People always had to remind me of what I was. “My name is Onyesonwu.”

“You aren’t allowed here,” he said. “This place is only for the old. Unless you’re apprenticed, which you would never be.”

With effort, I held my tongue.

“Why are you here, Onyesonwu?” the one in tan asked more kindly. “Efu is correct, you know. It’s more for your safety than your insult.”

“I just want to speak with Nana the Wise.”

“We can take your message to her,” the man in tan said.

I considered this. The air had taken on a nutty smell of monkeybread fruit and I had a feeling that the House was observing me. It was frightening.

“Well,” I said. “Can you…”

“Actually,” the man in red named Efu said, smirking. “She should be in her chambers this morning as always. It should be okay if you go straight to her.”

The two men exchanged a brief look. The man in tan looked uncomfortable. He looked away, “It is up to you.”

I nervously looked down the hallway. “Which way do I go?”

After making the turn, I was to walk halfway down the hall, make a right, then make a left and go up some stairs. Those were Efu’s directions. He might as well have laughed as he gave them. In the House of Osugbo, one doesn’t choose where to go or what to do there. The House does. I learned this minutes later.

I followed their directions but I came to no stairs. On the outside, the House looked big but not nearly as big as it was on the inside. I passed halls and rooms. I didn’t know there were so many old people in Jwahir. I heard several dialects of Okeke. Some rooms were full of books, but most had iron chairs with old people sitting in them.

I looked for the special bronze table my father had made for the House years ago. I frowned realizing that my father had probably been communicating mostly with Aro for that project. I didn’t see the table anywhere. But I suspected all of the chairs were my father’s work. Only he could make iron look like lace that way. As I passed, people took notice of me. Several of them scoffed or looked angry.

I found a tunnel made by the tree’s roots. I leaned against one of them, frustrated. I cursed and slapped at the root. “This place is a bizarre labyrinth,” I grumbled. I was wondering how I was going to find the exit when two young men with long black braided beards came up to me.

“Here she is, Kona,” one of them said. He had a bag of dates. He popped one in his mouth. The other one laughed and leaned against the root next to me. They both might have been in their early twenties, though their beards made them look older.

“What are you doing here, Onyesonwu?” the one with the dates asked. He offered me one and I took it. I was starving.

“Why do you know my name?” I asked.

“Only Kona is allowed to answer questions with questions,” he said. “I’m Titi. Apprentice to Dika the Seer. Kona is apprentice to Oyo the Ponderer. And you are lost.” He handed me another date. They stood there watching me eat it.

“He’s right,” Titi said to Kona. Kona nodded.

“How long, do you think?” Kona asked.

“I’m not good enough to see that yet,” Titi said. “I’ll ask Oga Dika.”

“Won’t Mwita be angry with her, too?” Kona asked with a laugh.

I looked up, my attention caught. “Eh?”

“Nothing you won’t know,” Titi said.

“Is Mwita here?” I asked.

“Do you see him here?” Kona asked me.

“No,” Titi said. “Not today, he isn’t. Go and find Nana the Wise.” He gave me another date.

“Can you show me where she is?” I asked.

“No,” Titi said.

“Are you sure that’s what you’re here for?” Kona asked.

“We have to go,” Titi said. “Don’t worry, you won’t be lost in here forever, beautiful Ewu girl.” He handed me his bag of dates.

“You are welcome here,” Kona said. It was the first nonquestion he’d said to me.

Then, as quickly as they came, they were on their way down the tunnel of roots. I ate a few dates and moved on. An hour later, I was still lost. I trudged down a hallway with windows too high for me to see out of. I didn’t remember seeing windows from outside. I came to a stairway. It wound up in a stone spiral.

“Finally!” I said aloud. The stairway was very narrow and as I went up, I hoped I wouldn’t meet anyone. I counted fifty-two steps and still no second floor. It was stuffy and hot. The lights on the wall were dim and orange. Ten stairs later, I heard footsteps and voices. I looked down. It was pointless to go back.

The voices grew louder. I saw their shadows and held my breath. Then I was face to face with Aro. I gasped and looked down, flattening against the wall. He said nothing to me as he squeezed by. His body was forced to press against mine. He smelled of smoke and flowers. He stamped on my foot as he passed. There were three men following him. None of them said “Excuse me.” When they were gone, I sat down on the steps and wept. Titi was wrong. I wasn’t welcome here at all, unless welcome meant being made a fool of. I wiped my hands on my dress, pulled myself up, and moved on.

The stairs finally ended at the start of another hallway. The first room I peeked into was Nana the Wise’s. “Good, ah, afternoon,” I said.

“Good afternoon,” she said, leaning back in her wicker chair, a cup of tea in hand.

I took a cautious step back but my backside met a closed door. I turned around confused. When had I walked into the room?

“It’s the way of the House,” she said, peering at me with her one good eye.

“I think I hate this place,” I mumbled.

“People hate what they don’t understand,” she said. “I was about to go out to the market for lunch but then my apprentice brought me this.” She held up a container of pepper soup. She peeled off the top and put it on the wicker table beside her. “So here I am. I should have known to expect a visitor.”

She motioned for me to sit on the floor and for a minute, I watched her eat her soup. It smelled wonderful. My stomach rumbled.

“How are your parents?” she asked.

“They’re well,” I said.

“Why have you come here?”

“I-I wanted to ask…” I tapered off.

She waited and ate.

“The… the Great Mystic Points,” I finally said. “Please… you remember what happened to me at my Eleventh Rite, Ada-m.” I searched her face but she only looked at me waiting for me to finish. “You’re wise,” I continued. “Wise as Aro, if not wiser.”

“Don’t compare us,” she said gravely. “We’re both old.”

“I’m sorry,” I quickly said. “But you know so much. You must know how much I need to know the Great Mystic Points.”

“The work of mad men and women,” she spat.

“Eh?”

She spooned out a large chunk of meat from her soup and ate it. “No, Onyesonwu, this is between you and Aro.”

“But can’t you…”

“No.”

“Please?” I begged. “Please!”

“Even if I knew the Points, I wouldn’t get between two spirits like yourselves.”

I slumped back to the floor.

“Listen, Ewu girl,” she said.

I looked up. “Please, Ada-m, don’t call me that.”

“And why not? Isn’t that what you are?”

“I hate that word.”

“Ewu or girl?”

“Ewu, of course.”

“Is that not what you are?”

“No,” I said. “Not in the way the word means.”

She looked at her empty bowl and folded her hands. Her nails were short and thin, the tips of her index finger and thumb yellow. Nana the Wise was a smoker. “Some advice: Leave Aro alone, I beg. He’s beyond you and he is stubborn.”

I pursed my lips. Aro wasn’t the only one who was stubborn.

“There may be another way to learn what you seek,” she said. “The House is full of books. No one’s read them all, so who knows what could be in them, eh?”

“But the people here don’t…”

“We’re old and wise. We can be stupid, too. Remember Titi’s words.” When my eyebrows rose with surprise, she said. “The walls are thin here. Come.”

The room down the hall was small, but the walls were stacked with smelly, cracked, old books. “You’re free to look here or in other rooms with books. Only the Osugbo elders have personal chambers. The rest of the House is everybody’s. When you’re ready to leave, you can.”