Epilogue

I SAT WITH HER ALL THOSE HOURS, typing and listening, mostly listening. Onyesonwu. She looked at her symboled hands and then brought them to her face. Finally, she wept. “It’s done,” she sobbed. “Leave me now.”

At first I refused but then I saw her face change. I saw it become like a tiger’s face, stripes and fur and sharp teeth. I ran out of there clutching my laptop. I didn’t sleep that night. She haunted me. She could’ve escaped, flown away, made herself invisible, moved herself into the astral world and run off, or “glided” off as she liked to say. But she wouldn’t do any of that. Because of what she’d seen during her initiation. She was like a character locked in a story. It was truly awful.

The next time I saw her was as they dragged her to that hole in the ground and buried her to her neck. They’d chopped off her long bushy hair and what was left stood on end, as defiant as she was. I stood in the crowd of men and few women. Everyone was shouting for blood and revenge. “Kill the Ewu!” “Tear her apart, o!” “Ewu demon!” People laughed and jeered. “The Okeke Savior is uglier than the Okeke!” “Sorceress indeed, she is capable of nothing but hurting our eyes,” “Ewu murderer!”

I noticed a tall bearded man with a partially burned face, what looked like a severely mangled leg, and only one arm. He was near the front leaning on a staff. Like everyone else, he was Nuru. Unlike everyone else he was calm, observant. I’d never seen Daib but Onyesonwu had described him clearly. I’m sure this was him.

What happened when those rocks hit her head? I’m still asking that. There was light that flowed from her, a mixture of blue and green. The sand surrounding her buried body began to melt. More happened, but I dare not mention it all. Those things are only for those of us who were there, the witnesses.

Then the ground shook and people started running. I think in that moment, everyone, all of us Nuru understood where we’d gone wrong. Maybe her rewriting had finally kicked in. We were all sure that Ani had come to grind us back to dust. So much had already happened. Onyesonwu told the truth. The entire town of Durfa, all the fertile men were wiped out and all the fertile women were vomiting and pregnant.

The young children didn’t know what to do. There was chaos in the streets all over the Seven Kingdoms. Many of the remaining Okeke refused to work and that caused more chaos and violence. The Seer Rana, who had predicted something would happen, was dead. Daib’s building had burned to the ground. We were all sure it was the end.

So, we left her there. In that hole. Dead.

But my sister and I didn’t run far. We went back after fifteen minutes. My sister… yes, I am a twin. My sister, my twin, she uses my computer. And she has been reading Onyesonwu’s story. She came with me to the execution. And when it was all over, we were the only ones who returned.

And because my sister knew Onyesonwu’s story, and because she is my twin, she was unafraid. As twins, we’ve always felt a responsibility to do good in the world. My status as one of Chassa’s twins was why they allowed me to see her in jail. It’s what drove me to take down her story. And it is what will help me fight to publish it and keep my sister and myself safe through the backlash. My parents were two of the few Nuru who thought it was all wrong, the way we lived, behaved, the Great Book. They didn’t believe in Ani. So my sister and I grew up nonbelievers, too.

As we were walking back to Onyesonwu’s body, my sister yelped. When I looked at her, she was floating an inch off the ground. My sister can fly. We would later find out that she was not the only one. All the women, Okeke and Nuru, found that something had changed about them. Some could turn wine to fresh sweet drinking water, others glowed in the dark at night, some could hear the dead. Others remembered the past, before the Great Book. Others could peruse the spirit world and still live in the physical. Thousands of abilities. All bestowed upon women. There it was. Onye’s gift. In the death of herself and her child, Onye gave birth to us all. This place will never be the same. Slavery here is over.

We removed her body from that hole. It was not easy because all around her was melted sand, glass. We had to shatter it to get her out. My sister cried the entire time, her feet barely touching the ground. I cried, too. But we took her. My sister removed her veil and covered Onye’s broken head with it. We used a camel to help take her body out to the desert, east of here. We brought another camel with us to carry the wood. We burned Onyesonwu’s corpse on the funeral pyre she deserved and we buried her ashes near two palm trees. As we filled in the hole, a vulture landed in the tree and watched. When we finished, it flew away. We said a few words for Onyesonwu and then went home.

It was the most we could do for the woman who saved the people of the Seven Rivers Kingdom, this place that used to be part of the Kingdom of Sudan.

CHAPTER 61 – Peacock

CHAPTER 62 – Sola Speaks

AH, BUT THE GREAT BOOK HAD BEEN REWRITTEN. In Nsibidi at that.

Over those first few days in Durfa, there was change. Some women began encountering the ghosts of those men wiped out by Onyewsonwu’s… impetuous actions. Some ghosts became living men again. No one dared ask how this was possible. Smart. Other ghosts eventually vanished. Onyesonwu might have been remotely interested in all this. But then again, she had other concerns.

Recall that the daughter of my student-gone-wrong was Eshu, a fundamental shape shifter. Onyesonwu’s very essence was change and defiance. Daib had to have known this even as he flew from his burning headquarters where the body of Onyesonwu’s dead love, Mwita, became ash. Daib, who was now crippled and could no longer see color or work the Mystic Points without suffering unheard of pain. Certainly there are things worse than death.

Indeed, Onyesonwu did die, for something must be written before it can be rewritten. But now, see the sign of the peacock. Onyesonwu left it in the dirt of her holding cell. This symbol is scribbled by a sorcerer who believes he has been wronged. Once in a while, it is scribbled by a sorceress, too. It means, “one is going to take action.” Is it not understandable that she’d want to live in the very world she helped remake? That indeed is a more logical destiny.

CHAPTER 1 – Rewritten

“LET THEM COME, THEN,” Onyesonwu said, looking down at the symbol she’d scratched in the sand. The proud peacock. The symbol was complaint. Argument. Insistence. She looked down at herself and nervously rubbed her thighs. They’d put her in a long coarse white dress. It felt like another prison. They’d chopped off her hair. They’d had the nerve to chop off her hair. She stared at her hands-the circles, swirls and lines were woven into complex designs snaking up her wrists.

She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes in the sunshine. The world became red. They were coming. Any moment now. She knew. She’d seen it. Years ago, she’d seen it.

Someone grabbed her with such roughness that she grunted. Her eyes flew open, bitter rage flooding her body and spirit. Bright red in the hot sunshine. She’d cured everything, yet in doing so her friends had died, her Mwita… oh, her beloved Mwita, her life, her death. The fury filled her. She could hear her daughter raging, too. Her daughter had the roar of a lion.