13
BUTTERFLIES
Chichi stopped talking and looked at the three of them, her eyes wide.
“Well?” Sasha said.
Sunny touched Chichi’s shoulder.
“You remember,” Orlu said. “Don’t you.”
Chichi nodded. A tear squeezed from her wide eyes.
“You don’t have to . . .”
“We . . . we got there,” Chichi continued. “It was raining so hard. I don’t know if it was something, some juju to alert if my mother ever returned. There were mudslides all around us. Trying to block the road.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “They came up the road. I don’t know who was who.” She stood up and started pacing. “Ah, let me say this, let me say this.” She wrung her hands. “Someone tried to hit me with a knockout juju. My mother blocked it. My mother is a badass.” Chichi was shaking. “Then she grabbed me and ran at one of the mudslides. AT IT. And that’s how we escaped. She skied up that falling wall of mud like white Americans ski down slopes of snow on those TV shows. I remember the wind and the mud slapping all over us both—it felt so good. Like life.” She sat down and stared off into space.
Sunny stood up and walked up the road a bit. She needed to move around, stretch her legs, shake it off. Behind her, she heard Sasha talking quietly to Chichi. Orlu, too. She swung her arms out and then gave herself a tight hug as she stepped up to the forest and looked up at it.
“Damn it,” she muttered, bringing out her juju knife. A mosquito was already trying to bite her; she’d stepped too far away from the charm guarding their small camp. She worked the juju again and the mosquito buzzing near her ear was gone. She looked back at the forest and sighed, trying to process the story of Chichi’s mother’s exile. The image of her sliced-up dead cousins falling on Chichi’s mother flashed through her mind, and Sunny suddenly felt ill. What else could she have done, though? Sunny thought. But still she shuddered, fighting nausea.
At first, she thought the wind had picked up. Then she thought she was just seeing things. If there was a time to question what was right before her eyes, it was now. Then she wished she were more scatterbrained than she was because before her, in the darkness—yes, even in the darkness, where the firelight just barely reached—were giant, glistening black eyes. Eight of them. How Udide could stand silently and easily in the dense forest was the least of Sunny’s worries. The fact that Udide was staring right at her was the greatest.
Sunny stared back. She could hear the others, yards away, talking softly. Chichi chuckled, but it sounded as if it came through the thickness of tears. The longer Sunny watched Udide, the more clearly she could see her eyes, head, enormous black legs, the soft white hairs on those legs that caught the firelight just so. Udide was standing among the trees all around her. Would she knock down all of them to get to Sunny? She could.
“Huuuuuuuaaagh!” Udide exhaled, and her breath rolled over Sunny like a warm breeze . . . that was on fire. Burning houses. And then the image burst in Sunny’s mind, and as it did she felt Anyanwu jump into her lightning fast. Fast enough to catch Sunny and shield her from the weight of. . .
Tearing . . . then stitch, stitch, click, stitch. The threads of silk were story. Shiny silver, thin and strong and then they were . . . stitch, stitch, the baobab tree. The queen was inside. Sitting. Cracking, like the crash and crush of lightning. The smooth round walls imploded and collapsed and splintered. Dry and brittle. Then like ash. And a plume of dust and the splintering fell in on itself. On the queen. You could not glide away. You were a trapped insect in the tree called Never Fall as it fell, stitch, stitch . . .
Sunny was sitting on the road, staring into the forest. Anyanwu was gone again. Udide was gone. But her friends were around her now. “Udide,” Sunny said simply.
“We smelled her,” Chichi said, helping Sunny up.
“You all right?” Orlu said, putting an arm around her waist.
“She’s done something,” Sunny said. “I saw it. She’s done something back at the Nimm Village.”
Chichi kissed her teeth, rubbed her sore belly, and muttered, “Good.”
“It’s not good,” Sunny snapped. “What she does to them, she will do to your mother, my family, anyone we love, tenfold. It’s bigger than us.”
“What did she do?” Orlu said.
“I think she just killed the Nimm queen!” Sunny said. “That baobab tree fell in on her!”
“Never Fall?” Chichi asked. “That’s impossible!”
“She knocked it down?” Orlu said.
Sunny shook her head. “She just . . . she made it so. Like weaving a web . . . or . . . retelling a story, just differently.”
“Oh,” Chichi whispered, looking worried.
“Yeah,” Sunny said. “Glad you get it now.”
“Udide!” Sasha yelled. The three of them whirled around. Sunny almost fell over; thankfully Orlu caught her. Sasha was in front of the trees, standing precisely in front of where Sunny had seen Udide.
“Sasha!” she shouted. “What are you doing?!”
“Why don’t you come out and face us, like a REAL GOD!” he shouted. “Why lure my friend away from us before you scared the shit out of her! Come out and fight like a spider!”
Chichi grabbed his arm. “Stop it. Not now!”
Sasha stumbled with her. “I’m not afraid of her!”
“You should be,” Chichi said. “And you really don’t want to fight anything that fights like a spider.”
For the rest of the night, Sunny stayed close to her friends. She looked at the clear, starry sky directly above and fought hard not to think about what the Nimm Village was going through with the death of their leader. It was the tip of the iceberg of what Udide was capable of. Breathe, she thought. She thought about calling Anyanwu, but then decided against it. When she finally drifted off to sleep, she slept deeply. And somehow, the dreams she had were free of spiders, crushed queens, sliced-up cousins, and all other nightmarish things.
In the early morning, Sunny, Chichi, and Sasha stood on the side of the dirt road as Orlu drew the funky train vévé. Sunny felt grimy, her muscles ached, and her clothes were dusty.
“If this doesn’t work, it’s time to riot,” Sasha said, annoyed.
A gorgeous blue butterfly fluttered by, landing in one of the trees. Sunny blinked. The tree was full of them. “That’s pretty,” she muttered. Then she saw Anyanwu standing under the tree, looking up into it. Sunny smiled as Anyanwu did exactly what she’d have wanted to do; she touched one of the blue butterflies resting on the tree’s trunk. It fluttered gently into the air, bothered but unafraid of Anyanwu. It landed on Anyanwu’s head and Sunny grinned.
“What are you looking at?” Chichi asked.
“Anyanwu, she’s over there,” Sunny said. “Playing with—” The pained look on Chichi’s face was enough. “Ah . . . it’s nothing.”
The sound of the horn sent some birds flying from a nearby tree. Sunny shrieked, startled.
“Finally!” Sasha shouted.
The funky train that pulled up to them was completely empty, the phrase GO AND SIN NO MORE drawn over the side in huge, colorful, swooping letters. It was shiny and clean as if it had just been washed. The driver who opened the door to look at them was a lanky, light-skinned man in his thirties who wore long white pants and a brown caftan with white lace embroidered around the collar. Around his neck was a thick gold chain, and on each finger was a gold ring. When he grinned at them, the gold tooth in his mouth glinted. He spoke to them in a language Sunny didn’t recognize. Thankfully, Sasha and Chichi did. After they talked to the man, he nodded, looked at Orlu and Sunny, and switched to English.
“It’s early.”
“We know,” Orlu said.
“What you doing out here? You come from Nimm Village?”
Sunny and Orlu looked at each other.
“It’s fine,” Chichi said. “Tell him.”
“Yes,” Sunny said. Better to say as little as possible when you’re unsure. She’d learned that from her mother.
“I heard about your wahala,” the driver said, narrowing his eyes at them. He pointed a stubby finger at them. “You no go bring am for my train?” he asked.
The four of them shook their heads.
“Okay, o,” the driver said. He motioned for them to enter. “Come.”
“Your Efik is getting better,” Chichi said, smirking at Sasha as they got on. She leaned forward and gave him a kiss.
“Just get on,” Sunny said, pushing Sasha. “Let’s get out of here!”
“No sense of when that’s appropriate,” Orlu muttered.
The driver, who insisted on being called Buddy, being an entrepreneur-type, made the ride home more than pleasant. His funky train was clean, it smelled like perfume, and the seats were super plush. Once they were comfortable, they were happy to buy the bags of plantain chips, pure water, and orange Fanta that Buddy offered them. But though he played soft church music and the open windows let in a pleasant cool breeze during the four-hour drive, none of them were able to sleep. When things are quiet and one is comfortable, only then does the magnitude of one’s most pressing problem become clear.
They had only five days left to get Udide’s ghazal back to her.