Nnedi Okorafor - Who Fears Death

“Priest!” Ssaiku shouted, as he sat down hard on the floor and sighed with extreme fatigue. The tent flap fell open on its own. The noise from outside came tumbling in.

The priest leaped forward and ran after the symbol. Skipping this way and that. Finally, Smack! He stamped his sandal on it hard. When he removed his foot, only a smudge of charcoal was left. “Ha!” Ssaiku triumphantly exclaimed, still breathing heavily. Ting sat back, exhausted. I lay there panting on the floor, the mat underneath me still feeling like metal spiders. I rolled off it and stared at the ceiling.

“Try to change your hand,” Ting said.

I was able to change it into a vulture’s wing. However, instead of just black feathers, it was speckled with black and red ones. I laughed and lay back on the floor.

Mwita and Ispent the night in Ssaiku’s tent. Ssaiku had an important meeting and wouldn’t be back until the morning.

“What about the sandstorm?” Mwita asked Ting. “Is it still…”

“Listen for yourself,” she said. I could hear the distant roar of the wind. “He can control it when he travels. That’s nothing for him. I think people had a good time while the storm was down, though. I’m always telling him that he should do that once in a while.” She moved to leave. “Someone will bring you both a large meal.”

“Oh, I couldn’t eat anything,” I moaned.

“You must eat too, Mwita.” She looked at me. “The last time he ate was the last time you ate, Onye.”

I looked at Mwita shocked. He only shrugged. “I was busy,” he said. We fell asleep minutes after Ting left. It was past midnight when Luyu woke us. “Ting said you have to eat,” she said, lightly smacking my cheek again. She’d spread out a gigantic meal of roast rabbit, a large bowl of stewed rabbit livers, cactus candy, curried stew, a bottle of palm wine, hot tea, and something I hadn’t eaten since I was in the desert with my mother.

“Where did they find aku?” Mwita asked, taking one of the fried insects and popping it in his mouth. I grinned, doing the same.

Luyu shrugged. “A bunch of women handed me all these plates but that one bothers me. It looks like…”

“It is,” I said. “Aku are termites. You fry them in palm oil.”

“Ugh,” Luyu said.

Mwita and I ate ravenously. He made sure I ate all the rabbit liver stew.

“It was stupid to eat that much,” I moaned, when we finally stopped eating.

“Maybe, but it’s a good risk to take,” he said.

Luyu sat with her legs stretched out as she watched us and sipped a glass of palm wine. I lay out on the floor. “Where are Diti and Fanasi?” I asked.

Luyu shrugged. “Around, I guess.” She crawled to me. “Let me see your hands.”

I held them out. They were like one of the Ada’s works of art. The drawings were perfect. Perfect circles, straight lines, graceful ebbs and flows. My hands were like the pages of some ancient book. The symbols on my right hand were smaller and closer together than the ones on my left. More urgent. I flexed my right hand. It didn’t hurt. No pain meant no infection. I smiled, very very glad.

“I could look at them all day,” Mwita said.

“But this hand is useless,” I said, making a fist with my right hand. “Or should I say dangerous.”

“So when do you think we’ll be, well, moving on?” Luyu asked.

“Luyu, I can barely walk,” I said.

“But you’ll be able to soon enough. I know you,” she said. “I’m in no hurry really. It’s nice here. But in a way I am. I… I was talking to some men. They told me things, about how it is in the West.” She paused. “I know something has happened to you.” She took a deep breath and steadied herself. “I pray, I pray to Ani, I swear to Ani, that you better be the real thing. You have to be the one prophesied.” She paused, looking with wide eyes at Mwita, then me. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean…”

“It’s all right,” I said. “I’ve told him.”

Mwita cocked his head, eyeing me. “You told her before telling me?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Luyu said. “What matters is that it has to be true because what’s happening over there, what waits for you to put an end to it, is of the oldest evil. I used to think it was the Nurus. They were born ugly and superior… but, it’s deeper than humans.” She wiped her eyes. “We can’t stay here too long. We have things to do!”

Mwita took Luyu’s hand and squeezed it. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Ssaiku’s tent was warm and comfortable. There were empty plates around us. We were alive. We were where we needed to be in that moment. I pushed aside my growing doubts and reached forward and took Mwita’s and Luyu’s hands and, with our heads down, we instinctively shared a prayer.

Then Luyu let go of our hands. “I’m going to go… socialize. If you need me come to the tent of Ssun and Yaoss.” She smirked. “Call out before entering.”

I soon fell into a warm black recharging sleep. I woke up with sun in my eyes as it shined through the tent’s flap. My body ached a hello. Mwita’s arm was clamped around me. He was softly snoring. When I tried to move it, he held me tighter. I yawned and brought up my right hand. I held it in the sunshine and willed it to sprout feathers. With great great ease, it did. I turned to Mwita and met his open eyes.

“Has it been twenty-five hours yet?” I asked.

“Can you wait another hour?” he asked, reaching between my legs. He was disappointed when his fingers came away bloody. My monthly had arrived. As if from the realization, the womb pain descended on me, and I suddenly felt nauseated.

“Lie down,” Mwita said, jumping up and wrapping his waist with his rapa. He left and came back with a bundle of clothes and a fresh rapa.

“Here,” he said and placed a tiny dried leaf in my mouth. “One of the women gave me a small sack of it.”

It was bitter but I managed to chew and swallow it. I got up, took care of myself, and then lay back down. My nausea was already decreasing. Mwita poured me a glass of the remaining palm wine. It was sour but my body welcomed it.

“Better?”

I nodded. “Now tell me a story.”

“Before I say anything, note that we’ve both been keeping secrets,” Mwita said.

“I know,” I said.

“Okay.” He paused, pulling at his short beard. “You can travel the way you do because you have the ability to alu . You’re…”

“ Alu? ” I said. The word had a familiar sound to it. “You mean like Alusi?”

“Just listen, Onyesonwu.”

“How long have you known?” I asked, frantic.

“Known what? You don’t even know what you’re asking.”

I frowned but held my mouth shut, looking at my hands. So going “away” was called alu, I thought.

“Your mother is close to the Ada,” Mwita said.

I frowned. “So?”

Mwita took my shoulders. “Onyesonwu, be quiet. Let me talk. You listen.”

“Just…”

“Shh,” he said.

I sighed, putting my hands over my face.

“Your mother is close to the Ada,” he calmly said. “They talk. The Ada is Aro’s wife. They talk. And you know what Aro is to me. We talk. This is how I know about your mother. It’s good that it happened this way because now I can tell you .”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” I asked. “Why didn’t my mother tell me?”

“Onyesonwu?”

“Talk faster, then,” I said.

“I’ve thought about it,” he said, ignoring me. “Your mother knew exactly what she was doing when she asked that you be a sorceress once you were born and a girl. It was her revenge.” He looked down at me. “Your mother can travel within, she can alu . The word for the mythical creature we know of as the Alusi comes from the actual sorcerer’s term ‘to alu ,’ to ‘travel within.’ She…”