“Welcome, Onyesonwu,” the woman said, tapping her chest. She looked me over. I looked her over, too. I felt the same sort of irritation that I felt with Ssaiku. This woman was also a sorcerer. But she’s apprenticed, I realized I knew. Ssaiku’s apprentice. She wore a dress with no sleeves, showing her muscled arms. It had a neckline that plunged low, showing off her large bosom. There were symbols etched into both of her biceps and on the swells of her breasts.
“Thank you,” I said. Behind me, the others were welcomed and told to sit.
“I am Ting,” she said.
Chief Usson stepped into the circle and the music immediately stopped.
“Now that our guests have arrived, let us settle,” he said. Without his frown, Chief Usson was quite engaging. He had one of those voices that made people listen.
Ting took my hand. “Sit,” she said. Her thumbnail brushed the palm of my hand. It was almost an inch long and sharp as a knife, the tip tinted bluish black. She sat beside me, Mwita on my other side.
“Please welcome our guests, Diti, Fanasi, Luyu, Mwita, and Onyesonwu.” Whispers flew through the gathering. “Yes, yes, we all know of this woman, the she-wizard, and her man.” Chief Usson motioned for us to stand. Before so many eyes, I felt my face grow warm. She-wizard? I thought. What kind of title is that?
“Welcome,” Chief Usson said grandiosely.
“Welcome,” everyone else murmured. Then from somewhere someone started hissing. The hiss spread through the crowd. I glanced at Ting, worried.
“It’s all right,” she said.
It was some sort of ritual. People smiled as they hissed. I relaxed. Chieftess Sessa got up and stood next to Chief Usson. Together they recited something in a language that I didn’t know. The words had a lot of S and Ah sounds. Fanasi was right. If a snake could speak, it would sound like this. When they finished reciting, people jumped to their feet, cloths in hand.
“Take,” a young boy said, handing all five of us similar cloths. The cloths were thin but stiff with proofing gel. The band began to play.
“Come,” Ting said taking my hand and Mwita’s. Two young men approached Diti and another two Luyu, pulling them toward the giant banquet of food. Two women took Fanasi’s hands, too. It was happy chaos, as people jostled and grabbed and filled their cloths with food. It seemed to be some sort of game, for there was a lot of laughter.
A woman pushed past me and accidentally brushed my arm. A tiny blue spark popped off me and the woman yelped, jumping away. Several other people paused to stare. The woman didn’t seem angry but she wouldn’t meet my eyes as she mumbled, “Sorry, Onyesonwu. Sorry,” and hustled away from me.
I looked at Ting with wide eyes. “What . . .”
“Let me,” Ting said, taking my cloth.
“No, I can . . .”
“Just wait here,” she said firmly. “Do you eat meat?”
“Of course.”
She nodded and went to the banquet with Mwita. While I waited, two men passed too close to me. Again there were tiny sparks and both men seemed to experience a brief jolt of pain.
“Sorry,” I said holding my hands up.
“No,” one of them said, backing away thinking I was going to touch him again. “We are sorry.” It was both bizarre and annoying.
By the time we returned to our spot, Diti and Luyu had accumulated more men. All were so lovely that Luyu’s face looked as if it would break from the size of her smile. A man with thick luscious lips was feeding Diti a cut of roasted rabbit. Fanasi was also surrounded. The women vied for his attention. He was so busy answering their thousands of questions that he couldn’t eat or see what Diti and Luyu were doing.
Though none sat with Mwita, several women, young and old, openly stared at him, and even made way for him at the banquet. Every man stopped and greeted him warmly, some even shaking his hand. Men and boys only stole glances at me when they thought I wasn’t looking. And the women and girls openly avoided me. But there was one who couldn’t resist.
“That’s Eyess,” Ting said smiling, as the toddler came running to me and tried to take my hand. I tried to yank it away before she could touch me but she was too fast. She snatched my hand, almost making me drop my cloth of food. Large sparks popped. But she only laughed. The little girl who’d been riding with Chieftess Sessa seemed to be immune to whatever afflicted me. She said something to me in the Vah language.
“She does not know Ssufi, Eyess,” Ting told her. “Speak in Sipo or Okeke.”
“You look strange,” the little girl said in Okeke.
I laughed. “I know.”
“I like it,” she said. “Is your mother a camel?”
“No, my mother is human.”
“Then why does your camel tell me she takes care of you?”
“Eyess can hear them,” Ting explained. “She was born with the ability. That’s why she talks so well for a three-year-old. She’s been talking all her life to everything.”
Something caught the little girl’s eye. “Be back!” she said running off.
“Whose is she?” I asked.
“Chieftess Sessa and Chief Usson’s,” Ting said.
“So Chieftess Sessa and Chief Usson are married, then?”
“Goodness no,” Ting said. “Two chiefs can’t be married. That is Chieftess Sessa’s husband there.” She motioned to a man handing Eyess a small bundle of food. The little girl grabbed the food, kissed his knees, and disappeared again among people’s legs.
“Oh,” I said.
“That’s Chief Usson’s wife.” She pointed to a plump woman sitting with some other women. We sat down and unrolled our food. Mwita was already eating. He seemed to have picked up the way of the Vah when it came to eating because he was shoveling food into his mouth with his hands and eating with his mouth open. I unrolled my cloth and looked at what Ting had gathered. Everything was mixed together and the sight of it made me lose my appetite. I’ve never liked my food to mix. I picked at a piece of fried lizard egg as I pushed a slice of green cactus aside with my finger.
“So where is . . . your Master? Doesn’t he eat?” I asked after a while.
“Do you eat?” she said, looking at my still full cloth.
“I’m not very hungry.”
“Mwita seems comfortable.”
We both looked at him. He’d finished everything in his cloth and was getting up for more. He met my eyes. “Do you want me to get you something?” he asked.
I shook my head. Eyess came and plopped herself beside me. She grinned and unrolled her meal and started eating ravenously.
“So is it true?” Ting asked.
“What?”
“Mwita won’t tell me anything. He says to ask you,” she said. “Rumor had it that you blanketed a town in a black mist after they tried to harm you. That you turned their water to bile. And you’re really a ghost sent to the lands to wash away our evils.”
I laughed, “Where did you hear all this?”
“Travelers,” she said. “In towns some of us visit for supplies. On the wind.”
“Everyone knows,” Eyess added.
“What do you think, Ting?” I asked.
“I think it’s nonsense . . . most of it.” She winked.
“Ting, why can’t people touch me here?” I smiled. “Other than you and Eyess?”
“Don’t take offense,” she said, looking away.
I continued looking at her, waiting for her to say more. When she didn’t, I just shrugged. I wasn’t offended. Not really. “What are those?” I asked to change the subject. I pointed at the markings on her biceps and the swells of her breasts. The ones on her breasts were circles with a series of loops and swirls inside them. On her left bicep was what looked like the shadow of some sort of bird of prey. On the right was a cross surrounded by tiny circles and squares.
“Can’t you read Vai, Bassa, Menda, and Nsibidi?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I know of Nsibidi. A building in Jwahir is decorated with it.”
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br /> “The House of Osugbo,” she said, nodding. “Ssaiku told me of it. Those aren’t decorations. You’d know if you’d been apprenticed longer.”
“Well, that couldn’t be helped, could it?” I said, annoyed.
“Guess not,” she said. “I gave these markings to myself. Writing scripts are my center.”
“Center?”
“What I’m most gifted at,” she said. “It becomes clearest around when you hit thirty. I can’t tell you exactly what my markings mean, not in words. They changed my life, each in their own needed way. This one here is a vulture, I can tell you that.” She met my eyes as she gnawed on a rabbit bone.
I decided to change the subject. “So how long have you been in training?”
The band started playing a song that Eyess apparently loved. She jumped up and ran to the musicians, weaving around people with that gazellelike nimbleness. When she got to the band, she started gleefully dancing. Ting and I watched for a moment, smiling.
“Since I was eight years old,” Ting said turning to me.
“You passed your initiation that young?” I asked
She nodded.
“So you know how you . . .”
“I’ll die an old satisfied woman, not far from here,” she said.
Envy is a painful emotion.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to gloat.”
“I know,” I said, my voice strained.
“Fate is cold and cruel.”
I nodded.
“Your fate is in the West, I know. Ssaiku knows more,” she said. “He usually doesn’t come to the feast. I’ll take you to him when you and Mwita are finished.”
Mwita returned carrying three cloths. He handed me one. I unrolled it. In it was roasted rabbit. He handed me another full of cactus candy. I smiled at him.
“Always,” he said, sitting down beside me, his shoulder touching mine.
“Ah, you are strange,” Ting said, when I began to eat.
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” I said, my mouth full.
She looked from me to Mwita and then narrowed her eyes. “So you haven’t completed training?”
I shook my head, refusing to meet her eyes.
“Don’t worry about your camp,” Mwita finally said.
“How can I be sure?” she asked. “Ssaiku won’t even allow me to be alone with a man. You both must know about the woman who . . .”
“We know,” we both said.
After eating, we left Diti, Luyu, and Fanasi behind. They didn’t notice. Ssaiku’s tent was large and airy. It was made from a material that was black but let the breeze right in. He sat on a wicker chair, a tiny book in his hands. “Ting, bring them palm wine,” he said, putting his book down. “Mwita, wasn’t I right?” he asked, motioning for us to sit.
“Very,” he replied, going to the tent’s corner and getting two round sitting mats. “It was indeed the most delicious meal I’ve ever had.”
I looked at Mwita and frowned, sitting on the mat Mwita set down for me.
“You’ll sleep well tonight,” Ssaiku said.
“We thank you for your hospitality,” Mwita said.
“As I already told you, it’s the least we can do.”
Ting returned managing glasses of palm wine on a tray. She handed the first to Ssaiku, then to Mwita and then to me. She only touched the glasses with her right hand. I almost laughed. Ting was the last person I’d have taken to be so traditional. But then again, Ssaiku was her Master and if he was anything like Aro, he expected this. She sat beside me, a small smile on her face as if anticipating an interesting discussion.
“Look at me, Onyesonwu,” he said. “I want a good look at your face.”
“Why?” I asked, but I looked at him. He didn’t answer. I withstood his inspection.
“You usually braid your hair?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Stop,” he said. “Tie it with a piece of palm fiber or string, but no more braiding from this point on.” He sat back. “You’re both so strange to look at. I know Nuru and I know Okeke. The Ewu-born make no sense to my eyes. Eh, Ani is testing me again.”
Ting snickered, and Ssaiku gave her a sharp look.
“I’m sorry, Ogasse,” she said, still smiling. “You’re doing it again.”
Ssaiku looked very annoyed. Ting wasn’t frightened by this. As I’ve said, one’s Master has a closer relationship to an apprentice than the apprentice’s father. If there is no push and pull, no testing of nerves on both sides, it wouldn’t be a true apprenticeship.
“You told me to tell you whenever you do it, Ogasse,” Ting continued.
Ssaiku took a deep breath. “My student is right,” he finally said. “Understand, I never believed the one I was to teach would be this long-legged . . . girl. But it was written. Since then I promised to taper my assumptions. There’s never been an Ewu sorcerer. But it has been asked. So it’s not because Ani is testing us that it’s so, it is merely so.”
“Well said,” Ting said, pleased.
“What makes sense is no longer necessarily what should be,” Mwita said, finishing his palm wine and looking at me. I fought hard not to roll my eyes.
“Right. Mwita, you understand me best here,” Ssaiku said. “Now, it’s no accident that you’re here. I was told to find and take you in. I’m a sorcerer who’s much much older than he looks. I come from a long line of chosen keepers, the keepers of this moving village, Ssolu. I maintain the dust storm that protects it.”
“You’re maintaining it right now?” I asked.
“It’s simply juju for me, as it will be for Ting,” he said. “Now, as I said, I was told to find you. There’s a part of your training that you must complete. You’ll need help.”
I frowned. “Who . . . who told you to find me?”
“Sola,” he said.
My eyes widened. Sola, the white-skinned man in black whom I’d met twice in the dust storm. I could still hear his words that first time we met for my initiation, “I must have you killed.” Then he’d shown me my death.
I shuddered. “You know him?” I asked.
“Of course.”
It had never occurred to me that they were all connected. All the old ones. I thought about how the last time I’d met with Sola, just before leaving Jwahir, Aro sat beside him instead of me, as if Sola were his brother and I, Aro’s daughter. “What about Aro?” I asked.
“I know Aro well. Have known him a long, long time.”
“Did he speak of me?” I asked. My heart quickened.
“No. He didn’t mention you. He is your Master?”
“Yes,” I said, disappointed. I hadn’t realized how much I missed Aro.
“Ah, it becomes clear now,” he said, nodding. “I was having trouble putting my finger on what it was.” He looked at Mwita. Ting looked at Mwita too, as if trying to see what her Master had just realized. “And you are his other child,” Ssaiku said.
“I guess you can say that,” Mwita said. “But I was apprenticed to another before.”
“Aro didn’t ask anything about us? Say anything?” I asked, confused.
“No.” There was a flutter in the room as a large brown parrot flew into the tent and landed on a chair. It squawked and shook its head.
“Dizzy birds,” Ting said. “They’re always falling into Ssolu.”
“Go back to the celebration,” Ssaiku told us. “Enjoy yourselves. In ten days, the women will Hold Conversation with Ani. Onyesonwu, you will go with them.”
I almost laughed. I hadn’t Held Conversation with Ani since I was a child. I didn’t believe in Ani. I held in my cynicism, though. It really didn’t matter. When we got back to the celebration, things were just heating up. The band was playing a song that everyone knew the words to. Eyess danced for everyone as she sang loudly. I think I’d have been like her if I hadn’t been born an outcast.
“What do you think will happen?” Mwita asked me as we stood among all the singing people. I glimpsed Luyu
standing on the other side of the circle with two men. Both had their arms around her waist. I didn’t see Diti or Fanasi.
“No idea,” I said. “I was about to ask you the same thing, since naturally you should know everything.”
He sighed loudly and rolled his eyes. “You don’t listen,” he said.
“Onyesonwu!” Eyess shouted. I jumped at the sound of my name. Everyone turned. “Come sing with us!”
I smiled embarrassed, shaking my head and putting up my hands. “It’s okay,” I said backing away. “I-I don’t know any of your songs.”
“Please come sing,” Eyess begged.
“Why don’t you sing one of your own songs then,” Mwita said loudly.
I glared at him and he smiled smugly.
“Yes!” Eyess exclaimed. “Sing for us!”
Everyone quieted as she led me to the circle’s center. People avoided touching me as I passed. I stood there, aware of all eyes on me.
“Sing us a song from your home,” Eyess said.
“I was raised in Jwahir,” I said, when I realized I couldn’t sneak away. “But I’m from the desert. That’s my home.” I paused. “I sing this to the land when it is content.”
I opened my mouth, closed my eyes, and sang the song that I’d learned from the desert when I was three years old. Everyone oohed and ahhed when the brown parrot I’d seen in Ssaiku’s tent came and landed on my shoulder. I kept singing. The sweet sound and vibration coming from my throat radiated through the rest of my body. It smoothed away my anxieties and sadness. For the moment. When I finished, everyone was silent.
Then people started hissing and clapping praise. The noise startled the bird on my shoulder and it flew away. Eyess threw her arms around my leg, looking up at me with admiration. Sparks flew from her arms and several people jumped back, muttering mild exclamations. The musicians started playing again, and I quickly left the center of the circle.
“Beautiful,” people said as I passed.
“I’ll sleep well tonight!”
“Ani blesses you a thousand times.”
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