by J. J. McAvoy
She cried out as she began to slip further back into the mud but only because it made it harder for her to eat.
“Ahh! See? Good for you!” I nodded to her as I rose from the grass and moved into the mud behind her. This time when I pushed under her legs she struggled and was able to free herself but instead of waiting for me the selfish goat began to run once more.
“Chizoba!” I ran after her. At least this time she ran towards the village. She cleared a path through the tall grass as she ran, which was how I always knew the way she went. I stayed low. My plan was to capture her and throw her over my shoulder. I was tired of her games but as I moved forward I saw the smoke rising in the distance.
The sound of lightning…
The words of my father came to mind: if you hear the sound of lightning coming from the rod of a white hand run, run and warn the others.
Again, I heard it, and yet, instead of running from it, I ran towards it. Leaving Chizoba in the grass I leaped over the stones of our land and ran towards home. My hands touched the brown walls and I looked around to see my father and my brother fighting, but the rods of lightning shot smoke and fire into the air.
Reaching for the dagger that hung from my waist, I drew it and prepared to fight. But before I could step forward his calm old eyes, clear like the sky, stopped me. He and every man and woman were armed and ready to fight these beasts of men that we’d long heard whispers about. He offered me one word. The only word that could be offered if this were to happen.
Run.
So I ran. I ran so that I could do what I’d been told to do—warn them all. I ran and ran even as the lightning came chasing after me. I did not know the language they squawked as they sent their fire at me. In the corner of my eyes I saw Chizoba running alongside me, however she could not escape their fire and fell. Her wailing was the last thing I heard as her white coat was stained with red.
I cried out as I tried to cover my eyes when pieces of the tree showered down in front of me. I fell face down onto the rocks. Blood pooled in my mouth and moments later I could feel the pain spread across my face. Reaching up I placed my hand over my eye.
Obinna, run. Run my son, run! I heard my father’s voice. Spitting the blood out of my mouth, I picked myself up and ran. My feet carried me further and further away and soon I came upon another village. Yet I did not stop. Instead, I reached down and took the piece of cloth at my waist and waved it in the air so they would know…the beast had come. The women who had children grabbed them and the men and the others grabbed their spears. I wished to speak with them but I could not.
I ran.
I ran for my father. Even if my legs would burn, even if my heart would stop, I would run. Each village I ran through I waved the cloth for them to see, the sun began to fall and the moon rose over the plains. It was all I could do. And just as my body began to fall forward, arms caught hold of me.
“Brother.”
I lifted the cloth to them one final time before falling over.
11th Onwa Asato (August) 1684 – Bikjga Village, Igboland, Nigeria
“You are awake?” Her voice was….so familiar. Like a voice I had heard a dozen times in my dreams. I opened my eyes and saw her kneeling over me. Her brown eyes stared down at me and when she smiled my heart leaped. My mind reeled with memories beyond my control. Reaching up I touched my face and felt the healing paste that had been put over it, but it was too late…I remembered.
“Tell the elders,” the woman called out to the other women I hadn’t noticed behind her.
“You did well. Rest,” she said as she tried to push me back down. However, the moment her hands touched my skin she jumped and pulled her hands away as she frowned. I knew by the confusion on her face….it was her.
“What is it they call you?” I asked.
She looked away from her hands to me. “Princess Adaeze of Bikjga.”
It was then that I noticed the orange beads upon her arms and neck and the scarf that had been tied and twisted to keep her dark hair up…in this life she was a princess.
“As Princess, I must give thanks—”
“He’s awake.” The elder arrived. His long beard was white and gray and his waist was covered with the same red cloth that she wore, just like his neck and arms bore the same orange beads as hers.
“Yes, father.” She rose and backed away from me, allowing him to come forward. I tried to rise up but couldn’t move. The woman in the tent moved forward to help.
Placing his hands upon my shoulder he said, “Obinna of Okwu, he who ran from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn. We must give thanks. We must celebrate this greatness. Rest my boy, your father smiles on you.”
“My father? My brothers?” I asked him. “Father said there were no greater warriors than those in Bikjga, it’s why—”
He patted my shoulder. “We could not make it to the village in time.”
My shoulders dropped and I saw their faces in my mind—my father’s face. “Were they taken?”
He shook his head. “Your family shall forever be sons of this soil. They stood and fought.”
They were gone and yet relief filled me. I did not know what to say to this feeling. I was not sure if I was even speaking aloud anymore. All I knew was that I did not want to be laying down, but when I tried to stand up my legs trembled and shook as the pain in them grew ever more present in my mind.
“Mama!” She called out as she rushed outside of the hut. The Elder got up as an even older woman entered. Her brown skin was so wrinkled that the folds of her eyelids made her eyes droop. Her head was covered with a brown scarf and the ring of beads around her neck far surpassed those of the princess who helped bring her closer to me.
I tried to show respect…but the pain.
The princess tried to get her attention but the elder merely lifted her hand briefly revealing a yellow dust within her palm before she blew it into my face.
Coughing, I inhaled and went back to sleep…
12th Onwa Asato (August) 1684 – Bikjga Village, Igboland, Nigeria
“Obinna…I can see that you are awake,” Princess Adaeze said amused.
Opening my eyes, I thought she was the one who was rubbing my legs. But instead I found Mama hovering over me. Mama tilted her head to me as my eyes widened in surprise, and I sat up on my elbows.
“Hum…” Looking toward the wall, I saw her hard at work grinding herbs into a jar. A small smile lingered on her lips and I couldn’t help but smile back. It was then that I felt the pressure on my legs again. Shifting my gaze to Mama she stared at me unmoving.
“She wants to know if you are in pain,” Princess Adaeze said while Mama kept looking at me.
Shaking my head no, she pressed harder. Again I shook my head. Shifting down to my feet, she dug her longest nail into my foot and I flinched.
She smiled at that and nodded to herself before she looked to Princess Adaeze who spoke for her. “She says you have recovered.” Rising from her work she came over to help Mama up and the Elder put her hands to my face nodding over and over again.
“She’s proud of you and you are strong.”
I nodded back to her. “Thank you.”
Princess Adaeze helped her up before she walked back to the corner wall and sat down on the cow skin hide. Picking up whatever she’d been grinding she placed it into her drink. I was able to sit up now and I reached up to touch my face. The paste was now gone but I now had an all-too-familiar scar on my eye.
“How are you feeling?” Princess Adaeze asked as she kneeled in front of me and gave me the wooden cup.
Taking it, I drank and immediately regretted doing so.
“It’s horrible we know,” she laughed at me while I coughed at the vile liquid. She pushed the cup towards me and urged me to keep drinking. “But this is good for the body, it makes one live long. Mama drinks nothing else but this.”
I could help but lean in and whisper, “How long has she lived?”
With a laugh, she pretended t
o whisper but spoke loudly, “So long that she’s heard all that needs to be heard and no longer hears.”
That meant whispering was pointless which was why she was laughing. I enjoyed her laughter. Her face, her…
When I did not speak, she frowned and her big brown eyes looked me over carefully.
“Why do I know you…when I do not know you?” she asked.
I could not answer as the battle cry that came from outside the walls of the hut drew her attention away from me.
“I must go. Stay. Rest.” She got up quickly and took the herbs she’d made with her as she disappeared through the hanging skin that served as the hut’s door. She moved with such great speed it felt as though she was gone in the time it took me to blink.
“To be ruler of Bikjga, you must serve Bikjga.” Mama’s voice was so soft I wondered how I’d heard it over the roaring voices. She’d spoken not to me but to herself, nodding again as she drank. She did not look at me.
Finishing the horrible drink, I pushed myself up from the ground and limped towards the doorway. She did not stop me from leaving. And when I drew the hide door back, the sun was blinding, causing me to shield my eyes but not my ears.
“Rumm…bahk…rumah…bacokka…rumm…” The warriors chanted as they arrived back into the village, many carrying their brothers who could not carry themselves on the backs of their shields. In the midst of it all, Princess Adaeze stood tall with a wall of women behind her. They all held jars in their hands and she commanded over them, telling them where to go as they shared their herbs for all.
I watched as everyone in the village emerged from their homes, from the bushes, from far and close to see them. “Rumm…bahk…rumah…bacokka…rumm…” They chanted loudly.
The biggest of them—a man whose brown skin was torn, bleeding, and covered in sand—looked to the sky and screamed, “VICTORY!” Lifting his shield, everyone lifted their voices as they cheered.
“We shall not go!” He flipped the spear in his hand and drove it into the earth. “I, Prince Banjoko of Ife, will not go! They shall go! THEY SHALL GO!”
The ground shook with their voices. Flipping his shield as he had flipped his spear again he slammed it into the earth. His chest rose and fell in rage, hope, and certainty of purpose. Princess Adaeze, the only one who seemed calm, handed him a cup, but before she could move on to another man he took her hand and lifted it up with his.
Everyone bowed their heads with respect and the words of Mama came to my ears once more...To be ruler of Bikjg,a you must serve Bikjga.
“Adaeze…” I instinctively whispered her name and in the midst of the uproar her eyes snapped to my mine as if she had clearly heard me…no…she had clearly heard me. The longer she stared the stronger I felt it. That rope, that pulse, that ache, which wrapped around my heart and connected to hers.
“I know you.”
***
Blinking, I looked away from the shields above me. I glanced back to her and though she was teary-eyed, she stared at me seriously as she reached up to touch the side of her head. Pushing herself up, her bare feet touched the ground once again.
“Was she married to someone else?”
I shook my head. “If she were married she would’ve been Queen. In Bikjga, the man and woman whom the villagers believed were the most worthy were the prince and princess, when they marry they became king and queen. But Adaeze soon remembered who I was, and from there…everything fell apart.”
“The slavers came.”
I didn’t want to go any deeper into the past…not when I knew she’d be dragged there on her own soon now.
“You’re annoying. You know that, right?” She sniffled.
I raised my eyebrow at her. I was more amused than bothered. “How so?”
“I’m supposed to be mad at you,” she said as she stood directly in front of me. “You lied to me. I didn’t get to say goodbye to my grandfather. You didn’t come to his funeral. You never even called to ask if I was alright. I’m the one who’s been hurt, so why do I keep worrying about you? Why am I always thinking about you?”
“Because,” I reached up to cup her cheek, “that’s how love works, Esther. You think of me before yourself and I think of you before myself.”
She laughed which was the worst response to a confession. Her laughter faded and her smile dropped as she stared at me. “Now I know I’m dreaming! You don’t love me. You’ve loved the same woman nine hundred ninety-nine times—”
“And now one thousand,” I whispered as I placed both my hands on the sides of her face.
She stared up at me in shock.
“Li-Mei…”
“Not her. You. You, Esther Noëlle. I ran to the mountains and you still found me. I’ve never been able to escape you,” I said trying my best not to give in to my own tears of joy and pain. “I can’t. I don’t want to. You’ve been the greatest love of my life a thousand times, and I now remember why…because without you I have no sun. I’m overwhelmed by darkness. I can’t laugh or breathe without you. I live because of you.”
“Malachi…you’re making a mistake again—”
“You want proof?”
She wordlessly regarded me before nodding her head.
I tilted her head back and glanced at her full, slightly parted lips before I bent down and kissed her. It was in that moment when my lips touched hers I remembered why I’d looked for her over and over again. Kissing her…kissing her made me whole again. It warmed my soul.
She was the sun of my existence.
Without her I was cold and dead on the inside.
ESTHER
It was as though the ground beneath me broke away when he kissed me. I was falling and he was falling with me. All around me I felt the sun rise on us. I felt snow and rain and the wind blowing. I felt the sand under my feet, then grass, and I couldn’t help but hold on to him tighter.
I couldn’t help but kiss him back, and with a longing unlike anything I’d felt before, I gave into his kiss and slowly opened my mouth. The world changed around us and each time it did my heart ached. I wanted to laugh and cry and sing and dance. Emotions flooded me and it made breathing, thinking, and almost everything else painful. Pain…so much pain.
2nd Onwa Ite Na Ni (September) 1684 – Obofia Forest, Igboland, Nigeria
“Banjoko! NO! NO!”
As I ran forward to stop him, the distance between me and Obinna seemed to span as wide as the oceans. At my voice, Obinna turned around just as Banjoko’s spear went through his chest.
“AHHH!” I screamed and the distance, now that it was too late, became short again. As I reached him, he fell. “Obi! Obi!...ahh….”
Unable to speak he reached up to touch my face.
“No…no…” Rocking back and forth I held on to him.
“You can’t save him. Take my hand. They’re coming!”
“CURSE YOU!” I screamed as I smacked his hand away. And when he moved to grab me I pulled the knife and held it to my neck. “You can’t save me! Go! GO!”
He stood there but when he saw the fire rising from the village he backed away slowly.
“Adaeze…”
Ignoring him, I held on to Obinna and continued rocking back and forth.
JULY 4th 1781 - Guanajuato, New Spain
“Ana!”
Carlos leaped from his balcony to mine and grabbed hold of me, pulling me away from my father, who was staring at me in shock as he backed away and let the knife drop from his hands.
“Papa…” I wanted to tell him…ask him why…but I couldn’t and my legs gave out as Carlos lowered me to the ground while screaming at Papa. “Help! Get help!”
He pressed his hands against my chest as he tried to stop the bleeding. It hurt…it all hurt. Reaching up I took his bloodied hand.
“I’ll…see you…again.”
“ANA NO! Please. Please Don’t… ANA!!” I felt his tears on my face.
***
“Ahh…” I cried out as I broke away from h
im. I was shaking and trying to breathe, trying to stand, but I couldn’t seem to do either any longer. All of me hurt. He held on to me tightly.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. I have you,” he whispered. “I’ve always had you, Esther. I always will.”
My mind went blank and the pain stopped.
17. THE BLITZ
ESTHER
I sat up on my bed like I’d come up from the grave and looked around. Thankfully, I saw the giant windows of my room which overlooked the bright city lights. I was seated in the middle of my bed, still dressed in the gold beaded dress from the…the gala. Running my fingers over the beading, all the memories of this night came into my mind, and the more I remembered, the further my fingers rose until I was touching my lips.
“Shit!”
My head snapped towards the door as I slowly slid off my bed and tiptoed across the floor. I tried to silently open it but I’d forgotten how badly and loudly it squeaked—something that had served my grandfather as a safety precaution if I ever tried to sneak out. I closed my eyes as if that would make me disappear.
“You don’t have to sneak around, it’s your house,” he said and I immediately recognized his voice.
I opened my eyes to make sure my ears weren’t playing a cruel joke on me, and sure enough there he was, standing in my kitchen in what was left of his suit—his black pants, white shirt which was rolled up on at the selves and unbuttoned at the collar, and his bow tie which was undone. In his hands, he held my yellow mug.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. I was looking for coffee,” he snickered at himself.
I stared at him for a quick moment before I stepped back and closed the door. Holding on to the door knob I took a deep breath.
One.
Two.
Three.
When I opened the door, he was still there staring at me, eyebrows raised. “Good to see you’re still a little bit odd.”