She patted me on the head and left me there. I searched for two hours, going from room to room. There were books on birds who lived in places that didn’t exist, how to have a good marriage with two wives who hated each other, the living habits of female termites, the biology of mythical giant flying lizards called Kponyungo, the herbs women should eat to enlarge their breasts, the uses of palm oil. Intensified by my grumbling stomach, my anger grew with each useless book I pulled out. The annoyed, and often fearful, looks of elders didn’t help.

The House was mocking me again. I could almost hear it laughing as it showed me stupid book after stupid book. When I pulled out a book full of provocatively posed naked women, I threw it to the floor and went looking for an exit. It took me an hour to find it. The door leading outside was plain and narrow, nothing like the elaborate entrances I saw from outside. I stumbled into the late afternoon sun and turned around. The entrance was one of the grand doors that I’d been seeing since I was six.

I spat and shook a fist at the House of Osugbo, not caring who saw. “Aggravating, pestilent, stupid, idiotic, horrible place,” I shouted. “I will never set foot in you again!”

CHAPTER 16 – Ewu

REJECTION.

Such things will quietly creep up on a person. Then one day, she finds herself ready to destroy everything. I lived with the threat of my biological father for five years. For three years, Aro rejected me, refused to help me. Twice to my face and numerous times to Mwita, maybe even to the Ada and Nana the Wise. I knew Aro was the only one who could answer my questions. This is why I didn’t leave Jwahir after my experience in the House of Osugbo. Where would I have gone?

The previous day, Papa had been brought home on his brother’s camel, complaining of chest pains. The healer was called. It had been a long night. This was why I’d cried all night. I kept thinking that if Aro had been teaching me, I could have made Papa well. Papa was too young and healthy to have heart problems.

My head felt squeezed. Everything sounded muffled. I dressed and snuck out of the house. I had only one plan: To get my way. I left the main road and stepped onto the path leading to Aro’s hut. I heard the flap of wings. Above my head in a palm tree, a black vulture glowered down at me with probing eyes. I frowned and then froze with realization. I looked away, hoping to hide my thoughts. That vulture wasn’t a vulture, as it hadn’t been five years ago when I saw it. Oh, how Aro could not have known that I knew every aspect of him, as I knew every aspect of any creature I’d changed into. What a mistake that feather falling from his body had been for him.

This was why I felt such a rush of power whenever I changed into a vulture. I’d been changing into Aro as a vulture. Was this why it was so easy to learn from Mwita? But I already had the gift of the Eshu. I probed my mind for the Great Mystic Points. I could grasp at nothing. No matter. The vulture flew off. Here I come, I thought.

Finally, I arrived at Aro’s hut. I felt a pang of hunger and the world around me grew vibrant. Clusters of bright light danced at the top of the hut and in the air. The monster came at me when I got to the cactus gate. A masquerade was guarding Aro’s hut, a real one. It seemed this day Aro felt he needed protection. Masquerades commonly appear at celebrations. In these cases, they’re just men dressed in elaborate raffia and cloth costumes dancing to the beat of a drum.

Tock tock tock went a small drum as the real masquerade rushed at me, spraying a wake of sand as tall as my house and wide as three camels. It shook its dusty colorful cloth and raffia skirts. Its wooden face was curled into a sneer. It danced violently, jabbing itself at me and then pulling back. I stood my ground, even as it slashed its needle-fingered hands an inch from my face.

When I didn’t run, the spirit stopped and stood very still. We looked at each other, my head tilted up, its head tilted down. My angry eyes staring into its wooden ones. It made a clicking sound that resonated deep in my bones. I winced but didn’t move. Three times it did this. On the third I felt something give inside of me, like a cracked knuckle. The masquerade turned and led me to Aro’s hut. As it moved, it slowly faded away.

Aro stood on his hut’s threshold giving me the kind of look a man would give a pregnant woman if he accidentally walked in on her in the bathroom defecating.

“Oga Aro,” I said. “I’ve come to ask you to take me on as your student.”

His nostrils flared as if he smelled something putrid.

“Please. I’m sixteen years old. You won’t be sorry.”

Still he didn’t speak. My cheeks flushed and my eyes felt as if someone had poked a finger in them. “Aro,” I said in a low voice. “You will teach me.” Still he said nothing. “You WILL teach…” My diamond flew from my mouth. I shouted as loudly as I could, “TEACH ME! WHY WON’T YOU TEACH ME? WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU? WHAT IS WRONG WITH EVERYONE? ”

The desert quickly absorbed my yelling and that was it. I dropped to my knees. Simultaneously, I dropped into that place I’d been when I was circumcised. I did it without a thought. From far away I heard myself screaming, but this was of no concern to me. In this spirit place, I was the predator. On instinct, I flew at Aro. I knew how and where to attack him because I knew him. I was searing light determined to burn his very soul from inside out. I felt his shock.

I forgot my purpose in coming. I was tearing and clawing and burning. The smell of smoldering hair. The satisfying grunt of Aro in pain. And then I felt a hard kick in the chest. I opened my eyes. I was back in my physical body, flying backward. I landed hard, sliding back several more feet. The sand grated the skin from the palms of my hands and the backs of my ankles. My rapa untied, exposing my legs.

I lay on my back looking at the sky. For a moment, I had a vision that I couldn’t have had. I was my mother, a hundred miles West, seventeen years ago. On my back. Waiting to die. My body, her body, was a knot of pain. Full of semen. But alive.

Then I was back in the sand. Nearby, one of his goats baaed, a chicken clucked. I was alive. Protecting myself is a useless endeavor, I thought. I had to somehow find the man who harmed my mother, the man who hunted me. I had to hunt him. And when I find him, I thought. I’ll kill him. I sat up. Aro lay on the ground in front of his hut.

“I understand now,” I said loudly. Somehow I saw my diamond. I picked it up and, without thinking or wiping off the sand, slipped it under my tongue. “You… you won’t teach girls or women because you’re afraid of us! Y-y-you fear our emotions.” I giggled hysterically and then grew serious. “That is not a good enough reason!”

I stood up. Aro only groaned. Even half dead, he wouldn’t speak to me.

“Damn your mother! Damn your entire bloodline!” I said. I turned to the side and spat. It was red with blood. “I’ll die before I let you teach me!”

Suddenly, I felt a painful hitch in my throat. I winced. Guilt had arrived. I hadn’t wanted to kill him. I wanted him to teach me. Now the bridge was burned. I retied my rapa and walked home.

Mwita found him an hour later still lying where I’d left him. Mwita had run to the House of Osugbo to bring the elders. Because of the House’s “thin walls,” within hours news of what I’d done to Aro was all over Jwahir. My parents were in their room when I heard the knock on the door. I knew it was Mwita. I hesitated to open it. When I let him in, he grabbed my hand and pulled me to the back of the house. “What did you do, woman?” he hissed.

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?”