“Okay,” I mumbled. I reached out again. This time I endured the pain, the sound and smell of my skin burning. I cracked off one of her scales. Smoke rose from my hand and I wanted to scream but even through the smoke I could see that I was unharmed.

Because we were ascending higher and higher, it was hard to concentrate. Still, with the scale in hand, changing into a Kponyungo was only mildly difficult. I stretched my new sleek body, enjoying the heat of myself. I resisted the strong urge to swiftly fly downward, burrow deep into the sand, and heat my body so intensely that the sand melted into glass. I laughed to myself. Even if I’d wanted to, I could not. I wasn’t the one controlling this journey, the Kponyungo was. I wondered if this was also why I couldn’t grow my body as big as hers. I could only stretch to about three-fourths her size.

“Well done,” she said when I finished. “Now let me take you to a place you have never seen before.”

We zoomed toward the storm wall and plunged into it. We came out the other side in less than a second. The position of the sun told me that we were flying west. We flew in a half circle and headed east. “There is Papa Shee,” she said, a minute later.

I barely glanced at that evil place where the people had brutally taken Binta’s life and would forever suffer blindness. Generation after generation. I’d cursed Papa Shee and all who were born in it. I cursed it again as we passed.

“There is your Jwahir,” she said.

I tried to slow down so I could see, but she pulled me along. I saw nothing more than a blur of distant buildings. Still, even as we passed it in the blink of an eye, I could feel my home calling to me, trying to draw me back. My mother. Aro. Nana the Wise. The Ada. Had her son Fanta arrived in Jwahir to surprise her yet?

The Kponyungo and I flew over vast lands; the dryness I had always known. Sand. Hardpan. Stunted trees. Dry dead grass. We moved too fast for me to spot the occasional camel, sand fox, hawk we must have passed over. I wondered where we were going. And I wondered if I should be afraid. It was impossible to tell how much time was passing or how far we were going. I felt no hunger or thirst. No need to urinate or defecate. No need to sleep. I was no longer human, no longer a physical beast.

I glanced at her eyes every so often. She was a giant lizard of heat and light. But she was more, too. I just had a feeling. Who was she? She’d glance back at me, as if she knew what I was wondering. But she said nothing.

A long time and a long distance later, the land below suddenly changed. The trees we passed were taller here. We flew faster. So fast that all I could see was light brown. Then darker brown. Then… green.

“Behold,” she said, finally slowing down.

Greeeeen! As I’d never seen it. As I’d never imagined it. This made the field of green I’d seen when I’d gone “away” with Mwita that first time seem tiny. From horizon to horizon the ground was alive with dense high leafy trees. Is this even possible? I wondered. Does this place really exist?

I met the Kponyungo’s eyes and they glowed a deeper orange-yellow. “It does,” she said.

My chest ached, but it was a good ache. It was an ache of… home. This place was too far to ever get to. But maybe someday it would not be. Maybe someday. It’s vastness made the violence and hatred between the Okeke and Nuru seem small. On and on this place went. We flew low enough to touch the treetops. I caressed the leaf of a strange palm tree.

A large eaglelike bird flew up from a nearby tree. Another tree blooming with large bright pink flowers was crowded with large blue and yellow butterflies. In other treetops sat furry beasts with long arms and curious eyes. They watched us fly by. A breeze sent ripples in the treetops like wind on a puddle of water. It made a whispering sound that I will never forget. So much green, alive and heavy with water!

She stopped us and we hovered above a large wide tree. I smiled. An iroko tree. Just like the one I’d found myself in the first time my Eshu abilities manifested and I’d changed into a sparrow. This tree was also fruiting its bitter-smelling fruit. We landed on one of its large branches. Somehow, it bore our weight.

A family of those furry beasts sat on the far side of the tree’s top staring at us, unmoving. It was almost comical. What must they have understood with their eyes? Had they ever seen two giant wiry lizards that glowed like the sun and smelled of smoke and steam? Doubtful.

“I will send you back in a moment,” she said, ignoring the furry monkeylike creatures, which still had not moved. “For now, take this place in, hold it close to you. Remember it.”

What I remember most about it was the deep sense of hope it placed in my heart. If a forest, a true vast forest, still existed someplace, even if it was very very far away, then all would not end badly. It meant there was life outside the Great Book. It was like being blessed, cleansed.

Nevertheless, when the Kponyungo returned me to Ssolu, after I’d made my body human again, I had to work hard to remember any of this. As soon as I was back in my own skin, the sickness descended upon me like a thousand scorpions sent by my father.

CHAPTER 46

BUT IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH MY FATHER and everything to do with the masquerade’s visit. Or so the sorcerer Ssaiku said. When I returned to myself after my visit to the green place, Ssaiku, Ting, and Mwita were waiting for me. We were in my tent. Incense was burning, Ssaiku was humming some forlorn tune and Mwita was staring at me. As soon as I lay atop my body, he smiled and nodded and said, “She’s back.”

I smiled back at him but then immediately cringed as I realized that every muscle in my body was clenching.

“Drink this,” Mwita said, holding a cup to my lips. Whatever it was caused my muscles to relax within a minute. Only when Mwita and I were alone did I tell him all that I had seen. I never got to hear what he thought of it all because as soon as I finished telling the story, I slipped into the wilderness, which to him meant I nearly disappeared. When I slipped back into the physical world, I returned again to painfully cramped muscles.

It wasn’t the type of illness that made you vomit, burn with fever, or suffer bouts of diarrhea. It was spiritual. Food repulsed me. The wilderness and the physical world battled for prominence around me. My awareness fluctuated between heightened and dulled. I mostly stayed in my tent the rest of those days before the retreat.

Fanasi and Diti peeked into my tent every so often. Fanasi brought me bread that I didn’t eat. Diti tried to start conversations with me that I couldn’t finish. They looked like mice waiting for the right moment to flee. The sight of the masquerade must have really made it clear that I was not just a sorceress but also connected to mysterious and dangerous forces.

Luyu stayed with me whenever Mwita could not. She sat with me when I disappeared and when I reappeared in the same place, she’d still be there. She’d look terrified but she’d still be there. She didn’t ask me any questions and when we talked, she’d tell me about the men she bedded or other mundane things. She was the only one who could make me laugh.