Akata Witch (4 page)

Sunny wanted to ask more, but something else was nagging at her. Her father believed that all one needed to succeed in life was an education. He had gone to school for many years to become a barrister, and then gone on to be the most successful child in his family. Sunny’s mother was an MD, and often talked about how excelling in school had opened opportunities to her that girls only two decades before didn’t normally get. So Sunny believed in education, too. But here was Chichi’s mother, surrounded by the hundreds of books she’d read, living in a decrepit old mud hut with her daughter.

They sipped their tea and talked about nothing in particular. After a little while, Chichi’s mother got up and said she had to go run some errands.

“Thanks for the tea, Mrs. . . .” Sunny trailed off, embarrassed. She didn’t know whether Chichi’s mother went by Chichi’s father’s name or not. She didn’t even
know
Chichi’s last name.

“Call me Miss Nimm,” Chichi’s mother said. “Or you can call me Asuquo—that’s my first name.”

Sunny realized something once Chichi’s mother had left. “Your mother’s name—she’s Efik?”

“Yep. My father is Igbo, like you.”

There was an awkward silence. “How long have you known Orlu?” Sunny finally said.

“Oh, since we were about four. We—”

As if the mention of his name summoned him, they heard the gate to Orlu’s house creak open. Chichi grinned, got up, and went out. “Orlu,” she called after a moment. “Come here.”

Chichi had barely sat back down when Orlu pushed the cloth aside and peeked in. “Chichi, I just got—oh, Sunny,” he said, frowning at her. “You’re a surprise.” He stepped inside.

“I guess Chichi has let me into her secret club,” she said.

“Club?” he asked, frowning very deeply at Chichi.

“Want some tea?” Chichi quickly asked.

“Sure,” he said, slowly sitting on a stack of books.

She went out to the back, leaving Sunny and Orlu to just look at each other. Sunny wanted to break the awkward silence, so she said the first thing that popped into her head. “Orlu, can you really ‘undo things’?”

Without hesitation, Orlu turned to the back door and shouted, “Chichi!”

“What?” she shouted back.

“Get in here,” he said.

“What?” Sunny asked. “Did I say something—”

Chichi came stomping in. “Don’t speak to me in that tone, Orlu.”

“Ah-ah, why is your mouth so big?” Orlu shouted. “Can’t you . . .” He pressed his lips together. “Is your mother still home?”

“No,” she said, looking at her feet. Sunny frowned. It was a rare thing for Chichi to not yell back at someone.

The three of them were silent. Sunny looked uncomfortably from Orlu to Chichi and back to Orlu. Orlu glared at Chichi and Chichi looked at the ceiling. Then Orlu slapped his knee hard and said, “Explain, Chichi!
Why?
”

“No,” Sunny screeched. “
You
explain, Orlu! We’re supposed to be friends. Tell me and
then
you can tell her off!”

“It’s none of your—” He turned back to Chichi. “Are you stupid? Just because you’re alone with your thousand and one secrets doesn’t mean we all have to be!
I
chose not to be that!
And
I know how to keep secrets!”

“We won’t lose Sunny as a friend. Trust me. Let her in,” Chichi said. “Look at her!”

“So? Her being albino doesn’t mean anything! It’s just her medical condition. Everyone has their own physical quirks!”

“Not in this case. Even my mom thinks so,” Chichi retorted.

“Wait!” Sunny yelled loudly enough that they both jumped. “
Shut up and wait!
Tell
me
what is going on!”

Orlu and Chichi looked at each other for a long moment. Then Orlu sighed and said, “Fine.” He pulled a piece of white chalk from his pocket. “Only this way,” he said when Chichi started to protest. “No other way. We have to be sure.”

Chichi loudly sucked her teeth and looked away. “You should tell her first. If she’s such a good friend, you should trust her.”

“This isn’t about trust,” he said, as he picked up book after book. He chose one that was bound in leather. On the back, he used the chalk to draw:

Oddly, the chalk drew clearly on the book’s smooth leather surface. He muttered something and shaded in the center of the circle. Around the circle and lines he quickly scribbled a series of symbols that looked like the kind of things Americans would get tattooed on their biceps and ankles.

“That’s pretty good,” Chichi said, impressed.

“Mark it,” he grumbled, ignoring her.

Chichi pressed her thumb to the shaded circle. When she brought her thumb up, it was coated with white chalk.

“You do the same thing, Sunny,” Orlu said, his voice softening.

“What is it?” she asked.

“If you want to know anything, you have to do this first.”

Sunny had never seen juju performed but she knew it when she saw it. “My mother says this kind of thing is evil,” she quietly said.

“No disrespect, but your mother doesn’t know much about juju,” Orlu replied. “Trust me.”

Still, she hesitated. In the end, her curiosity got the better of her, the way it always did—especially after what she had seen in the candle flame. Quickly, before she could think too hard about it, she pressed her thumb to the same place Chichi had pressed hers. Orlu did the same. Then he took out a blade the size of his hand. Chichi hissed. “Is this necessary?” she asked, irritated.

“I want it to be strong,” he said.

“You barely know how,” Chichi said.

He ignored her and touched the knife to his tongue. He winced, but that was it. Carefully, he handed the knife to Chichi. She paused, pursing her lips. Then she did the same and handed the knife to Sunny.

“Handle it with care,” Orlu said.

“You want me to . . .” There was blood on the knife. Thoughts of AIDS, hepatitis, and every other disease she’d learned about in school and from her mother rushed through her head. She barely knew Chichi, or Orlu, really.

“Yeah,” he said. “But once you do it, you can’t turn back.”

“From what?”

“You won’t know unless you do it,” Chichi said with a smirk.

Sunny couldn’t take it anymore. She looked at the knife. She took a deep breath. “Okay.”

She cut with the part of the blade that was free of blood. The knife was so sharp! She barely had to touch the thing to her tongue. But, goodness, it stung! She wondered if it was coated with some kind of chemical because suddenly everything around her looked funny.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she heard Chichi tell Orlu.

“We’ll see,” Orlu mumbled. They both looked intently at Sunny.

“What’s happening?” she whispered.

Nothing was changing—but
everything
was. The room was as it was, the books, Orlu and Chichi, her schoolbag beside her. Outside she could hear a car passing by. But everything was . . . different. It was like reality was blossoming, opening and then opening some more. More of everything, but all was the same.

“You . . . you see it?” Orlu said, his eyes wide.

“Make it stop,” Sunny said.

“See!” Chichi said. “I was right!”

“Oh, stop,” Orlu snapped. “You don’t know for sure. She could just be sensitive.”

But Chichi looked very smug.

“Do you solemnly swear on the people you hold dearest, on the things dearest to you, that you will never speak of what I am about to tell you to anyone on the outside?” Orlu asked.

“Outside of what?” Sunny shrieked. She just wanted it to stop.

“Just swear,” he said.

She’d have sworn anything. “I swear.” Before she could get the second word out of her mouth, it all stopped, settled, grew still, normal.

Chichi got up, took the empty cups of tea, and walked out. Sunny looked down at the book. The markings had disappeared. She could still taste blood in her mouth.

“Okay, so ask and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” Orlu said.

A thousand things were flying through Sunny’s head. “Just tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

She groaned, exasperated. “What’d we just do?”

“We gave our word,” he said. “That was a trust knot. It will prevent you from telling anyone about any of this, not even your family. I couldn’t tell you anything if we didn’t make one.”

“Chichi would have,” she said.

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t ask her. She doesn’t do what she’s supposed to. We’d have all been in terrible trouble if you let things slip after she told you.”

“Let
what
slip?”

Orlu clasped his hands together. “Chichi and I,” he began, “and our parents are—”

“Don’t bother telling her like that,” Chichi said, coming back in. She was carrying a tray with three fresh cups of tea on it. “She’s ignorant.”

“Hey, no, I’m not.”

“Plus, she understands things better when you show her,” Chichi said. “I know her some.”

Orlu shook his head. “No, too early.”

“Not really,” Chichi said. “But tell her about what you can do, first.”

Orlu looked at Sunny, then looked down and sighed. “I can’t believe this.” He seemed to gather himself together. “It’s hard to explain,” he said. “I can undo bad things, bad . . . juju. It’s like an instinct. I didn’t have to learn how.”

“Isn’t all juju bad?” she asked.

“No,” her friends both said.

“It’s like anything else: some good, some bad, some just is,” Chichi said.

“So you all are—witches, or something?”

They laughed. “I guess,” Orlu said. “Here in Nigeria, we call ourselves Leopard People. Back in the day, there were powerful groups called the
ekpe
, Leopard societies. The name stuck.”

Sunny couldn’t deny what she’d seen. The world had done a weird blossoming thing, and though it had stopped, she still felt it with her. She knew it could happen again.
And what about the candle?

“Chichi can remember things if she sees them,” Orlu said, “so her head is full of all sorts of juju. See all these books, ask her to recite a paragraph from a certain page and she can.”

Sunny slowly got up.

“Are you all right?” Orlu asked.

“This is—I don’t—I . . . I think I need to go home,” she said. She felt ill.

“Do you have anything this weekend?” Chichi quickly asked.

Sunny slowly shook her head as she picked up her schoolbag.

“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Chichi said. “Come here in the morning, like around nine A.M. Make room for the whole day.”

“To . . . to do what?” Sunny asked, clutching her schoolbag. She stepped toward the door.

“Just come,” Chichi said.

Sunny nodded, and got out of there as fast as she could.

What Is Chittim?

Chittim
is the currency of Leopard People.
Chittim
are always made of metal (copper, bronze, silver, and gold) and always shaped like curved rods. The most valuable are the large copper ones, which are about the size of an orange and thick as an adult’s thumb. The smallest ones are the size of a dove’s egg. Least valuable are
chittim
made of gold.

When
chittim
fall, they never do harm. So one can stand in a rain of
chittim
and never get hit. There is only one way to earn
chittim:
by gaining knowledge and wisdom. The smarter you become, the better you process knowledge into wisdom, the more
chittim
will fall and thus the richer you will be. As a free agent, don’t expect to get rich.

from
Fast Facts for Free Agents

3

Initiative

When Sunny got home, everything seemed normal. She kicked a soccer ball around with her brothers. She easily stole the ball and wove between them with her fast feet, and because they found this annoying, they talked rubbish about how she looked like a white girl. Her mother, who was home early, made spicy red stew with chicken. Her father came home late and ate alone as he read his newspaper. Not once did the world bloom or shift.