THE NEXT DAY, we started off before dawn. West. Due west. We had a compass and we had the not too harsh sun. Luyu, Fanasi, Diti, and Binta started playing a guessing game. I wasn’t in the mood, so I hung back. Mwita walked ahead of all of us. He hadn’t spoken more than a “good morning” to me since we got up. Luyu left the guessing game to walk with me. “Stupid game,” she said, hoisting her pack up.

“I agree,” I said.

After a moment, she put her hand on my shoulder and stopped me. “So what’s been going on with you two?”

I glanced at the others as they kept moving and shook my head.

She frowned, annoyed. “Don’t keep me in the dark. I’m not moving another step until you tell me something.”

“Suit yourself.” I started walking.

She followed me. “Onye, I’m your friend. Let me in on some of this. You and Mwita will tear each other apart if you don’t share some of the load. I’m sure Mwita confides some in Fanasi.”

I looked at her.

“They talk,” she said. “You see how they go off sometimes. You can talk to me.”

It was probably true. The two were different, Fanasi traditional by upbringing and Mwita nontraditional by birth, but sometimes difference leads to sameness.

“I don’t want Diti and Binta to know these things,” I said after a moment.

“Of course,” Luyu said.

“I…” Suddenly, I felt like crying. I swallowed. “I’m Aro’s student.”

“I know,” she said frowning deeply “You were initiated and…”

“And… there are consequences to it,” I said.

“The headaches,” she said.

I nodded.

“We all know that,” Luyu said.

“But it’s not so simple. The headaches are because of something. They’re… ghosts of the future.” We’d stopped walking.

“Of what in the future?”

“How I die,” I said. “Part of initiation is to face your own death.”

“And how do you die?”

“I’m taken before a mob of Nurus, buried to my neck, and stoned to death.”

Luyu flared her nostrils. “How… how old are you when it happens?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see my face.”

“Your headaches, they feel like the stones thrown at your head?” she said.

I nodded.

“Oh, Ani,” she said. She put her arm around me.

“There’s one other thing,” I said, after a moment. “The prophecy was wrong…”

“It will be an Ewu woman,” Luyu said.

“How did…”

“I guessed. It makes more sense now.” She chuckled. “I walk with a legend.”

I smiled sadly. “Not yet.”

OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, Mwita and I found it hard to talk to each other. But when we retired, we couldn’t keep our hands off of each other. I was still afraid of getting pregnant but our physical needs were greater. There was such love between us, yet we couldn’t speak. It was the only way. We tried to be quiet, but everyone heard us. Mwita and I were so wrapped up in ourselves during the night and then during the day in our dark thoughts, that this wasn’t our concern. It was only when Diti accosted me one cold evening that I realized something was festering among us.

She’d kept her voice low but she looked ready to jump me. “What is wrong with you?” she said kneeling beside me.

I looked up from the stew of hare and cactus I was stirring, irritated by her tone. “You’re invading my space, Diti.”

She moved closer. “We all hear you two every night! You’re like desert hares. If you don’t watch yourself, there will be more than six of us arriving in the West. No one will take well to an Ewu baby of Ewu parents.”

It took everything in my power not to smack her across the face with my wooden spoon. “Step away from me,” I warned.

“No,” she said but she looked afraid. “I’m-I’m sorry.” She touched my shoulder and I looked at her hand. She took it away. “You don’t have to flaunt it, Onye.”

“What are you…”

“If you’ve mastered all this sorcery, why don’t you cure us?” she said. “Or are you the only woman here allowed to enjoy intercourse?”

Before I could speak, Luyu came running. “Hey!” she said, pointing behind us. “Hey! What is that?”

We turned. Were my eyes deceiving me? A pack of sand-colored wild dogs were running so fast toward us that they kicked up a wake of dust. Flanking the dogs were two shaggy, single-humped camels and five gazelles with long spiraling horns. Above them flew seven hawks. “Leave everything!” I shouted. “Run!”

Diti, Fanasi, and Luyu took off, dragging a stunned Binta along.

“Mwita, come on!” I shouted, when he still hadn’t come out of our tent where I knew he was napping. I unzipped the flap. He was still deep in sleep. “Mwita!” I screamed, the pounding of hooves drowning everything out.

His eyes cracked opened. They grew wide. He grabbed me to him as they came. We curled into each other as tightly as we could as the large beasts pounded throughout camp. The dogs went for my stew, dragging the pot away from the fire, despite the heat. The gazelles and camels rooted around in the tents. Mwita and I were silent as they stuck their heads into our tent and took what they wanted. One of the camels found my store of cactus candy. It stared at us as it munched the fruit with what only could have been pleasure. I cursed.

Another camel stuck its muzzle into a bucket and lapped up all the water. The hawks swooped down, snatching up the hare meat Diti and Binta were drying. When they finished, the united animals trotted off.

“Rule one of the rules of the desert,” I said crawling out of the tent. “Never turn down a travel companion if it doesn’t plan to eat you. I wonder how long those animals have been working together like that.”

“Fanasi and I will have to go hunting tonight,” Mwita said.

Luyu, Diti, Binta, and Fanasi came walking back looking angry.

“We should kill and eat all of them,” Binta said.

“You attack one and they’ll all attack you,” I said.

We salvaged whatever food we could, which wasn’t much. That evening, Fanasi, Mwita, and Luyu, who’d insisted on accompanying them, set out to hunt and gather. Diti avoided me by playing a game of Warri with Binta. I warmed some water for a much needed bath. As I stood behind my tent in the dark and poured the warm water on myself, a fly bit me on the arm. Part of the rock fire’s juju was to keep biting insects away but once in a while an insect snuck in. I smashed it on my ankle. It exploded into a smear of blood.

“Ugh,” I said, washing it off. The bite was already turning bright red. The slightest slap or insect bite always turns my skin redder than normal. It was the same with Mwita. Ewu skin is sensitive in that way. I quickly finished washing.

That night, I noticed that Diti slept in Binta’s tent. She and Fanasi could no longer sleep in each other’s arms. It was that bad.

I KNEW ABOUT THE TOWN HOURS before we got to it. While everyone slept, I had gone flying as a vulture. I flew for miles, riding the cool wind. I needed to think about Diti’s request. I should have known how to break the Eleventh Rite juju. That was the most frustrating part of it. I couldn’t think of a chant, combination of herbs, or use of objects that would work. Aro would have laughed at and insulted my slowness. But I didn’t want to hurt my friends with a mistake.

The winds carried me west and that was how I happened across the town. I saw well-built sandstone buildings glowing with electric lights and cooking fires. A paved road ran through the town from south to north, disappearing in both directions into the darkness. The north was puckered with small hills and one large hill topped with a house lit brightly from within. When I got back to the camp, I woke Mwita and told him about the town.

“There shouldn’t be a town here at all,” he said, looking at the map.