Akata Witch
Authors: Nnedi Okorafor
Tags: #United States, #Nigeria, #Africa, #Albinos and Albinism, #Fantasy & Magic, #Crime, #Magic, #People & Places, #African American, #Serial Murderers, #Supernatural, #Fiction, #Juvenile Fiction, #Mysteries & Detective Stories
Table of Contents
Chapter 4 - Leopard Knocks His Foot
Chapter 7 - Night Runner Forest
Chapter 22 - Headless and Headlines
AKATA WITCH
NSIBIDI FOR “THIS IS ALL MINE”
Books by Nuedi Okorafor
Zahrah the Windseeker
The Shadow Speaker
Long Juju Man
Who Fears Death
Akata Witch
VIKING
Published by the Penguin Group
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Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in the United States of America by Viking,
an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2011
Text and drawings copyright © Nnedi Okorafor, 2011
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
eISBN : 978-1-101-51379-8
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
To Sandra Marume, the spunky Igbo girl with the sharp tongue and mysterious ways, who just happened to be albino.
It’s been awhile, but I hope I captured you well.
And to my mother, who was terrified of masquerades as a kid and still is. This book dances with them. Enjoy.
Here, in the new venture, the extraordinary, the magical, the wonderful, and even the strange come out of the ordinary and the familiar.
—
Wizard of the Crow
by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
PROLOGUE
The Candle
I’ve always been fascinated by candles. Looking into the flame calms me down. Here in Nigeria, PHC is always taking the lights, so I keep candles in my room just in case.
PHC stands for “Power Holding Company of Nigeria,” but people like to say it really stands for “Please Hold Candles in Nigeria.” Back in Chicago we had ComEd, and the electricity was always working. Not here, though. Not yet. Maybe in the future.
One night, after the power went out, I lit a candle as usual. Then, also as usual, I got down on the floor and just gazed at its flame.
My candle was white and thick, like the ones in church. I lay on my belly and just stared and stared into it. So orange, like the abdomen of a firefly. It was nice and soothing until . . . it started flickering.
Then, I thought I saw something. Something serious and big and scary. I moved closer.
The candle just flickered like any other flame. I moved even closer, until the flame was an inch from my eyes. I could see something. I moved closer still. I was almost there. I was just starting to understand what I saw when the flame kissed something above my head. Then the smell hit me and the room was suddenly bright yellow orange! My hair was on fire!
I screamed and smacked my head as hard as I could. My burning hair singed my hand. Next thing I knew, my mother was there. She tore off her
rapa
and threw it over my head.
The electricity suddenly came back on. My brothers ran in, then my father. The room smelled awful. My hair was half gone and my hands were tender.
That night, my mother cut my hair. Seventy percent of my lovely long hair, gone. But it was what I saw in that candle that stayed with me most. I’d seen the end of the world in its flame. Raging fires, boiling oceans, toppled skyscrapers, ruptured land, dead and dying people. It was horrible. And it was coming.
My name is Sunny Nwazue and I confuse people.
I have two older brothers. Like my parents, my brothers were both born here in Nigeria. Then my family moved to America, where I was born in the city of New York. When I was nine, we returned to Nigeria, near the town of Aba. My parents felt it would be a better place to raise my brothers and me, at least that’s what my mom says. We’re Igbo—that’s an ethnic group from Nigeria—so I’m American and Igbo, I guess.
You see why I confuse people? I’m Nigerian by blood, American by birth, and Nigerian again because I live here. I have West African features, like my mother, but while the rest of my family is dark brown, I’ve got light yellow hair, skin the color of “sour milk” (or so stupid people like to tell me), and hazel eyes that look like God ran out of the right color. I’m albino.