Nnedi Okorafor - Lagoon

“Mommy, you should save the world,” Fred said. “If you have a chance to—”

“Shut up and go upstairs,” Chris shouted. “What kind of child enters adult conversation? Abomination!”

Kola and Fred ran upstairs.

“I’m not having this discussion, Chris,” she said when they were gone. Unconsciously her hand went to her cheek. “We’ve talked enough.”

“I… I’m sorry,” he said, his shoulders slumping. “I should never have laid a hand on you.”

“I don’t care.”

Pause.

“Adaora,” he said. “What… I… what was it that you did? When… when we were fighting?”

She felt her belly flip but said nothing.

He stepped closer and she didn’t move away. “Does it have to do with how you were born? You—”

“Chris, didn’t you dismiss me as a marine witch or whatever the hell you and those people fear so much?” Her eyes stung but she continued. “Just go with that for now, if that sets your mind at ease. Three things need to happen. One, our children need to be safe. Two, Anthony, Ayodele and I need to find Agu. You won’t understand and I’m not going to explain. Three, we need to get Ayodele to the President. And guess what, Chris, I happen to know where the President is going to be at 6 a.m. If Agu comes soon, we’ve got all night to get there. But we have to get there. With what’s going on outside, that’s going to be difficult.”

Pause. “Why the three of you?” Chris asked.

“I don’t… no, that’s not true.” She blinked as it dawned on her. She took his shoulder, gripping it. “Chris?”

“What?” He looked afraid.

Her heart was pounding. Her hands were shaking. She’d never been religious. She’d never believed in the mysterious as her husband did. She was a scientist. Her world was founded upon empirical evidence, on rigorous experimentation, on data. She was the thinker and he was the one willing to simply have faith. That had been what kept them balanced. Chris was a genius when it came to securing and growing contracts. He had stocks in America and in the UK. He followed hunches when he did business. He consulted dibias, witchdoctors and babawelos when he felt he was at a crossroads. And this had always worked. It had made them rich.

For Adaora, however, logic determined her actions. She went to church because she was expected to go, not because she believed. She studied the ocean and its creatures. She calculated, documented, observed. She wrote articles for academic journals and was respected in her field. She was a well-regarded professor and, though she made far less than Chris, her income had made them that much richer.

They had known each other all their lives. There was history. And there was mystery in that history that they had silently agreed never to discuss. Neither of them had ever called the other evil or illogical… until the last year after Chris had had the scare on the airplane from Lagos to Owerri and became born again. Since then, things had unraveled.

“You’re right,” she whispered.

“About what?”

“The world.”

His eyebrows went up. Then he smiled.

“No, no, not all the Christian stuff,” she said. “But the mystery .” She paused “Ayodele spoke of her people being catalysts of change. Wherever they go, they bring change.”

“You are part of the change,” he said.

“Maybe.” She took his hand. “Will you get the children to your mother’s place? Please. They are all we have.”

After a long pause, he said, “Yes.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

They both turned to go upstairs. Anthony, who’d been leaning against the door, listening, took a deep gulp from the bottle of water he held. He sighed as he walked back to the living room and said, “Finally, some progress.”

Chris took Adaora’s Mercedes, leaving her his smaller, faster BMW. Fred and Kola cried and cried. Aside from wanting to stay with Adaora, they didn’t want to leave Ayodele, who remained in her monkey form and still refused to speak. As soon as they were gone, Adaora sank into the sofa with the beginnings of a headache that could only come from deep conflict, the internal battle between relief and anxiety. And then a brick smashed through the window followed by a Molotov cocktail, setting the sofa on fire.

“Come out!” Father Oke shouted.

Anthony was beginning to lose his temper. It had been draining from him since those idiots had tried to shoot Ayodele. The drainage had increased tenfold when the soldiers wounded Kola. Normally, a deep breath and a glance at the sky could settle him. Not now. And the worst thing about it was that the Elders would see whatever he did.

The Elders. That’s what Ayodele called them . Not the Elders who were his ancestors, the Elders from the stars. Those… creatures that Anthony was having a hard time separating from himself. He could still hear their song, still hear the beat of their drums; yes, he could still feel them. They were deep in the ocean, just off the coast of this great megacity called Lagos. He felt them in a way he’d never felt anything before. Because they were still with him. They were listening through him. They were hearing, seeing and feeling with him. Nevertheless, he was still himself and when he got angry, he got… mad. When he was mad, he would take from everyone around him. He would take from the earth. From the very ground beneath his feet. And then he’d wield what he had taken, and the damage would be great.

He’d done it once when he was ten years old, when he still went by the name his parents had given him, Edgar. Just after his father had died and left his mother to shoulder the blame for his heart attack. For a month, Edgar had stayed in that house with his mother and siblings. They survived on leftovers from the funeral and supplies his mother had managed to buy the day before the ceremony. Nevertheless, when their water supply grew too low, his mother had finally given in.

On that fateful day, she was at the market while Edgar stayed home watching his younger brothers and sisters. His mother had thought the in-laws had given up. She’d been in the house for a month. But he knew they’d come. And a half hour after she left, they came to the small white house in the village with the satellite dish perched on the roof and the brown water stains on the walls. His relatives. His uncles, aunts, older cousins. All from his father’s side. They came to take what they felt was theirs. Back then, there were no mobile phones but the bush radio, the village grapevine, worked better than any digital form of communication. It was probably his Auntie Osei who lived across the dirt road who had notified everyone that his mother had finally gone out.

Edgar had sat on the small porch, watching them come. Their cars and SUVs pulled up and they waited. Gathering like ants preparing to haul away a dead spider. Ants never sleep. Ants are relentless. And ants know the scent of opportunity and do not hesitate to follow its trail.

His father’s relatives – about twenty of them – gathered beneath the large mango tree in front of the house. It was heavy with ripe fruit. Several in the group picked the largest mangoes. As if the mangoes were theirs to take. The day was warm and Edgar started sweating. After several minutes, as one big group, they walked toward Edgar’s home. His youngest sibling, Helen, was only seven months old. His brother Bamfo was nine. There were five of them in all, and ten-year-old Edgar was in charge.

“Get inside,” he told Bamfo. His little brother looked at him with such worry that Edgar felt like crying. His brother’s love, all his siblings’ love was so strong. They would die for each other. And they knew what death was. They had all been there when their father died of a heart attack, right in front of them all at the dinner table. They’d been in the middle of a wonderful Sunday feast – fufu and peanut soup with goat meat. A rare hearty meal. Edgar couldn’t remember what they had been celebrating. All he remembered was the look on his father’s face. From happy to pained to shocked. The expression remained as he took his last breath.