Nnedi Okorafor - Akata Witch

They pushed and pushed and the funky train began to roll. Finally, the engine popped, banged, and chugged. At the same time, she heard another noise that sounded more like wind blowing through the top of a dry palm tree. Blue lights running along the vehicle’s walls and on the floor lit up. The air began to smell of flowers. Sunny sneezed and groaned.

They were officially on their way to the Zuma festival.

Anatov said they’d be staying at the Hilton, the biggest and most lavish hotel in the city. Even one of America’s presidents had stayed there. Sunny was only able to relax when Anatov said that Leopard Knocks was paying for the room. She barely had enough money to afford two meals, and she doubted they’d take chittim .

It was going to be a very busy day. First they would get her juju knife. Then they’d attend the wrestling finals. After that, Anatov would attend a meeting of scholars from all over Africa. They’d have the rest of the day and evening all to themselves. “There’s an arts and crafts fair all day and a student social tonight,” Anatov said. He looked at Orlu and Sasha and smiled. “And, as always, there’s the Zuma Football Cup match around five o’clock.”

Sunny frowned. Why didn’t he look at her when he said this? She liked soccer, too. And she was good at it.

Their rooms were on the sixteenth floor of the Hilton. And they weren’t just rooms-they had a suite! Orlu and Sasha had one room and Chichi and Sunny had another. Anatov’s room was farther down the hall. “We leave in an hour,” he said. As soon as he was gone, they looked at each other and then howled with excited laughter.

“I can’t believe I’m here!” Sunny screeched, throwing herself onto her bed.

“This place is so toxic,” Chichi said, chidingly. But she ate one of the chocolates that had been placed on their beds. “I’ll bet that’s why Anatov is making us stay here.”

“I thought you’d like it,” Sunny said.

Chichi frowned at her. “Why’s that?”

“Imagine the books they’ll be selling at the festival,” Orlu said, sitting on the cabinet beside the TV.

“Bet there’ll be a lot of hot girls there, too,” Sasha said.

“There’ll be even more hot boys,” Chichi said, giving him a look. “There are always more boys.”

“Hey, don’t go off with anyone,” Orlu said. “We’re not at home.”

“Same to you,” Chichi said.

“I’m a guy,” Orlu said in total seriousness, pulling a book out of his bag. “You’re a girl. It’s not the same.”

Chichi scoffed.

“It’s not,” Sasha said with a shrug. “Anyway, Chichi, come here. Look at this.”

“So what do you think?” Orlu asked Sunny. Behind them, Chichi and Sasha had started whispering to each other and snickering as they looked at Sasha’s book.

“Ask me in a few days,” Sunny said.

“I hate this hotel and everything it stands for,” Orlu said. “The over-extravagance when people are living so badly just outside the hotel, it’s obnoxious.”

“It’s not all bad.”

Orlu shook his head. Chichi and Sasha quickly shut Sasha’s book. Sasha shoved it back into his bag.

“What are you guys up to?” Sunny asked.

Chichi wouldn’t meet Sunny’s eyes. “Sasha’s just helping me out with-something. Nothing you and Orlu would be interested in.”

“Sunny, you going to get in that soccer game with me?” Sasha asked. “Or football, I mean. Whatever you guys call it here.”

“I still call it soccer, too,” she said, laughing. “Part of my Americanness, I guess. You think I can play in the game?”

“Definitely. I’ve seen you handle the ball, man,” he said. “Orlu, you in?”

“Nah, I’ll watch with Chichi.”

“So they let girls play?” Sunny asked, tentatively.

“Doesn’t matter,” Sasha said. “You’re playing.”

They split up to take showers and change. Everyone wore their best. Sasha had on baggy jeans and a short-sleeved blue dress shirt. He paused to look at Chichi, who wore a bright green rapa and matching top. “You look nice,” he said. “You should dress up more often.”

“Only when there’s a reason,” Chichi said, but she looked pleased.

Sunny fidgeted. She knew she looked good in her navy blue dress pants and blue top with orange and yellow designs, but it didn’t really matter to her. “I hate dressing up,” she said.

“I don’t mind it much,” Orlu said. He wore a long light blue caftan and matching pants. “But there are more important things.”

The same funky train that dropped them off picked them up. It was a tenth of the size they’d left it in, even smaller than a van, and it was empty. There was a white throne for Anatov in the second row.

“Hey,” Sasha asked, sitting behind Jesus’s General. “What music you got?”

“If it’s got gam-gbam dim-dim that shakes the very air I breathe, I dey grab,” Jesus’s General said. He and Sasha slapped hands. Sasha clicked through Jesus’s General’s digital collection.

Anatov sat in his seat, opened up the day’s paper, and began to read. Chichi sat beside him and did the same. Orlu and Sunny went to the back. As they drove off, Sasha got the music going. He and the general bobbed their heads to the beat.

“Hey,” Orlu said. “Remember what I said about you guys being careful. Chichi knows her way around, but you’re new, so be extra careful.”

“Sure,” Sunny said, rolling her eyes. “So, did you and Chichi come to this together last year?”

“Yeah,” Orlu said.

“Your parents and Chichi’s mother are friends?”

Orlu frowned and cocked his head. “Yeah… sort of.” He lowered his voice. “Chichi gets her weirdness from her mother. Her mother’s really, really brilliant. She’s an assistant to Sugar Cream and she’s a Nimm priestess.”

“What’s-”

“Women who become Nimm priestesses are chosen at birth. Their intelligence is tested before their mother even gets a chance to hold them. If they pass, they’re ‘sold’ to Nimm, a female spirit who lives in the wilderness.”

“Like Osu people?” she asked, horrified. These were Igbo people sold as slaves to an Igbo deity.

“Sort of. Nimm women aren’t outcasts like the Osu,” he said. “Nimm women all have ‘Nimm’ as a last name, and they’re never allowed to marry. And they reject wealth.”

“Is that why Chichi’s father left?”

Orlu laughed bitterly. “No. I overheard my mother telling my aunt that he was one of the most selfish men she’d ever met. He didn’t know that Chichi’s mother is Leopard, though.” He paused. “I’ll bet if he knew he couldn’t marry her mother, he’d have fought to marry her.”

“Oh,” she said, realizing something. “So Chichi’s not pure Leopard?”

Orlu shrugged. “No one’s ‘pure.’ We’ve all got Lambs in our spiritline somewhere. Anyway, Nimm women are… kind of eccentric. My parents are friendly with her, but not friends.”

There was a silence. Music drifted back from the front of the funky train.

“Orlu,” Sunny finally said, glancing at Chichi, who was reading her newspaper, “what do I… do ?”

“What do you mean?”

“Am I supposed to keep all this stuff from my family for the rest of my life? Who can live like that? It’s already weird. What do free agents do ?”

“Well, for one, the pact we made prevents you from telling anyone about it,” Orlu said. The trust knot, the symbols on the book, and the juju knife-it seemed like years ago, not just a few months. “I don’t know, Sunny. You know what, though?”

“What?”

“You really need to find out about your grandmother,” he said. “Especially from your mother. You didn’t inherit the spiritline from your mother, but maybe your mother knows more than you think.”