15

WAHALA DEY

A few nights later, Sunny walked into Anatov’s hut with Chichi, Orlu, and Sasha. It was just past midnight. When they walked in through the OUT door and greeted their teacher, Anatov told them he had a special lesson for them tonight. Then he’d pulled Sunny aside.

“Come with me for a minute so we can talk,” he said. “Excuse us,” he told the others. He’d tied his bushy dreadlocks on top of his head tonight. Sunny noted this. When Anatov tied up his dreadlocks, it always meant the lessons that night would be tough.

They walked through the waist-high wooden front door labeled IN. It was painted with black and white squares that Sunny had since learned were part of a protective juju that wove through the hut and the mile radius of forest around it.

As soon as they were outside, Anatov reached into his pocket. When he brought his hand up, he blew green juju powder in Sunny’s face. She immediately began to sneeze and sneeze. She stumbled back. “What–” Then she was overcome by another sneezing fit.

Without a word, he brought out his juju knife and made several quick flourishes. He put his knife on the ground at his feet and then snapped both of his fingers in Sunny’s direction. As soon as he did this, Sunny felt a force shove her backwards. She stared at what remained in the place she’d just stood.

She sneezed another five times as she watched the green mist shaped like herself float there, slowly dissipating into the air like thick smoke. It looked around, as if shocked by its existence.

“What is that?!” Sunny said. Her stuffed nose made her sound nasally.

“You travelled fully into the wilderness. When people with your ability do that and then return, you always bring something back with you,” he said, staring at the green Sunny-shaped mist. It was almost gone now, but it was still looking around in shock. It made no sound, but Sunny could smell something. She couldn’t find the words to describe it. “It’s like swimming in the ocean. You come out wet and when you dry, you’re salty. You need to bathe.”

“So I’m clean now?”

He chuckled. “Is being covered in sea salt dirty?”

“Well…”

“If I didn’t do that to you, you’d become… strange,” he said. “I’ve seen it happen. I didn’t think I’d have to teach you how to perform bush medicine on yourself. Not so soon. But I guess when it comes to you all, things happen sooner rather than later. How do you feel?”

“I need a tissue.”

He chuckled. “Aside from your juju powder allergy.”

“I feel… lighter. Like I just took off a heavy coat.”

Anatov looked pleased.

“And I– I can smell something,” she said. “Even with my stuffed nose. What is that? Why’s it so strong?”

Anatov nodded. “Can’t describe it, right?”

Sunny shook her head.

“That’s the wilderness,” he said.

They paused, Anatov looking pensively at Sunny. Sunny sniffed loudly. Then Anatov smiled and shook his head. “What in Allah’s name were you thinking when you did that to the society’s capo, Sunny? I hope you’ve learned your lesson. You could have died in that basement. We’d all have been torn up, but the world would have moved on, eventually, and you’d have been gone. Don’t you understand yet?”

“My bro—”

“I know it was your brother,” he said stepping closer. “I know you love him and that guy hurt him… badly. Nearly killed him. But you are in a secret society. A real true one that is older than time. And we have rules, strict, real, deeply upheld rules. While you were in the basement, Sugar Cream came to me angry as hell. She couldn’t believe you’d do something so stupid. Do you know that? I have never seen her even break a sweat. But this night, she was shaking with fear and anger.”

“I’m sorry,” Sunny whispered.

“Tell that to your mentor and never ever cross that line again. We can’t protect you if you do.”

Sunny’s nose ran and now her eyes were tearing up, too.

“You essentially died; that’s what travelling fully into the wilderness requires,” Anatov said bluntly. “When it pulled you in, if you weren’t Sunny Nwazue, if you were Sasha or Orlu or Chichi or any other kid without your specific ability, you’d have stayed dead. Do you understand this?”

Sunny took a deep breath as his words sunk in. “I get it,” she breathed.

“Good.” He looked down his nose at her. “You set Ogwu and her young free.”

“They were never really in prison,” Sunny muttered. “She was just ashamed.”

“Hmm,” he said, putting a long arm around her shoulder. When she looked up at him, his nose ring glinted in the moonlight. Anatov the Defender of Frogs and All Things Natural couldn’t defend her from everything. “Come,” he said. “I assume you brought your usual box of tissues?”

Sunny laughed and smiled, wiping her tears with her hand. “Yeah.”

He grasped her shoulder warmly, pulling her into a hug. He smelled of his favourite scented oil—Egyptian musk—and his caftan was scratchy. “Good,” he said. “Good, Sunny.”

 

The four of them sat on the floor of Anatov’s hut. Sunny had blown the heck out of her nose, but it still ran happily and freely. She pulled out another tissue, lifted her glasses a bit, and blew. By now her nose probably looked red as a cherry.

“You okay?” Orlu asked.

“Get her some water, man,” Sasha said, chuckling. “With all that snot, she’s going to get dehydrated.”

“Tonight,” Anatov loudly said. He spoke in Igbo. He did this often to help Sasha practice. “In celebration of Sunny’s return, I’ve decided to throw out the planned lesson and replace it with something I think you all need: masking jujus. Jujus you use when you want to perform juju on or around Lambs but do not wish them to see or know it.”

Sunny sat up straighter, deeply interested. There was juju for that? Leopards were allowed to perform juju on Lambs? She looked at Chichi, who looked equally surprised.

“One can perform juju on Lambs and around them,” he said. “We know this happens, sure. We can’t live around these people and not be able to do this. However, you must take precautions. And those precautions are not so easy. And people are lazy.” He switched to English, slipping into a Southern American drawl. “They don’t like to cover they asses. And if you mess up… well, y’all know the consequences.”

He sat in his mahogany throne-like chair with its plush red seat. “Lord knows that Lambs can be damn annoying, with their silly materialism, hatred of education, and love of remaining stupid. They’re obsessed with getting things fast, fast, fast, with the least amount of work, books, no instruction. It’s universal.” He chuckled. “Who can blame Leopards for wanting to throw some juju at them once in a while.”

He went on to show them several jujus they could do. Empty Hands required a bit of common all-purpose juju powder and allowed one to punch someone without looking like one had done anything. Grace was a juju that you could do with only your juju knife; it allowed one to slip out of a situation unnoticed. Ujo only required a juju knife, too. This bit of juju filled a Lamb person with irrational crippling fear. It could be thrown from a distance of several feet, allowing the thrower to remain undetected.

Both Sasha and Chichi were especially good at performing this one. “I’m glad no Lambs are around,” Anatov said, after watching both of them. “You’ll both have to learn how to perform Ujo in strength grades… unless you want the Lambs you work it on to run off screaming and vomiting with hysterical fear every single time you use it on them.”

“Use Ujo sparingly,” Anatov stressed to all of them. “Even a weak version of it can eventually cause brain damage when used on the same person more than once.”

Of all the things Anatov showed them this day, Sunny’s favourite was Wahala Dey. This was another juju knife spell that caused small things to randomly go wrong. One’s pants would fall down, one would slip or trip, make a wrong turn, drop one’s plate of food, one’s computer would suddenly crash. It only worked on Lambs, and it was an excellent way to slip out of a bad situation or just ruin someone’s day.

All four of them picked up on the jujus with only mild difficulty, and Anatov was pleased. “I hope this will keep all of you from any further trips to the Obi Library basement or, in your case, Sunny, worse.” She felt her cheeks grow red. “And, Sasha, if you had known some of these, I doubt you’d have been sent here to Nigeria by your parents for being such a fool.”

“Nah, I’d still have switched those two cops’ minds,” he said. “Police require something serious, Oga.”

Chichi smiled at Sasha, and he looked ready to burst with pride. Orlu only rolled his eyes.

Anatov sucked his teeth with loathing, but in a fond kind of way. Their group wasn’t his only group, but even Sunny knew they were his favourite. Chichi was his one mentee, and no elder took on a mentee unless he or she truly deeply loved and felt great, great confidence in that student. “Sasha, like me, you definitely have African America running through your veins—irrational rebelliousness straight out of Chicago. May the gods help you.”

Sasha jumped up and did the Crip Walk.

“I said Chicago, not Compton,” Anatov said.

“South Siiiide!” Sasha proclaimed, laughing.

Anatov’s nostrils flared as he clearly stifled a laugh. “Anyway, so before you all return to the safety of your families, I’d like you to go to Leopard Knocks and pick up some of the all-purpose powder that we used for the jujus today.”

“But we have plenty of that already,” Chichi said.

“You have the yellow kind,” he said. “Get the white kind. It’s the purest and best and safest to use with Lambs. Just a tiny pound you can hide on your person or in your purse and keep it only for when you wish to deal with Lambs.”

 

It was nearly 1am when they stepped up to the bridge to Leopard Knocks. Finding the white juju powder wouldn’t be easy. Anatov said it wasn’t a big seller, since it was juju powder that was exclusively for “use on Lambs.” Sunny just hoped they could find it quickly so she could get a few hours of sleep before school tomorrow.

She was exhausted and could barely hear herself think as she looked at the tree bridge. The noise of the crashing river always seemed louder at night. She stepped up to the large smooth black stone and laid her hand on it. It was warm as she rubbed. The others were waiting behind her.

She was so, so tired, more tired than anyone understood. She yawned as she stepped up and faced the narrow slippery bridge. She relaxed herself and brought forth her spirit face. She was going to shift into mist and blow across the bridge, but she was just too tired. So instead, she felt her limber body stretch and she regally began to walk across the bridge.

Feeling tall and stately, she pointed her sandalled toes as she walked across. She was like a ballerina gracing the stage. Back straight, neck stiff, one foot in front of the other. She smiled softly as she looked down into the rushing water. The water gushed and coiled and thrashed as it tumbled downstream. What was it about this section of river that caused it to grow so turbulent? On each side, there were tangles of hanging trees, vines, and bushes both up- and downriver. How the trees grew at the river’s edges was beyond her. The current should have carried them away.

“Hello,” she whispered when she saw its great, round face just below the wild waters. The river beast. It was the size of a house and who knew what its full shape was. She’d never asked her friends, her teacher, or her mentor. She’d never wanted to show them that she was too curious about it. Their little game was between it and her, Anyanwu.

Every single time she crossed the bridge to Leopard Knocks, even when she crossed as mist, it came up to watch her. Closely. Not casually. Not nicely. Initially, she had been afraid. The first time she’d crossed the bridge, it had nearly tricked her into falling into the river, and Sasha had saved her by grabbing her necklace. Lately, she was defiant, often stopping to look right back at the glaring monster who never broke the surface to show its certainly hideous face. Since her encounter with its cousin the lake beast, she was downright audacious when she crossed the bridge.

“Why do you wait?” Sunny said as Anyanwu. Her voice was deep and buttery, the voice of a sultry female radio DJ who played smooth jazz and midnight love songs. “I am right here. What is it you seek from me?”

It was hulking below her. She could see the girth of it now. She chuckled.

“Sunny?” Chichi called behind her. Her voice travelled through the mist as if from somewhere else. And technically it was, for the bridge linked the mundane world to the magical oasis that Leopard Knocks sat upon, which existed on no Lamb map.

“What is it you want?” Sunny asked, kneeling down to look the river beast in its submerged face. This beast’s cousin had dragged her into its water. The djinn had dragged her into a sort of water that led to the wilderness. And now here was this damn thing, constantly threatening her with the same fate.

“Do you know who I am?” she said. She knocked her knuckles to her wooden spirit face. “I am Anyanwu.” Sunny could only watch this other side of her taunt and heckle the river beast. Inside she shook and cowered. Normally, she felt right in line with her spirit self. Anyanwu was strong and old, and Sunny loved how she taunted the river beast. Anyanwu was Sunny. But, right now, Sunny was exhausted. She had no fight left in her. Not right now. And Anyanwu was picking another fight.

She rose up on her toes and then pointed her juju knife at the creature. The bridge shook, and Sunny felt like her heart would explode because not only was it shaking, something was cracking. Anyanwu gracefully crouched, her juju knife held firmly in her hand. There was something thick, green, and wet wrapped around the narrow bridge to her right. It looked like a mossy rope, a vine thicker than three fire hoses… no, a tentacle!

Oh come on, not again, Sunny thought. But Anyanwu laughed as the river beast finally surfaced. It was indeed the size of a house, as its shadow indicated. Craggy and pocked with calcium deposits and barnacle-like crustaceans, its horrible cranium was also covered with something like green-purple seaweed. The thing looked like a hideous sea garden. Its giant toothy maw was downturned and closed as it glared up at her with its dinner-plate-sized silvery eyes. She could smell it, too, like sea flowers if sea flowers had a scent. Sweet, briny, and oily.

It grunted and huffed and puffed out water at her, nearly blowing her from the bridge. The briny flower smell invaded her nostrils.

“Sunny!” she heard Orlu call. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” she called back, still looking it in the eye.

None of them could come and get her. Only one person could be on the bridge at a time. Sunny was alone here. But she’d asked for this. Anyanwu had. A green seaweed-covered tentacle reached for her, and she danced back.

“You missed,” she said. Then, without a thought, she leaped. This was Anyanwu’s impulsiveness, but it felt great to Sunny. She wasn’t a super-fast thinker like Sasha and Chichi, but there was a joy she experienced when she acted impulsively, and she felt it now. In mid-leap over the tentacle, she glanced down at the raging river below. She remembered how cold its waters had been when she’d moved through it during her initiation. With its wild, churning grey-white currents, no one would hear if she fell in and they would certainly spirit her away within seconds.

She landed gracefully on the side of the narrow bridge where she’d entered, the river beast’s tentacle on the wood behind her; she was steps away from where Orlu, Chichi, and Sasha stood waiting to cross. She looked back and laughed, her voice Anyanwu’s deep baritone that made her sound like an arrogant middle-aged chain-smoking woman. The river beast grunted wetly. Then it shivered with surprise and the crescent-shaped pupils of its silver eyes widened. Sunny stopped and nearly fell to her knees. The images that burst into her mind stung sharply like angry attacking bees behind her eyes. Then she could have sworn she heard the river beast laughing, or maybe it was shrieking because it, too, was experiencing the vision that moved through it to reach Sunny.

It flooded in like river water. There was haunted music. The flute and the talking drum filled Sunny’s mind. Even the water below vibrated to the beat of the masquerade’s tune. Then she was looking at Ekwensu, the terrifying spirit she’d faced here last year. She grabbed the sides of her head and shook it; she shut her eyes. “No, no, no, no.” She was already so weak. The vision kept coming, though. Ekwensu looked the same; a house-sized mound of packed palm fronds standing in a place of green grass. The only difference was that she seemed to be constantly spilling out red beads from between her dry fronds, some tiny as ants, some big as horseflies. And she was rising from the grass now. Two of the red beads seemed to fly at Sunny, and she flinched, snapping from her vision.

One of the bigger beads hit Sunny square between the eyes, and for a moment there was a strange sensation of her drifting to the side when she wasn’t. The bead bounced on the bridge’s wood and rolled into the river. The second bead flew into the water, plunging in feet away from the river beast. This seemed to wake it and when it did, it fled back into the deep. Sunny stared at where the river beast had been, where the bead had flown, because the bead was real, a physical thing. Then she turned and ran off the bridge. Chichi screamed with relief as Sunny emerged from the bridge. “What happened?!” Chichi shouted. “We thought the river beast took you!”

“It tried,” Sunny said tiredly.

Sasha and then Orlu came running. Sasha only touched Sunny’s wet hair and hugged her head to his hip. Sunny leaned against him as Orlu knelt before her and took her hands. “What happened?” Orlu asked. His eyes were red and twitchy.

“Ekwensu,” Sunny whispered. “She’s back. She threw a bead and it was real and…”

Chichi used a drying juju on Sunny. She had to perform the spell twice because the first one left Sunny still damp and mildew-smelling. The second one left her dry, perfumed, and warm. “Thanks, Chichi,” Sunny said. Chichi only looked at Sunny with stunned, puffy eyes. They hugged and didn’t let go of each other for several minutes.

“Wait,” Sunny finally said, pulling away from her friend. “I have to do something.”

She stood up and brought out her juju knife and did the flourishes. When Anatov had shown her, she’d noticed that the shape he’d drawn in the air reminded her of Nsibidi. It was a skeleton of lines that was then dressed up with loops and swirls. When she finished, a strong force blew through her flesh, leaving a green mist in the shape of herself facing her. She stepped away from it, feeling her nose tingle.

“What is that?” Chichi asked.

“Residue from the wilderness,” Sunny said. She blew and the green lost its shape and began to separate and mix into the air.

“You were in the wilderness?” Orlu asked.

“Partially, I think. Maybe that’s how I saw Ekwensu. It was like she pulled me in.”

“Like turning someone’s head to look,” Chichi said.

Sasha nodded. “She waited to catch Sunny when she was weak. It wasn’t you she wanted to see; it was Anyanwu.”

“I think the river beast was also a diversion,” Chichi added. “So Sunny could be too weak and distracted to stop Ekwensu from tearing into the physical world.”

The four of them were quiet for a moment.

Chichi turned to Orlu. “So what happens if you don’t get rid of the residue?”

“She’ll get sick,” Orlu said. “Physically.”

Sunny sneezed and rubbed between her eyes.

“Bless you,” Orlu said.

“Let’s cross and get you something to eat,” Chichi said, helping Sunny up. “Then I want to hear all the details.” She glanced at the river and then leaned closer to Sunny and whispered, “It’s time to deal with the river beast.”

Sunny nodded. “It’s such a sellout, siding with Ekwensu like that.”

“Do you think you can cross?” Chichi said. “I mean, you don’t have to…”

“I’ll cross,” Sunny said. “This time I’ll glide so it’s fast.” The soccer field and Leopard Knocks were the two places she felt she belonged. She was not about to let the river beast rob her of one of those. She rubbed the black stone and stepped up to the bridge. But she knew as soon as she raised her head and looked at the narrow bridge that even if she wanted to, her foot would not move. She felt pain at the tips of her sandalled feet, as if she’d knocked them against a wall. She stumbled back, her eyes wide.

“Wha—” She looked at her friends, tears filling her eyes.

“Sunny, what is it?” Chichi screeched, grabbing her hands. “Are you all right?”

“She’s… she’s not there,” Sunny said. “I can’t bring her forth. My spirit face… I can’t… What’s happening? Anyanwu, where are you?” Her toes ached and she felt the world swim around her; the spot between her eyes where the bead had hit her felt warm and itchy.

“Here,” Orlu said, putting an arm around her waist. “Lean on me.”

“You can’t call your spirit face?” Sasha asked. “How can that be?” He looked at Chichi and blinked. “Oh, I can’t even imagine that.”

Chichi nodded but frowned for him to shut up, and this made Sunny panic even more. She couldn’t cross the bridge without Anyanwu. Who was she without Anyanwu? Where had Anyanwu gone?

“She has to be with you somehow,” Chichi said. “Your spirit face isn’t just a face. It’s you, your spirit memory, you spirit future, your chi. You’d be dead if she weren’t there. You’re probably just in shock. You need some jollof rice and stew and Fanta. Come on, we don’t have to go to Leopard Knocks today. I know a nice Lamb restaurant where we can get some good food.”

 

Uzoma’s Chinese Restaurant was small and almost full to capacity. They managed to get a table near the back of the restaurant.

“Sasha and I come here all the time,” Chichi said, trying to sound cheerful. “Though the food is terrible.”

“I ordered the egg rolls here once, and they were just a boiled egg stuffed in a hard roll,” Sasha said, putting an arm around Chichi.

Sunny attempted and failed a smile.

“You all right?” Orlu asked.

“No,” she muttered. She felt dehydrated and ready to fall asleep right there at the table.

The four of them looked at one another with wide eyes and solemn faces. None of the people in the busy open-air restaurant could have imagined what they’d recently been through.

“I feel like an alien,” Sunny said. “I don’t belong anywhere.” She was dry, warm, and smelled good, thanks to Chichi. She was wearing her favourite jeans and a white T-shirt, and they were dry. Unlike others in the restaurant, her thick, bushy Afro was blonde with a comb given to her by Mami Wata herself. Her skin was pale yellow pink, and her eyes were hazel. She’d just seen Ekwensu succeed in coming into the physical world, and she couldn’t find Anyanwu.

“You belong with us,” Orlu said. “You’re a Leopard Person.”

“Ekwensu is back,” she whispered. “She will kill everything. But first she’ll kill me. You sure you want me with you?”

“You don’t know for sure what you saw,” Orlu said. “You can do things with time, sometimes. You don’t know if that was the future or… what.”

They were all silent for a moment, the happy chatter of everyone else swelling around them. They ordered puff puffs, one of the only Nigerian dishes on the menu. In America, Nigerians explained to non-Nigerians that they were “Nigerian doughnuts,” a description that Sunny always found annoying. It was verbal shorthand that sold puff puffs short. They were sweet, soft, perfectly round pastries that were simply what they were. Sunny also ordered a large bottle of water. When the waiter brought the puff puffs and water, she drank it all and ate five large puff puffs, feeling more like herself with each yummy bite. The others quietly watched her as she drank and ate.

Finally, Sunny took a deep breath and leaned forwards. The others did so, too. “Do your spirit faces ever talk to you?” she asked. When they looked at her with perplexed eyes, she sat back and gazed at them for a long time. She bit her lip, frowned, and then just spilled it all; she told them how Anyanwu was her and she was Anyanwu, but Anyanwu spoke to her and she spoke back. Why not? Who else would she tell? Who else had her back? And now Anyanwu was gone. Sunny was glad for the noisy atmosphere; it covered up the cracking and wavering in her voice as she spoke. Then she told them about her dreams of the end of the world. When she finished, she wiped the tired confused tears from her eyes and ate the last puff puff.

“Who are you, Sunny Nwazue?” Chichi asked, imitating the djinn from the basement as she took Sunny’s hand.

Orlu was staring at Sunny.

“I’m two people, and one of me is missing,” Sunny said.

“Maybe you just need rest.”

“Yeah. And you’re a free agent, so your spirit face is new to you,” Sasha said. “Maybe that’s why it feels like a completely separate person. And yours is old, that’s a lot of memory.”

“And not just old, busy,” Chichi added. “We’re all old. Orlu and I have been to see the seer Bola, and we know things about our past lives. We just don’t talk much about it. Sasha, too.”

“Yeah, I saw a Gullah seer in North Carolina,” he said. “She told me I’d done all sorts of crazy stuff over the centuries. Slave rebellions of all kinds and some other wahala in the wilderness. On some level I’m aware of it. It’s all good.”

Sunny smiled, feeling a little better.

“I used to talk to my spirit face when I was little,” Orlu said.

“Me too!” Chichi said.

“But Ekwensu,” Orlu said. “What is it between you and one of the most powerful, scariest beings around?”

“Anyanwu is powerful, so she will have powerful enemies… and friends,” Chichi said proudly, squeezing Sunny’s hands.

“Word,” Sasha said. “What you did to those confraternity guys, Sunny, that was you, not Anyanwu.”

“I was just protecting my brother,” Sunny quietly said.

“No, that Capo guy got so spooked that not only did he become born-again, but his hair has gone grey! I was at Chukwu’s hostel yesterday,” Chichi said. “He said—” She froze, then her eyes cut to Sasha.

Orlu dropped his face in his hands and shook his head. “Oh God.”

“What?!” Sasha screeched, his voice cracking.

“Oh, come on,” Chichi said, her voice shaking. “It was just–”

“Just what? Girl, tell another lie! All you do is lie! You’re a pack of lies, and you think no one notices.” Sasha glared at her with pure disgust and rage. “Anuofia!”

“Kai!” Orlu screeched. “Sasha!”

“We’re sitting here asking Sunny who she is; we should be asking you, Chichi!” Sasha snapped, ignoring him. He stood up. Chichi stood up, too.

“Who do you think you are?” Chichi said, pointing in his face. “You don’t own me!” She turned and thrust her backside rudely at Sasha.

Sasha’s eyes grew wide, his nostrils flaring. He looked ready to explode.

“Come on,” Orlu said, pushing the fuming Sasha along. “Let’s take a walk.” Sunny was beyond relieved when Sasha allowed himself to be shoved along. “I’ll get him on an okada back home. Chichi, can you get Sunny home?”

“Yes, yes,” Chichi snapped.

“Sunny, we go to Bola’s on Saturday, okay?” he added. “I think it’s time.”

“I meet with Sugar Cream on Saturdays, and you meet with Taiwo.”

“Yeah. We’ll go in the morning,” Orlu said. “It’ll just be one long day.”

Sunny slowly nodded. Chichi kept her back turned as she muttered, “Nonsense.”

“You haven’t seen nonsense yet,” Sasha shouted over his shoulder.

“Biko, please, just stop, o!” Orlu said, pushing him along.

“What the hell did I do?” Sasha asked Orlu.

“Just be quiet until…”

Their voices lowered and faded as they left the restaurant. Only then could Sunny relax. She hated seeing Sasha and Chichi fighting, although it was more than inevitable. She’d seen Chichi getting into Chukwu’s Jeep at least twice in the last two days. If her father had any idea his son was visiting home without stopping by to say hello to them, he’d be appalled. Chukwu was supposed to be immersed in his studies. He was, but he was also falling in love with Chichi.

At the same time, Chichi treated Sasha with the same affinity. And though just about every teenage Leopard girl younger and older in the area was infatuated with Sasha and his American bad boy ways, it was only Chichi whom Sasha gave his real time to.

“So, Chichi, what are you going to do?”

“About what?” Chichi asked as she applied some fresh lip gloss. Even from where she stood, Sunny could smell its fruity aroma.

“You know what.” Sunny rolled her eyes and Chichi smirked.

“Maybe I’ll let them fight it out Zuma wrestling style,” she said. “To the death. I’ll be like you and have my own guardian angel.”

“You seem to keep forgetting that you are talking about my brother and my good friend,” Sunny snapped. “These aren’t just two random boys.”

“I know, I know.” She paused and then said, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what you’re going to do?”

“No,” Chichi said, growing serious. “I like them both. Wish I had it easy like you. You and Orlu are made for each other.”

“I don’t know about that,” Sunny said quietly.

Chichi smiled and shook her head.

“So you’ve been to see Mr. Mohammed’s wife,” Sunny said.

“Call him Alhaji Mohammed; he made his pilgrimage a few weeks ago,” Chichi said.

“Oh,” Sunny said. “That’s why that other guy was managing the bookstore for so long.”

“I happened to be there the Sunday he returned,” Chichi said. “It was crazy. He was actually giving discounts on books… Well, for a few hours.”

They both laughed. Alhaji Mohammed was a businessman to the bone, hajj or not.

“But yes, I’ve been to see Bola,” Chichi said. “With my mother once, some years ago.”

“What for?”

“We can talk about that some other time.” She looked at Sunny unsmilingly. Then Chichi’s smile came back. “Bola Yusuf. They call her ‘the woman with the breasts down to here.’” She gestured with her hands to mid-waist level. “She is an Owumiri initiate.”

Sunny gasped and stopped. “A Mami Wata worshipper! Is she a Leopard Person, too?”

“Yeah.”

This was the water worshipping group that Chichi had let Chukwu think Sunny was a part of. Sunny touched the comb she wore in her hair. “Should I take this out when I go?”

“Oh no!” Chichi said. “That’ll get you much, much respect. She’ll love you for that. And she’ll love that the lake and river beasts can’t seem to get enough of you, even if it’s because they are Ekwensu’s minions.”

 

Sunny waited until right before bed to try it. She locked her bedroom door and, on shaky legs, walked to her window. She usually raised the screen just a crack so that her wasp artist could come and go as it pleased. Now she pushed the screen to the top of the windowsill and waited. It didn’t take long. She watched the mosquitos slowly fly in, pushed by their own ambition and the night’s breeze. When she counted five, she shut the screen and brought out her juju knife and worked a Carry Go, a juju that drove away insects with the intent to bite.

She felt the cool invisible juju sack drop into her upheld hand after she did the flourish with her knife, and she sighed with relief. She spoke the words as she watched two of the mosquitos land near the top of her white bedroom wall. She frowned as she watched one of the mosquitos migrate to her and then land on her arm. She smashed it with a hard slap.

Then she stepped to her bedroom mirror and looked at her face. She ignored her flushed cheeks and the tears rolling down them. She looked into her wet eyes and with her mind, she called Anyanwu. She dug deep within herself, and then she tried to bring her forth. Nothing. Sunny sat on her bed as the sobs wracked her body. Images of the river and the menacing Ekwensu flashed through her mind.

She crept under her covers and curled herself as tightly as she could. She still wore her sandals, and she didn’t care. And when she got up in the morning and found an itchy mosquito bite on her arm and two on her left leg, she knew for sure Anyanwu was gone. Who was she now?