Who Fears Death

by Nnedi Okorafor

  “Why’d you do that?” he asked, unable to further contain himself.

  “Because I . . .”

  “You weren’t even happy to be alive. You weren’t even relieved that you would see us again! Ah, your name truly fits you, o!”

  What could I say to that? I hadn’t thought about it. It was instinct. And yet you failed, the voice in my head whispered.

  Ssaiku came in. He was dressed as if he’d been traveling, wearing a long caftan and pants fully draped with a long green thick cloth robe. The moment he saw that I was awake, his solemn face warmed. He spread his hands grandiosely. “Heeeeey, she awakens to grace us with her magnificence. Welcome back. We missed you.”

  I tried to smile. Mwita scoffed.

  “Mwita, how does she look?” Ssaiku asked. “Report.”

  “She’s . . . pretty beaten up. She’s healed most of the open wounds but she can’t heal everything with her Eshu skills. Must have something to do with how they were inflicted. A lot of deep bruises. Looks like something raked at her chest. She has burns on her back . . . at least that’s what they manifest themselves as. She has a sprained ankle and wrist. No broken bones. From what she’s told me happened, I suspect it will hurt for her to breathe. And when her monthly comes, that too will be painful.”

  Ssaiku nodded and Mwita continued.

  “I’ve treated everything with three different salves. She should stay off the ankle and avoid the wrist for a few days. She’ll have to eat a diet of desert hare livers for a week when her monthlies begin because her blood will be very heavy. Her monthlies will come tonight, because of the trauma. I’ve already had Ting ask some women to gather the livers and make a stew.”

  I noticed for the first time how utterly exhausted Mwita looked. “There’s one thing,” Mwita said. He took my right hand and turned the palm up. “This.”

  Ssaiku took my hand, looking closely at the marking. He sucked his teeth, disgusted. “Ah, he put this on her.”

  “H-how did you know it was . . . him?” I asked.

  “Where else would you have gone in such a hurry?” he asked. He stood up.

  “What is it?” Mwita asked.

  “Ting may know,” he said. “At two years old the girl could read Okeke, Vah, and Sipo. She’ll be able to read this.” He patted Mwita on the shoulder. “I wish we had someone like you here. To be so well versed in the physical and spiritual is a rare gift.”

  Mwita shook his head. “Not so knowledgeable in the spiritual, Oga,” he said.

  Ssaiku chuckled, patting Mwita’s shoulder again. “I’ll be back,” he said. “Mwita, get some rest. She lives. Now go treat yourself as if you do, too.”

  Seconds after Ssaiku left, Diti, Luyu, and Fanasi came running in. Diti screamed, planting a kiss on my forehead. Luyu burst into tears and Fanasi just stood there staring.

  “Ani is great!” Diti blubbered. “She must love you so much.”

  I could have laughed at this sentiment.

  “We love you, too,” Luyu said.

  Without a word, Fanasi turned and left the tent. On his way out, he almost bumped into Ting. She skirted around him and came right to me. “Let me see,” she said, pushing Luyu and Diti aside.

  “What?” Luyu said, trying to see over Ting’s shoulder.

  “Shh,” Ting scolded, taking my hand. “I need silence.” She brought her face to my palm and stared for a long time. She touched the symbol and yanked her hand away hissing, glancing at Mwita.

  “What is it?” Mwita and I asked at the same time.

  “An Nsibidi symbol. Barely. Very very old, though,” Ting said. “It means ‘slow and cruel poison.’ Look, the lines have already begun. They’ll travel up her arm to her heart and squeeze it dead.”

  Mwita and I looked closely at my hand. The branded symbol was black as ever but now there were tiny filaments growing from the edges. “What about agu root and penicillin mold?” Mwita asked. “If it behaves like an infection maybe . . .”

  “You know better, Mwita,” Ting said. “This is juju.” She paused. “Onye, try to change yourself.”

  Even with all my injuries, the idea was enticing. I could feel it. I wouldn’t be able to change into more creatures than I could before, but I could become, for example, a vulture and never risk losing myself no matter how long I stayed one. Shifted myself. It came smoothly, easy . . . until I got to the hand marked with the symbol. It wouldn’t change. I tried harder. How I must have looked to Diti and Luyu, especially Luyu who had never seen me change.

  I hopped around my fallen bandages, all vulture except for a wing that was a hand. I squawked angrily, jumping out of my clothes. I couldn’t fly with one hand. I fought a claustrophobic panic and tried another shape, a snake. My tail was a hand. I couldn’t even turn myself partly into a mouse. I tried an owl, a hawk, a desert fox. The more shapes I tried, the hotter my hand grew. I gave up, changing back to myself. My hand gave off a foul smelling smoke. I covered myself with my rapa

  “Don’t try anything else,” Ting said quickly. “We don’t know the consequences. We have twenty-four hours, I suspect. Give me two to consult with Ssaiku.” She got up.

  “Twenty-four hours before what?” I asked.

  “Before it kills you,” Ting said, hurrying away.

  I shuddered with hatred. “Whether I live or die, I’ll destroy that man.” You will fail again, the voice in my head whispered.

  “Look what happened to you when you tried,” Mwita reminded me.

  “I wasn’t thinking,” I said. “Next time, I . . .”

  “You’re right. You weren’t thinking,” he said. “Luyu, Diti, go and bring her something to eat.”

  They jumped up, glad to have something to do.

  “Don’t mix anything together,” he said.

  “We know,” Luyu said. “You’re not her only friend.”

  “How come I can do it?” I asked Mwita, once they’d left. “Aro never mentioned anything like this traveling ability.”

  Mwita sighed, letting go of his anger at me. “I think I know why,” Mwita surprised me by saying.

  “Huh?” I said. “Really?”

  “It’s not the time,” he said.

  “I have twenty-four hours to live,” I said angrily. “When do you plan to tell me?”

  “In twenty-five,” he said.

  CHAPTER 48

  TING TOOK THREE HOURS TO RETURN. In this time, the poison lines lengthened by three inches and my hand had begun to itch horribly. Chief Usson and Chieftess Sessa stopped in with their daughter Eyess. Eyess jumped into my lap. I hid my pain and let her plant a big kiss on my lips. “You will never die!” she exclaimed.

  Other people came to wish me well, bringing food and oils. They gave me tight hugs and shook my hand, the one without the symbol, of course. Yes, now that I had “released” whatever had built up in me, yet was slowly being poisoned by something my biological father had inflicted on me, I was no longer untouchable. They also brought tiny human figurines made from sand. If you held these to your ear, you heard soft sweet music.

  What had happened when I first died was starting to really set in. The world around me was more vibrant. Whenever Mwita touched me, I shivered. And when people hugged me, I could hear their hearts beating. An old man hugged me and his heart sounded full of wind. I had a strong urge to touch him. I could heal him without suffering much, but I heeded Ting’s warnings to not try anything. It was so hard to sit still. Yet even with all these tools, Daib still lives and I am dying, I thought.

  “Give it a few more hours,” Mwita said. “If you get up now, you won’t be doing yourself any good.”

  “Well, we’ll have to risk that,” Ssaiku said, walking in. Behind him, Ting entered followed by, judging from their attire, the town’s Ani priestess and priest.

  “I may be able to stop the poison,” Ting said.

  Mwita and I grabbed hands. Then he yanked his away. “Ah, I hate that thing,” he said glaring at my symboled hand.

  “Sorry,
” I said.

  “It won’t be easy,” Ting said. “And whatever happens will be permanent.”

  Suddenly, I wanted to scream with laughter. When she said permanent, it clicked. I understood a part of the puzzle. When I had been my future self in that concrete jail cell awaiting execution, I’d looked down at my hands. They’d been covered with tribal symbols . . . Nsibidi.

  “You’ll be the one to do it, no?” I asked Ting.

  She nodded. “I’ll be overseen by Ssaiku. The priest and priestess will pray during the process. Words to battle words.” She paused. “Your father is very powerful.”

  “He’s not my father,” I said.

  She patted my shoulder. “He is. But he could not have raised you.”

  To prepare for the process, I had to take a cleansing bath. Mwita procured a large palm fiber bathtub. It was treated with weather gel and was thus as good as any metal or stone tub. Mwita and several others gathered capture station water, boiled it, and poured it into the bath for me. My wounds stung as I slowly got into the steaming water. The symbol on my hand itched so vigorously that I had to fight the urge to tear at my hand’s skin.

  “How long do I have to stay in here?” I moaned. The water smelled sweet with the herbs Ting had given me.

  “Thirty more minutes,” Mwita said.

  When I got out of the bath, my body was red with heat. I looked down at the three deep scratches on my chest. Right between my breasts. As if Daib had wanted to remind Mwita of his presence. If I survive, I thought.

  I hated Daib.

  When Mwita and I returned to Ssaiku’s tent, everyone was ready. The priest and priestess were already begging Ani. I felt annoyed, thinking about the Creator who’d recreated me and the fact that Ani was a weak human idea. I held my tongue remembering the Golden Rule of Bushcraft: Let the eagle and the hawk perch. Ssaiku closed the tent flap behind us and ran his hand over it. Instantly, all noise from outside ceased. Ting sat on a mat, a bowl of very black paste beside her. There were two mats with symbols drawn on them.

  “Sit there,” Ting said. “Onye, you are not to get up until it is done.”

  It was like sitting on hot skittering metal spiders. I wanted to scream and if it weren’t for Mwita, I would have.

  “It’s the symbols. They’re alive as anything else,” Ting said. “Give me your hand.” She looked closely. “It spreads. Ogasse, I need two hours of protection.”

  “You will have it,” Ssaiku replied.

  “Protection from what?” I asked.

  “Infection,” Ting said. “When I mark you.”

  “If I can’t do it any longer, I will speak up,” Ssaiku said. “I’ve warned everyone already. I think some of them will welcome the time to explore a bit without the storm.”

  Ssaiku couldn’t protect me and maintain the sandstorm at the same time.

  “This will hurt,” Ting said. She paused, looking nervous. “If it works, you’ll never be able to heal with your right hand again.”

  “What?” I screeched.

  “You’ll have to always use your left hand to heal,” Ting said. “I-I don’t know what will happen if you use your right. It’s full of his hate.” She took Mwita’s hand. “Hold her,” she said.

  Mwita put his left arm around my waist and put his right hand on my shoulder. He kissed my ear. I braced myself. I’d already been through so much. But I held steady. Ting took my right hand and poked the back of my hand using her long sharp thumbnail. There was a fiery eruption of pain. I cried out, at the same time, forcing myself to focus on her face. She dipped her nail in the paste and started drawing.

  It was as if Ting fell into a trance and was taken over by someone else. She smiled as she worked, enjoying every loop and swirl, every line, ignoring my grunts and heavy breathing. Sweat beaded and fell down her forehead. The tent began to smell like burned flowers as smoke rose from my hand. Then there was the itching. The symbol was fighting back.

  She turned my palm up and began to draw near the symbol. I looked down and was horrified. It quivered, coiled, and moved slowly away from her drawings. It was disgusting. But there was nowhere for it to escape. As the drawings closed in around it, it began to fade. Every surface of my hand was covered. Daib’s symbol disappeared. She drew the final symbol over the spot where it had been, a circle with a dot in its center. Ting’s eyes cleared and she sat back.

  “Ssaiku?” Ting asked, wiping her face with the back of her hand.

  He didn’t respond. He had his eyes shut tightly. His face was strained and he was sweating profusely, dark patches in the armpits of his caftan.

  The itching started on my left hand. Ting cursed under her breath when she saw the panic on my face. The priest and priestess paused in their prayers.

  “Has it worked?” the priestess asked.

  Ting turned up my left hand. The symbol was there now. “It’s jumped, like a spider,” she said. “Give me three minutes. Mwita, get me palm wine.”

  He quickly got up and brought the bottle and a glass to Ting. She grabbed the bottle and drank deeply from it. Her hands were shaking. “Evil man,” she whispered, taking another swig. “This thing he put on you . . . eh, you can’t understand.” She took my hand. “Mwita, hold her tightly. Don’t let her run. I have to chase it away now.”

  She started drawing again. I gritted my teeth. When she’d chased and trapped the symbol in the center of my palm, it did something that made me want to jump up and tear out of that tent like my life depended on it. It sunk deep into my hand and then emitted such an electrical shock that for a moment, I couldn’t control my muscles. All of the nerves on my body flared. I screamed.

  “Hold her,” Ting said, grasping my hand with all her strength, her eyes wide as she drew. Mwita held me down as I bucked and shrieked. Somehow, Ting managed to complete that last circle. The symbol, repelled, jumped from my hand and landed with a clack on the floor. It sprouted many black legs and ran.

  “Priest!” Ssaiku shouted, as he sat down hard on the floor and sighed with extreme fatigue. The tent flap fell open on its own. The noise from outside came tumbling in.

  The priest leaped forward and ran after the symbol. Skipping this way and that. Finally, Smack! He stamped his sandal on it hard. When he removed his foot, only a smudge of charcoal was left. “Ha!” Ssaiku triumphantly exclaimed, still breathing heavily. Ting sat back, exhausted. I lay there panting on the floor, the mat underneath me still feeling like metal spiders. I rolled off it and stared at the ceiling.

  “Try to change your hand,” Ting said.

  I was able to change it into a vulture’s wing. However, instead of just black feathers, it was speckled with black and red ones. I laughed and lay back on the floor.

  CHAPTER 49

  MWITA AND ISPENT THE NIGHT IN SSAIKU’S TENT. Ssaiku had an important meeting and wouldn’t be back until the morning.

  “What about the sandstorm?” Mwita asked Ting. “Is it still . . .”

  “Listen for yourself,” she said. I could hear the distant roar of the wind. “He can control it when he travels. That’s nothing for him. I think people had a good time while the storm was down, though. I’m always telling him that he should do that once in a while.” She moved to leave. “Someone will bring you both a large meal.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t eat anything,” I moaned.

  “You must eat too, Mwita.” She looked at me. “The last time he ate was the last time you ate, Onye.”

  I looked at Mwita shocked. He only shrugged. “I was busy,” he said. We fell asleep minutes after Ting left. It was past midnight when Luyu woke us. “Ting said you have to eat,” she said, lightly smacking my cheek again. She’d spread out a gigantic meal of roast rabbit, a large bowl of stewed rabbit livers, cactus candy, curried stew, a bottle of palm wine, hot tea, and something I hadn’t eaten since I was in the desert with my mother.

  “Where did they find aku?” Mwita asked, taking one of the fried insects and popping it in his mouth. I grinned, doing the same
.

  Luyu shrugged. “A bunch of women handed me all these plates but that one bothers me. It looks like . . .”

  “It is,” I said. “Aku are termites. You fry them in palm oil.”

  “Ugh,” Luyu said.

  Mwita and I ate ravenously. He made sure I ate all the rabbit liver stew.

  “It was stupid to eat that much,” I moaned, when we finally stopped eating.

  “Maybe, but it’s a good risk to take,” he said.

  Luyu sat with her legs stretched out as she watched us and sipped a glass of palm wine. I lay out on the floor. “Where are Diti and Fanasi?” I asked.

  Luyu shrugged. “Around, I guess.” She crawled to me. “Let me see your hands.”

  I held them out. They were like one of the Ada’s works of art. The drawings were perfect. Perfect circles, straight lines, graceful ebbs and flows. My hands were like the pages of some ancient book. The symbols on my right hand were smaller and closer together than the ones on my left. More urgent. I flexed my right hand. It didn’t hurt. No pain meant no infection. I smiled, very very glad.

  “I could look at them all day,” Mwita said.

  “But this hand is useless,” I said, making a fist with my right hand. “Or should I say dangerous.”

  “So when do you think we’ll be, well, moving on?” Luyu asked.

  “Luyu, I can barely walk,” I said.

  “But you’ll be able to soon enough. I know you,” she said. “I’m in no hurry really. It’s nice here. But in a way I am. I . . . I was talking to some men. They told me things, about how it is in the West.” She paused. “I know something has happened to you.” She took a deep breath and steadied herself. “I pray, I pray to Ani, I swear to Ani, that you better be the real thing. You have to be the one prophesied.” She paused, looking with wide eyes at Mwita, then me. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean . . .”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I’ve told him.”

  Mwita cocked his head, eyeing me. “You told her before telling me?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Luyu said. “What matters is that it has to be true because what’s happening over there, what waits for you to put an end to it, is of the oldest evil. I used to think it was the Nurus. They were born ugly and superior . . . but, it’s deeper than humans.” She wiped her eyes. “We can’t stay here too long. We have things to do!”