Who Fears Death (15 page)

Before I could answer, he pushed me hard against the wall and held me there. “Shut up,” he harshly whispered. “Aro may be dying.” When I gasped, he nodded. “Yes, you feel that guilt. Why are you so
stupid?
What is
wrong
with you? You’re a danger to yourself, to us all! Sometimes I wonder if you should take your own life!” He let go and stepped back. “How could you?”

I just stood there rubbing the small scar on my forehead.

“He’s as close to a father as I will have,” he said.

“How can you call that man your father?” I retorted.

“What do
you
know about
real
fathers?” he spat. “You’ve never had one! Just a caretaker.” He turned to leave. “Do you know what they will do to us if he dies?” he asked over his shoulder. “They’ll come after us. We’ll go the way of my parents.”

That night, at eleven o’clock, that red eye appeared. I looked at it defiantly, daring it to try something. It hovered above me for one minute, staring. Then it faded away. The same thing happened the next night. And the next. Rumors abounded. Luyu told me that Mwita and I were both suspected of beating Aro. “People say they saw you going there that morning,” she said. “That you looked angry and ready to kill.”

Papa was taking some days off work to recover from his own ailments and my mother didn’t tell him a thing about what I’d done. My mother and her secrets. She was so good at keeping them. Thus, he knew nothing of the rumors, thankfully. But my mother did ask me if there was any truth to them.

“I’m not irrational,” I told her. “Aro’s more than people think he is.”

People repeated it to each other:
Ewu
children are born from violence and so it’s inevitable that they will become violent. Days passed. Aro remained ill. I readied myself for a witch hunt.
It’ll happen the day Aro dies,
I thought. I packed a small satchel of things, the easier to run with. And so when Papa died five days later, people were already eying me with great suspicion.

WE COME FULL CIRCLE. When I made my father’s body breathe at his funeral, my reputation sank to new depths. After my mother took me home, Mwita made himself ignorable and eavesdropped on my family members.

“We should have stoned her to death after she tried to kill Aro.”

“My daughter already has nightmares about her every night. Now this!”

“The faster she’s ashes, the better.”

At home, I slept more peacefully than I had in years. I woke to my body’s miserable aching. It dawned on me: Papa was ashes. I curled up and wept. I felt as if I were breaking all over again. Grief took me into its dark muted place for several hours. Eventually it set me back down in my bed. I wiped my nose with my bed sheet and looked at my clothes. My mother had changed me out of my white dress into a blue rapa. I held my left hand up, the one that had meshed with Papa’s body. There was a bit of crust between my index and middle finger.

“I could change to a vulture and fly away right now,” I whispered. But if I stayed an animal for too long, I’d go mad.
Would that be so bad?
I wondered.
Mwita was right, I’m dangerous.
I decided to sneak out of the house come night, before people came for me. For the good of my mother, especially. She was a widow now. Her reputation was more important now than ever. There was a knock on the door.

“What do you want?” I said. The door swung open hitting the wall hard. I scrambled out of bed, ready to take on an angry mob. It was Aro. My mother stood behind him. She made eye contact with me and then walked away. He slammed the door behind him. There was a fresh-looking bruise above his eye. I knew that there were other bruises and scars hidden by his white funeral garments, injuries that were five days old.

“Do you have
any
idea what you did?”

“Why do you care?” I snapped.

“You don’t
think!
You’re unlearned and uncontrollable, like an animal.” He sucked his teeth. “Let me see your hand.”

I held my breath as he stepped closer. I didn’t want him to touch me. He was Eshu, as I was. Someone with his skill would only need a cell of my skin to get even with me. But something made me sit still and allow him to take my hands. Guilt, grief, fatigue, you pick. He turned my hands this way and that, squeezed it, lightly ground my knuckles together. He let go, chuckling to himself and shaking his head.

“Okay,
sha
,” he muttered to himself. “Onyesonwu, I will teach you.”

“What?”

“I’ll teach you the Great Mystic Points, if it is willed,” he said. “You’re a danger to us all if I don’t. You’re a danger to us all if I do, but at least I’ll be your Master.”

I couldn’t help but smile. My smile faltered. “They may hunt me tonight.”

“I’ll make sure that that doesn’t happen,” he simply said. “I haven’t died, so it shouldn’t be difficult. It’s your birth father you have to worry about. If you haven’t guessed by now, he’s a sorcerer as I am. If you hadn’t idiotically gone through your Eleventh Rite, he wouldn’t know of you yet. Thank
me
for protecting you all these years, otherwise you’d be long dead.”

I frowned. Aro had been protecting me. It was a bitter pill to swallow. I considered asking him how but instead I asked, “Why does he want to kill me?”

“Because you’re a failure,” Aro said, smirking. “You were supposed to be a boy.”

I winced.

“Now, I’d move you into my hut, but your mysterious mother needs you,” he said. “And there’s the problem of you and Mwita. During training, sexual contact will hinder you.”

My cheeks felt hot and I looked away.

“By the way, it would have been selfish to run off and leave your mother,” he said. He let his statement sit for a moment and I wondered if he could read my mind.

“I cannot,” he said. “I just know your type.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Can’t you defend yourself?” he said. “Don’t you know me and therefore know what it takes to destroy me?”

“I do, but you now know me, too,” I said. “You touched my hand.”

A grin spread across his face. “So now we know each other. A good start.”

“But you’re the Master.”

“So isn’t it wise to become one, too? For your
own
sake?”

“Only if I can trust you to make me one.”

“Yes, trust is earned, isn’t it?” he said.

I thought about it. “Okay.”

“Do you believe in Ani?”

“No,” I said, matter-of-factly. Ani was supposed to be merciful and loving. Ani wouldn’t have allowed me to exist. I’d never believed in Ani. She was just an expression I was used to using when I was surprised or angry.

“Some creator then?” he asked.

I nodded. “It is cold and logical.”

“Are you willing to allow others the same right to their beliefs?”

“If their beliefs don’t hurt others and, when I feel the need, I am allowed call them stupid in my mind, then yes.”

“Do you believe it’s your responsibility to leave this world in better shape than when you came into it?”

“Yes.”

He paused, looking at me more intensely. “Is it better to give or receive?”

“They’re the same,” I said. “One can’t exist without the other. But if you keep giving without receiving, you’re a fool.”

He chuckled at this. Then he asked, “Can you smell it?”

Immediately, I knew what he spoke of. “Yes,” I said. “Strongly.”

Fire, ice, iron, flesh, wood, and flowers. The sweat of life. Most of the time I forgot about the smell but I always became aware of it when strange things happened.

“Can you taste it?”

“Yes,” I said. “If I try.”

“Do you choose it?”

“No. It chose me long ago.”

He nodded. “Then welcome.” He walked to the door. Over his shoulder, he said, “And take that cursed stone from your mouth. It’s meant to keep you grounded. It’s useless to you.”

TWENTY-EIGHT DAYS PASSED before I decided to go to his hut. I was too afraid.

In those days, I couldn’t sleep through a night. I’d wake to the dark, sure that someone was in the room with me, and it wasn’t Papa or his first wife, Njeri the camel-racer. I’d have happily welcomed both of them. It was either the red eye about to kill me or Aro about to enact his revenge on me. Nevertheless, as Aro promised, no mob came after me. I even went back to school on the tenth day.

In his will, Papa left his shop to my mother and ordered Ji, his apprentice now graduated to Master, to run it. They would split the profits, 80 percent to my mother and 20 percent to Ji. It was a good deal for both, especially Ji who was from a poor family and now bore the title “Blacksmith Taught by the Great Fadil Ogundimu.” In addition, my mother had her cactus candy and other vegetables. The Ada, Nana the Wise, and two of my mother’s friends also came over each day to visit with her. My mother was okay.

Not once did Luyu, Diti, or Binta visit me and I vowed to never forgive them for this. Mwita didn’t come, either. But his actions I understood. He was waiting for me to come to him, at Aro’s hut. So for those four weeks, I was alone with my fear and loss. I returned to school because I needed the distraction.

I was treated like someone with a highly contagious disease. In the schoolyard, people moved away from me. They said nothing to me, mean or pleasant. What did Aro do to keep people from tearing me apart? Whatever it was, it didn’t change my reputation of being the evil
Ewu
girl. Binta, Luyu, and Diti avoided me. They avoided eye contact as they walked away. They ignored my greetings. This made me so angry.

After a few days of this, it was time for a showdown. I spotted them standing in their usual place near the school wall. I boldly approached. Diti looked at my feet, Luyu looked to the side, and Binta stared at me. My confidence wavered. I was so aware of the brightness of my skin, the boldness of my freckles, especially the ones on my cheeks, the sandiness of the braids that reached down my back.

Luyu looked at Binta and hit her on the shoulder. Binta immediately looked away. I stood my ground. I at least wanted an argument. Binta started crying. Diti swatted irritably at a fly. Luyu looked me straight in the face with such intensity that I thought she was going to hit me. “Come,” she said, glancing once around the schoolyard. She grabbed my hand. “Enough of this.”

Diti and Binta followed close behind as we quickly walked down the road. We sat on the curb, Luyu on one side of me, Binta on the other, and Diti next to Luyu. We watched people and camels pass by.

“Why did you
do
it?” Diti suddenly asked.

“Shut up, Diti,” Luyu said.

“I can ask whatever I want!” Diti said.

“Then ask properly,” Luyu said. “We’ve done her wrong. We’re not in the . . .”

Diti shook her head vigorously. “My mother said . . .”

“Did you even
try
to see her?” Luyu said. When she turned to me, she was crying. “Onyesonwu, what happened? I remember . . . when we were eleven, but . . . I don’t . . .”

“Was it your father who made you to stay away from me?” I hissed at Luyu. “Does he not want his beautiful daughter being seen with her ugly evil friend anymore?”

Luyu shrank back from me. I’d hit it right on the nail.

“Sorry,” I quickly said with a sigh.

“Is it evil?” Diti asked. “Can’t you go to an Ani priestess and . . . ?”

“I’m not evil!” I shouted, waving my fists in the air. “Understand
that
about me, if not anything else.” I gritted my teeth and pounded my fist against my chest, as Mwita often did when he was angry. “I am what I am but I am
not EVIL!
”

It felt like I was shouting to all of Jwahir.
Papa never felt I was evil,
I thought. I started sobbing, feeling the loss of him hit me again. Binta put her arm over my shoulder and hugged me close to her. “Okay,” Binta whispered into my ear.

“Okay,” Luyu said.

“All right,” Diti said.

And that was how the tension broke between my friends and me. Just like hat. Even at the moment, I felt it. Less weight. All four of us must have felt it.

But I still had to deal with my fear. And the only way to do that was to face it. I went a week later, during a Rest Day. I got up early, showered, made breakfast, dressed in my favorite blue dress, and wrapped a thick yellow veil over my head.

“Mama,” I said, peeking into my parents’ room. She was sprawled on the bed, for once, soundly asleep. I was sorry to wake her.

“Eh?” she said. Her eyes were clear. She hadn’t been crying during the night.

“I made you some fried yam and egg stew and tea for breakfast.”

She sat up and stretched. “Where are you going?”

“To Aro’s hut, Mama.”

She lay back down. “Good,” she said. “Your father would approve.”

“Do you think?” I asked, moving closer to the bed to hear my mother better.

“Aro fascinated your papa. All mysterious things did. Including you and me . . . though he didn’t like the House of Osugbo much.” We laughed. “Onyesonwu, your father loved you. And though he didn’t know it as strongly as I do, he knew you were special.”

“I-I should have told you and Papa about my feud with Aro,” I said.

“Maybe. But we still wouldn’t have been able to do anything.”

 

I took my time. It was a cool morning. People were just coming out to do their morning chores. As I passed, no one greeted me. I thought about Papa and my heart ached. In the last few days, my grief was so strong that I felt the world around me ripple as it did at his funeral. Whatever had happened at the funeral could happen again. This was part of my reason for finally going to Aro. I didn’t want to hurt anyone else.