Today, it’s raining in the forest. But by now you know that the water will not drench you. Not that badly. The Idiok have taken shelter, however. They don’t like the mud, and the sound of the rain hitting the tree leaves is good for sleep. Those with young babies will be blessed with much-needed rest.
We are walking in my favourite part of the forest. I was attracted to this place, and that was how the Idiok knew to teach me Nsibidi. Look around you. Do you see that tree to your left with the smooth, narrow trunk and the tiny oval-shaped leaves? Yes, look all the way up and see that it stretches so high that it disappears into the rainclouds. It goes much higher than any normal tree. Imagine the things that crawl up and down that tree, into and out of the forest.
Do you see the vines that wind around it? Yes, you are seeing correctly. They have light green delicate leaves that look delicious enough to eat. I have eaten them; they taste fresh like lettuce. And see their white-pink flowers? See how they open and close, not slowly, not quickly? Like they are one great winding beast that is breathing? And see the ghost hopper perched on the tree trunk beside it? This part of my forest was full—a place that was both wilderness and physical world.
Lambs of the area avoided this place, deeming it long ago a forbidden forest. The patch of forest was small, no more than twenty square metres and easy to avoid, so for centuries, maybe even millennia, it had simply been left alone. For me, being a Leopard Person, it was seeing two layers of reality at once—the magical and the physical. I loved this place as the Idiok did.
By now, you may have come to understand. This book isn’t about learning Nsibidi or my life or how to shape-shift. These are all things that I used to pull you off the ground. If you’ve gotten this far, you are strong in mind and body now. You know how to eat to live, you know how to plan, you know when you need rest, and you love Nsibidi. You are not my equal but you have my respect, for you are one of my kind. Good.
Right now, this book is about the city of smoke, a huge swath of land in this country that is full. Osisi. I pray that you will not have to see it, for it’s not a place for any person who values his life, but if you have, if you have dreamed it, then you currently are the purpose of this book. There will be more than one of you, but only a handful. You…
Sunny had to fight her way out of the Nsibidi’s grasp. This was one thing wholly unaffected by the doubling: her ability to read Nsibidi. She shook her head, flaring her nostrils and frowning, pressing Sugar Cream’s book to her chest. As soon as she could see the light of her reading lamp and she could move her hands, she threw the book across the room. Tomorrow would be hard enough. Now this. All the threads of her life seemed to be winding into a tight bizarre rope that the universe expected her to walk across. Her brother, her questions, Sugar Cream’s book… yes, Trickster was a damn good name for it. A perfect name for it. Nsibidi: The Magical Language of the Spirits literally shape-shifted, and not only in appearance (the symbols on the cover moved around like bugs) but in reasons for existing, in voice, in narrative. Was it even the same book for every reader?
And why did she have to get to this part on the morning they were leaving? “This is wahala,” she whispered, lying back in her bed. She felt the usual reading fatigue that came with reading the book, and her head still ached from her fresh braids. Last night her mother had cornrowed her bushy yellow hair. The braids were long enough to touch her shoulders. Her hair was really growing. It was nearly the length it had been back when she’d burned it off while gazing into the candle. Two years ago. She’d pressed her Mami Wata comb into one of the side rows. It looked a little asymmetrically strange, but she’d come to see the comb as good luck. She wasn’t about to stop wearing it when they were going where they were going to do what they were going to do.
Bzzz!
She smiled and got up to turn on her bedroom light. It was about 5am and still dark outside, and she’d been using her reading light. When she turned her light on, Della buzzed its wings louder. Sunny’s eyebrows went up, and she slowly walked to her cabinet for a better look. Then she just stood there, her mouth open. Staring.
It was a head. She could not tell what Della had used to create it. Maybe the petals of some sort of yellow flower or maybe yellow paper or some kind of yellow paste that it had found in the market. There was gold, too. The face was ringed with pointy gold rays, like a sun. The nose was wide-nostrilled and flat like her father’s. The yellow lips were smiling. The eyes were hazel, as if “God had run out of the right colour.” They were her eyes. This was her. Della had sculpted a perfect blend of her human and spirit face, Sunny and Anyanwu. How does one hug an insect? she wondered. “Della,” she whispered. “I…”
The insect quickly flew circles around her head and then hovered in front of her eyes. Sunny smiled. This was its way of saying, No need for words.
“Do you understand that I will be gone for a few days?”
The insect buzzed.
“You’ve been in here when Chichi and I were talking,” she said. “So you know what is going on.”
It buzzed again.
“Should I be afraid?”
It flew to its art, stood on top of it, and buzzed its wings.
Sunny chuckled. Her wasp artist seemed to know who she was more than she did. And it thought rather highly of her. Della flew up to her and touched her forehead with its long, limp legs and then zipped into its nest on the ceiling.
There was a knock on her door. It was Chukwu.
“Good morning,” she said. “I’m going to get dressed in a little bit. I…”
“I need to know something,” he quietly said, coming in.
Sunny shut the door behind him. “Okay,” she said.
“You still can’t talk about it, can you?”
She shook her head. If she spoke, her words would feel heavy and slow the way they always did when she skirted too close to speaking directly about being Leopard.
“Is whatever you all are doing in Lagos dangerous?” he asked.
Sunny thought about it. “We can handle it,” she said.
“It doesn’t involve any of these ritual people? Because they’re murderers and…”
“I’ve never ever been involved with those people,” she firmly said.
“Lagos is a big crazy place for you,” he added.
“No more than it is for you. Plus, Orlu and Chichi know it well,” she said. “And Sasha has… international street smarts.”
Chukwu scoffed. “Sasha? No comment.”
“We’ll be fine,” she said. “And I’ll have my cell phone.” But if all went as planned, there would be a few days where he wouldn’t be able to reach her. She’d cross that bridge when she got to it.
What Sunny was more worried about was Sasha and Chukwu being in the same space for so many hours. As far as Sunny knew, Chichi refused to make a choice between the two, and both refused to cut things off with Chichi, so the love triangle was very much intact. How was this even going to go?
There was another knock on the door.
“What are you talking about in here?” Ugonna said, coming in.
“Just the trip,” Chukwu said. “Why are you up?”
“Are you planning something?” he asked, ignoring Chukwu’s question. He was looking at Sunny.
“No…”
“Because I don’t see why you and your friends are going,” he continued.
“If you want to go,” Sunny said, “you could squeeze in. We talked about this.”
“I’m not going,” he said. “I just want to know why you are.” He put his arms across his chest. “I got a weird feeling about it.”
Sunny was about to say he was just imagining things. She was about to laugh and say he sounded like their superstitious aunt Udobi. But she couldn’t do it. For months her brother had been sensing things about her, drawing and drawing pictures that she now realised were of Osisi. He was worried about her in a way that only a brother could worry about his sister. “It’s something I have to do,” Sunny said, taking his hands and looking right into his eyes.
He looked back into hers. He let go and said, “Okay.”
Sunny breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t have said more if she wanted to.
“Text me,” Ugonna said. “Not Mum, not Dad, me. Both of you.”
“We will,” Sunny said.
There was an awkward pause among the three siblings. The air was so heavy with secrets that Sunny could practically feel them pressing down on her shoulders. But at the same time, never in her entire life had she felt so close to her brothers. And that’s why she did something she’d never done: she reached out to both of them and pulled them to her in a tight hug. For a moment, they resisted, but then they gave in.
“Sunny, I will whoop the hell out of you myself if anything happens to you,” Chukwu said into her neck.
“Okay,” Sunny whispered.
When they let go, her brothers quickly left the room. “We leave in an hour and a half,” Chukwu said as he closed the door behind him.
Sunny climbed back into bed. She was tired from reading her Nsibidi book. A good half hour would do. Plenty of time.
Orlu arrived within the hour, early as usual. Chichi and Sasha arrived together minutes later. Sunny stood in the kitchen watching as Sasha and Chukwu were introduced to each other by Chichi. She quickly took off her glasses, wiped the lenses, and put them back on. She wanted to see this clearly. Sasha and her brother were nearly the same height, Sasha being tall for his age and standing not far from Chukwu’s six feet. But where Chukwu was made of bulky muscle, Sasha was lean, springy muscle. Chukwu seemed to flex his biceps more as he held out his hand to shake Sasha’s. Sunny wished she could have been outside to hear them greet each other.
Sasha quickly used the excuse of packing his bag in the Jeep to walk away from Chukwu. Chichi came into the kitchen all grins.
“That is so wrong,” Sunny said.
“What?”
Sunny just shook her head. “You brought Udide’s Book of Shadows, right?”
“Right here,” she said, putting her backpack down. She brought forth the satchel slung over her right shoulder and took out a large brownish-black book. The pages were thick and yellowed with age and dirt. It carried the smell of burned paper that Sunny could smell from where she stood. The cover was etched with hundreds of slightly raised lines, like it was wrapped in the thin long legs of spiders. Sunny felt skittish just looking at it. She kept imagining the lines lifting from the cover, unfolding, and the book standing up. She shuddered.
“You want to see?” Chichi asked. “The writing is so neat, but really small. It’s like a computer wrote it!”
Sunny held up her hands and shook her head. “No, that’s okay.”
Chichi giggled and put it back in the satchel. “Sasha finding it… He really has a good eye, sha. I hear that it can only be seen when it wants to be seen. It’s got a mind of its own like that ring in Lord of the Rings. The book isn’t all evil, but it’s not all good, either. Sasha and I were studying it last night. Udide likes to speak in stories. The spell for how to find her is in there, but she tells it in the third person as an adventure story about some stupid guy who doesn’t know how to mind his own business. He was some teenage Yoruba guy from a long line of wealthy kings near Lagos who thought he was entitled to know everything.”
Sunny chuckled. “I know a guy like that.”
“We all do,” Chichi said. “And he’s not always a Yoruba guy.”
“Yeah, but it’s always a guy,” Sunny said, grinning.
They both had a good laugh. “So anyway,” Chichi continued. “Udide hears most things and she especially hears all things that involve her.”
Sunny frowned at this. “So most likely, she knows we’re coming.”
Chichi nodded.
“I don’t like that,” Sunny said.
“Doesn’t matter what you like. It is what it is. So this guy’s nerve in trying to find Udide annoyed the hell out of her. Udide has always made it known that she has to allow people to find her. You cannot just decide to find her and find her.”
“So we have to ask her?” Sunny interrupted. “Do we make some offering or…”
“Just listen,” Chichi snapped. “Because of the guy’s arrogance, Udide decided to give him what he wanted. She showed him the way in a dream. Of course, him being an arrogant mumu, he thought the dream was all him. He immediately jumped out of bed and ran to his little brother’s room. He needed three blue marbles, and his little brother just happened to have plenty. Imagine that. He did as the dream instructed and sure enough, he found Udide in a cave beneath Lagos. But when he found her, the sheer sight of her–”
“He turned to stone?” Sunny screeched. “Oh my God, is she like Medusa in Greek mythology?! We’re doomed! How are we going… we need a mirror then. Or–”
“Sunny, shut UP!!” Chichi shouted. “Geez, did you drink coffee this morning, sha? Or some of your dad’s ogogoro?”
“My dad doesn’t drink that. He drinks Guinness.”
“Just listen! When he saw her, she was such a horrifying sight to him that part of his hair turned white. Remember he was only about sixteen. So he looked very strange. He ran off and never looked for Udide again. She ended this story with this line, ‘Without knowing a way through at daytime, never attempt to pass through at night.’ Udide has a dark sense of humour.”
“I guess,” Sunny said. “But if she does, well, is it smart to use this same way to find her? And what if it’s just a story?”
Chichi shook her head. “Udide’s stories are never just stories. And I think it was more about the intent that got that guy messed up. We are looking for her for a good reason, Sunny. These dreams you’re having about Osisi are serious. Something bad is going to happen, Ekwensu is on the loose and you are involved. There is something you need in Osisi and the only way to get there is by something only she can create. We’re not seeking her out to prove how powerful we are.”
Sunny hoped Chichi was right. Her hair was already yellow. She didn’t need white streaks from terror to make it even lighter.
The five of them stood in front of the Jeep as Sunny smoothed out the map on the car. Chukwu put his finger on the city of Aba. “Okay, so we’re near here. We should take the Port Harcourt–Aba Expressway to…”
“I know the way,” Chichi said. “I studied a local map I bought at the market.” She tapped her forehead. “Got it all up here.”
“Me too,” Sasha said. “Plus, I checked out Google Earth and Mapquest. Nothing much there, unless you’re looking at Lagos itself. But this map is more accurate than a GPS or anything online. Anyway, it’s not the way that’ll be difficult. It’s not getting robbed or driving the car down a pothole that’ll be the real test. I ain’t from here, but I been here a minute now.”
“We can stop in Benin City and stay with my uncle,” Chichi added.
“Oh no, hon,” Chukwu said with a chuckle. “If we leave soon, we’ll get there by sundown, trust me. We’ll be at my friend’s aunt and uncle’s house in no time.”
Chichi paused. Then she smiled sweetly and said, “Okay, o.”
Orlu laughed to himself.
Within fifteen minutes, they were all piled into the Jeep. Chukwu grasped the wheel, trying not to look at Sasha. Sasha plugged his phone into the Jeep’s stereo system and was looking for just the right music so that he wouldn’t have to talk to Chukwu. Chichi was behind Sasha, a Banga cigarette in hand that she planned to light as soon as they were past the sight of Sunny’s parents. Orlu was behind Chukwu looking worried. And Sunny was in the middle waving at Ugonna.
“Call in a few hours,” their father told Chukwu.
“And don’t drive too fast,” their mother said.
Sasha clicked PLAY and as soon as the song he’d chosen started, Chukwu’s eyes lit up and he grinned. “Nas!”
Sasha looked surprised and then nodded appreciatively. And together they said, “Illmatic.”
They hit the road, the Jeep bouncing on a cloud of hip-hop beats.
Within a half hour, Sunny had a raging headache. Chukwu was speeding down a good stretch on the freeway. Sasha had the stereo bumping nearly as loud as it would go. At some point, Chukwu had installed a new, more powerful sound system, and this one was like the ones Sunny remembered from the streets of New York. She even suspected that Chukwu’s system could do that thing where it set off car alarms if it was turned up to the highest volume.
As they sped, they bumped Nas’s Illmatic so loudly that Sunny felt as if her head would explode. She could feel the bass vibrate through her entire body. The only time she’d ever felt anything remotely similar was when Ekwensu’s drums were booming when she’d tried to break into the physical world last year. But this time, with each body-shaking beat, Sunny laughed and Sasha and Chukwu rapped “It Ain’t Hard to Tell” along with Nas.
Sunny looked at Chichi; she looked annoyed. Sunny giggled. She couldn’t have expected the two to bond over Nas. Orlu had fallen asleep, his head resting against the window. When he’d arrived, Sunny had noticed he looked tired.
“I’ll be fine,” he said when she asked him if he’d slept that night. “Stayed up late beading protective spells onto Chukwu’s Jeep.”
“Damn,” Chukwu suddenly hissed. He slammed on the brakes.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Sasha said.
Sunny, the only one who insisted on wearing a seat belt, was thrown against it, her glasses flying off. Sasha held on to his seat. Orlu quickly woke and threw a hand forwards just in time to keep himself from mashing his head into the front seat. Chukwu managed to slow down and swerve, narrowly avoiding an enormous pothole.
“Didn’t you see that coming?!” Orlu said.
“No!” Sasha said, shaking his head. He turned around. “Everyone okay?”
“Barely,” Chichi said, picking up her book, which she’d dropped on the floor.
“Two words,” Sunny said, putting her glasses on. “Seat belt.”
Chukwu sucked his teeth and waved a dismissive hand at her.
“Weak American,” Sasha said, grinning. “Don’t you know we in Nigeria?”
Sunny shook her head, disgusted. Sasha had bragged from the moment he’d come to Nigeria about his hatred of “confining” seat belts and how he never wore them even when in the States and neither had his dad.
“The roads are going to get bad,” Orlu said. “We should slow down from here on.”
“I know how to drive,” Chukwu snapped.
“And that’s why we all just nearly died?” Orlu asked. “I’m not saying you’re a bad driver, though. I’m just giving you sound advice.”
Sunny smiled. Orlu was four years younger than Chukwu and far less beefy, but he’d always had a way of talking to Chukwu that Chukwu couldn’t dominate. Even now Chukwu only looked at Orlu in the rearview mirror and said nothing. He slowed down, too.
Orlu glanced at Sunny and slipped an arm around her waist. Sunny felt tingles from her shoulders to her cheeks. For a moment, she even managed to pry her mind from Lagos and what they had to do there. She did not call Orlu her boyfriend and he didn’t call her his girlfriend. The only kisses they’d exchanged were the one he’d given her on the cheek last year and the one she’d planted on his ear when he’d nearly killed himself bringing the two toddlers back from wherever Black Hat’s cruel juju had taken them. Nevertheless, Chichi liked to joke that she and Orlu were “betrothed,” and Sasha was always telling them to stop “beating around the bush.” Chichi and Sasha were always so sure of and forwards with everything. What Sunny knew was that she liked being near Orlu and they held hands often. Also, once in a while, he put his arm around her. He was her friend who was always on her mind.
Chukwu slowed the car down to nearly a full stop as they came upon a crater swallowing more than half the road. The sunken crust of asphalt quickly gave way to thick red dirt. There was a car stuck in the crater. Two young men stood on the raised asphalt staring at their car. They had their hands in their pockets and looked hopeless. An SUV crept around the stranded car by driving mostly in the dirt and plants on the roadside. When it was Chukwu’s turn, he slowly drove past the car. Sasha opened the window.
“Do you… need help?” He added an Igbo accent to his speech to mask his Americanness. It was flawless. He switched to Pidgin English. “Wetin na want maka do fo’ na? Na need any help?”
One of the men looked annoyed. “Anytin’ wa u fit do to help, sha. Come lift am with bare hand.” He sucked his teeth irritably and looked away and muttered, “Nonsense.”
Sasha looked back at Orlu. Sunny looked from Orlu to Sasha and back. Orlu looked at Chichi. Chichi was looking at Chukwu and then Sasha. Chukwu was looking at Orlu, Sunny, and Chichi in his rearview mirror and ignoring Sasha beside him.
“Chukwu,” Sasha said. “Wait.”
When Chukwu slowed down, Sasha got out. Chichi opened her door, too. “No, Chichi,” Sasha firmly said. “Just Orlu.” He paused. “We don’t know these guys, sha.” He was still speaking in his accent.
Sunny wanted to ask what was going on, but Chukwu was there. So she said nothing. Orlu got out on the other side of the Jeep and stepped into the tall grass. He walked up to Chukwu’s window. “Drive all the way up,” he said. “We’ll meet you there.”
“No,” Chukwu said, putting the Jeep in park. “I’ll help. I’m stronger than you both. And you don’t know who these guys are, either. They won’t mess with me.”
“It’ll be fine,” Orlu said. “You need to stay in the car with Sunny and Chichi.” He paused. “Don’t worry.”
Chukwu started to open the door. “Let me just–”
“No, none of us can drive,” Orlu insisted. “What if another car comes and wants to get by?” He pushed Chukwu’s door shut. “We’ll be back in a second.”
Sunny turned to look back as Chukwu reluctantly drove the Jeep a bit down the road. She could see Sasha talking to the guys, but Orlu was still watching them go.
“Keep going,” Chichi said when Chukwu slowed to a stop about an eighth of a mile away. They rolled along a few more yards to where the road curved and they could no longer see Sasha, Orlu, and the guys.
“Okay,” Chichi said. “That’s good.”
Chukwu frowned deeply as he put the Jeep in park. He didn’t turn it off. “What are they doing?”
“Helping them, I guess,” Chichi said vaguely.
“How the hell can they help those guys? That car needed a tow truck to pull it out. A powerful one.”
Chichi shrugged.
“I should go and help,” he said, turning the Jeep off and making to get out. “You two stay here.”
“No!” both Chichi and Sunny said.
“Why? I’m the strongest and oldest. This makes no sense!”
Chichi quickly got out of the car and got into the passenger seat.
“They’ll be back,” she said. “No shaking.” She smirked coyly and leaned closer to him. Chukwu’s frown immediately began to melt.
Chichi was wearing one of her long, old-looking skirts and a T-shirt. She’d taken off her sandals and left them on the floor in the back. She was so small that she could easily and cutely curl herself into the passenger seat, pulling her long skirt demurely over her short legs.
“So how are you doing?” she asked, batting her eyes at Chukwu.
“Oh my God,” Sunny muttered, looking at the trees outside the window.
Ten minutes later, Sunny heard a car zooming up the road. Chichi was sitting on Chukwu’s lap telling him for the millionth time how amazing his muscles were and Sunny was outside the Jeep, leaning against her door. It was the car that had been stuck in the ditch, all right. But Sunny only recognised it from its colour and shape. It zoomed past them at probably over ninety miles per hour. She barely caught a glimpse of the guys in the car, but she saw them, especially the driver. He looked terrified.
When she looked up the road she saw Orlu and Sasha coming, keeping to the side. She ran to them. A few cars passed, but otherwise the road was quiet. She was sweating by the time she met them. The day was growing humid.
“What’d you do?” she asked as they walked to the Jeep.
“A little bit of this and a little bit of that,” Sasha said.
“Hardest part was getting them to turn away,” Orlu said. “They started thinking we were armed robbers. But if we didn’t get them to turn around and they saw what we were doing, we’d be in a Library Council car on our way to the Obi Library’s basement like you.”
“We had to use Ujo on them,” Orlu muttered. “So they were too scared to look at what we were doing.”
Sunny’s eyebrows went up. That was the juju that Anatov had taught them that caused Lambs to feel a deep irrational crippling fear. So that was why they went speeding away.
Sasha suddenly picked up his pace, leaving Sunny and Orlu to walk together. “So you won’t be taken to the council? I know you used juju on that car.”
He shook his head. “Remember, part of being a good Leopard Person is doing your duty for your fellow human beings. When we saw those guys, if we could help, we would help.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sasha shouted. He was standing at the passenger window staring into the Jeep. “Oh, so this is how it is? This is what you are?”
“Oh no,” Orlu said. They both ran to the Jeep.
Chichi climbed out from the driver’s side. Then Chukwu came out, also from the driver’s side.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Sasha shouted at Chichi.
“Lower your voice,” Chukwu said, his voice booming.
“You don’t speak to me,” Sasha said, pointing a finger at Chukwu.
Chukwu laughed hard. “Or you’ll what?”
Sasha’s eyes grew very big, and he looked as if he was going to say something. Then he glanced at Sunny and seemed to change his mind. “I don’t give a damn how big you are,” Sasha said. He moved towards Chukwu.
“Come on, then,” Chukwu growled.
“Okay,” Orlu said, immediately putting himself between Sasha and Chukwu. “Okay, o. Okay, o.”
“Keep your hands off her,” Sasha said, pointing at Chukwu over Orlu’s shoulder.
“Sure, but I can’t help it if she can’t keep her hands off me,” Chukwu said, laughing.
Sasha turned to the side and spat. “We will see.”
Sunny went and stood beside Chichi. “What were you thinking?” Sunny snapped.
“I wasn’t exactly thinking,” Chichi whispered, but Sunny caught the hint of the smile on her lips.
“Let’s all just get back in the Jeep,” Orlu said. “We have a long way ahead of us.”
Sasha was looking at Chichi, who was looking right back at Sasha. Chukwu angrily got in the driver’s seat, slamming his door. Sunny and Orlu got in. Then Chichi. Sasha was the last to get into the passenger seat. He glared at Chukwu, but Chukwu just started the Jeep, ignoring Sasha. Minutes later, Sasha put Nas back on, moving on to the next album, It Was Written. But the vibration of the beats wasn’t nearly as delicious as before.