Mwita got up and without a word walked off. Aro and I watched him leave.

“Onyesonwu,” Aro said, “it’ll be a harsh journey. You have to be prepared for…”

I didn’t hear the rest of what he said, for one of my headaches began to throb in my temples, increasing with each thump. Within seconds, it felt as it always eventually did, like stones hitting my head. It was the mixture of Mwita’s leaving the hut, knowing I was to leave Jwahir, the images of violence still swirling around my mind, and the face of my biological father. All those things triggered my sudden suspicion.

I jumped up and stared at Aro. I was so pained, so flabbergasted, that for the second time in my life, I forgot how to breathe. My headache increased and everything tinted silvery red. The look on Aro’s face scared me more. It was calm and patient.

“Open your mouth and take in air before you pass out,” he said. “And sit down.”

When I finally sat back down, I started sobbing. “It can’t be, Aro!”

“All initiates have to see it,” he said. He smiled sadly. “People fear the unknown. What better way to remove one’s fear of death than to show it to him?”

I pressed my temples. “Why will they hate me so much?” Somehow I would end up being jailed and then stoned to death and many people would be very happy about it.

“You’ll find out, won’t you?” Aro said, solemnly. “Why spoil the surprise?”

I went to see Mwita. Aro had instructed me on several things, including when he thought I should leave. I had two days. Mwita sat on his bed, his back against the wall.

“You don’t think, Onyesonwu,” he said, looking blankly straight ahead.

“Did you know?” I asked. “Did you know that it was my own death that I saw?”

Mwita opened his mouth and then shut it.

“Did you?” I asked again.

He got up, took me in his arms and held me tightly. I closed my eyes. “Why’d he tell you?” he asked, his lips near my ear.

“Mwita, I forgot how to breathe. I was so stunned.”

“He shouldn’t have told you,” he said.

“He didn’t,” I said. “I just… figured it out.”

“He should have lied to you then,” Mwita said.

We stood like this for some time. I inhaled Mwita’s scent, noting that this was one of the last times I’d be able to do this. I held him back and grasped his hands.

“I’m coming with you,” he said before I could say anything.

“No,” I said. “I know the desert. I can change into a vulture when I must and…”

“I know it as well as you do, if not better. I know the West, too.”

“Mwita, what did you see?” I asked, ignoring his words for a moment. “You saw… you saw yours, too, didn’t you?”

“Onyesonwu, one’s end is one’s end and that’s the end of it,” he said. “You won’t be going alone. Not even close. Go home. I’ll come to you tomorrow afternoon.”

I got home around midnight. My plans didn’t surprise my mother. She’d heard about what I’d done at the market. All of Jwahir was buzzing about it. The gossip carried no details, only a hardened sentiment that I was evil and should be jailed.

“Mwita is coming with me, too, Mama,” I said.

“Good,” she said after a moment.

As I turned to go to my room, my mother sniffed. I turned around. “Mama, I…”

She held up a hand. “I’m human but I’m not stupid, Onyesonwu. Go and sleep.”

I went back to her and gave her a long hug. She pushed me toward my room. “Go to bed,” she said, wiping her eyes.

Surprisingly, I slept deeply for two hours. No nightmares. Later that night-or should I say morning-around four a.m, Luyu, Binta, and Diti showed up at my window. I helped them climb in my room. Once inside, the three of them just stood. I had to laugh. It was the most comical thing I’d seen all day.

“Are you all right?” Diti asked.

“What happened?” Binta asked. “We need to hear it from you.”

I sat down on my bed. I didn’t know where to start. I shrugged and sighed. Luyu sat beside me. I could smell scented oil and a hint of sweat. Luyu would normally never let the smell of sweat creep onto her skin. She stared at the side of my face for so long that I turned to her, irritated, “What?”

“I was there today, at the market,” she said. “I saw… I saw it all.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She looked down. “But you have told us, haven’t you? Was that… your mother?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Show us,” Diti said quietly. “We want to… see, too.”

I paused. “Okay.” It wasn’t as jarring for me the second time. I listened closely to the Nuru words he snarled at my mother but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t understand them. Though I spoke some Nuru, my mother didn’t and this vision was gathered from her experience. Vile, vicious, cruel man, I thought. I’ll take his breath away. Afterwards, Binta and Diti remained stunned into silence. Luyu, however, only looked more tired.

“I’m leaving Jwahir,” I said.

“I want to go with you, then,” Binta suddenly said.

I quickly shook my head. “No. Only Mwita goes with me. You belong here.”

“Please,” she begged. “I want to see what’s out there. This place, it… I have to get away from my Papa.”

We all knew it. Even after the interventions, Binta’s father still couldn’t control himself. Though she tried to hide it, Binta was ill quite often. It was because of his abuse, because of the pain she endured from it. I frowned realizing something disturbing: If the pain came only when a woman was aroused, did that mean her father’s touch aroused her? I shuddered. Poor Binta. On top of this, Binta was marked as “the girl who was so lovely even her father couldn’t resist her.” Mwita told me that there was already a growing competition for her among the young men because of this.

“I want to go, too,” Luyu said. “I want to be a part of this.”

“I don’t even know what we’re going to do,” I stammered. “I don’t even…”

“I’ll go, too,” Diti said.

“But you’re betrothed,” Luyu said.

“Eh?” I said, looking at Diti.

“Last month, his father asked for her hand on his son’s behalf,” Luyu said.

“Whose father?” I asked.

“Fanasi’s, of course,” Luyu said.

Fanasi had been Diti’s love since they were very young. He was the one who’d felt so insulted by Diti’s cries of pain when he touched her that for years he refused to talk to her. I guess, it took those years for him to grow into a man and learn that he could take what he wanted.

“Diti, why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

She shrugged, “Didn’t seem important, not to you. And maybe it’s not, not now.”

“Of course it is,” I said.

“Well…” Diti said. “Would you be willing to speak to Fanasi?”

And that is how Mwita, Luyu, Binta, Diti, Fanasi, and I ended up in the main room the next day while my mother was at the market buying me supplies. Diti, Luyu, Binta, and I were nineteen. Mwita was twenty-two and Fanasi was twenty-one. All of us so naive, dabbling in what I would later realize was wishful thinking.

Fanasi had grown tall over the years. He stood half a head taller than Mwita and me, a full head taller than Luyu and Diti and even taller than Binta, the tiniest of us all. He was a broad-shouldered young man with smooth dark skin, piercing eyes, and powerful arms. He looked at me with great suspicion. Diti told him her plan. He’d looked at Diti then me and surprisingly said nothing. A good sign.

“I’m not what they say I am,” I said.

“I know what Diti tells me,” he said, in his low voice. “But only that.”

“Will you come with us?” I asked.

Diti had insisted Fanasi was a free thinker. She said he’d been part of the storyteller’s audience that day years ago. But he was also an Okeke man, so he didn’t trust me. “My father owns a bread shop that I’m to inherit,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes, wondering if his father was that mean man who had snapped at my mother when we’d first arrived in Jwahir. I wanted to shout at him, “Then the Nurus will come and tear you apart, rape your wife, and create another like me! You’re a fool!” I could feel Mwita next to me willing me to keep quiet.