by Ayana Gray
Not now. His lungs protested as he forced a sharp breath in through the nose and out through the mouth, as Brother Ugo had once taught him. At his side, Ekon’s fingers began to tap. With their steady rhythm, he found comfort.
One-two-three. One-two-three. One-two-three.
This was no time to fall apart, and he wouldn’t allow it. In his imagination, he pictured a wall being erected, a barrier between himself and the nightmares. Those walls would keep the worst things out and safeguard his secrets within.
Please come back for me. Baba was weeping, an eerie, unnatural sound. Please don’t leave me alone here.
I can’t help you, Baba. The words tore at something in Ekon’s very being. He imagined the bricks of his wall coming together, forcing out that horrible voice. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I can’t help you, I can’t—
“Hey, are you okay?”
Ekon jumped. He hadn’t realized that he’d stopped walking. Koffi was staring at him with an inscrutable expression. This moment was an echo of the one he’d had just days ago walking with Kamau. He needed to be better about that, about letting the nightmares debilitate him.
“Yeah,” he said brusquely. “I’m fine.”
Koffi looked at him a second longer, as though she wanted to say something else, then seemed to think better of it and kept walking. Ekon followed. They were nearing the edge of Lkossa, a grittier part of the city littered with old crates, debris, and other filth. Ekon thought about the last time he’d been there, about the old woman he’d encountered. She clearly wasn’t there, but he almost felt her presence in some strange way. He glanced over his shoulder, wary.
“We need to walk faster.”
Koffi raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“We’re . . . behind schedule.”
Koffi stared. “Huh?”
“The schedule,” Ekon repeated, picking up his own pace. “Sons of the Six do a patrol along the edge of the Greater Jungle every half hour, every thirty minutes. We need to time it so that we get to the borderlands right after they’ve just passed through, which means we’re two minutes and thirty-nine seconds behind schedule.”
Koffi rolled her eyes. “Of course you’ve managed to calculate that.”
Ekon paused, momentarily uncomfortable. He couldn’t help the way numbers came together in his mind, automatic and sure. Lots of times, that ability to compute and calculate information rapidly was helpful, like when he was reading about complex mathematical theories. But sometimes, it made him feel . . . strange, different. He thought of the disapproving way Kamau sometimes stared at his fingers, the way other boys at the temple had laughed at him for using bigger words as a child. Most of his memories of growing up at the Temple of Lkossa were good, but that didn’t mean it had been perfect.
“Well, at least one of us is good with numbers,” Koffi added, eyes staying ahead. “That could be useful once we’re in the jungle. No doubt you’ll know how to divide and ration food properly or something.”
It was a brief, offhand comment, but something about it made Ekon feel just a little bit better. Koffi didn’t find his counting strange, it seemed; she thought it could be useful. He stood a little taller, keeping in step with her as they continued through the outskirts’ winding streets. Above, the sky was darkening fast, melting into a fluid watercolor blend of deep blues, oranges, and pinks fractured by the telltale lines left from the Rupture.
“How long do you think it’ll take us?” Again, Koffi pulled him from his thoughts. “To find the Shetani once we’re in the jungle?”
“I’m . . . not sure,” said Ekon in earnest. “According to the map, the Heart of the Jungle is northeast of Lkossa, about a three-day walk from here if we enter from—”
“Didn’t you say four-day earlier?”
“Three,” he corrected. “I . . . like three better.”
Koffi stared at him a second longer, before tightening her grip on her shoulder bag. Ekon had a matching one of his own, purchased from the market hours before. They’d spent most of the afternoon gathering supplies for the hunt—water, dried foods, whetting stones for their weapons. The sum of it had almost entirely depleted the modest savings Ekon had accrued from his time at the temple, not that Koffi needed to know that, or anything else about his financial situation.
They turned a corner together, crossing onto a slightly wider street, and Ekon tensed. A throng of people was crowded at its end, stopped by something he couldn’t see. The sight immediately put him on edge.
“What’s going on?” Koffi craned her neck, trying to see over people’s heads as more came from behind them and blocked them in. “What is it?”
“Ugh. Looks like a checkpoint.”
Koffi looked up at him, confused. “A what?”
Ekon stopped walking and gestured for Koffi to do the same while others passed them by. While she wasn’t quite tall enough, he could see slightly farther. A few yards away, at the end of the road, several Sons of the Six had cordoned off the area and stood lined up to keep anyone from advancing. He leaned toward Koffi and tried to keep his voice low.
“Sometimes, when there’s a major crime and the culprit hasn’t been apprehended, the Kuhani will order an impromptu checkpoint to be set up. There are warriors ahead, and they’ll be searching the bags of every person on this street to make sure no one has anything they shouldn’t.”
At this, Koffi stiffened. “I don’t suppose they’ll be happy about that old book in your sack, then, or the dagger in mine.”
“Decidedly not.” Ekon swallowed. “That’s probably the reason it was set up in the first place.” He looked around, trying to stay calm. They were still too far away to discern which Sons of the Six were manning the checkpoint, but it didn’t matter. Any one of them would recognize him immediately, and after what had happened at the Night Zoo, he knew not one of them would hesitate to arrest and turn him in if he was found with stolen goods. He thought of Father Olufemi’s eyes, cold and disapproving, then Kamau’s, full of disappointment and shame. He couldn’t let that happen; he couldn’t let this mission end before it had even started. Without thinking, he took Koffi’s hand. She gawked, but he held on to it.
“Follow my lead,” he murmured, nudging her slightly to the right. There was a narrow side street just a few yards away from them. If they could get to it unnoticed, there was a chance they could escape. Catching on, Koffi followed his example, keeping her gaze straight ahead as, slowly, she inched in that direction. The crowd around them thickened, bottlenecking the road as more people pushed forward. Strategically, that was good—more people provided better cover—but it still made Ekon nervous. Slowly, he watched the distance between themselves and that side street close, getting nearer by the minute.
Thirty yards, twenty-seven yards, twenty-four—
“Attention!”
Ekon nearly knocked Koffi over as she stopped short at the command. A male voice from somewhere behind them had called out, entirely too close for comfort. He glanced over his shoulder, and his stomach swooped. More Sons of the Six were coming in from the other end of the road to close the crowd in. He immediately recognized the warrior at the front.
Shomari.
“Listen up!” There was an annoying ring of authority in Shomari’s voice as he yelled at the top of his lungs. “Every single person on this street is subject to a mandatory search, by high order of the Kuhani. Failure to comply may result in fines and imprisonment. Make a neat and orderly line.”
Sweat gathered on Ekon’s forehead. His gaze met Koffi’s, and he saw she was deliberating. Her eyes cut to the side street.
“We have to run.”
“Bad idea.” Ekon shook his head. “That’ll make us look guilty.”
“And being caught with stolen temple artifacts won’t?”
“There are hundreds of people in here.” Ekon said the words just as much for
himself as for her. “They won’t have the time or patience to check every single person thoroughly. All we have to do is open the flaps of our bags, give them a quick peek, and they’ll pass us through.”
Koffi pursed her lips. “I don’t like it.”
“Just stay calm.”
They continued being pressed into the crowd as the warriors from the back herded them forward, and continued moving carefully toward the side street. Ekon looked up again. It was hard to tell exactly how many people were ahead of them with all the movement, but he counted nineteen, a bad number. He watched as one harried-looking woman with two small children stepped up to the checkpoint.
“Empty the contents of your bags, please,” one of the warriors ordered.
“Here.” The woman, half-distracted by her children, opened the flap of her bag to show what was clearly a sack full of fruits and produce. “Can I go?”
“Afraid not, Bi.” The warrior shook his head. “We’re checking the contents of all bags. You’ll need to take everything out and put it on this table . . .”
Beside him, Ekon heard Koffi swear. Her eyes had begun to dart back and forth between the checkpoint ahead of them and that side street to their right.
“Koffi,” he said between his teeth. “Listen to me, just stay—”
There was no warning. She bolted.
“Hey!”
No. “Koffi!” Ekon tried not to yell as she jostled through disgruntled people. “Koffi, wait—!”
“You two, stop!”
Ekon ignored the command and broke into a run, trying to keep his eyes on Koffi’s retreating back. She glanced over his shoulder, and their gazes met.
“Run!”
It seemed Koffi needed no further prompt as she tore down the road. Ekon followed, right on her heels. From somewhere behind them, he heard a shout, then pounding footsteps.
No, no, no.
Koffi ducked into the side street, disappearing into its shadows. It reminded Ekon uncannily of him and Kamau chasing the little girl through these very streets mere days ago. It was a strange sort of refrain.
From cat to mouse, from the hunter to the hunted.
Up ahead, at the end of the street, he made out a stretch of red dirt. They were approaching the borderlands.
“Koffi.” Ekon couldn’t keep up with her strides and yell at the same time. “Koffi, we have to—”
If she heard him, she gave no indication of it. Behind them, Ekon heard more footsteps, whooping.
“Stop!” someone called. “By order of the Sons of the Six!”
Ekon didn’t obey. They emerged from the alley and sprinted into bloodred sunlight, the last of the setting sun’s rays. In his peripheral vision, he watched the edges of the city fall away as the Greater Jungle rose to meet them. Koffi glanced back at him but kept running toward it. With every step, Ekon felt it—the distinct sensation of releasing a life raft and casting himself into unknown waters. There’d be no turning back from this. He prayed he wouldn’t drown.
He bucked against the sudden cold that touched his skin as the first shadows of the trees reached him. It felt wrong, preternatural; it shouldn’t have gotten so cold so quickly. It was like being plunged into an ice bath, a thousand small knives pricking at his skin. Leaves and vines brushed against him, and he imagined they were fingers. Hands. Claws. All reaching for him.
At last. Baba’s voice was wretched with glee, eerie. My son returns to me, returns to his father.
Ekon was still running, still moving between the tree trunks, but it was too dark, too loud. Only a few brave shafts of light could pierce the jungle’s canopy here, and new sounds filled the space around him. He heard his baba’s voice, but other things too: a bullfrog’s croak, the buzz of a thousand cicadas, creatures he couldn’t name. There were low hums and high-pitched shrieks, roars, and the occasional click of something above him. For a moment, he was entirely lost in its cacophony.
“Hey! Over here!”
Ekon’s eyes adjusted to the darkness enough to make out a small silhouette just a few feet away from him. Koffi. In spite of himself, he felt an undeniable sense of relief as she slowly made her way to him, stepping over brambles and tree roots. To his utter bewilderment, she looked distinctly pleased.
“Well, that wasn’t exactly the way I thought we’d enter the jungle,” she said with a grin. “But hey, it got the job done. For a second there, I thought we were—”
“What—was—that?”
Ekon heard himself, the anger in his own voice, but he couldn’t quell it. He watched Koffi’s smile flicker for a moment, showing real confusion, before her expression hardened.
“What?”
“You—you—” Ekon spluttered. He could barely get the words out. “You just—you just took off, without even warning me! We had a plan—”
“That was about to get us caught and arrested,” Koffi snapped back. “So we had to adjust, which was what I did.”
More anger rose in Ekon, but so did something else he couldn’t explain. In the back of his head, he knew that his reaction was irrational, unjustified, but . . . but he couldn’t explain to Koffi the way he felt—unmoored, off-kilter, unsettled. They’d had a plan for entering the Greater Jungle, a plan he’d been relying on. Now that was dismantled, and with it so was his peace. Anxiety rolled over him as he thought about the Sons of the Six they’d run from. What if one of them had recognized him? What if they were assembling at this very moment? He felt the mental wall he’d erected to keep the nightmares at bay slowly crumble to dust, so that nothing would stop them from advancing. Images of blood-soaked leaves and horrid bodies filled his imagination, and he tried to shake them from his mind.
Focus, he told himself. Don’t think about the jungle, just focus.
But it was harder now. The jungle was no longer something he could just distance himself from—he was within it, entirely consumed. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, willing his father’s voice to go away, willing the wretched memories to go away.
“Ekon.” Koffi’s voice broke through. When he looked up, her face had softened. “Are you all right?”
The truth was, he wasn’t all right, not in the slightest, but Ekon had no desire to tell Koffi that. Too roughly, he nodded.
“It’s fine, I just have . . . a headache,” he grumbled. “I need to sit down for a moment, and we need to take a look at the journal to figure out where exactly we are. If we came in from farther east than expected, we’ll need to compensate by moving slightly northwest . . .”
“I don’t think we should stop here,” said Koffi.
“I do,” said Ekon, not looking up from the journal. “We could already be off course. The last thing we need to do is go charging aimlessly into this jungle. It’s huge. Once we confirm our direction—”
“We’re sitting here like guinea fowl,” said Koffi. “What we need to do is keep moving.”
“Koff—”
“Look, I know you had some sophisticated plan!” She threw up her hands, exasperated. “But I don’t feel good about sitting here. Something . . . something doesn’t feel right.”
As soon as she said, Ekon felt it too, a wrongness. He didn’t know how to tell Koffi that that sensation wasn’t unique, that it belonged distinctly to the Greater Jungle. There was a reason it was one of the few things Yabas and Gedes could agree on: This jungle was no place for mortal beings. A shiver passed over him as he saw the end of a long yellow snake disappear into the branches of a tree a few yards away from them. He tucked the journal back into his bag and nodded.
“We’ll head north for a few miles,” he determined. “But after that, we need to stop and reevaluate our plan.”
Koffi nodded. “Fine.”
* * *
The jungle grew impossibly darker as they trekked into its depths. Around them, its noises settled into something quiete
r, as though it had grown used to their presence, but that didn’t help Ekon’s nerves. He’d been much smaller the last time he’d been here, but that didn’t change the way this place made him feel. Every footstep seemed to pull him deeper down into the caverns of his memories. He tapped his fingers against his side.
One-two-three. One-two-three. One—
My son.
Ekon stumbled, caught off guard by the suddenness of his father’s voice. Here in the jungle, among the old trees, it seemed louder, colder.
After all this time, you have returned . . .
A hard lump rose in the back of Ekon’s throat. He focused on the steps before him, trying to count them in his head instead of listening to that voice.
It’s all in your head, he reminded himself. There’s nothing actually in your throat. You know how to breathe. Just take it slow and keep walking, one step right after the other.
It was no use. His fingers were clumsy, unable to find their rhythm, and he faltered in his steps.
“Koffi.” His voice echoed strangely in the darkness. “Koffi, I think we should think about . . .” He stopped, blinking hard. Koffi had been only a few feet in front of him, just seconds ago; now he couldn’t see her.
“Koffi? Koffi, where are—?”
Ekon.
The voice stopped him dead in his tracks, raising the hair on the back of his neck. He suddenly realized the jungle had gone quiet. There was no trill of cicadas or chattering apes in the trees, just a low creaking in the breeze, a whisper.
My son, help me.
Something brushed the back of his neck like the stroke of a finger. He whirled to face it, but there was nothing there, nothing but the trees. Somehow, that was worse.
Ekon, Baba’s voice moaned into the darkness. Please make it stop. Make the pain stop . . .
Where is Koffi? Ekon looked in both directions, working to keep himself calm. He didn’t trust his mind anymore, didn’t know if what he was seeing before him was real or the stuff of nightmares. The trees were pressing in, tendrils of white mist curling at their roots and rising. He backed away, but there was no escaping it; it was all around him, tickling his ankles.