Incense and flutes, drums and the wailing songs of women. The sun beating down on the clearing, watching what went on below. Bloodflowers and fronds of the sunset palm laid in a circle, marking the sacred ground, the space for the dance. The spirit ground.
In this ring Ngwela danced from noon until sunset, until the murmur grew loud and the music stopped, and she stopped with it.
The women all whispered it, but Imbule announced it for all to hear.
Gendra’s daughter had called, and no spirit had come.
***
Gendra’s daughter! Gendra had carried four spirits, more than any other woman in the tribe, more than any other woman within days of their village. Three knowing spirits: Dombam Old Sun, Membi Flower Stone, and the great Pueln Jade Feather. One doing spirit: Weganu Flayed Earth. Gendra had been wise and powerful in the ways of the spirits, and great things had been expected of her daughter.
But Ngwela had called, and no spirit had come.
Everyone tried to find a reason. It was unthinkable that Gendra’s daughter would be answered by only silence. Imbule was the tribe’s yagunde; if anyone could explain why Ngwela remained empty, it was she, but even Imbule could only suggest that perhaps the time had been wrong.
Wrong? Ngwela thought desperately. How could it be wrong? I have bled. A spirit must have touched me. But why, why did no one come?
Someone had to have done something wrong. Ngwela had no way of knowing; only the women of the tribe could be present when spirits were called, and so her dance of opening was her first and only experience. But they had drawn spirals on her palms, white against the darkness of her skin, and they had stiffened her hair with paste, and they had put the beads of amber and coral and turquoise around her ankles and wrists and neck, and they had given her the drink that would help her open herself to the spirits. She could see nothing in that which seemed wrong, no point at which someone might have made a mistake.
Maybe it’s me, she thought. The idea was cold and hard, but what other possibility was there? Gendra was blessed. Perhaps I am cursed. To balance it out.
The rain drummed down around her, trickling through the roots of the banu she sat under to splash on her head, on her arms. When the tree grew larger, someone would come and weave palms through its roots, making a roof, and then they would live in the space inside. But now, while the tree was still young, the space under the roots was barely big enough to hold Ngwela. To hide her.
No one would look her in the eye. When they spoke to her, it was awkward and brief. The men seemed mostly confused; they did not know how to behave toward a female who was neither girl nor woman, who had danced but not entered the spirit house. The women, though…they did not want to be near her, and hurried away as quickly as they could.
They’re afraid. My curse might stain them, too, take their spirits away. Ngwela did not know if it was possible. A moon ago she would have said not, but a moon ago she would have said that no one could dance from noon until sunset and yet hear nothing but silence. A wound, she thought desperately. It was not truly my first blood; I had a wound, and that’s why I bled. I’m not really touched. Not yet. When a spirit does touch me, then I will call and be answered.
But she had done nothing to hurt herself there.
It was the only hope she had, though, and so she clung to it, as the rain fell through the roots of the banu and drenched her to the bone.
***
Her second blood came. Again they painted her and decorated her and gave her the drink, and again they played and again she danced.
And again, no one came.
***
The whispers became louder. Gendra’s daughter is cursed, they said. Gendra’s daughter will never hear a spirit. She will never enter the spirit house, never be a woman.
But what to do with someone like that? There was no precedent to follow. The decision was Imbule’s to make; the yagunde told everyone she would think on it, and in the meantime the women of the tribe drew farther and farther away from Ngwela.
Leaving her alone. As the spirits had left her alone.
Ngwela walked around the jungle, around the banu-houses of the women, along the narrow beaches with the sun hot on her face, and felt cold. There was a hole inside her, growing larger every day. I am not Ngwela, she thought. I am the form of a female, but nothing inside. A hole in the world.
She feared what Imbule’s decision would be.
When the yagunde finally spoke, her words were a mercy Ngwela did not deserve. One more chance; she would have one more dance. When her third blood came, then she would try for the last time. If no spirit came…
Imbule would make her final decision then.
***
She never got her third dance. Days before her third blood was expected to come, they held a dance for the hunt, to call luck for the men on their journey.
Incense and flutes, drums and the wailing songs of women. This one began at dawn, and as the sun climbed high in the sky twelve women whirled around the spirit ground until the sweat poured out of their bodies and soaked the earth.
By noon there was hysteria, because no spirits had come.
***
Imbule was not tall, but she was solid of build, and her voice was powerful. Ngwela thought that if the Mother of Mountains were to speak to humans, She would sound like Imbule.
The yagunde could quiet even this panic. She emerged from the darkness of the spirit house and held up her hands. When she had silence, she spoke.
“We have had a message,” she said. “Twice it has come, and twice we have ignored it, and this is the price we pay. The spirits have left us. They will not speak to us again until we cast out the curse among us.”
Ngwela sat as if rooted to the earth as the fear-filled eyes of the women of the tribe turned on her.
“Gendra’s daughter is shunned by the spirits,” Imbule said. “Not one among them will speak to her. So long as we keep her among us, we too will hear only silence.”
“Please,” Ngwela whispered, and then found the strength to say it louder. “Please, do not kill me.”
Imbule’s dark face was grave. “I am yagunde. I must think of the good of the tribe.”
Ngwela thought of the men with their spears, their wide-bladed kandue. She thought of the weapons biting into her flesh. Or would they drown her in the sea, for the Father of Tides to take and punish as He willed? Or throw her from a cliff, a gift to the Mother of Mountains? Imbule had done everything she could to help Ngwela, but she could not put one girl’s well-being above everyone else’s. Ngwela knew a moment of bitterness for the yagunde; she depended, as everyone did, on Imbule’s wisdom. How could it fail her now, when she needed it the most?
“I will go away,” she said desperately. “I will leave and never return. Surely that will be enough for the spirits.”
She looked from woman to woman as she said this, hoping for mercy. It would not be much of a kindness; she was not a man, not a hunter, and would not survive long in the jungle. She knew the names and appearances of each of the ninety-nine monsters that inhabited it, and how to avoid them, but most she could protect herself from only by running. She could not run forever.
Better that, though, then to fall at the hands of her own tribe.
“I cannot consult the spirits,” Imbule said. Both of hers were knowing spirits; that was part of why she was yagunde. “I must follow my own heart. For the love I bore your mother, Gendra, I will allow you to go away. But know this: if in ten days the spirits have not returned to us, I will send the men of the tribe to hunt you and kill you. I do this for the good of the tribe.”
Ngwela forced herself to nod. Then, since there was nothing more to be said, she stood and left the enclosure, walking with a straight back and a high head out into the jungle.
She did not look back, so no one saw her tears.
***
She headed toward the mountains. Hers was a coastal tribe; they lived in the flatter lands, close to the beaches and the fishing. They traded sometimes with those who dwelt higher up, but did not exchange children with them, did not marry into their numbers. The mountain tribes would know her for a stranger, with her bigger eyes and lesser stature and the blue-green threads woven into her dark clothing. But their ways were different from those of the coastal tribes, and perhaps they would not kill her. She might even find a home among them.
A vain hope, probably. But it was all she had to cling to.
She walked until dark and then she found a banu to rest under, after first crushing its leaves and scattering them around to kill her scent trail. Either the trick worked, or no predator came near; she heard nothing but the distant sounds of the jungle and the closer sounds of insects until morning came.
She had hardly slept, but still she rose and walked again.
Her second night she spent high in a douka tree, and her third the same. The banu grew mostly by the coast, and they became fewer and fewer as she climbed. Several times Ngwela had to run or hide from predators—the alua, which spat poison needles, and the gaui, with its bone-slat wings. Killing a gaui was the rite of manhood, as first possession was the rite of womanhood. Ngwela ran from the gaui, but afterward she wondered: if she killed the bird, would the tribe take her back? As a man? She had only a kandue, but boys who would be men were similarly armed with only the broad knife.
But they had been trained in the lore of hunting, whereas she had been taught the lore of shamanism. The gaui would kill her if she came near it.
Higher into the mountains she went, and she saw not a sign of people. Had something driven them all off? Were they cursed, as her own tribe was, cut off from the voices of spirits? Or had Imbule warned them of her coming?
It did not matter. Ngwela walked ever higher.
Until she saw the jaguar.
It was drinking at the bank of the stream. Ngwela, higher up on the opposite slope, did not notice it at first. But when her foot slipped out from under her, she skidded to the bottom, landing with a splash in the shallow water. She hissed with pain and went to pick the thorns out of her palms, and then she saw the cat and froze in fear.
The jaguar crouched on the bank, its golden eyes fixed on her.
There was nothing Ngwela could do. If she ran, it would catch her in three strides. She could draw her kandue and try to kill it, but even one so cursed as she would not commit such sacrilege. The jaguar was sacred to the Mother of Mountains, and although Her voice had gone silent ages ago, leaving only the spirits to speak to men, Ngwela would not harm Her creature.
Perhaps this is my death, she thought, and was at peace with it.
The great cat paced toward her, its paws hardly making a ripple in the stream. Ngwela stood with her hands at her sides and her eyes open, waiting. If this was her death, then there was no point in fighting it.
The jaguar circled her once, twice, a third time. Ngwela hardly breathed. And then, after the third circuit, it stopped. Sitting on its haunches in front of her, the jaguar bent its head and touched its nose to her feet where the shallow water rushed over them. Then its head rose to touch her groin. Then her left hand, and her right, and then, hardly knowing what she was doing, Ngwela knelt, and the jaguar’s damp muzzle brushed her forehead, leaving behind beads of water.
Then it turned and vanished into the forest.
Ngwela raised her head, eyes wide, and looked up at the soaring emerald heights of the mountains.
The Mother of Mountains did not speak to men, but perhaps She still watched their doings.
And in Her eyes, Ngwela was not cursed.
***
She had to go back down to the lowlands to find what she needed.
Her kandue cut a small space for her in the jungle, not large, but enough for her alone. She gathered bloodflowers and sunset palms and laid them out in a circle. She did not have the beads, nor the paste, nor the drink, and there was no one to chant for her; there were none of the usual things that invited spirits down into a woman’s body. But Ngwela could still feel the jaguar’s muzzle on her forehead, and she was determined to try.
Standing on her spirit ground, Ngwela thought of Gendra.
Her mother had been gone only a few seasons; Ngwela could remember her clearly. Her broad feet, her stout legs, powerful enough to support a world of spirits. Her hard-calloused hands and her arms, muscled from work but still soft, still good for embraces. Since Gendra was dead, Imbule had given Ngwela her last embrace before her dance, but Imbule’s arms were tough and unwelcoming. Ngwela remembered her mother’s heavy breasts, her wide shoulders, her open and smiling face, teeth flashing white in her dark skin.
“I will not shame you,” Ngwela whispered.
Silence answered her, and the noise of the jungle.
Into that silence, Ngwela began to chant.
“The sun sets, and the seas catch fire. The mountains cast their long shadows across the jungle. Here I stand, on the spirit ground. Here I wait. Here I raise my arms, here I call to you. My heart is open, my body is open. I call to you. I am your sacred house; I await your coming. I have drunk the shaman’s drink. I call to you. I fall through the air and I do not strike ground. Your wind bears me up and away, over the seas, over the mountains, and you show me new things. I call to you, and you answer. Give me your sound. Give me your breath. I wait for you, my heart and body open. I await your coming.”
Some of the words were traditional; others were hers, pulled from her heart to fill the gaps in her memory. On and on she went, chanting without pause, until she was no longer aware of the words streaming from her mouth. Her feet pounded the soft ground and kicked up shreds of half-rotted leaves. She raised her hands to the sky in supplication, palms upward, beckoning. The drums were in her head; the wailing songs were her own. She danced, eyes wide, arms wide, legs wide, driven by the flutes in her mind, the remembered music.
“This is my dance. I dance this for you. I call to you, and you answer.”
The silence pounded in her heart.
“I am not closed; I do not wall myself off. I wait for you. I call to you, and you answer.”
In the back of her head, one thought: I will call until they come. However long it takes. I will live in silence no longer.
“I call to you, spirits of sky and earth. I call to you, and you answer.”
so I do indeed
and also I
Ngwela’s entire body seized up at once. She jerked straight, staggered, fell to the ground. Her hands slammed into the foot-pounded earth and dug up handfuls of leaf mould as her legs shuddered, spasming out of her control. Cold wind and scorching fire roared through her body and for an instant she saw only whiteness; then she lost all awareness of her surroundings and was alone in the silence of her mind with the voice.
Voices.
you called to us, and we answered
The voices wove together in her mind, fire and wind interlaced. Ngwela tried to speak, but felt no sensation, only her own voice in her head. I welcome you in. I desire to know the names of the guests of my body.
The one she thought of as the wind voice spoke first. mine are the fruits of the banu, and the leaves of the whistle-leaf; I crave all things blue, and see from the sky high above
Ngwela’s lessons came to mind as clearly as if Imbule were reciting them in her ear. I know you, and welcome you. You are the one we call Mekeki Sea Cloud. A knowing spirit, one who gave information and answered questions.
But there was another voice still to come.
mine are the ashes of the fire, and the wood of trees split by lightning, and the red ants that feast on the flesh of the dead; my color is red, and my thirst is for blood
This one Ngwela knew without even turning to Imbule’s lessons, for she had learned the traits of this spirit at her mother’s knee. I know you and welcome you, Weganu Flayed Earth, who spoke also to my mother, from her first blood until her death.
I know you also, daughter of that mother, and embrace you as her child
Weganu Flayed Earth’s voice was not a comforting one; it seared her and laid her bare, like the molten stone the mountain tribes said flowed from the peaks and killed all in its path. But he had been the first spirit to speak to Gendra, when she danced for her first blood, and Ngwela could not find in herself any fear.
There was, however, confusion. She carried one knowing spirit, one doing spirit; this was not so much, and not so unusual. Other women carried more than one. But none of them, so far as Imbule had taught her, had ever heard the voices of both in her first dance, or had carried both at once.
As Ngwela seemed to be doing.
we were closed out, Mekeki’s cool voice said. a wall stood in our way, and the two of us together could not break it down
what closed us out
why could we not enter
who is responsible who who who
TELL US
Their voices blended together, cold and hot, and Ngwela felt her body spasm, distantly. Please, she begged. I cannot bear you both at once; it will kill me—
The force of their presences subsided. it will not kill you, woman, Mekeki said. we will not bring such harm to you
but we must know who is responsible, Weganu’s voice continued.
I don’t know, Ngwela said. I called. I danced. I did everything I could; I do not know why you could not enter. Only Imbule might know.
then take us to her, Weganu said.
Ngwela tried to move, but could not. Some women went this way, when a spirit entered their bodies; they could not control their motions enough to stand. I cannot walk like this.
we must leave you then, and return later, Mekeki said.
No! The objection was instinctive. What if the cause is there, in the village? What if I cannot call you back? There must be some way for you to…step back, let me move, something!
not that, Weganu said. but there is a way, an opposite way
if you give us your body, Mekeki finished.
Ngwela was confused. I already have. I have welcomed you in.
welcomed us in, but your body is still yours, Mekeki said. we merely ride in it
give us your body and we will take you to your tribe, and see what we can learn there
Weganu’s fiery voice made Ngwela flinch. She thought of them moving her, like a puppet, a shell which they controlled. Spirits sometimes spoke out of a woman’s mouth, but they were never allowed to take over completely. There were stories of what happened to women who allowed the spirits that far in.
What if she could not get her body back?
She had not articulated the thought, but Mekeki heard it anyway. there is a danger, the spirit admitted. only a strong woman can survive this
Strong. As Gendra had been strong.
It was this, or never return, never know what had gone wrong.
Ngwela would have closed her eyes, had she been that connected to her body. Then do it.
Wind and fire met in her body, and she cried out.
***
She saw through her own eyes as if from a great distance, as if she stood on top of a mountain and yet could see down into the lowlands, through the clouds and the branches and the leaves and onto the path where her body walked, driven by Weganu, toward her tribe’s enclosure.
All around her she saw the creatures of the jungle. Watching. Not coming close. Not a one among them moved near her, threatened her in any way.
They knew that the body on the path was not really her.
Having Weganu in control terrified her and exhilarated her all at once. He was a doing spirit, a spirit who gave instructions rather than knowledge, but this was doing with a vengeance. Her body’s actions were his to decide. Ngwela herself was only riding with him.
The village gate stood shut, but that did not even slow him. The woven branches simply blew backward, ripping free of their support post and skidding across the packed ground of the enclosure until stopped by a banu tree.
In the center clearing, which was the spirit ground when the women of the tribe danced, he stopped her body, and all three of them spoke together, with a voice that shattered the silence of the village.
“Come forth!”
The women came, running at first, slowing to an unsteady walk when they saw her there. Ngwela wondered what they saw. She suspected she did not look quite like herself; certainly her voice was not as it ordinarily was. It was Weganu’s voice, and Mekeki’s as well, along with her own; she had spoken with them. She was grateful for that. The spirits still had a care for her; they were not closing her out entirely.
of course not, woman, Mekeki said inside, for Ngwela alone. this is a crime against you as well as us; you deserve justice equally
When all the women of the tribe were there, Ngwela spoke again, and the spirits with her. “Bring me the tools of the ritual!”
Whatever change they saw in her, whatever outward sign of Weganu and Mekeki’s presence in her, they leaped to obey. All but Imbule, who stood directly across from her, feet widely planted, as the women hastened to bring the drums and the flutes and the incense and the white paint and the beads and the cup for the drink.
“We welcome you, and desire to know your names, oh mighty guests,” Imbule said, as the objects were piled up between her and Ngwela. So she had noticed that more than one spirit was in the body at once. That explained the edge of fear around her eyes.
“You shall not know them,” the spirits said, and stepped forward to begin the examination.
It did not last long. The moment Ngwela’s hand touched the cup, carved out of douka wood from the mountains, Mekeki spoke inside. this
What of it? Ngwela asked silently.
it has been tainted, Mekeki said. the juice of white death, the berry that no animal will eat
Poison, Ngwela thought, and her entire body went cold.
not poison that kills, Weganu said. poison that silences
it cut us off from you
And all the tribe drank from the same cup. No wonder all the spirits had fallen silent. Terror clutched at Ngwela for the briefest of instants, before she realized that the effect could not possibly be permanent. If it were, then Weganu and Mekeki would not be with her now.
there is one here who bears you hate
For a moment Ngwela wanted to protest Mekeki’s statement, to say that perhaps it had been an accident. But the white death did not grow anywhere near the enclosure; it could not have found its way into the cup by chance. Who?
she has closed her heart to the spirits, Mekeki said. I cannot find her
Ngwela raised her head from the cup and turned a slow circle, meeting the eyes of every woman there. They stood paralyzed, like small creatures of the forest when the gaui dove for them. She turned, and saw them all, and last of all she saw Imbule.
Imbule, who had given her the cup. Imbule, the tribe’s yagunde, the chief authority regarding the spirits and the one responsible for all the rituals.
Imbule, whose voice was paramount in matters of the spirits, but who had always stood in Gendra’s shadow, because Gendra carried four spirits and Imbule only two.
Ngwela met her eyes, and although Imbule kept her expression flat, Ngwela knew.
what do you want done with her, Weganu asked.
The spirit was asking her?
it is as I told you, Mekeki said. you deserve justice equally
she has wronged you, and I will see her punishment done
Ngwela swallowed. She had regained control of her body; the spirits had backed off. She was able to stand, now, as she had not been before.
And now she had control of Imbule’s fate.
The yagunde had put her own pride and envy before the good of the tribe. She had endangered them all; if the effect of the white death had been permanent, she would have destroyed them forever.
Can it be made permanent? she asked.
not the juice, Mekeki said. but spirits come to her by choice, and we can change our minds
It was fitting. And even though Ngwela’s heart ached at what she was about to do, she knew that it was the right choice. Do it, then.
step forward, Weganu said.
Ngwela stepped forward and put her hand on Imbule’s forehead. The yagunde met her eyes coldly; the fear was gone. Only hatred remained. Hatred, and envy for a woman who was dead.
Mekeki spoke aloud, through Ngwela’s mouth.
“I see into your heart and find only darkness. You have placed your own voice above ours, and brought harm to those who are your responsibility. Know my name now: I, whom you call Mekeki Sea Cloud, say that you have betrayed the honor others have given you.”
Then Weganu spoke.
“You have turned from us, and so we turn from you. Know my name now: I, whom you call Weganu Flayed Earth, mark you with the desolation of a burnt land, an earth scorched bare, supporting nothing but emptiness.”
Imbule screamed. Her arms and legs spasmed, but she remained standing, as if Ngwela’s hand on her forehead held her pinned.
Then her body went rigid, and Mekeki and Weganu spoke together.
“We turn from you and will not return. The spirits you carried will not speak to you again. You will live in silence, and die in silence, and hear our voices no more. But your crimes are your own; your punishment is your own. Your tribe will drink no more from the tainted cup, and will suffer no more for your folly.”
Ngwela removed her hand, and Imbule stood there, eyes wide, unseeing.
She turned to face the tribe.
“This is the justice of the spirits,” Mekeki and Weganu said. “Let what happens next be the justice of the women whom she has wronged.”
Ngwela’s legs gave out suddenly. She crumpled to a heap on the hard earth, hardly feeling the impact. White fire clouded her vision again, as it had when the spirits first came to her, and she knew her strength was at an end.
but never fear, Mekeki said inside. we will return to you
carve for yourself a new cup, and call us, and we will come
you have been brave, and you have been strong
and also just
and when you call, we will answer
Then they were gone, and Ngwela saw the spirit ground and the feet of the women hurrying forward. A new voice spoke to her, a human voice. “Can you stand?”
Ngwela thought she could not. But then memory revived, and she knew the ritual was not done. Not yet.
She reached deep inside herself for the last of her strength, and she stood.
The women of the tribe crowded all around her, in every direction but one. That one led to the village’s spirit house. It seemed as distant as the mountains.
But Ngwela made herself take one step, and then another. She walked down the line of women, and they in turn followed behind her, and the spirit house grew closer. She walked, and the women followed, and then at last she came into the darkness of the interior, which she had never seen until now. Children, girls, did not set foot inside the spirit house.
Ngwela crossed the threshold, and then she collapsed.
As her eyes closed, she felt the touch of many hands on her body, welcoming her as a woman of the tribe. She took the words, and treasured them, and carried them with her down into the silence she no longer feared.