CHAPTER 33

“WE DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS,” Diti said.

“Shut up,” I snapped. As far as I was concerned, what happened to me was as much her and Binta’s fault as it was those men’s.

We returned to the market. It was nearly one a.m. and people were finally starting to pack up their wares. Thankfully, a woman selling rapas was still open. News of what had happened traveled fast. By the time we got to the market, everyone knew who I was and what I’d done to the men who’d tried to “proposition” me for “entertainment.”

The woman selling the rapas gave me a thick lovely multicolored rapa that was treated with weather gel so that it would remain cool in the heat. She refused my money, insisting she didn’t want any trouble. She also gave me a matching top made from the same material. I put on the grand outfit and threw away my torn clothes. As was the style in Banza, both items fit closely, accentuating my breasts and hips.

How did these people know that I could bring things back to life? Diti, Luyu, and Binta may have guessed I had the potential to do so but they didn’t know the details. I hadn’t even told Mwita about that day I’d brought the goat back to life. Nor did I tell him about how Aro had me bring back a recently dead camel.

Afterward, Aro carried me into Mwita’s hut. I was in a partial coma. The camel had been dead for an hour which meant I had a long way to chase and bring back its spirit. Mwita never told me what he said to Aro after he saw me or what he did to bring me back. But after I recovered, Mwita wouldn’t speak to Aro for a month.

Since then, I’d brought a mouse, two birds, and one dog back to life. Each time was easier. With any of these instances, someone could have seen me, especially with the dog. I’d found it lying on the road. A little thing with brown fur. It was still warm, so there was no time to take it to a private place. I healed it right there. It got up, licked my hand, and ran, I presume, home. Then I went home and threw up dog hair and blood.

By the time we made it to the top of the highest hill, we were exhausted. The two-story house was large and plain. As we approached it, I smelled incense and heard someone singing.

“Holy people,” Fanasi said.

Fanasi knocked on the door. The singing inside stopped and there were footsteps. The door opened. I remembered where I’d heard the name Banza as soon as I saw his face. Luyu, Binta, and Diti must have realized it as well for they gasped.

He was tall and dark-skinned, just like the Ada. This was half of the Ada ’s darkest secret. “They’ve never come to see me,” she’d said.

“Fanta,” I said. Oh, yes, I still remembered the Ada ’s twins’ names. “Where’s your sister Nuumu?”

He stared at me for a long moment. “Who are you?” he asked.

“My name is Onyesonwu,” I said.

His eyes grew wide and without hesitation, he took my hand and pulled me in and said, “She’s this way.”

The woman who’d told us to go to the house on the hill was a selfish she-goat. She didn’t direct us there out of compassion. As you know, twins bring good luck. Banza was small and flawed but it was relatively happy and prosperous. But now one of its twins was sick. Fanta led us through the main room that smelled like sweet bread and the children who’d eaten it here.

“We teach children here,” Fanta said, briskly. “They love this place, but they love my sister more.” He led us up a flight of stairs and down a hallway, stopping in front of a closed door painted with trees. A dense mythical forest. It was beautiful. Among the trees were eyes, some small, large, blue, brown, yellow. “Just her,” he said to Mwita.

Mwita nodded. “We’ll wait out here.”

“There’s a room down the hall,” Fanta said. “See the one with the light on?”

Fanta and I watched them walk into the room. Mwita paused for a moment and met my eyes. I nodded. “Don’t worry,” I said.

“I’m not,” Mwita said. “Fanta, come get me if you need to.”

Entering the Ada ’s house was like walking into the bottom of a lake. Walking into the Ada ’s daughter’s room was like entering a forest-a place I’d never seen even in my visions. Like the door, the walls were painted from ceiling to floor with trees, bushes, and plants. I frowned as I approached her bed. Something wasn’t right with the way she was lying. I could hear her breathing: shallow, harsh, difficult.

“This is Onyesonwu the sorceress from the East, sister,” Fanta said.

Her eyes widened and her breathing grew more labored.

“It’s late,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

Nuumu waved a shaking hand. “My name,” she wheezed.”… is Nuumu.”

I stepped closer. She looked as much like the Ada as her brother did. But something was very wrong with her. She looked as if she were in one place and her hips in another. She smiled at my scrutiny, wheezing loudly. “Come.”

I understood when I got closer. Her spine was twisted. Twisted like a snake in midstride. She couldn’t breathe well because her lungs were being crushed by the aggressive curvature of her spine.

“I…wasn’t always… like this,” Nuumu said.

“Go and get Mwita,” I told Fanta.

“Why?”

“He’s a better healer than I,” I snapped.

I turned to Nuumu after he had left. “We came to your town hours ago. We were looking for two of our companions. We found them in a tavern where four men tried to rape me because I am Ewu. A woman begged us to come here. We hoped for food, rest, and apologetic treatment. I didn’t come to heal you.”

“Did… I ask… you to heal me?”

“Not in so many words,” I said. I rubbed my forehead. This was all mixed up. I was all mixed up.

“I… I’m sorr… y,” Nuumu said. “We… all are born… with burdens. S… some of us… more than… others.”

Mwita and Fanta came in. Mwita looked at the walls and then at Nuumu.

“This is Mwita,” I said.

“May I?” Mwita asked Nuumu. She nodded. He helped her carefully sit up, listened to her chest, and looked at her back. “Can you feel your feet?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you been like this?” he asked.

“Since… thirteen,” she said. “But it has… gotten worse… with time.”

“She’s always had to walk with a cane,” Fanta said. “People know her to be bent but only recently has she been confined to a bed.”

“Scoliosis,” Mwita said. “Curvature of the spine. It’s hereditary, but that doesn’t always explain it. Most common in girls, but boys get it, too. Nuumu, Have you always been slim?”

“Yes,” she said

“It tends to affect the slimmer figured more severely,” he said. “You breathe the way you do because your lungs are compressed.”

I looked at Mwita and knew all I needed to know. She would die. Soon.

“I want to talk to Onyesonwu,” he said, taking my hand and leading me out.

Once in the hallway, he softly told me, “She’s doomed.”

“Unless…”

“You don’t know what the consequences will be,” he said. “And who are these people anyway?” We stood there for a moment.

“You’re the one always telling me to have faith,” I said after a while. “You don’t think we’ve been led here? Those are the Ada ’s children.”

Mwita frowned and shook his head. “She never had any children with Aro.”

I scoffed. “What do your eyes tell you? They look just like her. And she did have children. When she was fifteen, some stupid boy got her pregnant. She told me about it. Her parents sent her to Banza to have them. Twins.”

I walked back in.

“Fanta, we have to bring her outside for this,” I said.

He frowned at me. “What are you…”

“You know who I am,” I said. “Don’t ask questions. I can only do it outside.”

Mwita and Fanasi helped, while Diti, Luyu, and Binta followed, afraid to ask what was happening. The sight of the twisted woman was enough to keep them quiet.

“Lay her here,” I said, motioning next to a palm tree. “Right on the ground.”