Akata Witch

to be that terrible river. It was cold and turbulent, threatening to rip her apart, but she was moving too fast, dragged up through whipping river debris and bubbles and underwater noise and currents.

Then, just as suddenly as she was taken-splat!-she was back in the hut. She inhaled incense-tinged air. She sneezed, but at least now she could breathe. She tasted gritty mud on her breath and it coated her lips, throat, and nostrils. Several small but heavy things were dropping around her. They hit each other with a metallic chink chink chink chink.

“No. Step back,” she heard Anatov say. He whispered a phrase, and then she felt something rough wrap itself around her body.

“Who’d have thought?” she heard Chichi whisper.

Sunny decided to open her eyes. Her face felt tight and tingly. When she looked around everything was deep, colorful, and almost too alive, like when they’d made the trust knot.

“What happened?” she mumbled, and froze. Her voice was deep and throaty, like some sultry, glamorous woman who smoked too many cigarettes. When she got up, her movements felt effortless, amazing, full of poise and grace.

She stood up, her shoulders back and her head held straight and high. When she touched her face, it was with gently held arms and softly curved hands and lightly parted fingers, like a ballet dancer.

“Look at her,” she heard Orlu sigh. “I’ve never seen that kind before.”

“Oh? And how many ‘kinds’ have you seen?” she heard Chichi snap. “Why don’t you have some decency and turn away?” When Sunny looked at them, she saw that Chichi, who was looking away, had pink sparks jumping off of her and Orlu was dripping with almost invisible blue water. She didn’t look at Anatov.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Enough. Can this stop now?” She felt whatever was holding her up shrink into her, like it was a genie and she was the bottle. She staggered and sat down heavily on the floor. When she looked down, she was wearing some kind of dress made of light brown raffia. She touched her neck and was relieved to find that at least her gold necklace was still there. Her sandals were still on her feet, too.

“You passed! I knew it,” Chichi said, throwing her arms around Sunny and pulling her up. “I knew I was right.”

“My clothes!” At least her voice was normal again. “Where-?”

“Forget your clothes,” Chichi said. “You passed!”

Anatov came toward them, a wicker chair following of its own volition, like a faithful dog. He sat down. “Orlu,” Anatov said, “put the chittim in her purse.”

She stared as Orlu took her purse and scooped the handfuls of fist-size horseshoe-shaped copper rods into it.

“Rare,” Anatov said, still looking at her. “Just as it’s rare for a pure Igbo girl to have skin and hair the color of washedout paper, so it is for one to be a free agent. Neither of your parents, I assume?”

“What?” she asked.

“Are Leopard People.”

“I-I guess not,” she said. “Not that I know of.”

“If you don’t know, then they aren’t. No mysterious aunts, uncles, grandparents?”

“Well,” she said. Her throat was sore and she wanted to get the taste of dirt out of her mouth. “My-my grandmother on my mother’s side was… a little strange, I think. Maybe she was mentally ill. My mother won’t talk about her much.”

“Ah,” he said. “And let me guess, she’s passed on.”

She nodded. “Some years ago.”

“She look like you?”

“No.”

“Do you know her name? Her true name, the name before she was married?”

She shook her head.

“Hmm,” he said. “In any case, you’re what we call a free agent Leopard Person. You’re in a Leopard spirit line… somehow. It’s not a blood thing. Leopard ability doesn’t travel in the physical. Though blood is familiar with spirit.

“It may have been through your grandmother or she may have just been crazy, who knows. It’s known to happen once in a while, but rarely. Most Leopard People are like your friends here, born to two sorcerer parents- strong ancestor connections. They are the most powerful, usually. Those born to one parent can’t do much of anything unless they have an especially expensive juju knife or something like that or if they come from an especially adept mother. It travels strongest from woman to child, since she’s the one who has the closest spiritual bond with the developing fetus.

“And to tell you what’s just happened-you’ve been initiated.” He paused. “Do you use computers?”

She blinked at the odd question. Then she nodded.

“Of course you do,” he said. “Imagine that you are a computer that came with programs and applications already installed. In order to use them, they have to be activated; you have to, in a sense, wake them up. That’s what initiation is. You were probably ready for initiation around when these two were, two years ago. You have anything odd happen to you recently?”

Sunny’s mouth went dry.

“What happened?” he asked more intently.

It was a relief to tell him about what she had seen in the candle flame. But when she finished, she didn’t like the look on Anatov’s face. “Are you sure this is what you saw?” he asked quietly. She nodded. “Hmm. That’s… interesting.”

“Why don’t you start from the beginning, Oga?” Orlu said. “All you’re doing is confusing her.”

“That’s your job,” Anatov said, annoyed. “Teach her the rules, too. I expect you all back here in four nights. Twelve midnight, sharp.”

“What?” Sunny said. “I can’t-”

“You’re now a Leopard girl,” Anatov said, getting up. “Find a way.” Business completed, he turned to Orlu and grinned. “Guess who arrived today?”

Orlu groaned. “Already? Come on.”

“Your mother didn’t remind you?” Anatov said with a laugh. “She, his mother Keisha, and I have been talking about it for a week. Maybe your mother wanted to surprise you.”

“I hate surprises,” Orlu mumbled.

Chichi laughed. “If not for Sunny, we wouldn’t have come today.”

“Things have a way of working themselves out,” Anatov said. “It’s as I taught you: the world is bigger and more important than you.”

Orlu grunted.

“So,” Chichi asked, looking around, “where is he?”

“Who?” Sunny asked, rubbing her forehead. She had a headache.

“Sasha!” Anatov called. A voice responded from somewhere outside. Anatov sucked his teeth, irritated. “What are you doing? Get over here,” he said in his American-accented English.

“Sasha?” Chichi whispered to Sunny in Igbo. “What kind of name is that for a boy?”

Sunny was tired and confused, but she couldn’t help but giggle. It was a girly name. Still, the boy who entered the hut wasn’t girly at all.

“What took you so long?” Anatov asked sternly in English.

“I was taking a nap,” Sasha said, blinking and rubbing his eyes. He, too, spoke with a strong American accent. “Still got jetlag, man.” He wiped his face with his hand.

“Sasha, meet Orlu, Sunny, and Chichi,” Anatov said formally.

“Hey,” Sasha said coolly, thrusting his hands in his pockets. “’S up?”

Everything about him said “America.” His baggy jeans, his white T-shirt with a logo on the chest, and his super white Nike sneakers. He was tall and lanky like Sunny and he had tightly cornrowed hair that extended into long braids that went past his neck, and a gold nose ring like Anatov’s.

“Good afternoon,” the three friends said together in English.

His eyes fell on Sunny.