auntie said quickly. “She keeps some things in a box, I think.”

  “Okay,” she quickly said. “Love you.”

  “Love you, too, sweetie,” Auntie said as her mother took the phone.

  “Sister? So how are little James and Gozie?”

  Sunny took a small package of biscuits and went to her room. She closed and locked the door and sunk to the floor. Never in her life had she had so much swimming in her head. Never, ever, ever. She would have curled up and gone to sleep right there if she hadn’t seen a ghost hopper sitting on her bed.

  She dragged herself up. Carefully, she picked up the ghost hopper. She was surprised when it didn’t struggle. She’d seen one move lightning-fast when it wanted to, and she was sure its legs were very powerful. It weighed about a pound, and she had to use both hands. Its body felt substantial, despite its ghostly appearance. She set it on her dresser.

  She lay on her bed and brought out her new juju knife. It truly was magnificent. What was the blade made of? She held it and at once felt that odd sensation of it being part of her.

  She yelped when she felt something moving in her pocket. She was about to tear off her jeans, thinking it was a remaining wasp or ant from the masquerade, then she remembered. It felt long ago since Junk Man had given her the small blue bean. She held it up as it softly giggled and shook between her fingers. She placed it under her bed as he had instructed. Then she picked up her newspaper.

  When she unrolled it, a smaller circular newspaper fell out. Special Leopard Report, it read. There was a soft drumbeat that reminded her of the terrifying masquerade.

  CORRUPTION IN THE OBI LIBRARY

  OTOKOTO THE BLACK HAT STEALS TOP-SECRET BOOK FROM THE FOURTH FLOOR

  “My God!” Sunny flung the newspaper across the room. “No more!” Not a second passed before she heard a loud crackling sound. The bean. “Thought he said to wait a few days,” she sai
d, frowning. She hung over the bed and watched a small blue wasp emerge. She shuddered, but then she relaxed. This wasp didn’t seem full of stinging, deadly mischief.

  It moved groggily around the empty casing. Then it picked up half, flew to her dresser, and dropped it. It retrieved the other half and did the same. Then it rested for a moment. A minute later, it began to noisily eat the casings, making crunching and cracking sounds.

  “I hope you’re not poisonous,” she muttered, putting the opened package of biscuits next to the wasp. Before she knew it, she was asleep.

  Something woke her around midnight. PHC had taken the lights, and because it was a cool night, the generator had not been turned on. A clicking sound came from her dresser. She grabbed her flashlight and turned it on. The biscuit package was empty, and beside it was a castle the size of her hand made of what looked like crumbs. The blue wasp stood on top of the castle as if waiting for applause.

  “Oh my goodness,” she said, smiling at the nonsense of it all. “That’s—wow!” She softly clapped and the wasp buzzed with pleasure. She spent the next two hours doing homework before finally going back to bed.

  17

  Basic Juju

  The next two weeks passed quickly. Sunny spent most of it studying and reading and practicing and reading more. She was living two lives. In Lamb school, she did well in her classes and kept away from Jibaku, who seemed to believe that what she’d seen during their fight was just Sunny’s extremely ugly face. In Leopard school, she did as well as she could.

  The next time they met after Abuja, they didn’t do much. Chichi was still recovering from her caning. Sunny winced when she saw Chichi’s back. The skin wasn’t broken, but it was very bruised and tender. The council people didn’t make empty threats; if you broke the big rules, you paid a big price. Chichi refused to talk about it and got angry at the slightest mention of Sugar Cream.

  After that, to Orlu’s great dissatisfaction, Sasha and Chichi grew more obsessed with Udide’s Book of Shadows. Thankfully, they only read and discussed the book.

  They also grew obsessed with something else. Days after Chichi’s caning, Sunny and Orlu had gone to Chichi’s hut after school, only to find Sasha and Chichi standing in the doorway locking lips.

  “What the—!” Sunny exclaimed. Sasha and Chichi jumped apart, straightening their clothes. Sasha grinned and shrugged. Chichi only laughed. Orlu rolled his eyes and Sunny just stood there, shocked. Totally unexpected. She glanced at Orlu and looked away.

  “It’s nothing,” Chichi said, going into the hut.

  “Yeah,” Sasha said.

  But Sunny saw how he watched Chichi go inside. This was not “nothing.” And it wasn’t the last time she saw them kissing, either.

  On top of this, Orlu was careful around her. He was the same Orlu she’d always known, except that he made it more of a point to open doors for her, things like that. Once, he even bought her some chocolates. Chichi and Sunny never discussed her and Orlu, or Chichi and Sasha. It was an unspoken agreement between the four of them.

  By the second week, Sunny knew several basic knife jujus, like how to amplify her voice, move small things, and keep mosquitoes away. But nothing that would harm a monster like Black Hat Otokoto.

  “It’s so weird,” she said one day as they sat outside Chichi’s hut. “It builds something new every day. I leave my window open so it can go out and find new materials and hide from my mother.”

  “It’s a wasp artist,” Orlu said. “They live for their art. If you want it to live for a long time, make sure you let it out like you’ve been doing, and show it that you appreciate its work.”

  “I’d smash the thing,” Sasha said. “My sister had one when she was small, and when she forgot to give it praise once, it got pissed and stung her. Its sting paralyzes you for ten minutes so you can do nothing but watch it build its ‘final masterpiece’ and then keep watching as it dramatically dies. The damn things are psychotic.”

  “Not if you treat them well,” Orlu said.

  “You shouldn’t be forced to treat anything well,” Sasha said, giving Orlu an annoyed look. “It should be your choice.”

  “Not all things are a choice,” Orlu said. “Some things should come naturally.”

  “For me, it—”

  “Will you two shut up?” Chichi snapped.

  Sunny laughed. Things were back to normal.

  18

  Seven Rainy Days

  Even though it was the middle of harmattan dry season, it had been raining for almost a week. The markets were muddy. The streets were flooded. The schools had closed two days ago. The rain was so unexpected that, though it was perfect mosquito weather, there were no more mosquitoes than there usually were. It was as if someone had flipped a switch marked RAIN.

  The morning of the seventh rainy day in a row started like almost any other.

  The first thing Sunny did when she woke up was look at her cabinet. Her wasp artist, whom she’d decided to name Della (after the famous sculptor she’d read about on the Internet named Luca della Robbia), had built a mud sculpture of the mermaid deity Mami Wata. As always, the wasp stood on top of its creation waiting for her response.

  “That’s really beautiful, Della,” she said, meaning it.

  It buzzed its wings with glee, circled its creation, and then flew out the window. Sunny unrolled her Leopard Knocks Daily. Tomorrow they were to meet with Anatov and probably find out what they were expected to do about Black Hat. She braced herself for news of his latest act of debauchery.

  Instead, the headline read, RAIN, RAIN, PLEASE GO AWAY!

  She laughed, relieved. Everything was rained out. Even the criminals seemed to have taken cover. Maybe Black Hat’s hat wasn’t broad enough to protect him from the rain, either.

  She went to get some breakfast and froze. Her heart threatened to leap from her chest. There at the kitchen table sat her mother, and she was handing a cup of hot tea to . . . Anatov.

  “Good—good morning?” Sunny squeaked.

  “Sunny,” her mother said, looking uncharacteristically rattled. “Sit.”

  Sunny had to really force herself to move.

  “This is—this is the son of a friend of your grandmother’s—my mother.” Her mother’s hands shook as she picked up her cup of tea. She laughed to herself. She sounded on the verge of tears.

  “Yes,” Anatov said. He poured a large amount of cream into his tea, stirred it, and took a sip. “I was in town and decided to . . . drop by.”

  Sunny could only nod.

  Suddenly, her mother whirled around and faced her. She obviously wanted to say something. Instead she kissed Sunny’s cheek and nearly ran out of the room.

  Anatov took a calm sip of tea. Sunny waited. “We’re going to Leopard Knocks,” he said.

  “What? But it’s—isn’t that tomorrow?”

  “Bring your knife, your powders, and one of your umbrellas.”

  “Won’t my mom—”

  “She won’t stop you,” he said. “Go fetch your things. There’s little time.”

  One of the official Obi Library cars waited outside. Behind the wheel was a short, unsmiling Hausa man. A lit cigarette hung from his lips.

  “Put it out, Aradu,” Anatov snapped.

  “Sorry, sir,” Aradu said, quickly flicking the cigarette out the window.

  Sunny looked back at her mother, who stood like a statue in the front doorway. Sunny waved. Her mother didn’t wave back. She just stood there as they drove away.

  Maybe she knew she would never see her daughter again.

  The driver maneuvered the car easily, first on the muddy road and then on the slick street. It was an oddly smooth ride. When they accelerated, there was no sound at all. Clearly, like the funky train, the car ran on some kind of juju. Sunny wondered why the Leopard People didn’t share this technology with the rest of the world. It would solve some serious environmental problems.

  They passed Orlu and Chichi’s houses. “Aren’t we pick
ing up—”

  “They’ll meet us there,” Anatov said. “Your home situation is not so easy, so I had to come get you.”

  “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “When we get there.” She nodded and looked out the window. “You’ve made good progress, Sunny,” Anatov said.

  “Thanks.”

  “What I’d like you to think about, though, is who you are. Because within that knowledge is the key to how much you can learn.”

  She frowned, thinking about what had just happened with her mother. “Oga,” she whispered, “these days I don’t really think I know who I am.” Anatov was silent. “What do you know of my grandmother? Who was she?”

  “Only her oldest daughter, your mother, can tell you that.”

  “Why won’t you tell me?” she asked desperately.

  “It’s not my place,” Anatov said.

  “Was she bad?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Why was she Black Hat’s teacher? Of all people?” she asked.

  When Anatov remained silent, she pounded her fist against her leg. For a while, the windshield wipers going back and forth were the only sound.

  Anatov patted her shoulder. “We have a half-hour drive,” he said. “Take the time to relax while you can.” He leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Put on some Lagbaja.”

  Sunny closed her eyes and listened to the afrobeat music.

  The car stopping woke her up. They were outside of the Obi Library. Sasha and Orlu were already there. “Wait here,” Anatov said, and went inside.

  They were too nervous to talk. Instead, they just stood together, shoulder to shoulder. Five minutes later, Chichi arrived with her mother, walking under a large green umbrella. Even with the umbrella, both of their cheeks were wet. Chichi looked shaken. Her mother sniffled and wiped her eyes. Chichi gave her a tight hug and watched her mother walk down the street toward the Leopard Knocks markets.