Nnedi Okorafor - Binti - The Complete Trilogy

“What are you doing out here?” she asked. Her voice was dry and commanding, also like my grandmother, and I immediately stood up straighter.

“I… this… this is where I… please… my…”

“Oh, shut up, child,” she sighed. “Forget I asked.” She rested her staff on her side and began doing that which I’d heard the Desert People did; she moved her hands this way and that, like a child swatting at a fly. I took the moment to quickly look around. There were no others. Could I outrun her? The woman wore no shoes. How can she stand the hot sand?

“Binti,” she said. “Daughter of Moaoogo Dambu Kaipka Okechukwu Enyi Zinariya.”

“That’s my name, my father… how do you know?” I whispered. I’d decided that there was no way I could outrun the woman. She was old and carried a staff, but something told me she was strong like a man and she didn’t use that staff for walking.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked.

“A desert person?”

She nodded, working her hands before her. It was as if they weren’t even part of her body. In my pocket, my astrolabe buzzed. The sun had just reached its highest peak and it was best to sit in the shade for the next hour. I reached into my pocket to stop it from buzzing.

“I journeyed all the way to this place so I can think,” the woman said.

“I… I did, too,” I said.

And for a moment, we stared at each other.

“I’ve been coming here since before your mother was a thought in your grandmother’s womb,” she said, with a chuckle. “What is that you’ve found?”

I grasped it more tightly and took a step back. “Nothing. A pretty chunk of… metal.” I felt sweat prickle in my armpits. To lie to an elder is a sin.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not going to take it from you.”

“I… I never said that,” I said.

“I know your grandmother, Binti.”

I nearly dropped the edan when I looked at her with surprise… and understanding. My father’s mother was a desert woman and he never spoke of her. Himba men did not wear otjize, but sometimes they used it to palm roll or flatten their hair. My father used it to flatten his coarse bushy hair, to mask it. And like me, he was the shade of brown like the Desert People and he’d never liked this fact. My mother was a medium brown, like most Himba, and I knew for a fact that he was proud that all their other children were too… and that the one who got the desert complexion and hair made up for it by being a master harmonizer.

I’d once asked my father about the Desert People when I was about five years old and he’d snapped at me to never speak of it again. As I looked at this tall woman now, I wanted to go home. I needed to go home. My father would kill me for speaking to this woman. I wasn’t supposed to be out here in the first place, so meeting her was entirely my fault.

“Do you know what that is you’ve found?”

I shook my head.

“It’s a piece of time from before our time. An ancient work of art and use. It’s old, but old doesn’t always mean less advanced.”

I opened my hand and looked at it. It rested in my palm, comfortable there, but so strange.

“Want to know how to use it?”

I shook my head. “I have to get home,” I said. “My father has work for me to finish later today.”

“Yes, your gifted father who is so proud of himself.” She paused looking me over and then said, “The thing you have, the Himba will call it an edan, but we call it a god stone. You’re blessed it’s found you.” She did a few hand motions and laughed. “When you are ready to know how to really use it, find us.”

“Okay,” I said, smiling the most false smile I had ever smiled. My legs were shaking so vigorously that I felt I would fall to my knees.

“Safe journey home,” she said. Then she knelt, touched the sand, and said, “Praise the Seven.”

I stood there for a moment surprised, thinking, Desert People believed in the presence of the Seven too? I wondered what my mother would say to this fact, since she thought Desert People were so uncivilized. Not that I’d ever tell her about meeting this woman.

I swiped otjize from my face and did the same. Then I turned and ran off. I didn’t look back until I was about to crest the first sand dune. She still stood there, beside the gray stones where I’d found the edan . I wondered what she’d make of the plant growing there.

Early crabs were sneaky and quick, so my parents weren’t surprised when I returned empty-handed. I was no longer that angry with my parents, so when I took the edan to my father two days later, I didn’t have to stifle my emotions. I didn’t tell him about the plant growing on it or where I found it. It’s the only time I’d lied to my father. I told him I’d bought the thing at the market from a junk seller.

“Who was selling it? Which junk man?” my father anxiously asked. “I need to talk to him! Look at this thing it’s—”

“I don’t know, Papa,” I quickly said. “I wasn’t really paying attention. I was so focused on it.”

“I’ll go to the market tomorrow,” my father said, pulling at his scruffy beard. “Maybe someone will have another.” He took it from me, his eyes wide. “Beautiful work.”

“I think it does something that—”

“The metal,” he whispered, staring at the object. He looked at me, smiled and apologetically patted my head. “Sorry, Binti. You were saying?”

“It’s okay. What about the metal?”

My father brought it to his teeth and bit the tip of one of the points. Then he touched it with the tip of his tongue and brought it so close to his left eye that he nearly touched his eyeball. He held it to his nose and sniffed. “I don’t know this type of metal,” he said. He smacked his lips. “It leaves a taste on the tongue, like when you taste the salts that gather on the Undying Trees during dry season.”

The Undying Trees grew all over Osemba. They had thick rubbery wide leaves and trunks spiked with hard thorns that had lived longer than any generation could recall. Their ancient roots were so strong and they snaked so deeply beneath Osemba that the town’s waterworks were not only built around them, they were built along them. The Undying Trees led the founders of Osemba to the only drinkable source of water for a hundred miles.

Nevertheless, the trees were strange. They vibrated so fast during thunderstorms that they made a howling sound, which permeated the city. During dry season, they produced salt on their leaves, which was used by healers to cure and treat all sorts of ailments. Life salt, it was called. The device I’d found tasted like life salt.

“It’s an edan, ” my father said and I’d nodded like I’d never heard the word before. He explained to me that “edan” was a general name for devices too old for anyone to know their functions, so old that they were now more art than anything else. That’s what my father wanted it for, as a piece of art to brag about to his friends. But I insisted on keeping it for myself and because he loved me, he let me.

Now here I was walking into the desert with the Desert People. How different my life would have been if my parents had just let me dance.

By sunup, I knew theDesert People had lied.

“Can you reach your Meduse?” my grandmother asked me. We’d walked through the remainder of the night and morning. Now, it was approaching midday and we stopped until night. We stood in the shade of one of the camels, some of the others bringing out dried dates and switching on noisy capture stations to collect water. I was nearly asleep on my feet, barely able to keep my eyes open. My grandmother’s question woke me right up.