Akata Witch (31 page)

“Your father never wanted a daughter,” her mother said.

Sunny spooned more soup into her mouth. Delicious.

“You see your brothers, they are just like your father,” she said. “When they are sons, to him they’re safe.” She smiled sadly. “He doesn’t understand that with them he was just lucky. It could have been them, too. You all come from me, as well as him. And
it
comes from her, my mother.”

Sunny closed her eyes. “Mama, please, tell me about Grandmother.”

Her mother looked at her soup and sighed. “Your auntie Chinwe told me you were asking about her.” She looked at Sunny. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Once I tell you, I can’t un-tell you,” she pleaded.

“It’s okay. Please, Mama.”

Her mother picked a piece of chicken out of her soup and nibbled on it. “I have two younger sisters, as you know,” she said. “I’m not sure how my mother and father met, but my mother became pregnant with me while she was very young. My father refused to leave her. He loved her very much.”

She paused and took a spoonful of soup.

“My parents weren’t married,” she finally said. “I don’t know why—none of us ever knew why. I just tell your father that they were. If he’d have known, he’d have never . . .” She looked at her hands, ashamed. “My mother was a strange woman. She loved us dearly. Raised us to be smart and independent and educated. She watched us closely, like she was looking for something, but I don’t know what. Whatever it was, she didn’t find it. Not in me or my siblings. I think she’d have found it in you.

“I’m not stupid. I can see between lines.” She paused. “Weeks ago, I was passing your room one night and I saw—I saw a pile of metal things that I once found lying in my mother’s bedroom when she was alive.”

Sunny put her hand over her mouth, shocked. Her mother shook her head and waved a hand at her. “It’s okay,” she sighed. “Everyone thought that your grandmother was leaving at night to run around with other men, but there were other reasons. My father was just a coincidence. My sister once saw Mama disappear, right into thin air. We all knew that there was something strange about Mama.”

“What do you think she was doing?”

She shrugged. “I have no idea. Why don’t you tell me?”

“I—I can’t,” Sunny said.

She nodded. “That was what my mother used to say.”

A silence fell between them.

“I trust you,” her mother said, reaching forward to take her hands. This brought tears to Sunny’s eyes, especially after the garbage her father had just spewed.

“Mama, you
can
trust me. I
swear
it,” she said.

“I know.”

“What of Dad?” she said finally, hopelessly.

Her mother smiled sadly. “Some things are inevitable. But you’re suffering for her dishonesty. He may not know that my parents were never married, but he knows of your grandmother’s reputation. Men always blame the woman when a child dissatisfies him. In this case, he is right—in more ways than one.”

“Does he hate me?” she asked.

Her mother paused. “We moved back to Nigeria because of you. I had this strong feeling that something bad was going to happen to you in the United States, and I told your father this. He didn’t want to move back here.”

Sunny frowned. “So that’s why he agreed? Because he thought your feeling was right?” Her father had moved back to Nigeria because of her? She found it hard to get her mind around this idea.

Her mother nodded. “But I was wrong. It wasn’t that something bad would have happened to you in New York. It was that something needed to happen to you here in Nigeria.”

Her mother got up and gave Sunny a tight hug.

“I love you, Mama,” Sunny whispered.

“I love you, too,” she said. “But be careful. Be very, very careful.” She held Sunny’s face in her hands. “Today is the day my mother was killed.”

Sunny froze.

“Yes,” her mother said. “And that day, it . . . was raining, too. It happened in my father’s
obi
, behind the house.”

Timing
, Sunny thought.
The scholars had said it was all a question of timing
.

When she returned to her room, she found a wooden box on her bed. A ghost hopper sat on top of it. She quickly closed her door. This must have been the box her auntie told her about. It was made of thin wood. It was cheap. The moment she touched it, it flipped open. Inside was a handwritten letter and a sheet of Nsibidi symbols. The letter said:

Dear child of my child,

If you are able to read this, then you were able to open the box, which means you have manifested my spirit’s touch. Welcome. Oh, welcome, welcome, welcome! I left this box with my oldest child. It was charmed with juju that would make her keep it safe and secret until the time came to pass it on. She has done well, for the juju would only work if she wanted it to, if she believed in me. This is good.

I am Ozoemena Nimm, but most called me Ozo. I am of the warrior folk of the Nimm clan, born to Mgbafo of the warrior Efuru Nimm and Odili of the ghost people.

I will get to the point. I was a rebellious child.

I did not like being told what to do. So I went out and found a Lamb man and gave him children. I did not realize that to do this would lead me to a double life. A Leopard is not to tell a Lamb what she is, for Lambs fear Leopards by nature. I did not realize that my actions would lead you to a double life, too. And for this I am sorry. Only after I gave birth and moved in with the father of my children did I realize the mistake I’d made.

I was born with black, black, black skin. And my ability was not only invisibility, it was the ability to go back and forth between the wilderness and the physical world. I only learned this after I reached third level. What is your ability? I feel strongly that it will be like mine. If it is, then there is more history in you than you yet know. As I was, you have been busy.

There is something coming. This is all I can say. Not soon but eventually, soon enough. Maybe you know about this already. Don’t fear it, if you do. There’s more to it than you think.

Know that I love you. Know that I wish you well. Know that I have confidence in you because I have confidence in myself. I am incredible. Make Leopard friends so that you will not be alone, and forgive the blindness of your parents and siblings. It is not their fault. It is up to you to be mature.

I must go. I hear Kaodili calling. I want to seal this box tonight, for I feel strongly that something bad will happen to me soon. Take care of yourself and remember what is important.

Sincerely,
Your ancestor, Ozo

It was as if Sunny had just gotten a glimpse of her own soul.

Now she knew why her grandmother wasn’t married. Like Chichi’s mother, she, too, was Nimm, though Chichi’s mother was some sort of royalty and Sunny’s grandmother was a warrior. What did that mean? And did this make her Nimm, too? Did that mean she couldn’t marry? Was she a warrior?

She looked at the sheet of Nsibidi symbols. It was all too sophisticated for her to understand—yet. She put it back in the box with the letter. She blinked and took the letter and Nsibidi sheet back out. There was one more thing in the box: an old black-and-white photograph of an unsmiling very dark-skinned woman holding a large knife across her chest.

“Grandma,” she whispered. As the old blind woman at the council meeting had said, Sunny looked nothing like her. But what did that matter? She smiled to herself and carefully put the picture back in the box.

22

Headless and Headlines

The next morning, her wasp artist had built a man made out of something like sawdust with a hat of chewed-up leaves. The man was plump and looked suspiciously like Black Hat. When Della saw Sunny looking at it, it flew to the dust man’s head and hovered next to it batting its wings. The head blew away. Sunny laughed hard and clapped and said, “Well done! Looks just like him!” The wasp buzzed its wings with glee and flew out the window.

She grabbed the day’s paper and unrolled it with shaking hands. The headline read:

CHILDREN RETURNED SAFELY TO THEIR PARENTS

ABA, Nigeria (AFP)—A three-year-old girl and a twoyear-old boy, believed to be the children recently kidnapped by ritual killer Black Hat Otokoto, have been safely returned to their parents. They were found wandering the streets by two young men during yesterday’s storms. The two men declined to give their names.

“They were angels sent from God,” the mother of the boy said. “If you are out there and reading this, know that you have saved my life as you have saved my son’s, and I am eternally thankful.” The parents of the girl declined an interview, but were also deeply thankful and relieved.

Further down the page was a photo of Black Hat’s gas station. And that headline read:

GAS STATION GOES UP IN FLAMES
AFTER BEING STRUCK TWICE
BY LIGHTNING

Epilogue

Sunny sat down for her first class after the rains. She felt odd. She glanced over and met Orlu’s eyes. They smiled at each other, as if sharing a joke. Once the teacher started talking, Sunny was surprised that she was still interested in learning normal things like algebra, literature, and biology. She could still concentrate.

During lunch, Orlu told her that Anatov would let Chichi know when they’d next meet. “He’ll probably give us two or three weeks to recuperate,” he said. “But we’ll each also be meeting with our mentors on our own time, I guess.”

“I think I have my work cut out for me,” Sunny said.

“With Sugar Cream as a mentor, there’s no doubt about that,” he said, laughing. “Oh, did Chichi tell you? She and Sasha are going to prepare to pass the second level.”

“I thought you had to be sixteen or seventeen for that.”

“Well, who knows how old Chichi is? Sasha’s early, but after what they just went through, he might as well have gained two years.”

She nodded.

“And you don’t always have to be that age,” he said. “It’s just recommended. But if you don’t pass, you suffer terrible consequences, so you see the logic in waiting?”

“Yeah,” she said. “So you don’t think
you’re
ready?”

Orlu shrugged.

“You’re afraid to fail?”

“What about you? How many of them can say they faced Ekwensu and lived? Not even the scholars can say that. And you have friends in the wilderness.”

“Oh, please, I don’t even remember what the second level is
called
.”

“
Mbawkwa
,” Orlu said as the bell rang.

“Feels weird, doesn’t it?” she said to Orlu as they walked back in.

“You’ll get used to it,” he said. “Having two lives is better than none.”

“True.” And she laughed.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my editor, Sharyn November, for daring to taste pepper soup (literally and metaphorically). To my mother for telling me about tungwas and my father for showing me how masquerades dance. To my sisters Ifeoma and Ngozi for finding the title of this novel hilarious. To my brother Emezie for exposing me to pro wrestling and naming my character Miknikstic. To my daughter Anyaugo, nephew Dika, and niece Obi-Wan, who are constant reminders that the meaning of this novel’s title runs deep. To Tobias Buckell and Uche Ogbuji for the much-needed help with the soccer/football terminology. And lastly, to Naija for being Naija. One love.

NNEDI
OKORAFOR

was born in the United States to two Igbo (Nigerian) parents. She writes for readers of all ages. Her first novel,
Zahrah the Windseeker
, won the 2008 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature and was a finalist for the Parallax Award and the Kindred Award; her second,
The Shadow Speaker
, was a Book Sense Pick, winner of the Parallax Award, and a finalist for the NAACP Image Award, the
Essence
Magazine Literary Award, and the Golden Duck Award, as well as a James Tiptree, Jr. Honor Book. Her most recent novel, and her first for adults, is
Who Fears Death.

Nnedi Okorafor is a professor of creative writing at Chicago State University and lives in Illinois with her daughter Anyaugo.

Her Web site is
www.nnedi.com
.

Books by Nuedi Okorafor

Zahrah the Windseeker
The Shadow Speaker
Long Juju Man
Who Fears Death
Akata Witch