Akata Witch (9 page)

“Relax,” Chichi said.

“Ugh, in a restaurant?” Orlu said. “Filthy!”

“Come on, the place is open,” Sasha said. “It’s not like we’re indoors.”

Sunny looked at the table a little more closely and screeched. The white chips were teeth!

Mama Put came bustling from behind her counter, all apologies. She shouted orders at one of her employees to clean up the mess immediately.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Chichi told the woman.

“It’s the goddamn
tungwa
’s fault,” Sasha said, brushing a tuft of hair off his shoulder. “Damn it. Anatov told me about these. Disgusting!” Sunny wanted to burst out laughing at the nastiness and absurdity of it all and at their nonchalance. Every time she thought she had reached the threshold of weirdness . . .

“
Tungwas
are just things that dwell at Leopard Knocks,” Orlu explained. “Floating bags of teeth, bone, meat, and hair. They explode when they’re ready.” He shrugged. “Don’t know what they are. Might be creatures that just don’t develop right. We deal with them like we deal with mosquitoes, flies, and cockroaches.”

Sunny shuddered. Mama Put gave them each a free bag of
chin chin
. Sunny gave hers to Sasha. As they walked back, she looked at the time on her cell phone and gasped. “It’s three thirty! I’m going to be late!”

She speed-dialed her home number and held the phone to her ear, her heart pounding. It was best to warn her mother. That way things wouldn’t be as bad when she got home. The call wouldn’t go through. She redialed. Again, it didn’t go through. There was no signal.

“Don’t cell phones work here?” she asked Chichi.

“I dunno. I don’t have a cell phone.”

“My mother’s going to kill me,” she said, putting the phone back into her purse. It clinked against all the
chittim
.

Crossing the bridge was much easier the second time, once Sunny managed to call up her spirit face. It took ten minutes, and Chichi had to conjure up classical music three times before Sunny felt her body go languid and her face tighten. Apparently, it was harder to bring forth one’s spirit face when one was tired.

But once she changed, she found she didn’t need the music at all. And when she looked down at the roiling creature below, she laughed loudly and blew it a kiss. Not far behind, she heard Chichi laugh. “Move faster!” she shouted through the mist.

Sunny didn’t want to zip about like Chichi; she wanted to dawdle and dance. Nevertheless, she moved along, thoughts of her mother’s angry face enough to keep her focused, even with her spirit face on.

“You won’t sleep well tonight,” Chichi said. They stood outside Sunny’s house. Sasha and Orlu had already said good-bye. They had to go straight to Orlu’s so that Sasha could officially greet Mr. and Mrs. Ezulike.

“Why?”

“You’ve been initiated today. You’re more awake than you’ve ever been.”

“Is it going to be—”

“It’s different for everyone. I just wanted to warn you.”

As Sunny walked home, she remembered that they were to meet with Anatov in four nights. At midnight. How was she going to pull that off?

She unlocked the door.

“Sunny, is that you?”
her mother shouted from the kitchen.

“Yes, Mama,” she said. “Sorry I’m late.”

She glanced at her watch. It was six o’clock. She was two hours late. As she walked in, she remembered the raffia dress she wore. Before she could think of a possible excuse, her mother came hurrying from the kitchen, her father behind her.

“Mama, I—”

Slap!

“Why didn’t you
call
!?” her mother yelled. She had tears in her eyes.

“I—I tried!” Sunny stammered. “The phone wouldn’t work! I tried, I swear!”

“Where were you?” her father demanded.

“With Orlu, Chichi, and Sasha—he’s Orlu’s family friend who just came from America,” she said quickly. She flinched as her father moved toward her. His hand was always heavier than her mother’s and far less predictable.

“Your mother’s been worried sick,” he bellowed. “She was sure you’d been taken by that Black Hat criminal! How
dare
you cause her that kind of stress, stupid girl. If you ever,
ever
return home late again, she won’t be able to hold me back, o! I will flog you tirelessly!”

“I’m sorry,” Sunny said quietly, her head down. She knew she wasn’t out of danger yet. “It just got late and . . .” She rubbed her stinging cheek.

Her mother sniffled and wiped her face. She glanced at Sunny’s raffia dress, but said nothing. She pulled Sunny into a hug. Only then did Sunny know that she was safe. In that moment Sunny hated her father more than she’d ever hated him before.
As if he really cares about me,
she thought. “Your mother’s been worried sick,” he’d said.
Obviously,
he
wasn’t. As far as he’s concerned, Black Hat can have me.

Her brothers had never been slapped for coming home late. They didn’t even have a curfew, not even when they were her age. It was only her mother who yelled and scolded them. Her father would only laugh and say that “boys should be boys.” Sunny didn’t
ever
want to be a boy—but she didn’t want a father who hated her, either.

Her mother let go of her and pushed her toward her room.

“Go wash up,” she said in a low voice. “And change your clothes.”

What Is It?

THAT CLEAR GREEN SUBSTANCE

One of the most perplexing materials you can (but probably will never) encounter as a Leopard Person is a rare substance that is more “unbreakable” than diamond. When it is found, it is most often embedded in ceremonial rings. However, once in a while, this material is found as the blade of a juju knife. Whoever is chosen by such a knife raises the question of “What have you done in your past life to require such durability?” This hard, clear, green substance is so rare that it has no name and no one knows its origins. Some speculate that it was brought from a mysterious forest only accessed in the middle of the Sahara desert and that it comes from the molted eye cuticle of a car-sized beetle that lives in this forest.

from
Fast Facts for Free Agents

5

Sunny Day

In the shower, every drop of water that touched her skin tickled. And not in a playful way. Sunny’s body felt alert, like she was full of excitable bees.

When she returned to her room, the front page of the newspaper was on her bed. The headline was circled: BLACK HAT OTOKOTO KILLS AGAIN. She locked her door and sat on her bed to read it. A five-year-old child had been found dead in the bush yesterday with no eyes or nose. A black hat had been drawn on his arm in permanent marker. She shivered.
No wonder Mama was going crazy
, she thought.

She considered going to her mother and trying to explain that she wasn’t stupid, and that she knew how to stay away from trouble, but it wouldn’t do any good. That wasn’t the only thing not worth discussing with her parents.

She could never tell them about being a Leopard Person. Her mother was a devout Catholic. She’d have screamed and accused Sunny of running about with “heathens.” She’d never let Sunny see Chichi or Orlu again. And who knew what her bull of a father would do—something bad, for sure. She didn’t even consider telling her brothers. On top of it all, she’d made a trust knot, and couldn’t even talk about it if she tried.

She would have to deal with whatever was going to happen alone.

When Sunny tried to sleep, her head buzzed. Her hands shook and itched. She sweated through her sheets. When she closed her eyes, she saw crumbly brown dirt. She could taste and smell it, too. She felt as if she was sinking into and through her bed, her body trying to return to the earth. So she kept her eyes open.

By three A.M., Sunny was weeping. She didn’t know what to do or how to stop it, and there was no one to turn to for help. Around four, her body started shifting. Her face would become her spirit face and then it would go back to normal, then it would become her spirit face again.

Once, when her spirit face came forward, she got up and looked at herself in the mirror. She nearly screamed. Then she just stared. It was her, but it felt as if it had its own separate identity, too. Her spirit face was the sun, all shiny gold and glowing with pointy rays. It was hard to the touch, but she could feel her touch. She knocked on it and it made a hollow sound.

Her spirit face was smiling. Still, somehow she knew it could be angry if it had to be. Her eyes were carved slits, yet she could see perfectly. The nose was shaped like her nose. As she stood there, she watched herself change back, her human face sucking her spirit face in.

She was scared, but she was excited, too. Her spirit face was beautiful. And it was utterly crazy-looking. And it was
hers
.

All through the night, she battled herself. Or battled to know herself. She fell apart and then put herself back together and then she fell apart again and put herself back together, over and over.

Finally, she opened her window. She needed fresh cool air. Her room was on the second floor of the house, so the mosquitoes weren’t so bad. At least that’s what she told herself. She’d have told herself anything—the fresh air felt that good. She eventually fell asleep right there, beside her window.

Red. A river at sunrise. She was swimming in it, and through the water she could see the wavy red sky above. A new day. She laughed and did a somersault. Then she looked down and met the two large eyes of the river beast deep below her, just close enough to catch the glint of red sunshine from above.

When Sunny awoke, the sun was shining directly on her face. She’d been sleeping in it for hours. She gasped and quickly moved out of the raw bright sunshine. Her face was almost certainly badly burned.

She tentatively touched her cheek. She froze. She touched her cheek again. Then she got up and ran to her mirror. Her face looked fine! She grinned. Then she laughed out loud, and rushed to stand in the sunshine again. She closed her eyes and soaked in the warm light. She didn’t need to stand in there for an hour to know—she knew deep in her skin. The sunshine felt like a warm friend, not an angry enemy. She didn’t need her umbrella anymore.

“Oh my goodness,” she whispered. “I can play soccer!”

Realizing what she was was the beginning of something, all right . . . but it was also the end of something else.

What Is a
Free Agent?

A free agent is one who isn’t privileged with even one pure Leopard spiritline from the survivors of the Great Attempt. She or he is a random of nature, a result of mixed-up and confused spiritual genetics. Free agents are the hardest to understand, predict, or explain. Learning will not come easy to you. You are a Leopard Person only by the will of the Supreme Creator, and as we all know, She isn’t very concerned with Her own creations.

After your initiation, make sure that someone is there to help you, for you will not be able to help yourself, so new the world will be to you and so fragile your ego. You’re like an infant. You will be dumbfounded and disoriented. What’s most important is—

6

The Skull

Sunny threw the book across the room.
How am I supposed to read this?
she thought.
What a pompous, discriminating idiot of an author
.
If they have racism in the Leopard world, this book is so “racist” against free agents!

She sighed. The last thing she wanted was to return to Anatov still ignorant and prove the author right. As she grudgingly got up to get the book, something began to happen to it. Tiny black legs sprouted from the spine. Sunny fought hard not to flee. The legs suctioned themselves to the floor and pulled the book up, pages facing the ceiling.