One of the bigger beads hit Sunny square between the eyes, and for a moment there was a strange sensation of her drifting to the side when she wasn’t. The bead bounced on the bridge’s wood and rolled into the river. The second bead flew into the water, plunging in feet away from the river beast. This seemed to wake it and when it did, it fled back into the deep. Sunny stared at where the river beast had been, where the bead had flown, because the bead was real, a physical thing. Then she turned and ran off the bridge. Chichi screamed with relief as Sunny emerged from the bridge. “What happened?!” Chichi shouted. “We thought the river beast took you!”
“It tried,” Sunny tiredly said.
Sasha and then Orlu came running. Sasha only touched Sunny’s wet hair and hugged her head to his hip. Sunny leaned against him as Orlu knelt before her and took her hands. “What happened?” Orlu asked. His eyes were red and twitchy.
“Ekwensu,” Sunny whispered. “She’s back. She threw a bead and it was real and . . .”
Chichi used a drying juju on Sunny. She had to perform the spell twice because the first one left Sunny still damp and mildew-smelling. The second one left her dry, perfumed, and warm. “Thanks, Chichi,” Sunny said. Chichi only looked at Sunny with stunned, puffy eyes. They hugged and didn’t let go of each other for several minutes.
“Wait,” Sunny finally said, pulling away from her friend. “I have to do something.”
She stood up and brought out her juju knife and did the flourishes. When Anatov had shown her, she’d noticed that the shape he’d drawn in the air reminded her of Nsibidi. It was a skeleton of lines that was then dressed up with loops and swirls. When she finished, a strong force blew through her flesh, leaving a green mist in the shape of herself facing her. She stepped away from it, feeling her nose tingle.
“What is that?” Chichi asked.
“Residue from the wilderness,” Sunny said. She blew and the green lost its shape and began to separate and mix into the air.
“You were in the wilderness?” Orlu asked.
“Partially, I think. Maybe that’s how I saw Ekwensu. It was like she pulled me in.”
“Like turning someone’s head to look,” Chichi said.
Sasha nodded. “She waited to catch Sunny when she was weak. It wasn’t you she wanted to see; it was Anyanwu.”
“I think the river beast was also a diversion,” Chichi added. “So Sunny could be too weak and distracted to stop Ekwensu from tearing into the physical world.”
The four of them were quiet for a moment.
Chichi turned to Orlu. “So what happens if you don’t get rid of the residue?”
“She’ll get sick,” Orlu said. “Physically.”
Sunny sneezed and rubbed between her eyes.
“Bless you,” Orlu said.
“Let’s cross and get you something to eat,” Chichi said, helping Sunny up. “Then I want to hear all the details.” She glanced at the river and then leaned closer to Sunny and whispered, “It’s time to deal with the river beast.”
Sunny nodded. “It’s such a sellout, siding with Ekwensu like that.”
“Do you think you can cross?” Chichi said. “I mean, you don’t have to . . .”
“I’ll cross,” Sunny said. “This time I’ll glide so it’s fast.” The soccer field and Leopard Knocks were the two places she felt she belonged. She was not about to let the river beast rob her of one of those. She rubbed the black stone and stepped up to the bridge. But she knew as soon as she raised her head and looked at the narrow bridge that even if she wanted to, her foot would not move. She felt pain at the tips of her sandaled feet, as if she’d knocked them against a wall. She stumbled back, her eyes wide.
“Wha—” She looked at her friends, tears filling her eyes.
“Sunny, what is it?” Chichi screeched, grabbing her hands. “Are you all right?”
“She’s . . . she’s not there,” Sunny said. “I can’t bring her forth. My spirit face . . . I can’t . . . What’s happening? Anyanwu, where are you?” Her toes ached and she felt the world swim around her; the spot between her eyes where the bead had hit her felt warm and itchy.
“Here,” Orlu said, putting an arm around her waist. “Lean on me.”
“You can’t call your spirit face?” Sasha asked. “How can that be?” He looked at Chichi and blinked. “Oh, I can’t even imagine that.”
Chichi nodded but frowned for him to shut up, and this made Sunny panic even more. She couldn’t cross the bridge without Anyanwu. Who was she without Anyanwu? Where had Anyanwu gone?
“She has to be with you somehow,” Chichi said. “Your spirit face isn’t just a face. It’s you, your spirit memory, you spirit future, your chi. You’d be dead if she weren’t there. You’re probably just in shock. You need some jollof rice and stew and Fanta. Come on, we don’t have to go to Leopard Knocks today. I know a nice Lamb restaurant where we can get some good food.”
Uzoma’s Chinese Restaurant was small and almost full to capacity. They managed to get a table near the back of the restaurant.
“Sasha and I come here all the time,” Chichi said, trying to sound cheerful. “Though the food is terrible.”
“I ordered the egg rolls here once, and they were just a boiled egg stuffed in a hard roll,” Sasha said, putting an arm around Chichi.
Sunny attempted and failed a smile.
“You all right?” Orlu asked.
“No,” she muttered. She felt dehydrated and ready to fall asleep right there at the table.
The four of them looked at one another with wide eyes and solemn faces. None of the people in the busy open-air restaurant could have imagined what they’d recently been through.
“I feel like an alien,” Sunny said. “I don’t belong anywhere.” She was dry, warm, and smelled good, thanks to Chichi. She was wearing her favorite jeans and a white T-shirt, and they were dry. Unlike those of all the other Africans in the restaurant, her thick, bushy Afro was blonde with a comb given to her by Mami Wata herself. Her skin was pale yellow pink, and her eyes were hazel. She’d just seen Ekwensu succeed in coming into the physical world, and she couldn’t find Anyanwu.
“You belong with us,” Orlu said. “You’re a Leopard Person.”
“Ekwensu is back,” she whispered. “She will kill everything. But first she’ll kill me. You sure you want me with you?”
“You don’t know for sure what you saw,” Orlu said. “You can do things with time, sometimes. You don’t know if that was the future or . . . what.”
They were all silent for a moment, the happy chatter of everyone else swelling around them. They ordered puff puffs, one of the only Nigerian dishes on the menu. In America, Nigerians explained to non-Nigerians that they were “Nigerian doughnuts,” a description that Sunny always found annoying. It was verbal shorthand that sold puff puffs short. They were sweet, soft, perfectly round pastries that were simply what they were. Sunny also ordered a large bottle of water. When the waiter brought the puff puffs and water, she drank it all and ate five large puff puffs, feeling more like herself with each yummy bite. The others quietly watched her as she drank and ate.
Finally, Sunny took a deep breath and leaned forward. The others did so, too. “Do your spirit faces ever talk to you?” she asked. When they looked at her with perplexed eyes, she sat back and gazed at them for a long time. She bit her lip, frowned, and then just spilled it all; she told them how Anyanwu was her and she was Anyanwu, but Anyanwu spoke to her and she spoke back. Why not? Who else would she tell? Who else had her back? And now Anyanwu was gone. Sunny was glad for the noisy atmosphere; it covered up the cracking and wavering in her voice as she spoke. Then she told them about her dreams of the end of the world. When she finished, she wiped the tired confused tears from her eyes and ate the last puff puff.
“Who are you, Sunny Nwazue?” Chichi asked, imitating the djinn from th
e basement as she took Sunny’s hand.
Orlu was staring at Sunny.
“I’m two people, and one of me is missing,” Sunny said.
“Maybe you just need rest.”
“Yeah. And you’re a free agent, so your spirit face is new to you,” Sasha said. “Maybe that’s why it feels like a completely separate person. And yours is old, that’s a lot of memory.”
“And not just old, busy,” Chichi added. “We’re all old. Orlu and I have been to see the seer Bola, and we know things about our past lives. We just don’t talk much about it. Sasha, too.”
“Yeah, I saw a Gullah seer in North Carolina,” he said. “She told me I’d done all sorts of crazy shit over the centuries. Slave rebellions of all kinds and some other wahala in the wilderness. On some level I’m aware of it. It’s all good.”
Sunny smiled, feeling a little better.
“I used to talk to my spirit face when I was little,” Orlu said.
“Me too!” Chichi said.
“But Ekwensu,” Orlu said. “What is it between you and one of the most powerful, scariest beings around?”
“Anyanwu is powerful, so she will have powerful enemies . . . and friends,” Chichi said proudly, squeezing Sunny’s hands.
“Word,” Sasha said. “What you did to those confraternity guys, Sunny, that was you, not Anyanwu.”
“I was just protecting my brother,” Sunny quietly said.
“No, that Capo guy got so spooked that not only did he become born-again, but his hair has gone gray! I was at Chukwu’s hostel yesterday,” Chichi said. “He said—” She froze, then her eyes cut to Sasha.
Orlu dropped his face in his hands and shook his head. “Oh God.”
“What?!” Sasha screeched, his voice cracking.
“Oh, come on,” Chichi said, her voice shaking. “It was just . . .”
“Just what? Girl, tell another lie! All you do is lie! You’re a pack of lies, and you think no one notices.” Sasha glared at her with pure disgust and rage. “Anuofia!”
“Kai!” Orlu screeched. “Sasha!”
“We’re sitting here asking Sunny who she is; we should be asking you, Chichi!” Sasha snapped, ignoring him. He stood up. Chichi stood up, too.
“Who do you think you are?” Chichi said, pointing in his face. “You don’t own me!” She turned and thrust her backside rudely at Sasha.
Sasha’s eyes grew wide, his nostrils flaring. He looked ready to explode.
“Come on,” Orlu said, pushing the fuming Sasha along. “Let’s take a walk.” Sunny was beyond relieved when Sasha allowed himself to be shoved along. “I’ll get him on an okada back home. Chichi, can you get Sunny home?”
“Yes, yes,” Chichi snapped.
“Sunny, we go to Bola’s on Saturday, okay?” he added. “I think it’s time.”
“I meet with Sugar Cream on Saturdays, and you meet with Taiwo.”
“Yeah. We’ll go in the morning,” Orlu said. “It’ll just be one long day.”
Sunny slowly nodded. Chichi kept her back turned as she muttered, “Nonsense.”
“You haven’t seen nonsense yet,” Sasha shouted over his shoulder.
“Biko, please, just stop, o!” Orlu said, pushing him along.
“What the hell did I do?” Sasha asked Orlu.
“Just be quiet until . . .”
Their voices lowered and faded as they left the restaurant. Only then could Sunny relax. She hated seeing Sasha and Chichi fighting, although it was more than inevitable. She’d seen Chichi getting into Chukwu’s Jeep at least twice in the last two days. If her father had any idea his son was visiting home without stopping by to say hello to them, he’d be appalled. Chukwu was supposed to be immersed in his studies. He was, but he was also falling in love with Chichi.
At the same time, Chichi treated Sasha with the same affinity. And though just about every teenage Leopard girl younger and older in the area was infatuated with Sasha and his American bad boy ways, it was only Chichi whom Sasha gave his real time to.
“So, Chichi, what are you going to do?”
“About what?” Chichi asked as she applied some fresh lip gloss. Even from where she stood, Sunny could smell its fruity aroma.
“You know what.” Sunny rolled her eyes and Chichi smirked.
“Maybe I’ll let them fight it out Zuma wrestling style,” she said. “To the death. I’ll be like you and have my own guardian angel.”
“You seem to keep forgetting that you are talking about my brother and my good friend,” Sunny snapped. “These aren’t just two random boys.”
“I know, I know.” She paused and then said, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what you’re going to do?”
“No,” Chichi said, growing serious. “I like them both. Wish I had it easy like you. You and Orlu are made for each other.”
“I don’t know about that,” Sunny said quietly.
Chichi smiled and shook her head.
“So you’ve been to see Mr. Mohammed’s wife,” Sunny said.
“Call him Alhaji Mohammed; he made his pilgrimage a few weeks ago,” Chichi said.
“Oh,” Sunny said. “That’s why that other guy was managing the bookstore for so long.”
“I happened to be there the Sunday he returned,” Chichi said. “It was crazy. He was actually giving discounts on books . . . Well, for a few hours.”
They both laughed. Alhaji Mohammed was a businessman to the bone, hajj or not.
“But yes, I’ve been to see Bola,” Chichi said. “With my mother once, some years ago.”
“What for?”
“We can talk about that some other time.” She looked at Sunny unsmilingly. Then Chichi’s smile came back. “Bola Yusuf. They call her ‘the woman with the breasts down to here.’” She gestured with her hands to mid-waist level. “She is an Owumiri initiate.”
Sunny gasped and stopped. “A Mami Wata worshipper! Is she a Leopard Person, too?”
“Yeah.”
This was the water worshipping group that Chichi had let Chukwu think Sunny was a part of. Sunny touched the comb she wore in her hair. “Should I take this out when I go?”
“Oh no!” Chichi said. “That’ll get you much, much respect. She’ll love you for that. And she’ll love that the lake and river beasts can’t seem to get enough of you, even if it’s because they are Ekwensu’s minions.”
Sunny waited until right before bed to try it. She locked her bedroom door and, on shaky legs, walked to her window. She usually raised the screen just a crack so that her wasp artist could come and go as it pleased. Now she pushed the screen to the top of the windowsill and waited. It didn’t take long. She watched the mosquitos slowly fly in, pushed by their own ambition and the night’s breeze. When she counted five, she shut the screen and brought out her juju knife and worked a Carry Go, a juju that drove away insects with the intent to bite.
She felt the cool invisible juju sack drop into her upheld hand after she did the flourish with her knife, and she sighed with relief. She spoke the words as she watched two of the mosquitos land near the top of her white bedroom wall. She frowned as she watched one of the mosquitos migrate to her and then land on her arm. She smashed it with a hard slap.
Then she stepped to her bedroom mirror and looked at her face. She ignored her flushed cheeks and the tears rolling down them. She looked into her wet eyes and with her mind, she called Anyanwu. She dug deep within herself, and then she tried to bring her forth. Nothing. Sunny sat on her bed as the sobs wracked her body. Images of the river and the menacing Ekwensu flashed through her mind.
She crept under her covers and curled herself as tightly as she could. She still wore her sandals, and she didn’t care. And when she got up in the morning and found an itchy mosquito bite on her arm and two on her left leg, she knew for sur
e Anyanwu was gone. Who was she now?
16
HEAD OF THE HOUSEHOLD
When she saw her father that evening, she went to him.
It had been a while since they had watched the local news together, but today Sunny needed his company. Anyanwu was still gone, and Sunny felt lost. She’d seen him settling down in his favorite chair to watch the news, a cold bottle of Guinness on the side table, a bowl of groundnuts on his lap. She sat down on the floor beside his chair, and he’d patted her on the shoulder, pointed at the TV, and said, “You heard about this oil spill in the Niger Delta?”
“No,” she said. “I’ve been studying.”
“These idiots are . . . Just watch, here it is. Turn it up,” her father said. She grabbed the remote control and clicked up the volume on the large flat-screen TV.
A thin old man looked deep into the camera, a microphone held to his face. His voice was reedy, his expression perplexed. “I came here when there was no crude, no spillage, everything was so fine. People were enjoying back then,” he said. “It’s a strange thing to us. How could this occur? Are these oil companies stupid? Ah-ah, don’t they know what true wealth is? How could they? These people aren’t from here.”
As he spoke, oil-drenched riverways, creeks, mangroves, and grassy vegetation were shown. The story cut to a journalist walking through the mucky forest in yellow hip boots as he spoke with a short young intense man, also in hip boots, named Murphy Bassey, head of the local watchdog group Friends of the Delta Organization. As they walked, they both pinched their noses.
“What’s that smell?” the journalist asked in a nasally voice.