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.
CHAPTER 50
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.
My friend Onyesonwu,
I love you very much but I do not want to be a part of this. Since Binta was killed, I’ve felt this way. Neither does Fanasi. The storm has stopped and we take it as a sign to flee. We don’t wish to die as Binta did. Fanasi and I have realized our love. And Luyu, yes, we have consummated our marriage. We’ll return to Jwahir, Ani willing, and have the life we are meant to have. Onye, thank you. This journey has changed us forever, for the better. We simply wish to live, not die like Binta. We’ll take news of you back to Jwahir. And we hope to hear great stories about you. Mwita, take care of Onye.
Your friends,
Diti and Fanasi.
“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.
CHAPTER 51
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.”
“Why didn’t Aro come?”
“Why do you care?”
“He’s my Master and I . . .”
“Why not ask why your mother could not come? That is more logical, no?”
I didn’t know what to say to this.
“Aro doesn’t have that ability,” Sola said. “He cannot quickly cover distance. That’s not his center. His skills lie elsewhere. So buck up. Stop whining. Tell me about your silly actions.” He snapped his dry fingers for me to get on with it.
I frowned. It’s difficult to tell something to someone who’s already deemed it silly. I told them everything I remembered, except my suspicions about it being the actual Creator who brought me back the first time.
“How long have you known that Daib was your father?” Sola asked.
“Months now,” I said. “Mwita and I . . . something happened. We’ve met him before. It’s the third time I’ve traveled like this.”
“The first time, I was the one who attacked him,” Mwita said. “The man is . . . was my Master.”
“What?” Ssaiku said loudly. “How can that be?”
“Sha,” Sola whispered. “So it comes together now.” He chuckled. “These two share the same ‘father.’ One is Daib’s biological offspring and the other is his student. It’s a sort of metaphorical incest. What isn’t immoral about these two?” He chuckled again.
Ting was looking at Mwita and me with wide fascinated eyes.
“What has Daib become?” Mwita asked. “I spent years with him. He’s as ambitious as he is powerful. A man like that always grows.”
“He’s grown like a cancer, a tumor,” Sola said. “He is like palm wine to the Palm Wine Drunkard in the Great Book, except that the intoxication Daib creates causes men to do unnatural violence. Nuru and Okeke are so like their ancestors. If I could wipe this land of you all and let the Red People roam and multiply, I would.”
I wondered, what people Sola was of and if they were any better than the Okeke or Nuru. I strongly doubted it. Even the Red People weren’t perfect.
“Let me tell you both about your . . . ‘father,’ ” Sola said. “He is the one who will bring death to your precious East. He gathers thousands of men still crazed from the ease of wiping out so many Okekes in the West. He’s convinced them that greatness lies in spreading. Daib the Military Giant. Mothers and fathers name their firstborn sons after him. He is also a powerful sorcerer. He is serious bad news.
“His words aren’t bravado. He will succeed and his followers will see the fruits of their labor. First he’ll finish off the few Okeke rebels left. Before they die, they too will be corrupted. They’ll die evil. Mwita can tell us how it is already happening, no?
“Some of these villages are valuable. Some have been allowed to manage crops like corn and palm trees. The Okeke managers of these crops have gathered a little power for their good work. They will lose it all dying or fleeing. Daib does this as we speak. Gradually, Okekes will be fully wiped from the kingdom. The only ones kept will be the most broken slaves. Very soon, it could be two weeks, maybe less, Daib will start leading the Nuru military east to seek and destroy the exiles.
“It will, quite simply, be a revolution. I’ve seen it in the bones. Once it starts, once those groups of armed Nuru boys and men leave their kingdom, you won’t be able to
stop it. You’ll be too late.”
As if I could stop it regardless, I thought. Hadn’t I just nearly gotten myself killed trying?
Sola looked at Ssaiku. “You all seem to have the right idea in these parts. Keep moving and hiding.”
Ssaiku frowned at the insult but said nothing. Ting looked angry.
“I know much about Daib,” Sola said, pinching his chin. “Should I tell you?”
“Yes,” Mwita said in a strained voice.
“He was born in the Seven Rivers town of Durfa to a woman named Bisi. The woman was Nuru but she was born dada, imagine that. Unheard of. Had hair so long that by the time she was eighteen it was dragging on the ground. She was a creative soul, so she liked to decorate her dreadlocks with glass beads. She was tall like a giraffe and loud like a lion. She was always shouting about how women were treated badly.
“It is because of Bisi that women in Durfa now receive educations. She started that school that everyone wants to be in. In secret, she helped many Okekes escape during a rash of Okeke riots. She was one of the very few who rejected the Great Book. She lived up to the dreadlocks on her head. The dada-born are usually free thinkers.
“No one knows who the father was, for no one ever really saw Bisi with one particular man. It is rumored that she had many many lovers but it’s also rumored that she had none. Regardless, one day her belly started growing. Daib was born during a normal day. There was no great storm or crash of lightning or burning corncob in the sky. I know all of this because this man was and always will be my student.”
I jumped as if kicked in the spine. Next to me Mwita cursed loudly.
“Bisi brought him to me when he was ten. I suspect she was able to contact me because she was born with tracking abilities. I never asked her. I also suspect that when she gave birth to him, she must have been thinking deeply about the state of the Seven Rivers Kingdom. It must have disgusted her. And she wished with all her heart that her son would make a change. She asked for him to be a sorcerer.