Akata Witch

by Nnedi Okorafor

  Orlu’s face was square and bright green. It was decorated with thousands of wiggling Nsibidi symbols too small for her to read. Sasha had the wooden head of a fierce-looking parrot, his thick beak a bright yellow and the rest of his head a bright red. She’d already seen Chichi’s long, marble-like spirit face. She couldn’t see the driver’s because he was in front. Then they were over the bridge. She quickly shut her eyes and pretended to open them with everyone else. She looked out of the window, embarrassed and a little guilty. What she’d viewed was very, very private. But she was glad she’d looked.

  When they reached the Obi Library, the sun was just coming out.

  “Your chittim be taken to your homes,” the driver said flatly.

  “What about mine?” Sunny said. “My family won’t know what it is.”

  “It’s taken care of,” he said. He drove off without saying good-bye. None of them really cared. When they stepped into the library this time, the change was obvious. Though several buckets still collected drops of water, people were walking about quickly and talking excitedly, some looked agitated and some happy. News traveled fast.

  Samya jumped up from behind the WETIN desk when she saw them. “You’re here!” she shouted. People stared. Samya ran over to them. “Come!”

  Again they were led to the third floor, not the fourth. To Sugar Cream’s office. Sugar Cream stood up and hurried over.

  “Samya,” she said, “get them fresh clothes.”

  “Yes, Oga,” she said, leaving.

  “What happened?” Sugar Cream said. “Tell it all to me.”

  It took them a half hour. Samya came with a stack of clothes, setting them on the floor next to Sugar Cream’s chair.

  “You four did an excellent job,” Sugar Cream said when they finished. “And you, Sunny, put the deepest fear into Ekwensu. But because of what Black Hat has done, it will be easier for her to return now, and she’ll start gathering in the spirit world. So we here in the physical world must also prepare. I’ve known this time would come.” She paused. “I will tell your teacher and your mentors about all you did.” She stood up and hugged each of them and took Sunny aside.

  For several moments, Sunny and Sugar Cream looked into each other’s eyes. Sunny held her breath but didn’t look away. Then Sugar Cream pursed her lips and said, “You’ve proven yourself today in more ways than one,” she said. She crossed her arms over her chest and nodded. “Okay.”

  Sunny grinned. She finally had a mentor.

  21

  Timing

  By the time Sunny got home, the sun was setting again.

  She’d been gone for over twenty-four hours. The air was heavy with mist as the rainwater evaporated in the heat. Her brothers were outside, kicking a soccer ball around. She wore a clean green rapa and white T-shirt. Her sandals, the ones she’d left home in, were encrusted with mud, as was her hair. She ran over and stole the soccer ball from her brothers with her feet. Even in her rapa, she was quicker than them.

  “Where have you been?” Chukwu asked. He looked angry. “You look terrible.” She kicked the ball to Ugonna.

  “Trying to save the world,” she said.

  Ugonna kicked the ball to Chukwu, who kicked it to her.

  “Daddy is going to flog the hell out of you,” Chukwu said, looking her up and down. “Mama defended you and said she’d given you permission to go, but Daddy…” He looked at his watch. “You better get ready for it.”

  She brought her foot back and sent the ball flying across the street into the neighbors’ concrete fence. Chukwu cursed at her as he ran after it. Ugonna punched her in the shoulder as he followed Chukwu. She went inside.

  The smell of pepper soup filled her nostrils as soon as she opened the door. Highlife music came from her parents’ room. It was half past six. She didn’t care what time it was. She had reason to be late. And her father’s issues weren’t hers. She went to the kitchen, where her mother stood bent over a huge pot of pepper soup.

  “Hi, Mama,” she said.

  Her mother whirled around, her eyes inspecting every part of Sunny for injury. She grinned and tears came to her eyes. Then the grin fell from her face. Sunny turned around to face her father.

  Neither of her parents had been to work in a day and a half because of the rain. It was rare for them to enjoy free time. Her father wore his favorite home outfit, a yellow and blue wrapper and a T-shirt. But there was not a trace of relaxation on his face.

  “Where in hell have you been all day?”

  “Dad,” she said. Her voice shook. “I was up to nothing unholy or shameful or dirty. I was with my friends and-” She skipped back as her father’s hand flew at her face. He missed. She held up a shaky hand. “No more, Dad!” He came at her again and again. She dodged him each time. He pushed aside the dinner table.

  “Emeka!” her mother yelled at him. “Ah, ah, stop it now, biko, please!” She pulled Sunny behind her.

  “This is why she runs wild,” her father bellowed, breathing heavily, more irrational. Sunny’s anger at him flared as he kept shouting, “It’s all you! You protect her and she thinks she can do whatever she wants. She’s got your genes, your damn mother’s genes! She’ll come to no good like your mother! Aren’t you concerned about that? Eh?”

  Her mother was quiet.

  “You don’t speak because you know I’m right, my wife,” he said. “Your mother started disappearing at night around this age, no? Didn’t you tell me that? Then one day she came home carrying you in her belly! She’s lucky the guy married her.” He turned back to Sunny, disgusted. “A beating won’t save you. Look at you, you’re lost. I can’t stand it!” He turned and stormed out of the kitchen.

  Sunny sat down at the table and just stared off into space, tears running down her face. It was sad, so sad. She put her head on the table. Through all her thoughts of Ekwensu, her friends, her parents, the fights in school, her grandmother, one question burned bright and hot: “Who am I, Mama?”

  Sunny didn’t see what her mother was doing because she had her head on the table. Her mother must have stood by the stove looking at her as she stirred the pepper soup because minutes later, she set a bowl of it in front of Sunny. She could feel the heat from the bowl against her arm. She could smell the pepper.

  Her mother pulled up a chair and sat down with another bowl. Sunny could hear the click of the spoon as her mother ate. Slowly, she sat up. Her mother handed her several tissues and watched her wipe her red eyes and blow her nose. Then Sunny picked up her spoon and began to eat. The soup was hot and there were large chunks of chicken and tripe in it. It was good.

  “Your father never wanted a daughter,” her mother said.

  Sunny spooned more soup into her mouth. Delicious.

  “You see your brothers, they are just like your father,” she said. “When they are sons, to him they’re safe.” She smiled sadly. “He doesn’t understand that with them he was just lucky. It could have been them, too. You all come from me, as well as him. And it comes from her, my mother.”

  Sunny closed her eyes. “Mama, please, tell me about Grandmother.”

  Her mother looked at her soup and sighed. “Your auntie Chinwe told me you were asking about her.” She looked at Sunny. “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Once I tell you, I can’t un-tell you,” she pleaded.

  “It’s okay. Please, Mama.”

  Her mother picked a piece of chicken out of her soup and nibbled on it. “I have two younger sisters, as you know,” she said. “I’m not sure how my mother and father met, but my mother became pregnant with me while she was very young. My father refused to leave her. He loved her very much.”

  She paused and took a spoonful of soup.

  “My parents weren’t married,” she finally said. “I don’t know why-none of us ever knew why. I just tell your father that they were. If he’d have known, he’d have never…” She looked at her hands, ashamed. “My mother was a strange woman. She love
d us dearly. Raised us to be smart and independent and educated. She watched us closely, like she was looking for something, but I don’t know what. Whatever it was, she didn’t find it. Not in me or my siblings. I think she’d have found it in you.

  “I’m not stupid. I can see between lines.” She paused. “Weeks ago, I was passing your room one night and I saw-I saw a pile of metal things that I once found lying in my mother’s bedroom when she was alive.”

  Sunny put her hand over her mouth, shocked. Her mother shook her head and waved a hand at her. “It’s okay,” she sighed. “Everyone thought that your grandmother was leaving at night to run around with other men, but there were other reasons. My father was just a coincidence. My sister once saw Mama disappear, right into thin air. We all knew that there was something strange about Mama.”

  “What do you think she was doing?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea. Why don’t you tell me?”

  “I-I can’t,” Sunny said.

  She nodded. “That was what my mother used to say.”

  A silence fell between them.

  “I trust you,” her mother said, reaching forward to take her hands. This brought tears to Sunny’s eyes, especially after the garbage her father had just spewed.

  “Mama, you can trust me. I swear it,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “What of Dad?” she said finally, hopelessly.

  Her mother smiled sadly. “Some things are inevitable. But you’re suffering for her dishonesty. He may not know that my parents were never married, but he knows of your grandmother’s reputation. Men always blame the woman when a child dissatisfies him. In this case, he is right-in more ways than one.”

  “Does he hate me?” she asked.

  Her mother paused. “We moved back to Nigeria because of you. I had this strong feeling that something bad was going to happen to you in the United States, and I told your father this. He didn’t want to move back here.”

  Sunny frowned. “So that’s why he agreed? Because he thought your feeling was right?” Her father had moved back to Nigeria because of her? She found it hard to get her mind around this idea.

  Her mother nodded. “But I was wrong. It wasn’t that something bad would have happened to you in New York. It was that something needed to happen to you here in Nigeria.”

  Her mother got up and gave Sunny a tight hug.

  “I love you, Mama,” Sunny whispered.

  “I love you, too,” she said. “But be careful. Be very, very careful.” She held Sunny’s face in her hands. “Today is the day my mother was killed.”

  Sunny froze.

  “Yes,” her mother said. “And that day, it… was raining, too. It happened in my father’s obi, behind the house.”

  Timing, Sunny thought. The scholars had said it was all a question of timing.

  When she returned to her room, she found a wooden box on her bed. A ghost hopper sat on top of it. She quickly closed her door. This must have been the box her auntie told her about. It was made of thin wood. It was cheap. The moment she touched it, it flipped open. Inside was a handwritten letter and a sheet of Nsibidi symbols. The letter said:

  Dear child of my child,

  If you are able to read this, then you were able to open the box, which means you have manifested my spirit’s touch. Welcome. Oh, welcome, welcome, welcome! I left this box with my oldest child. It was charmed with juju that would make her keep it safe and secret until the time came to pass it on. She has done well, for the juju would only work if she wanted it to, if she believed in me. This is good.

  I am Ozoemena Nimm, but most called me Ozo. I am of the warrior folk of the Nimm clan, born to Mgbafo of the warrior Efuru Nimm and Odili of the ghost people.

  I will get to the point. I was a rebellious child.

  I did not like being told what to do. So I went out and found a Lamb man and gave him children. I did not realize that to do this would lead me to a double life. A Leopard is not to tell a Lamb what she is, for Lambs fear Leopards by nature. I did not realize that my actions would lead you to a double life, too. And for this I am sorry. Only after I gave birth and moved in with the father of my children did I realize the mistake I’d made.

  I was born with black, black, black skin. And my ability was not only invisibility, it was the ability to go back and forth between the wilderness and the physical world. I only learned this after I reached third level. What is your ability? I feel strongly that it will be like mine. If it is, then there is more history in you than you yet know. As I was, you have been busy.

  There is something coming. This is all I can say. Not soon but eventually, soon enough. Maybe you know about this already. Don’t fear it, if you do. There’s more to it than you think.

  Know that I love you. Know that I wish you well. Know that I have confidence in you because I have confidence in myself. I am incredible. Make Leopard friends so that you will not be alone, and forgive the blindness of your parents and siblings. It is not their fault. It is up to you to be mature.

  I must go. I hear Kaodili calling. I want to seal this box tonight, for I feel strongly that something bad will happen to me soon. Take care of yourself and remember what is important.

  Sincerely,

  Your ancestor, Ozo

  It was as if Sunny had just gotten a glimpse of her own soul.

  Now she knew why her grandmother wasn’t married. Like Chichi’s mother, she, too, was Nimm, though Chichi’s mother was some sort of royalty and Sunny’s grandmother was a warrior. What did that mean? And did this make her Nimm, too? Did that mean she couldn’t marry? Was she a warrior?

  She looked at the sheet of Nsibidi symbols. It was all too sophisticated for her to understand-yet. She put it back in the box with the letter. She blinked and took the letter and Nsibidi sheet back out. There was one more thing in the box: an old black-and-white photograph of an unsmiling very dark-skinned woman holding a large knife across her chest.

  “Grandma,” she whispered. As the old blind woman at the council meeting had said, Sunny looked nothing like her. But what did that matter? She smiled to herself and carefully put the picture back in the box.

  22

  Headless and Headlines

  The next morning, her wasp artist had built a man made out of something like sawdust with a hat of chewed-up leaves. The man was plump and looked suspiciously like Black Hat. When Della saw Sunny looking at it, it flew to the dust man’s head and hovered next to it batting its wings. The head blew away. Sunny laughed hard and clapped and said, “Well done! Looks just like him!” The wasp buzzed its wings with glee and flew out the window.

  She grabbed the day’s paper and unrolled it with shaking hands. The headline read:

  CHILDREN RETURNED SAFELY TO THEIR PARENTS

  ABA, Nigeria (AFP)-A three-year-old girl and a twoyear-old boy, believed to be the children recently kidnapped by ritual killer Black Hat Otokoto, have been safely returned to their parents. They were found wandering the streets by two young men during yesterday’s storms. The two men declined to give their names.

  “They were angels sent from God,” the mother of the boy said. “If you are out there and reading this, know that you have saved my life as you have saved my son’s, and I am eternally thankful.” The parents of the girl declined an interview, but were also deeply thankful and relieved.

  Further down the page was a photo of Black Hat’s gas station. And that headline read:

  GAS STATION GOES UP IN FLAMES

  AFTER BEING STRUCK TWICE

  BY LIGHTNING

  Epilogue

  Sunny sat down for her first class after the rains. She felt odd. She glanced over and met Orlu’s eyes. They smiled at each other, as if sharing a joke. Once the teacher started talking, Sunny was surprised that she was still interested in learning normal things like algebra, literature, and biology. She could still concentrate.

  During lunch, Orlu told her that Anatov would let Chichi know when they’d next meet. “He�
�ll probably give us two or three weeks to recuperate,” he said. “But we’ll each also be meeting with our mentors on our own time, I guess.”

  “I think I have my work cut out for me,” Sunny said.

  “With Sugar Cream as a mentor, there’s no doubt about that,” he said, laughing. “Oh, did Chichi tell you? She and Sasha are going to prepare to pass the second level.”

  “I thought you had to be sixteen or seventeen for that.”

  “Well, who knows how old Chichi is? Sasha’s early, but after what they just went through, he might as well have gained two years.”

  She nodded.

  “And you don’t always have to be that age,” he said. “It’s just recommended. But if you don’t pass, you suffer terrible consequences, so you see the logic in waiting?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “So you don’t think you’re ready?”

  Orlu shrugged.

  “You’re afraid to fail?”

  “What about you? How many of them can say they faced Ekwensu and lived? Not even the scholars can say that. And you have friends in the wilderness.”

  “Oh, please, I don’t even remember what the second level is called.”

  “Mbawkwa,” Orlu said as the bell rang.

  “Feels weird, doesn’t it?” she said to Orlu as they walked back in.

  “You’ll get used to it,” he said. “Having two lives is better than none.”

  “True.” And she laughed.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to my editor, Sharyn November, for daring to taste pepper soup (literally and metaphorically). To my mother for telling me about tungwas and my father for showing me how masquerades dance. To my sisters Ifeoma and Ngozi for finding the title of this novel hilarious. To my brother Emezie for exposing me to pro wrestling and naming my character Miknikstic. To my daughter Anyaugo, nephew Dika, and niece Obi-Wan, who are constant reminders that the meaning of this novel’s title runs deep. To Tobias Buckell and Uche Ogbuji for the much-needed help with the soccer/football terminology. And lastly, to Naija for being Naija. One love.