Sunny and the Mysteries of Osisi

by Nnedi Okorafor

  “It feels a little cooler,” Chichi said. “That’s all.”

  Grashcoatah was looking around frantically, trying not to step on things from two different places. So he saw the wilderness, too.

  “I see… There’s…” Then she remembered. A red dirt road. Down one of these roads flanked by tall buildings and trees and bushes. Modern and old. A sunflower-yellow stone house. Her grandmother had shown her the place in the message she’d left Sunny. The sheet of Nsibidi. Her grandmother knew Osisi. And the house, Sunny knew what it looked like. And now that she was here, she knew where it was. When she looked up, it all snapped into place. She’d been here before. When she read her grandmother’s Nsibidi note. The house! she thought.

  “I know where to go,” she said. She stared at Orlu as it all flooded her brain. “I– I know where to go!” She stumbled to Grashcoatah and grasped his fur. He bent his head towards her. “You see it, too?” she asked. Grashcoatah nodded, moving closer to her.

  “Where?” Orlu asked.

  “See what?” Sasha asked.

  Chichi wrapped her arms around herself, shivering.

  “There’s a house,” Sunny said, trying to stay focused. The wilderness market was all around her. If she and Grashcoatah stayed where they were, “people” willingly moved around them. “It’s not far from here. Grashcoatah, we will climb on you, then fly straight up.”

  They all got back on, and Grashcoatah flew straight up as quickly as he could. Below, the empty road of the physical world and the busy market of the wilderness mingled in a profound act of coexisting. Staring at it made her eyes and temples throb harder than they had since entering Osisi, but she looked anyway. The market stretched along the road for about a half mile. So, though it was in the wilderness, it still acknowledged the road in the physical world, for the booths were set up along its edges. Yet the spirits walked right through people who could not see them, like Sasha, Orlu, and Chichi. And why did they make Chichi cold?

  “Okay, hold on,” Sunny said to Grashcoatah. He seemed relieved to hover in the air far above things for the moment. In the distance a large green glowing centipedelike creature spiralled between two skyscrapers. Sunny wondered if the others could see it.

  “What was happening down there?” Orlu asked. “I didn’t see anything. Just empty road and quiet buildings.”

  “Me neither,” Sasha said.

  “I dunno,” Sunny said, rubbing her aching temples. She was tired in the same way that she was when she read Nsibidi. Anyanwu, she called in her mind. What is happening? Though she continued to see in the double vision, Anyanwu didn’t respond. Where had she gone? Tears fell from Sunny’s eyes, her nose ran, and her heart began to beat fast. She sniffled and shut her eyes tightly. She took a deep breath. Someone took her hands. “Inhale,” Chichi said. Sunny inhaled. “Exhale.” Sunny exhaled. “Do it again, Sunny. Breathe. We need you to be strong now,” Chichi softly said.

  Sunny inhaled and then exhaled, and each time she repeated this, Chichi squeezed her hands reassuringly. She opened her eyes and blinked away her tears.

  “She’s gone again,” Sunny whispered.

  “What?” Chichi asked.

  I’m incomplete, she thought. Can’t you tell? However, she didn’t say this aloud. Sunny only shook her head. “Why are we even here? I had a vision I thought was the apocalypse, and then some crazy lady who refuses to wear a shirt told me to come here. What is that?”

  “Anatov says the universe guides us all,” Chichi said. “It’s up to us to listen. The universe is pushing you here. You know it. Stop being a coward. You’re a Leopard girl, you should know better.”

  “The world is much bigger than me, right?” Sunny said.

  “Right,” Chichi said with a smile.

  Oddly enough, the phrase she’d been told over and over by her Leopard teachers and mentors, the phrase that had always seemed so callous, made her feel better in that moment. The universe may have wanted to make use of her, but its purpose was not to specifically harm her.

  Chichi brought out her juju knife and held it up. Sasha did the same, then Orlu. Sunny brought hers from her pocket. When they touched them together, as friends touch wine glasses together in a toast, there was a large periwinkle spark and a jolt. One felt through the tip of one’s juju knife as if that tip was part of his or her body. However, when they touched their knives together, it was like feeling with four knives.

  Also, for a moment, Sunny saw through four pairs of eyes at once. She saw herself, Orlu, Sasha, and Chichi in ways that she didn’t normally see them. She saw herself as yellow-skinned and yellow-haired, but different. She was herself, but she was beautiful. Was this how Orlu saw her? She saw Sasha as lighter-skinned with sharper features and a warm red aura wafting from him; this was Sunny seeing through Chichi’s eyes. She saw herself again, her yellow features glowing like the sun, her spirit face not visible but looking ready to burst forth at any moment. This was how Sasha saw her?

  The periwinkle spark hovered in the air as they pulled their juju knives away. They watched it as it rose a few inches. Then it burst into white light, startling Grashcoatah. He roared with surprise and rose higher. Chichi exclaimed something in Efik as Sasha grabbed her arm so that she wouldn’t tumble off.

  “It’s okay,” Sunny said, patting Grashcoatah’s side. “It’s okay.”

  He slowed his ascent and grunted. Sasha climbed to his ear and put some music on. “Here, vibe to some Jill Scott, classic,” he said, playing a song called “A Long Walk.”

  Grashcoatah’s ears perked up and turned towards the soothing funky beat. Sasha leaned on the ear, a grin on his face as he held up his MP3 player.

  “There’s a house,” Sunny pushed herself to say. She scanned the area. “Oh!” She pointed. “There! I see it! That yellow house! Grashcoatah, do you see it? Go there!” She paused. That was the one, all right. “That’s the house my grandmother told me about.”

  As they flew, she told them about the piece of paper her grandmother had left her. It was hard to explain how one “read” Nsibidi. “It’s something that you kind of have to do to understand it.” But the fact that she could describe the smell of flowers that lingered around the yellow stone house and its thick clear front door that was round like a hobbit’s door convinced them quickly to just go with it.

  In front of the house was a lawn of tall thick overgrown blades of grass. In her grandmother’s Nsibidi note, the lawn had been short and kept. This one was like a large wild field between two large stone librarylike buildings. No one had been here for a long, long while. Before they could climb off Grashcoatah, he went to work and started eating the grass like crazy. Chop, chop, chop! He was like the happiest lawnmower on earth. He didn’t notice when they all tumbled off him and ran to the side.

  “Jesus, look at him go,” Orlu said as they watched the grasscutter do what his name said he would do… cut grass.

  “Check out his flat teeth,” Sasha said. “Reminds me of Barney.”

  Sunny laughed.

  “Who the hell is Barney?” Chichi asked.

  “Big annoying purple dinosaur for kids on TV,” he said. “It’s got this super fake, constant grin of flat white mono-teeth on the top and bottom.”

  Grashcoatah grunted with pleasure as he went at the grass. But Sunny was more interested in the house. Even the overgrown lawn. She shaded her eyes in the sun.

  “Why is…” Chichi tapered off.

  “I don’t know,” Sunny said. “It didn’t look this big in the Nsibidi.” She called Anyanwu yet again. No response.

  The overgrown area surrounding the house was like its own prairie, as opposed to a lawn. The yellow stone house itself was significantly bigger than the librarylike buildings beside it. From where she stood, she could see a palm tree with a very bushy top growing out of the centre of the house. It, too, was wide and expansive. But in the Nsibidi the leaves had been green and alive. Now they were tan and dried up. Had the tree died since her grandmother had been h
ere? They crossed the wild grass.

  “So that door is made from some see-through beetle’s wing?” Sasha asked as they walked up to it. “The beetle must have been as big as an SUV!”

  The door stood over twenty feet high.

  “Bigger than that,” Orlu said, craning his neck to look up at it.

  “And it’s impossible to destroy,” Sunny said. “Or so my grandmother said.” But why didn’t she tell me that the house belonged to a giant? Sunny wondered. Hmm, so one can lie or omit facts in Nsibidi. A tiny gold chittim fell to her feet. She wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t been looking down at her feet thinking and trying to piece it all together. She bent down, picked it up, and placed it in her pocket.

  “What was that for?” Chichi asked.

  Sunny just shrugged. The simple two-story house took up the space of four houses. It was flanked by two normal-sized living palm trees and a large angry-looking bush growing in the back. Sunny stood there, looking up at the place. None of it made any sense. She’d thought that her grandmother had given her the Nsibidi because she found this house beautiful, a peaceful image to show Sunny. Or maybe it was a place that she wanted Sunny to eventually visit. But what could live here?

  A group of four women carrying large jugs of water on their heads walked by on the dirt road that passed in front of the expansive patch of wild plants. They waved at the four of them as they passed and Sunny, Sasha, Orlu, and Chichi waved back. One of the women cupped her hands and shouted something in Yoruba.

  Sasha and Chichi laughed. Grashcoatah grunted loudly and did a slow turn and then stretched a leg, rippling its fur. Sasha stepped forwards, answering back. When did Sasha learn to speak Yoruba? Sunny wondered.

  “What are they saying?” Sunny asked him.

  “They’re admiring Grashcoatah,” he said. “And they are impressed that we met Udide in person.”

  Chichi ran over to the women and spoke with them for a bit. Sunny turned to the door and touched it. It was smooth and domed out towards them like a thick unpoppable bubble.

  “Whose home is this?” Orlu asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t figure out why my grandmother took so much time to tell me all about it. I know what’s inside, where everything is. But how come she didn’t tell me that the house itself is gigantic?”

  “Maybe she didn’t want you to know,” Orlu said.

  Sunny frowned at him.

  “There’s no juju keeping it closed,” he said, nodding towards the house.

  “The door?”

  “Yeah. I don’t sense a thing. What if someone’s in there?” Orlu asked. “We can’t just…”

  “No one is in there,” Chichi said, coming up behind them. “Those women said this place is abandoned. They don’t know who lives in it or owns the property, but most people stay away. They said some of the local elders will know.”

  “Did your grandmother say anything about how to get in?” Sasha asked.

  “No,” she said. “The door just opened or something. I dunno.”

  Chichi brought out her knife and blew on the tip, made a circular flourish, and tapped softly on the door. Her eyes grew wide. “Ouch!” she screeched, jumping back.

  “Heh, I had a feeling a simple door-opening juju was not going to work,” Sasha said.

  “Felt like it bit me!” Chichi said, rubbing her right hand as she held her knife.

  “I thought you said there’s no juju protecting it,” Sunny said to Orlu.

  “It’s not juju,” Orlu said.

  “Ancestral land, then,” Sasha said.

  “Exactly,” Orlu said. “Whoever’s ancestral land this is is not human.”

  “Let me see your hand, Chichi,” Sasha said, taking it.

  “See the red mark?” Chichi said, her voice softening as Sasha stepped closer to her.

  “I see,” he said. “Want me to kiss it?”

  Sunny rolled her eyes and Orlu looked away, uncomfortable. “Na wao,” Orlu muttered.

  They stood there looking at the door for a moment. “Well, if your grandmother liked Nsibidi so much, maybe she used it to open the door,” Chichi offered. “Do you know the Nsibidi for ‘open’?”

  Sunny was about to say that she only knew how to read Nsibidi. But then an image bubbled up in her mind. She saw the door opening when she’d read her grandmother’s Nsibidi note. Slowly it swung open like a thick dome of glass. She was playing the image again in her head when she realised there was a flash of something. “Wait,” she whispered. “Wait.” She replayed the image in her mind; there it was again. She held up a hand, closing her eyes. “Wait. Nobody talk.”

  She replayed it again, this time slowing it way down. Again, but even slower. And that’s when she saw the symbol. Clearly. It was more than “open.” It was stronger. It was tricky demand and force. Her grandmother had broken into this house when she’d come here. A heavy bronze chittim fell. She heard it clink against the door and felt it land on her sandal. She opened her eyes, slowly bent down, and picked it up. She looked up and smiled at her friends. “Did you know that the images Nsibidi creates when read can be separated from the symbols?”

  Always swift with understanding, Sasha and Chichi made her job so simple. “So… if you remember the image, you can call back the symbols?” Chichi asked.

  Sunny nodded, putting the chittim in her backpack.

  “Oh, I get it. You were remembering the image of the door opening,” Sasha said, nodding. “And in that image is the Nsibidi symbol. Clever.”

  “Nsibidi, de tin’ dey cool,” Chichi said, impressed.

  “I don’t get it,” Orlu said. “But if you can open the door, open it, sha.”

  Sunny put a hand on the door’s cool surface. She brought out her juju knife. She paused. The blade of her knife was nearly identical to the substance of the door. Was her knife made from the wing of a beetle from some distant land? She’d consider this later. With her knife, she drew the symbol she’d seen in her grandmother’s Nsibidi on the surface of the round door. She worked slowly, carefully, holding the image in her mind as she tried her best to duplicate it. Gradually, the surface of the door pulled her knife to it like a magnet pulled steel. Pop! The four of them jumped back. Then there was a deep hissing sound as the enormous door unsecured itself. A few budding plants and roots growing over and inside the door ripped and fell, and dust and dirt rained down. The strange clear door opened like a reluctant mouth.

  Hands up, Orlu led the way in, then Sunny, Chichi, and Sasha. Once they were inside, the door softly shut behind them. However, only Sunny vaguely noticed. They were too busy looking ahead.

  30

  ABOMINATION

  They slowly entered the high-ceilinged main room. It was like entering a palace. The sound of their footsteps echoed off the intricately mosaicked walls. A closer look at the walls revealed that the fractal patterns were made from the tiny wings of black, red, green, and blue beetles. As she walked towards the centre of the tennis court–sized room, Sunny felt the temperature increase with each step. Orlu came up beside her, his hands raised and ready to undo the juju that came at them. He lowered them. “It stopped,” he said.

  “What did?” Sunny asked.

  “Something was about to happen,” Orlu said. “And then it didn’t.”

  “I’ll bet it’s because of Sunny,” Sasha said.

  Sunny looked down at the floor. It was smooth and glossy, as if it had been polished an hour ago. And it was tiled with millions of flat circles that could have been glass, plastic, or something else. They were arranged in a fractal pattern that made Sunny woozy when she looked at it for too long. She couldn’t say what colour it was because it used every colour she could imagine. It was like a constantly blooming flower. At the centre of the room stood the trunk of the fat dead palm tree that reached through the wide circular hole in the ceiling. The top of the palm tree probably kept the rain out, if it did rain here.

  Hung on the walls were large ceremonial mas
ks, intricate and expressive. It reminded Sunny of Sugar Cream’s office, if her office were magnified by ten and the masks were creepier. There was one that hung on the wall that looked made of solid gold. It was as tall as Sunny and as wide as the expanse of her arms. Its face was thick-lipped, wide-eyed, and bulbous-nosed. Its lips were pursed and puckered as if it was ready to spit a lot of something. Sunny moved out of its range.

  She moved on to the one that appeared full of water, the wall visible through it. It had the expressive round face of a smirking woman with Yoruba tribal markings on her cheeks. Sunny couldn’t resist; slowly she reached out to touch it. She hesitated. If this place were booby-trapped with juju, maybe she shouldn’t. But she’d always been this way with gelatin, bubbles, and any liquid substance that took a shape. She couldn’t help just one poke. Her finger sank right into it. “It’s water,” she said to herself. Yet here it defied gravity and hung on the wall.

  There were four others. One made of wood, but it sprouted roots that created a mane around the roaring face. It also hung from roots that burrowed into the wall. The next mask was made of bronze. It was the head of a wall-sized dragon creature. One was a small boulder of stone with rudimentary openings that made two eyes and a tiny hole for a mouth. And one was made out of pressed garbage, plastic bottles, tin cans, crumpled paper, dried orange and banana peels, cassette tapes, and more. This mask took up the entire wall on the far side of the room. It was grinning.

  Sunny wondered if the masks could call out to Anyanwu. “Where are you?” Sunny whispered, trying to calm her nerves. Anyanwu had said they were always one, but why wasn’t she answering? Where was she? Sunny did not like the feeling of being in this scary house with these scary powerful masks without her. There were doorways on the left, the right, and the centre that led to other parts of the house. All of the doorways were enormous like the front door. Everything was huge. Whose house is this? Sunny wondered yet again.