Wolf Light

by Yaba Badoe

  My sisters beam.

  ‘Excellent,’ Gran-pa says, clapping his hands.

  And for a moment, as my sisters clap as well, I believe that whatever they can do, I can do too.

  *

  There are three of us living by the Linet Lake: Nana, her black cat, Bracken, and me. But then again there are others, for Carbilly has been the home of Merrimore women for generations and in the same way that the moor’s alive, so too is the cottage.

  In the shadows, the house is home to my sisters as well. Yet the closer we become, the more I realise how different we are.

  Take Zula: magic drifts through her like a never-ending dream. As the years pass and her gift deepens, Adoma and I learn as much from her as we do our teachers.

  Adoma, as Zula’s pa foretold, reveals a talent as she grows for harnessing the nuts and bolts of unseen elements to hurt those who would harm our spaces. I’ve watched her blast the stump of a tree in anger, smashing it into smithereens. If she’d had a chance to tackle the tree rustlers who cut the tree down, she’d have scorched them as well.

  As soon as I’ve mastered the basics of earth and fire magic, it’s as clear as the ripples on the Linet Lake that anger at Mrs Gribble can only get me so far. Rage has its limits, especially when it stains the tongue with the taste of blackberries. The angrier I become, the stronger the tang, the deeper I hunger for what I don’t have: magic to stream through me as easily as it does my sisters. My craving swells until a day comes when I begin to dwell on what’s holding me back.

  We’re in wolf-light at the cave of Zula’s mountain, which she visits every month at around the same time as Adoma does the river goddess’ shrine. My task is to tend to the Linet Lake daily.

  The air is chilly at the cave. Even in summer it’s winter cold. Blades of sunlight shiver between night and day. Zula, fur-clad, croons a lullaby to her sleeping giant while below a wolf howls, joining in Zula’s song. A cloud, brightened by a sickle moon, glimmers in moon-dance.

  The wolf bays louder, as one after the other, her pack dotted around the Giant’s mouth takes up her serenade. No one can hear me, but as my craving surges, inside I begin to howl too.

  Once the Giant is soothed into the deepest depths of slumber, Zula’s luminous eyes skim mine searing me with their wolfish shine. She lowers her eyelids, replying to my question before I ask it.

  ‘To release your heart’s song, Linet, to become a sky-warrior, a guardian of the earth, your lake must be as the Sleeping Giant is to me – a mother, a father, your best friend.’

  ‘But my mother’s tears haunt me, Zula. What’s more, Nana Merrimore talks about everything but Mother. Nana won’t mention her, won’t tell me who my father is.’

  ‘Chill, my sister,’ says Adoma. In wolf-light, her features and limbs glint. ‘My father doesn’t care a pesewa about me. He won’t give me a penny. Sometimes it’s best to let parents be.’

  ‘I want to know.’

  ‘You didn’t before,’ Adoma reminds me.

  ‘Zula, can’t you dredge up more of my memories?’

  ‘Follow your tongue,’ she replies.

  ‘And how’s that going to help me?’

  Zula licks her lips, then says: ‘That taste!’

  Straight away, I know what to do.

  On the first day of autumn, I set off from Carbilly, past the Linet Lake, across the moor. I walk through brambles and the last of the briar roses to sweeten my mouth.

  Bracken, Nana Merrimore’s cat, stalks me, trailing my footsteps before padding alongside. Bracken, so called because her green eyes tinged orange, resemble rusty-tipped ferns moist with dew. The only cat I know capable of strolling with a human without being distracted treads daintily. A sedge warbler flits over a willow shrub; Bracken ignores it. A skylark hurls its song at us; the cat seems deaf, then blind to a rabbit that bounds past.

  Where I step, Bracken follows. And when I create a veil of drizzle-mist and unfurl it, wrapping it around me to hide behind, Bracken, tail up, moves closer, until back hunched, she pads between my legs almost tripping me. She purrs, her eyes tracking mine as through a haze of vapour they settle on Crow’s Nest, home of the Gribbles.

  A stone’s throw away I hear Mrs Gribble humming as she cooks at a stove.

  ‘Lance! Arthur! Breakfast’s ready.’

  ‘Coming, Ma,’ the eldest boy replies, while Lance, upstairs, pauses at a window. Puzzled, he stares at the swell and sway of mist outside.

  ‘Lance! Where are you?’

  About to turn, he stops. I sniff his scent; inhale a whiff of summer pudding.

  Bracken hisses. My fingers flutter, muffling her clamour with another layer of fog. Thickening, it swirls, concealing us. Or so I believe, until the boy at the window sticks out his tongue and laughs.

  His warmth licks my skin like a pup, its tail wagging. I bask in his smile, in the gleam of his raven hair. And as the taste of blackberries overwhelms me, I grasp that not only do I want him; I need him to like me best of all.

  ‘Hukaa!’ Adoma calls from afar. ‘Sisters, come quickly!’

  I return his smile and flee.

  3

  Adoma

  Last but not least, it’s me – the third-born of three – Adoma. Me, a Ghana-girl through and through, a 100-per-cent-all-the-way Asante Kotoko football supporter. It’s my turn to talk now, so listen well, my friend!

  The day I summoned my sisters to my sanctuary in star time, Zula arrived first at the river goddess’ shrine – the one in the forest.

  I’d gone there to practise a dance in praise of the deity who protects our village, our trees and the river; a dance for harvest to thank her for our crops: cassava, cocoa, plantain and yam. My hands and feet were moving to the rhythm of my heart, when the sky cracked open, and in they swarmed: fruit bats – legions of them. Sky foxes on the rampage. Chomp! Chomp!

  I tried to shoo them away, but within seconds, all I could do was watch as tiny teeth savaged the fruit of the guava trees. Guavas ravaged! Every pineapple devoured! Every mango, I tell you! Aba! Come and see!

  I would have blasted them back into the sky had it not been for the vows we live by, my sisters and I. We’ve sworn never to harm the creatures that seek refuge in our sacred places. The only sacrifices we make are gifts of the heart in which no blood is spilled, no life taken – unless we meet skin-walkers intent on destruction.

  That day, Okomfo Gran-pa was out of town in Accra visiting my mother. I was alone, so I rubbed the tattoo on my wrist and summoned my sisters with the huntress’ call.

  As soon as she arrived, Zula surveyed the scene: a camp of bats dangling from trees shorn of fruit. Trees Gran-pa had planted to mark the boundaries of our shrine. Zula’s face confirmed what I already knew. This was bad, so bad, it was unlike anything we’d experienced.

  ‘This shouldn’t be happening,’ she said. ‘Not here.’

  ‘Well, it’s happened. If what’s going on in the real world is beginning to affect us here, it’s going to get much worse over there.’

  Zula nodded.

  A moment later, Linet surfaced. Flushed, she gaped horrified at the dark, bulbous fruit quivering on trees: winged foxes at rest.

  Panic hastened my breath as Zula spoke: ‘This breach is a sign, an omen that something bad is about to happen in real time. I feel it.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Linet with a shiver.

  Fear shimmied down my spine. We’d been training for this moment most of our lives, but as I heard trouble slither towards us, it held me, transfixed.

  Linet rubbed the goose-bumps prickling her arms. ‘You can’t hear when a tree is cut down on the other side of the world, but before long we’re living with the fallout.’

  ‘Only next time, it will be worse,’ I said. ‘A plague of locusts or that red tide rising along the coast of Florida.’

  My sisters’ eyes probed mine, questioning, so I described what I’d seen on television: a deadly red algae ravishing the straits the other side of the Atlantic, killing fi
sh, turtles and dolphins while the stench of rotting corpses fouled beaches.

  ‘Mother Earth is on fire, Father Sky weeps tears of blood,’ I murmured, repeating the words of Zula’s father.

  I straightened my back, made a fist of my hand: ‘There will soon be skin-walkers here…’

  ‘Not if we can help it,’ said Linet. ‘But what do we do about these bats?’

  ‘They might as well stay,’ Zula replied. ‘They’ve eaten all the fruit. Before long they too will be food for wild cats and owls.’

  ‘First,’ I said, ‘we should conceal the crack in the sky to prevent any more intruders. Then we get ready for what lies ahead. Let’s do it, my sisters!’

  So we did. With a combination of water and sky magic we covered the breach with clouds. Linet created mist with her fingers, which Zula compacted into rolling puffs of cumulus. Then, using the power of my mind and the energy around us, I flung them up, arranging them to disguise the chasm and prevent it from widening.

  Each of us knew this was a temporary measure; a gesture as futile as sticking a finger in a dyke to prevent a raging flood. All the same, we thought it best we did what we could.

  ‘I’ll tell Grandma and Pa what’s happening here,’ said Zula before she vanished.

  Heart heavy, no longer in the mood to dance, I sat by the river, Linet beside me. She slipped her hand over mine and as her touch settled, I sensed a change in her, a sizzle that hadn’t been present before.

  ‘Eh-eh, have you followed your tongue already?’

  ‘Yes,’ she smiled, her head falling on my shoulder.

  ‘My sister, don’t play with me. Tell me! What happened?’

  ‘A glut of blackberries,’ she sighed. ‘My tongue’s fizzing, my skin’s ablaze with Lance’s smile.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He sees me, Adoma. No one else does when I roam the moor wrapped in drizzle-mist. Only him.’

  ‘Maybe he’s special.’

  A family of otters slipped into the river: a mother and her pups. Their skill in water, the deftness of their claws, bodies and teeth as they fished, never ceased to amaze me.

  ‘You think he’s special, do you?’

  ‘What does your heart tell you, Linet?’

  ‘If my tongue’s connected to my heart, maybe he is.’

  I chuckled. ‘Then do what you have to, my sister. Come! Let’s swim.’

  We tore off our clothes and hand in hand jumped.

  As the river gurgled above me, a thought swam in my mind: after what had happened here today perhaps this was my last dip with otters at the goddess’ shrine.

  Surfacing for air, I whispered:

  ‘Goddess of forest and river,

  Protector of life, I call on you.

  Breath, blood, tree and stone,

  Deliver us from skin-walkers!

  Fish, bud, bee and bone.

  May those who stalk us fester,

  As soon as they enter your sanctuary.’

  The leaves of a mahogany tree rustled on branches that dipped and swayed. A sign, I believed, that having heard me, the river goddess would answer my prayer.

  4

  I am wolf.

  Snuffling and tumbling, I romp, alive to the smile of the moon as she turns her back on the sun. The crescent fades, the globe blooms and I yelp. Wriggling and rolling, tail curled, I sniff and snort. A plume of steam swirls from my nostrils and I sneeze as wind shrieks over the Giant’s mouth.

  A she-wolf growls, assembling a pack of sisters to hunt.

  ‘Wait for me!’ I try to tell them. But no matter how hard I strive, I can’t shape words on my tongue. Instead, I whine, excited at the scent of deer drifting from below. I want to run with the pack, but with the wobbly legs of a whelp, I don’t have the strength to bound and tack, as I should.

  I grizzle, warm my nose with a flick of my tail. Raise my head to howl, but the sound I make, the yap-snap of a pup, sets the she-wolves baying.

  I wait in the warmth of the den, sniffing for clues as to what lies ahead.

  I am wolf.

  And one day soon, I shall hunt with my pack.

  5

  Linet

  There are rules to using our craft, which my sisters and I have sworn to obey. We’ve promised to draw on our gifts to protect our sacred spaces, to challenge skin-walkers and keep them at bay. We should never, under any circumstances, use our craft to casually kill any creature or person unless we’re forced to; never use it to scheme, impose our will on others or dabble in darkness for money. I know this by heart, see. Nana drummed it into me from the beginning. Again and again, when she’s teaching me at home, she’s told me how things should be. Yet I’m still young enough to believe that some rules are flexible – a piece of string I can twist and tie according to my will. The truth is, I want Lance to like me so much, I don’t care how many rules I break. If I can only feel the trace of his smile on my face once again, I’ll be in blackberry heaven.

  So, when Nana Merrimore calls me for lunch, after I’ve told her about Adoma’s invasion of bats and she says, ‘Trickery and death. Skin-walkers are on to us…’ even though Nana’s still in the room, I can’t resist doing what I’m not supposed to. I adopt the qualities of another creature for my pleasure. In secret I take on a name so close to mine that I’m sure Nana won’t notice; won’t sense a shift in me.

  ‘Linnet, dear Linnet,’ I whisper at our kitchen table. ‘Hide me in a charm of linnets.’

  Bracken hisses while Nana stares at me. Then, touching her cheek as if sensing a kiss of betrayal, she watches my features shimmy and shift like the skin of a frog in a cloud forest. Nana gasps. And while my features ripple, allowing me to try on a new self for size, the cat vanishes.

  ‘Linnet, dear Linnet,’ I hum. And cloaking myself in another ‘me’, a prettier, more likeable ‘me’, a ‘me’ Lance will relish for ever, I glow in her colours of cream, pink and black. My cheeks shine, my hair radiates night.

  Nana watches me hug my shawl tighter. She watches, as later that evening, I shelter in its feathery warmth. Next morning when I wake to find it gone, I get out of bed and look out of the window. There, floating on the lake’s surface, is a small bird; its neck broken, its body entangled with strands of black hair.

  I rub my fingers over my scalp and pummelling it find a bald patch, round as a penny, by the crown of my head. I slam a fist in my mouth to smother my scream.

  Anxious to scoop the bird out before Nana can see it, I scramble downstairs. But Nana is waiting for me.

  ‘Linet, my dear,’ she says, ‘we need to talk.’

  She sits down, takes my hand, and with her other hand lifts my chin until I can’t help but look at her. Hazel eyes flecked with green douse sparks of anger in mine.

  ‘Linet,’ Nana says, ‘you’re not surprised by what’s happened, are you?’

  She lifts my chin a second time: ‘Listen to me. Hear me well. What we teach you isn’t for you. You do understand, don’t you?’

  I nod – a half-hearted nod maybe – for she goes on to say: ‘If you insist on making this all about yourself, others are going to get hurt. You summoned a linnet, now that linnet’s dead.’

  Nana lifts my chin a third time and flinches at a flush of rage on my face – rage at causing harm and being found out. That doesn’t put her off though. No, she clasps my hand tighter still.

  ‘What we teach is for a greater good. I showed you that chameleon ruse because there are times when women of our sort have to blend in. Times when you and your sisters will need camouflage. It’s not a trick to draw attention to yourself, quite the reverse.’

  I bite my lip to soothe my indignation. Bite my tongue to silence it, keep the sharpness in. It shoots out anyway: ‘Nana, all I want is Lance Gribble to like me.’

  ‘Lance? Have you taken leave of your senses, Linet? There’s a threat in the forest, a threat to all of us, and a pimpled boy is all you think about?’

  ‘Lance isn’t pimply!’

  ‘Why pic
k Lance when you have your sisters? They adore you.’

  Through gritted teeth, I hiss: ‘My sisters aren’t here!’

  ‘All you have to do is call them and they’re with you.’

  ‘I want a proper friend on the moor!’

  Nana gives me that look of hers. The look that says: ‘I thought you were made of sterner stuff than this, girl! I thought you had mettle.’

  ‘I like him, Nana, that’s all. I want him to like me too.’

  My grandmother sighs, shaking her head. ‘There’s no need to use deception, child. If he likes you, he’ll let you know.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t?’

  ‘Linet, don’t stumble into the thicket of thorns your mother did. Don’t break my heart a second time.’

  ‘What happened, Nana? Tell me. I’m old enough to know now, aren’t I?’

  ‘Maybe you are.’

  Nana folds my hands in hers, and looking me straight in the eye she says: ‘What if I told you that your mother gave herself away too easily and lived to regret it? And then when you came along, she just couldn’t cope…’

  ‘So she left me.’

  Nana nods. ‘Your mother asked me to look after you, to hold you close and watch you grow. I’ve done my best.’

  I’m about to ply her with questions when Nana deflects them the way she always does. She pulls me between her arms, scooping me up in a bear hug. ‘You’re the child of my heart, Linet Merrimore, and you always will be.’

  She hugs me, holds me, and then puts me down, saying: ‘Now, remove that bird from the pool. Bury it and wish it well.’

  I step outside in my nightdress and run past an old rhododendron bush. The moment she hears me, Bracken meows, wriggling out of her hiding place. She sniffs my bare feet and satisfied I’m who she thinks I am, and not the imposter who frightened her yesterday, she nips my big toe.

  ‘Have you missed me?’ I caress the velvet fold of her ear, the moist kiss of her nose.