Wolf Light

by Yaba Badoe

  What did they want from us? What were these strangers after and why was my uncle helping them?

  Unsure of how far I could trust my uncle or how my words would be translated in language the skin-walkers understood, I spoke plainly: ‘Weren’t you once a shaman yourself, Uncle? In fact, didn’t you recognise the man in the mountains before my father did?’

  Blood drained from Batu’s cheeks.

  ‘Uncle, why didn’t Pa and Grandma show you the trail to the Giant’s mouth?’

  The summer breeze around Batu turned icy as rage thickened his throat. Yet before he gave way to anger, he swallowed it with a smile. ‘Don’t play games with me, Zula. Answer me when I ask a question.’

  I nodded again. ‘I know the place well, Uncle, but I will not take these men there. The Giant’s mouth is sacred. It is not a place for foreigners.’

  Batu snorted. A snort that implied that in his opinion I had no idea what I was talking about and should keep quiet in a conversation that was the preserve of adults. Edging closer to where Ma was seated, he touched Ma’s knee: ‘Woman, these people have agreed to compensate you for the loss of your husband. If you take them where they want to go as well, they will reward us handsomely.’

  Ma looked from Batu to me, her dark eyes searching, anxious. I already knew how worried she was that without Pa we wouldn’t be able to survive.

  Ma pressed him: ‘You say they’ve agreed to compensate us for our loss?’

  An eye on me, the silky Cat man nodded at Ma.

  ‘How much?’ I asked him. ‘How much is my father’s life worth?’

  Cat man told us.

  My cheeks burned in disbelief. Pa was worth ten times that amount. No, not ten, a million times more!

  ‘And if I were to take these strangers to the Giant’s mouth?’

  The sum he quoted was double the amount.

  With a slight shake of her head, Ma covered her face with her hands. I placed an arm around her, as did Knenbish. And when my little brother Gan tiptoed behind Ma to ask her why Pa hadn’t come home yet and when he would return, she shuddered swaying back and forth.

  Funerals are expensive here; so expensive that I would be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted by the skin-walkers’ offer. It dangled before me bright as a jewel. So much money could help us restock our herds as well; help us buy books for school. As it was, apart from over the winter when my brothers and I attended classes at Gobi Altai, we relied on our labour over the summer. With extra money we might be able to fulfil Pa’s wishes. He’d wanted my brothers to attend school full time, so they could benefit in ways I hadn’t been able to. Now Pa was gone, my schooldays were over.

  The possibility of what might be slipped in. I know because Cat man smiled thinking he’d succeeded in persuading me to do the bidding of his masters. Yes, I was tempted, but before I could utter a word, a drizzle of honey and milk sweetened my tongue and my soul shimmered.

  The breath of the Sleeping Giant, grazing my skin, swept me into his embrace. The higher he lifted me, the more I tasted milk and honey, and from one moment to the next, I was up in our lair a lone wolf baying in wolf-light. The wind, sharp as a whip’s slash, would have hurt if not for the beauty of the setting sun. While around us the air, alive with the swoop and whirl of eagles, sparkled as I howled serenading him in wolf song.

  How could I even think of betraying Pa by showing strangers our secret place? There was no chance. I was too far on the shaman’s journey. The Giant was part of me; glints of his flint sharpened my blood. I would rather die than dishonour him.

  Cat man had smiled too soon.

  I shook my head: ‘Give us compensation for my father’s death,’ I said, ‘and when the storm has ceased making mischief, you people should go.’

  Ma smiled, confirming my request.

  The strangers agreed to do what we asked of them. In the meantime, with the storm still shrieking outside, they had to stay.

  My uncle poured more tots of Pa’s vodka. They drank a second glass, then a third. As the liquor quickened their tongues, the skin-walkers pleaded with Ma and my uncle. They begged them to make me change my mind. Indeed, they increased the sum they’d offered three times over. And when I still wouldn’t budge, but gave them a puzzled smile instead, they turned to my uncle.

  My uncle nodded. In that single gesture, the dip of his head combined with the hunger on his face, I grasped he was under their spell. Sometimes, I reasoned, in the full knowledge that I’d been enticed as well, the lure of money can make people travel to places most of us dare not venture. In the same way that the strangers realised that what they had to offer me was nothing compared to my love of Pa and the Sleeping Giant, I saw with my wolf’s eyes that my Uncle Batu was preparing to betray us.

  22

  Zula

  Late that night, I was about to sleep when I sensed Linet’s shadow snuggle against my shoulder. I made space for her and shifted as Adoma wriggled on my other side. I hadn’t summoned them, hadn’t called for help. Nonetheless, it was such a relief having the three of us together again that I realised how much I’d been missing them.

  I wrapped my sisters around me like a cashmere shawl. And as I felt them warming and thickening my soul, I began to wonder why we hadn’t called each other, even if just for a moment, instead of allowing ourselves to be scattered as sand is in a storm. No matter the circumstances, we should have made an effort to spend time together.

  ‘No use crying over spilled milk,’ Nana Merrimore would have said. Or to use Pa’s words: ‘Don’t roll up your trousers before you get to the stream.’ My teachers’ voices resonated in me as I lifted, once again, the burden of their loss.

  ‘And Okomfo Gran-pa, what would he have said, Adoma?’ I asked.

  ‘What is done today is done. Tomorrow will be better.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Linet. ‘Things can’t get much worse than they are now.’

  The three of us, stretched on my narrow bed, reflected on the changes we were a part of. Like butterflies emerging from chrysalises, blood pumped into our wings. And as we flapped and flexed them, unsure of our new place in the world, we touched the wound of our teachers’ deaths.

  I remembered Pa, recalling his last ritual: that song he sang that caused our camel to weep.

  And then Adoma, adding her memories to mine, looked back on a time of laughter: ‘Do you remember the day your pa taught us the rudiments of wind magic? I was so eager to learn I conjured a tornado that flung me into the sky!’

  ‘We remember. We remember,’ said Linet and I.

  ‘And the time Nana Merrimore took us down to the Linet Lake and showed us the magic that flows in her?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Adoma and I.

  ‘And the second time, when unbeknown to our mentors we met there at night,’ I reminisced. ‘Do you remember how the lake seemed to kiss us as she first held us and then drew us in?’

  ‘We do,’ said my sisters before repeating a declaration our teachers had taught us: ‘We remember because water, the most powerful element of them all, has memory and remembers us. And whether we acknowledge it or not we remember it too!’

  In our shadow world we high-fived.

  ‘Remember that afternoon,’ Linet chuckled, ‘when Gran-pa showed us how to make fire magic with a flick of a finger? That day when I flicked and flicked and nothing happened?’

  ‘I shall never forget,’ said Adoma.

  I laughed, my first belly burst of laughter since Pa’s death.

  ‘Nothing happened,’ Linet continued. ‘So Gran-pa says, “Linet, you should try to do everything you want to do with great intent. You should do it as if you mean to set the world alight with those fingers of yours.” So I do what he says and whoosh! The forest would have burned to the ground if a tear hadn’t fallen and turned fire into water to douse the flames.’

  I laughed again. And between our laughter and back-slapping, Adoma, black eyes ablaze tossed another memory in our pot: ‘Remember the time you took us up to your
eyrie in the Giant’s mouth, Zula? And bursting with sky magic we flew high-high up, even higher than eagles?’

  Linet nodded: ‘That’s when I first felt the Giant’s breath and said: “That Giant of yours, Zula, is alive. He’s alive!”’

  ‘We remember, we remember,’ Adoma and I replied.

  ‘And I remember your river, Adoma,’ I recalled. ‘Your sacred river and those days we swam with otters. We’d crawl out on to the river bank slick with mud, the smell of otter on our breath.’

  ‘I shall never forget,’ murmured Adoma.

  ‘And Gran-pa’s lessons,’ Linet went on. ‘That weird tingling I felt in my fingers the day he showed us how to channel energy from earth, sky and water to protect our sacred places.’

  I nodded and stirring our memory pot, stoked the dying embers of its fire. ‘And of all the lessons they taught us, which is the most important?’

  We recited the words our teachers had taught us, the basic tenets of our lore from which our knowledge of magic flowed: ‘Be still, align your senses with your surroundings and nsoromma. Learn to listen. Master your senses: sight, sound, touch and taste. Above all, breathe.’

  Our pot full to the brim, Linet said with a sigh: ‘Now that they’ve gone and we’re on our own, let’s start a new chapter. Let’s do things differently, like we decided the other week.’

  ‘Are you happy with that my sister-friend?’ Adoma whispered.

  ‘Sure,’ came Linet’s reply. ‘Absolutely fine.’

  ‘Start afresh so soon?’ Frowning, Adoma raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Why not? I’m right as rain. Best foot forwards as Nana would say.’ Linet laughed: a shrill quiver of laughter that grated.

  ‘I wish I could say the same,’ said Adoma. ‘The fact is, my sisters, the wahala in our house is frying my brains. Gran-pa was murdered and all Sweet Mother can talk about is what sort of funeral we should give him. She wants a Christian burial, of course. So I tell her again and again: “Sweet Mother, Gran-pa’s body is on ice in the mortuary. He is now a police case. Under the circumstances, we should be trying to find out who ordered his death!”’

  ‘Do you know who did?’ asked Linet.

  Adoma nodded, made a gesture that zipped her lips and then said: ‘I think I know. And with your help, if we gather every bit of magic in our blood and draw on earth, wind, fire and sky, justice will be done.’

  We agreed and yet Adoma continued pressing the bruise that returned her to her mother.

  ‘Now that Okomfo Gran-pa is gone those Alleluia people have taken over our house. They are squatting in every room, I tell you, driving Milo and me mad. And Sweet Mother? She is the worst of them all. If I say “cat”, she says “dog”. If I say “left”, she says “right”. Her way of thinking is like fufu is to kelewele. I’m kelewele, plantain juicy and ginger hot, while Sweet Mother is fufu fat paaaah!’

  ‘Your mother reminds me of my Uncle Batu,’ I admitted. ‘Except he’s small and stocky, a hungry man.’ I described the meeting that had just taken place, and as I explained the connection I sensed between my uncle and the skin-walkers, I tried to imagine the many ways Batu could undermine us by revealing the whereabouts of the Giant’s mouth, if I took him there. Even so, there was no way I could exclude him from Pa’s funeral.

  ‘Show him to us,’ Linet suggested.

  I held out my hand, and as my sisters touched my tattoo, an image of my uncle bloomed. With it came a waft of his scent.

  Linet sneezed. ‘Nasty. Very nasty. He uses a veneer of summer to hide his stench. Be careful of him, Zula.’

  ‘Eh-eh! This man is envious,’ said Adoma pulling away. ‘What he sees he intends to take.’

  Their reactions confirmed my suspicions.

  ‘Batu wants more than his fair share of everything,’ said Linet. ‘So what’s in it for those skin-walkers? Why go to all this trouble?’

  ‘They want to find out where the Giant’s mouth is,’ I replied. ‘As soon as they know, they’ll investigate to see if there’re any minerals up there: gold, copper, coal. Whatever they find, they’re after one thing alone: to make as much money as possible.’

  ‘And another thing,’ said Adoma. ‘Didn’t you once say that your pa suspected the Giant’s mouth could be the burial ground of the Great Khan?’

  I nodded. ‘Pa told me that everyone who witnessed the Great Khan’s burial was slaughtered to make sure that the place was kept secret and his treasure safe…’

  ‘Aba!’ said Adoma. ‘Once those skin-walkers know the source of your power, they’ll know how to control you, like you British did when you stole the Golden Stool of Asante…’

  ‘Not that again!’ Linet snapped. ‘I wasn’t even alive then!’

  ‘Linet, my sister, I’m not blaming you, I’m talking facts. Simple facts. You British conquered us, and after you took the Golden Stool and sent our chiefs into exile, we became your slaves.’

  ‘And so?’ said Linet.

  Adoma sighed: ‘As for you, you are too sensitive! Fact: I am linking my history to Zula’s. That. Is. All.’

  ‘Yes, we were conquered,’ I agreed, ‘yet long ago we were conquerors too. In his day the Great Khan ruled most of the world.’

  ‘Makes no difference,’ shrugged Adoma. ‘We conquered as well. Fact: Zula, you mustn’t let those strangers go anywhere near your shrine! Your Giant won’t like it. And if you feel a pinprick of the pain Gran-pa and I felt when our place in the forest was spoiled, your heart will break.’

  I trembled at the thought that there were likely to be more explosions where the Sleeping Giant lay. I shivered and sensitive to a change in me, Adoma hugged me, inhaling the scent of my skin: ‘A taste of honey,’ she said, ‘a drizzle of horse milk. Is he calling you again, Zula? Has he taken you up to his lair?’

  Linet, following Adoma’s example, went a step further. She licked the tender flesh of my wrist above my pulse. Her eyes widened as her mouth opened: ‘He has!’

  I nodded, marvelling at the intensity of emotion the Sleeping Giant woke in me. At times the breadth and scale of my feelings seemed to fill the sky with rain clouds that after bursting, watered the desert ten times over and then again.

  Adoma, named for her wisdom and grace, teased her fingers through my silver hair and for a moment her dark skin against my silver shimmered like a lone zebra on the steppes. Adoma smiled: ‘Okomfo Gran-pa used to say that this is how it is for some of us. We love the places we look after so much that when it finally becomes a part of us, it is our everything and we become like husband and wife, wedded for eternity.’

  I didn’t know how to explain that ‘my everything’ was now much more than a place to me. What had started out as a strongly-felt presence was beginning to take on the shape of a being that absorbed me completely; a being, who even though engraved in the landscape seemed to have a will of his own, capable of thrilling me at a moment’s notice.

  I nodded, aware that in a way I didn’t completely understand, I was drawn to the being my grandmother had called my man in the mountains. Was it possible to love a place in the same manner as a person? Perhaps it was.

  Linet, stroking the soft down of my forearm absorbed my confusion, and marshalling her gift for cutting to the heart of the matter with the blade at the end of her tongue, asked: ‘Do you love the Sleeping Giant, Zula?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I whispered. ‘Now that Pa’s gone I cleave to the Giant more and more. And when I think about him, I want to be up there close to him all the time.’

  ‘That’s how it has always been for you, Zula,’ Linet replied. ‘The older you’ve grown, the deeper your love. Maybe that’s how it has to be if we’re to protect the places we care about. Because if we didn’t care passionately about them, we’d allow skin-walkers to tear them apart. If there was any hint of fracking anywhere near the Linet Lake, any chance of its water being drained or contaminated, I’d destroy their machines and peck out the eyes of any skin-walker who dared to walk by.’

  I allowed Line
t’s comments to sink in and as I reflected on them, I began to wonder what advantage I had over my uncle. And if I did, what chance did I have of stopping him from doing what he might be planning?

  Catching the drift of my thoughts, Adoma jumped in: ‘If you think that he’s going to give the location of the Giant’s mouth to those skin-walkers, then he’s even more of a fool than Sweet Mother!’

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘If my uncle so much as tries to show them the Giant’s mouth, we’ll have to deal with him, deal with all of them. Are you two with me?’

  ‘Try to stop me,’ said Adoma.

  ‘And you, Linet?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said airily.

  In our shadow world, I brushed against my lake sister and sensed that well within her once again. Only this time it was brimming over with tears.

  ‘What is it, Linet? You’re not yourself,’ said Adoma, tapping into the jarring sensations that passed from Linet to us.

  For the third time she insisted: ‘I’m fine, absolutely fine.’

  She didn’t sound it. Adoma and I circled Linet to gather her in. We tried to draw her closer but she pulled away. She froze, cold as marble, as Adoma crooned: ‘Little Linet, Little Linet, child of the Linet Lake.’

  ‘I am not little,’ cried Linet. ‘I know how to look after myself.’

  Adoma recoiled. Then inclining towards her, probing and listening to Linet with her inner ear and heart, Adoma paused.

  ‘My sister!’ she said at last. ‘What have you done? Correction. What haven’t you done? Have you contacted those people Nana Merrimore told you to?’

  Linet’s face flushed as she struggled to lie. The lie was not forthcoming, for between us three there is only truth, a truth that is as clear as water for each of us to see.

  ‘No, I haven’t had time yet,’ said Linet. ‘I’ve been busy.’

  ‘Doing what?’ Adoma again, eyes gimlet-sharp like her grandfather’s.

  ‘Well, first of all, as soon as I found Nana’s bank cards, I had to take some money out and go shopping. I bought food for Bracken and myself. There was so much to do…’