“I see you,” the djinn said. Its dusty voice was strong here. It was strong here.
All she could think of was death. How many seconds had passed? Would they find her body? Then the djinn was on her like a vampire. They went tumbling into some bushes as she fought to keep it from tearing off her mask. Was it a mask in the wilderness? Could it come off? She vaguely remembered what her father had said about masquerades: “Never unmask a masquerade. That is an abomination!” What happened if one’s spirit face was torn off? Could the djinn then eat her soul like the meat of a cracked clam?
The djinn pinned her down in those bushes. It was stronger. It wasn’t human. It wasn’t dying. It knew this place. She was done for.
There was a large spider on its shoulder. It was red. With blue rings on it. Blue rings. Blue rings. Blue rings. The glimmer of sudden recognition was like a burning focal point of light in her brain, it was brilliant and it seared. She knew blue rings. She… remembered.
“I know you,” she blurted, straining to hold the djinn off her.
“Yes, we’ve spent some time together,” the djinn said, flashing a deeper red. “But don’t worry. Soon, you won’t know much else.”
She wasn’t talking to the djinn. As she desperately stared at the spider, she gasped, “I know you all.”
The djinn’s strength decreased as it tried to figure out what its prey was talking about and whom she was talking to. Then it noticed the spider on its shoulder. It released Anyanwu and scrambled back.
The spider leaped off the djinn and ran up to her and before she could say more, it turned its glowing backside to her and thrust its stinger into her yellow mist.
She was flying again. Backwards, this time, across the marble floor. The sand beneath her bottom. Her skin was cool because she was soaking wet. She came to a stop just in front of the bronze toad. She opened her mouth and inhaled for what felt like forever. Chink, chink, chink, chink! Several tiny copper chittim fell beside her.
For several moments, her vision was distorted. She rubbed her eyes and tried to see. She was seeing too much! The green of the wilderness, the basement, through two sets of eyes, two minds, Sunny and Anyanwu. It was as if she was broken and her selves were sitting beside each other as opposed to being unified within. The sensation was horrifying. She heard her selves screaming. And just when she was sure she’d go mad, she came back together and her world snapped into focus.
She shivered and shuddered and then jumped up to find it. She ran to the bookshelf, looking at the ground. Where was it, where was it? There. She grabbed it and downed the rest of her water. She was soaking wet, yet she felt horribly dehydrated. She grabbed her shirt and began to suck the water from it, too.
“Gah!” she groaned, stumbling back. She’d been able to suck up quite a lot of water. She was that soaked. Her body began to calm, but her mind was popping and crackling, memories exploding like popcorn. “I… What is this? I… I remember them,” she muttered, confused as her mind crowded. She whirled around. “I remember you all!” There, by the toad. Hundreds of them. She was lucky she hadn’t crushed them. But then again, they could probably move much faster than she thought. They were not just spiders. Where was the big one?
The back of her neck prickled. She looked up. The thick-legged spider the size of a dinner plate was perched on the wall right above her head. Sunny addressed it in Igbo because she knew this was its preferred language. She knew so much. “Ogwu,” she said. “Descendant of Udide the Great Spider of all Great Spiders, I remember you. I remember you and all of your children.”
The spider’s entire body scrunched up with surprise. Good, Sunny thought. Then it began to descend on a thick thread of webbing. Sunny knew she didn’t have much time, so she spoke fast. “Do you remember me? My name is Anyanwu but here, my name is Sunny Nwazue. I am the granddaughter of Ozoemena Nimm. So…” She fought to remember what her grandmother had written in the letter she’d left for Sunny. She’d read it so many times, but she’d just died and come back to life. “So that makes me of the warrior folk of the Nimm clan, descendant… of Mgbafo of the warrior Efuru Nimm and Odili of the ghost people. I am thirteen years old, of Igbo ancestry and American birth, New York City. I am a free agent who only learned this fact a year and a half ago. So you have to know that I can’t fight this djinn.”
Its voice made her feel like a tuning fork was being held close to her flesh. The vibration made her want to stick her pinky in her ear. It was vaguely female. “I know you, Anyanwu,” she said. She hung before Sunny’s eyes. Even with her life being in danger, her fear of spiders made her tense up.
“I know what you all tried and failed at so long ago,” Sunny said.
The spider clenched her legs to her body. Sunny suppressed a disgusted shudder.
“You were on the plane,” Sunny said. “The Enola Gay. I know. You were on the bomb, and you tried to weave the storytelling juju your people are most known for. You wove a thick thread that was supposed to cause the bomb not to work when they dropped it on Hiroshima. But when you attached it, you misspoke one of the binding words, and it snapped when the bomb was released. You failed and no one has seen you since. So, this basement is where you came with all your descendants to hide from the world.”
“No, this basement is where Udide cursed us to stay until I have completed my task,” she said. “Which is impossible because I have already failed.”
The lights flickered. And Sunny heard a scraping sound from across the room. The djinn had located its nerve. Such things never give up so quickly, she knew.
“Wait, please,” Sunny said. “Help me.”
“We will not,” Ogwu said. “We can’t help anyone. I am useless and my children are useless. The djinn takes from those sent down here for punishment, but we have only seen it kill one person punished down here. And that was forty years ago. A young man whose bones were so strong they could not break. Let it take from you, some blood, some years from your life, some of your life’s good luck. Then leave this place and never do anything stupid enough to cause your return. Or… maybe yes, it will kill you, Anyanwu. I will see you in the wilderness.” Ogwu started to ascend on her web, and Sunny began to panic. The djinn feared the spider. As soon as she was far enough from Sunny, it would have nothing to fear.
“Sunny Nwazuuuuue,” the djinn sang. “I’m coming for youuuuu!”
“I know how you can break your curse,” Sunny quickly said. Ogwu stopped. She waited.
“I need to do what you all tried to do but on a larger scale.” She was making it up on the spot. Sunny had no clue why she’d been shown the vision in the candle and was having the strange dreams. But this wasn’t a time to worry about flat-out lying. “I’ve seen the end. And this time it’s not just a city in flames, it’s the entire world. I’ve seen it in a candle. That’s what caused me to discover I was a free agent Leopard Person. And I’ve been seeing it over and over in my dreams for the last few months! So maybe it’s supposed to happen soon! Oh, saving the world will require more than just me, but I am needed. Please. Help me. If you do, you’ll be doing what you should have done back in 1945! And this time, it’ll be on a grander scale! You won’t just be saving a city, you’ll be saving the earth! Fear of failure leads to more failure! And you won’t fail this time! You will be able to leave this place, trust me. Remember sunlight? You’ll see it again, if you help!! I am… I am ignorant. I can’t defeat a djinn!”
“You’re Anyanwu; we knew each other well. You can crush this djinn like a pepper seed.”
“I don’t remember how!”
“Then you have no idea who you are!”
Sunny pressed her lips together but didn’t argue.
Ogwu paused and then quickly ascended up her web. Sunny’s stomach dropped. When she looked at the bronze toad, all of Ogwu’s children were gone, too. Hiding wherever they liked to hide. Probably poised to watch the djinn take her life. Sunny would be like the guy from forty years ago. How could Sugar Cream throw her down here kn
owing that had happened? How could they send anyone down here knowing about it?! The Leopard People could be a callous people, especially when it came to adhering to certain rules. The damn rules.
Sunny brought out her juju knife. There were the bones. Right beside her. And the smell of sulphur. She ran through the handful of jujus she’d learned so far. How to bring music, how to keep mosquitoes away, healing minor injuries, staying dry in the rain, making a cup of polluted fresh water drinkable, testing if something was cursed or poisoned, how to push back a heavy aggressor, creating a barrier. She paused. The barrier, she was good at that one.
She held up her hand and opened her palm. Then she brought up her juju knife and made a circular flourish. She caught the pouch with the same hand while keeping the other one up. The invisible packet was cool and wet in her palm. “Stay back,” she said firmly. Before she could speak the activating words the wilderness descended on her, layering her world. A black shadow flew from the pile of bones. Eyes wide, Sunny stood her ground. She opened her mouth to speak, but it was on her too quickly. Something sank into her arm like fifty needles. She screamed and her entire world, both physical and wilderness, flashed bright. She felt the djinn sucking as she tried to shake it off. But there was nothing to shake off. It had no body. Not even bones. There was nothing but a thick oily brown shade.
Suddenly, it froze. Then it let go. Sunny rolled away, avoiding her arm. She got to her feet and ran for the nearest bookcase. Only when she got around it did she chance a look back. It was disgusting. Hundreds of red spiders had pinned the djinn to the floor like a sheet of brown-red solid smoke. Sunny had to blink to fully understand what she was seeing. On one plane, the djinn was a pile of dry bones and the spiders were the size of American quarters, Ogwu the size of a dinner plate. On the other, the djinn was a large blob of brownish smoke and the spiders were large as basketballs, Ogwu the size of a small child. On both planes they were tearing the djinn apart.
She could hear the dry bones snapping, crunching, and crumbling. And she could hear the wet smacking as the large spiderlike creatures tore off tiny pieces of the djinn with their sharp legs and ate them. All the writhing legs and bodies made her stomach turn. The djinn didn’t make a sound. It accepted its sudden defeat like an old man giving up on life.
As they ate, the hanging light bulb at the ceiling brightened, flooding the basement. It was like sunshine in its purity and warmth. Sunny shaded her eyes.
“Udide has seen us!” she heard Ogwu shout. “Udide has seen us!!”
The spiders left the mess that was the djinn and went running to the wall, Ogwu leading the way. Up the wall they crept. Then they scrambled to the ceiling. Towards the hanging light. Ogwu stopped above it and pointed a leg at the light. “Go, my children, go! We’re free! I will show you the world!”
Group by group they lowered themselves on their webs into the light, which flashed blue whenever a spider entered it.
“Anyanwu,” Ogwu said. “Sunny Nwazue, good luck! We’ve saved you here, but all of our lives depend on what you and the others do. Stop Ekwensu.”
“How do you know it’s her?” Sunny asked. She hadn’t mentioned Ekwensu. “You’ve been down here all…”
“I’ve been down here, but you know my children and I are not just of this place. We dwell in the wilderness also. We know the news there.”
The basement flashed and flashed as if it contained its own lightning. Sunny looked back at the remains of the djinn. She was firmly in the physical world now and there was nothing but dust left of it. “Is it dead?” she asked Ogwu.
“It was never alive.”
“Will it rise again?”
“Not for a while. Eventually. But we will not be here when it does.”
Sunny smiled. She had one more night to spend here and she’d spend it alone. Thank goodness.
“Sunny Anyanwu, Anyanwu Sunny,” Ogwu said. Her children were all gone, and she was finally lowering herself towards the light. “Thank you for giving me this chance to finally act, to play a role. The Great Spider Udide blesses you. If you ever meet her, send her my greetings and love.” Then she was gone in a flash of blue light.
Silence. A good kind of silence. Sunny was safe. She held up her arm to look at where the djinn had bitten her and saw that her bicep was swollen and red. What did a bite from a djinn do? She had at least half a day left down here.
“The medical books!” she said, remembering. There were volumes of them in the case near the bronze toad. Her muscles felt sore and her head ached. But she felt good. She felt strong. The memory of Ogwu’s failure and curse was vivid in her head. As Anyanwu, she had been part of the group that sent Ogwu to stop the atomic bomb from dropping. She’d been a part of a group trying to prevent one of the worst human-caused disasters of all time, back in 1945. Wow.
It didn’t take Sunny long to find information in the medical books about the bite of a djinn. Apparently, they were common in the Sahara and all over the Middle East. They could kill you and take your soul if they held you in the wilderness long enough, which was probably what it had done to the man with the hard bones forty years ago and planned to do to Sunny. However, their bites only caused a low-grade fever and dryness in the mouth. Sunny would have to suffer until her final meal and release came.
Thankfully, the suffering was short-lived. Minutes after reading the djinni information, she sat beside the bronze toad and fell into a deep undisturbed exhausted sleep.
14
RELEASE
Pepper soup. Strong. With fish. She opened her eyes. Her stomach clenched with hunger. The light bulb was still shining brightly and Sugar Cream was glowing like Jesus Christ. The fact that she was wearing a long cream-coloured dress and matching cream-coloured veil added to the effect. Sunny’s mouth and throat were so parched she couldn’t speak. She was lying curled up on the sandy marble floor, her hoodie over her head, her sleeves pulled over her hands.
“Can you sit up?” Sugar Cream softly asked. She’d placed the tray of pepper soup and a large bottle of water beside Sunny.
She nodded, allowing Sugar Cream to help her sit up. She scooted to Sugar Cream’s desk, leaned against it, and gave her mentor a hard look. Her arm ached and itched, but she was alive. But she’d almost been killed.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Sugar Cream snapped. “You suffer the consequences of your actions. Let that be your greatest lesson here. You make your bed, so you shall lie on it.”
“It tried to kill me,” Sunny whispered.
Sugar Cream stiffened for a moment, meeting Sunny’s eyes. Then she picked up the bottle of water and handed it to Sunny. “Drink.”
Cool, soothing, goodness. Water is life; water is life; water is life, she thought. She drank and drank, pulling in as much as she could. She finished more than half of the large bottle before bringing it down and sighing. “It bit me,” she said.
“And what did you do about it?” Sugar Cream asked, handing her the bowl of soup. It was warm in her hands. A tainted pepper floated in the middle of the clear brown soup with large chunks of seasoned fish, tripe, and shrimp. It caused the soup to softly bubble. Sugar Cream handed Sunny a spoon, and she took it.
“I got the help of friends,” she coldly said.
Sugar Cream grunted and smiled. “Ogwu and her children,” she said. “Is that why the bulb burns as a portal?”
Sunny shrugged as she spooned the soup into her mouth. Her belly warmed and the rest of her body followed. For once it was good to eat hot, hot, hot tainted pepper soup. When she finished, Sugar Cream helped her up, inspected the bite on Sunny’s arm, and then, after deeming it not serious, helped Sunny up the many flights of stairs. Sunny’s punishment was complete.
The walk up and through the library was like a dream. She’d come to know the first three floors of this place well over the last year. But now, though she recognised everything, it felt slightly unfamiliar. There was a strange distancing effect, as if she hadn’t been here in five years a
s opposed to three days. She’d changed down there. And she was exhausted.
By the time they reached ground level and stepped into the lobby, Sunny felt stronger. She no longer had to lean on Sugar Cream and her headache was gone. The bite was itchy, but she could at least move her arm. Sugar Cream said it was past midnight, yet there were several older students browsing the bookcases here as if all was normal. They glanced at Sunny and some of them smiled at her, patted her on the shoulder, and said “You look good” and “Handled like a soldier.”
Samya slowly came up to her, and Sunny hugged her tightly. She felt Samya cringe, and she quickly let go. “I’m sorry,” Sunny said, looking into Samya’s brown eyes.
Samya smiled tiredly. “Don’t be.” She hugged Sunny again and kissed her on the cheek. “I’m glad you are okay.”
“They really caned you?” Sunny asked, her eyes tearing up.
“Don’t cry. You walk out of here with dry eyes, okay? I’m fine. As you know, some punishments are worth it.” Sunny nodded, working hard to fight her tears. Samya squeezed her hand. “Go,” she said, gently pushing Sunny along.
“You’ve become a bit of a hero,” Sugar Cream said drily, after they’d moved on towards the door.
If Sunny weren’t so tired, she’d have been deeply confused. How did one come out of three days’ punishment a hero? When she stepped out of the Obi Library, the air felt so sweet.
“Sunny!” Chichi screamed, running up and throwing her arms around her, nearly knocking her to the ground. Orlu and Sasha stood behind her. “They told us to wait out here. That you had to complete your punishment by walking unaided out of the Obi Library. Unaided!” She held Sunny back and looked her over. “You look terrible!”
“I feel worse,” Sunny said, pressing her arm.
Sunny and the Mysteries of Osisi Page 12