Akata Witch

lowered her eyes.

“I hate sitting for too long,” she said. “It’s uncomfortable. Even with this hard, sturdy chair. Walk with me.”

Sunny quickly followed her out. She couldn’t help staring at Sugar Cream’s back. One shoulder was higher than the other, and her spine curved in a most profound S. Had she been like this as a baby? Maybe this was why her parents had abandoned her. But if they were Leopard People, they’d have jumped for joy at this deformity.

“You should know how it is,” Sugar Cream said, turning to her. “When people stare at you from behind. You always know when they’re doing it.”

Sunny stepped back. “I-I didn’t mean to.”

“I have severe scoliosis. And no, I was not born this way. And I don’t think I was abandoned by my parents. I think they were killed.”

Despite her deformity, Sugar Cream walked briskly. She greeted the students they passed. “Good afternoon, Oga,” an old white man with a British accent shyly said.

“Good afternoon, Albert,” she said.

When they were alone again, Sunny asked what she’d wanted to ask since Sugar Cream had stood up. “I was wondering… what ability do you have?”

“I’m a shape-shifter, as you are.”

“No, I’m not,” Sunny said. She froze, mortified by her rudeness.

“Can you not turn yourself into something like warm vapor? You’re a type of shape-shifter. I can become a snake,” she said, making her hand move in an S motion. “My ability is a physical manifestation. Yours is spiritual. The reason you can become vapor is because you can step into the spirit world, literally. I doubt you’ve done this yet. You’d know it if you had.”

“How do I-”

“Only when you want to,” she said. “To enter the spirit world completely, you have to die. So for you to do it, you have to die a little.” She paused and looked at Sunny. “Would you like to learn?”

“I… don’t know,” she said uneasily. “Not really.” Who would want to learn how to die?

They passed a group of students who cautiously greeted Sugar Cream. “The students you see here are the most advanced,” she said. “All who make it here will most likely pass Ndibu, the third level; most likely none will pass Oku Akama, the highest level. It’s been years since anyone has.”

They passed some tall shelves and piles of books. “How does the library keep track of all the books?” Sunny asked. “A lot of them seem…” she trailed off. She wanted to say, “thrown about.”

Sugar Cream laughed. “Don’t be fooled. All books here are accounted for. They’re marked. When they need to be found, they will be.”

“How?”

“Depends on who wants to find it,” she said. They went back to her office, where she sat on the arm of her bronze chair. Sunny remained standing. “Anatov was going to send you here in two weeks. I was going to decide whether or not I would mentor you. Now that you’ve behaved so stupidly, my decision is harder. I need to think about it.”

Sunny’s heart sank. It didn’t matter that she had avoided being whipped or thrown in the library basement; Chichi, Orlu, and even Sasha-who never missed a chance to make trouble-had mentors. For them it had been so simple and obvious. Her path to anything seemed to always be difficult. And she hated how everyone was acting as if she should know the rules so well. It was ridiculous. Couldn’t Sugar Cream cut her some slack?

“You chose to do what you did,” Sugar Cream said. “So don’t stand there angry at me. For me to mentor you would be a great honor, an honor reserved for a mature girl or boy. You’d be the one and only student I mentor. Your case is complicated.” She sighed. “But you most certainly should be involved in this. I have no doubt about that.”

“How are you so sure?” she asked. Inside she was crying. “I mean, you see how I am, what I did, and you’re rethinking wanting to mentor me. How are you so sure I should even be part of this Oha coven group thing?”

Sugar Cream shook her head, a sad look on her face. “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask.”

Sunny waited for her to go on. “Listen. It was your grandmother, Ozoemena, who taught Otokoto all he knows. She was his mentor. And it was Otokoto who killed your grandmother in a ritual to steal her abilities as he stole her life. You want to know why he is so powerful? All you need to look at is who your grandmother was and who Otokoto was before he became the infamous Black Hat.”

Sunny had no words.

“Yes,” she said. “So you see why this is complicated.”

Soon after that, Sugar Cream sent Sunny home. Sunny remembered saying good-bye and feeling even more like a criminal. She’d walked down the stairs and felt like a criminal. And she got into the council car, feeling like a criminal. She felt unworthy, childish, stupid, and worthless. On top of all this, she was the granddaughter of the scholar who taught a murderous psychopath. Her guilt tired her out so much that she slept the entire drive home.

She spent much of that evening in her room, staring off into space, thinking and thinking about all Sugar Cream told her. She still had homework to do. By eleven P.M., she’d fallen asleep on her books.

Sunny heard knocking. She thought she was dreaming. When it didn’t stop, she swam up to wakefulness and groggily opened her eyes. Aside from her reading lamp, her room was dark. Then she saw a tiny light at the window. She froze, her brain for some reason going all the way back to when she was two and burning up from malaria. The light watched over me.

She blinked, fully waking up. It was the light of a firefly. She slowly opened the window. Sasha, Orlu, and Chichi stood below. “Come down,” Orlu whispered loudly. “Meet us outside the gate.”

She quickly dressed, then made herself invisible and swooped out of the window. When she emerged from the gate, Chichi threw her arms around her. “You’re all right!” she said happily. “I heard you beat the hell out of Jibaku.”

“You okay?” Sasha asked.

“Yeah,” Sunny said.

“We were worried,” Orlu said.

“You didn’t sound like it when they took me away,” Sunny said, annoyed.

“Why’d you have to do it?” Orlu said. “You should-”

“Who cares?” she said. “And you know why, anyway. You of all people.”

“I was about to fight Jibaku’s boyfriend,” Orlu said. “He’s three years older than me and bigger. But I still wouldn’t have done what you did!”

She sighed loudly, rolling her eyes.

“I had to see the council once, too,” Sasha said, putting his arm around Sunny. “Back when I set that masquerade on those guys harassing my sister.” He paused. “I was caned twenty times and then ordered to be sent here.”

“You were actually caned?” Chichi asked, looking shocked.

“I have the scars to show for it,” Sasha said coldly. He met Orlu’s eyes and then turned to Sunny. “I never expected you to get in my kind of trouble.”

“I just lost it, I guess.”

“So what happened?” Chichi asked.

After she told them everything, including the part about her grandmother, they were all quiet. Then Chichi said, “Your grandmother would have been the one to bring you in, if she’d have lived.”

“He must have eaten some of her flesh,” Sasha said. “That’s the only-”

Chichi angrily shushed him. “She doesn’t need to know that.”

Sunny felt ill. Chichi pushed Sasha away and put her arm around Sunny’s shoulder.

“Sunny, try to find out more about your grandmother,” Orlu said. “If they know about your grandmother’s abilities, then we’ll know that much more about Black Hat.”