Who Fears Death (Who Fears Death, #1)

by Nnedi Okorafor

“How are you?” Mwita asked, pulling me close. His words were like a key. All the emotion I’d held down suddenly felt ready to burst through my chest. I buried my head in his chest and wept. Minutes passed and my sorrow became fury. I felt a rush in my chest. I wanted so badly to kill my father. It would have been like killing a thousand of those men who attacked me. I would avenge my mother, I would avenge myself. “Breathe,” Mwita whispered. I opened my mouth and inhaled his breath. He kissed me again and quietly, carefully, softly, he spoke the words that few women ever hear from a man. “Ifunanya.”

I could have died when he spoke this word because I’d never ever thought any man would speak it to me, not even Mwita. All the filth those men had heaped on me with their filthy actions and filthy words and filthy ideas, none of it mattered now.

I kept thinking about what Fanasi had said to the camels, how he’d come along mainly to follow Diti. I thought the vision I showed him of what was really happening in the West was his greater motivation to come. I’d forgotten that Fanasi and Diti had loved each other since childhood. They’d wanted to marry since they knew what marriage was. Fanasi had been heartbroken when he’d touched Diti and she’d screamed. For years, he pined away for her before finally gaining the courage to demand her hand in marriage. He wasn’t about to let her leave without him. But, by leaving Jwahir, Diti and Binta discovered life as free women. As the days passed, when Diti and Fanasi weren’t bickering, they ignored each other. Diti permanently moved into Binta’s tent and Binta didn’t mind. Mwita and I could hear the two talking and giggling in hushed voices, sometimes well into the night.

That night, I built a rock fire and cooked up a large stew using two hares. Then I called a meeting. Once everyone was seated, I ladled out stew into chipped porcelain bowls, handing them to each, starting with Fanasi and Diti and ending with Mwita. I watched everyone eat for a while. I’d used salt, herbs, cactus cabbage, and camel milk. The stew was good. “I’ve noticed tension,” I finally said.

There was only the sound of spoons hitting porcelain and sl...

“I know how to break it,” I said loudly, barely able to breathe I was so angry. “I want to help you, you insipid blockhead! I realized how when I was healing Nuumu.” Diti only stared at me.

“Luyu will let you but Binta and Diti . . . that’s going to take some coaxing.” “Or the last of the palm wine,” I said. “By now it’s so fermented that they won’t know their heads from their yeyes after two cups, if I agree to do it. Binta, maybe, but Diti . . . not without a thousand apologies.” I eyed Mwita as he turned to leave the tent. “Make sure you tell that to Fanasi in my exact words,” I said with a smirk.

“I planned to do just that.”

“Diti wants you to . . .” “Then she has to come and ask,” I said. Fanasi frowned. “This isn’t only about her, you know.” “It’s about her first,” I said. I paused for a moment and then sighed. “Tell her to come out and speak with me.” I looked back at Mwita before exiting. He was shirtless and I was taking the cover. He waved a hand at me and said, “Just don’t take too long.” Outside was even cooler. I wrapped the cover more tightly around myself and made for the dwindling rock fire. I raised my hand and swirled the air around it until it grew hot again. I waved some warm air toward my tent.

“You’re right,” Diti said quietly. “I . . . I don’t know what’s been happening to me.” She shook her head. “I don’t hate you....but I hate what you are. I hate that whenever I look at you . . . It’s hard for us, Onye. Eleven years of believing that Ewu people are dirty, lowly, violent people. Then we met you and then Mwita. Both of you are the strangest people we’ve ever met.” “Soon, you too will be viewed as low,” I said. “Soon you’ll understand how I feel wherever I go.” But I was conflicted. Diti and Binta were going through something just as I was, as we all were. And I had to respect that.

Despite it all.

I frowned considering this. When I healed it wasn’t all me. If it wasn’t all me, then who else was it? It was like that moment I told to Luyu, when you wake up and don’t know who you are. “Once I asked Aro what he thought happened when he healed and he said it had something to do with time,” I said. “That you manipulate it to bring back the flesh.” The three of them just stared at me. I shrugged and gave up explaining.

I SPENT MOST OF THE NEXT DAY AS A VULTURE, soaring, relaxing. Then I returned to camp, dressed, and walked for about a mile to a place I had scoped out while flying. I sat under the palm tree, put my veil on my head, and pulled my hands into my garments for protection from the sun. I cleared my head of thought. I didn’t move for three hours. I returned to the camp just before sunset. The camels greeted me first. They were drinking from a bag of water Mwita held for them. They nudged me with their soft wet muzzles. Sandi even licked my cheek, smelling and tasting the wind and sky on my skin.

The night was very cold. We’d come far enough for the weather to change. Though the days remained hot, the nights had become utterly frigid. It rarely got this cold at night in Jwahir. “Who wants to go first?” I asked. They looked at each other. “Why not do it in the order of our rite?” Luyu said. “Binta, you, then Diti?” I said. “Let’s do it the other way around this time,” Binta insisted. “Fine,” Diti said. “I didn’t come here to get scared.” Her voice was shaking.

“All right,” I said. “Ah, Diti, you have to . . .” “I know,” she said, taking her rapa off. Luyu and Binta both looked away. I felt nauseated. Not out of fear but more from a deep sense of discomfort. She would have to spread her legs. But even worse, I had to also place my hands on the scar that was left from that swift cut nine years ago.

“Leave me here,” I said when I finished with Binta. I was out of breath and sweating, still scrubbing my hands with the sand. I could smell all three of them on me and I was twitchy all over. I scrubbed harder. “Go back to the camp.” Neither they nor I needed to check if what I did worked. It had. I understood now that there was no reason to doubt myself with something so simple. “I can do much more,” I said to myself. “But what would I suffer?” I laughed. My hands itched so badly that I wanted to place them on the hot rocks. I held them up in the fire light.

“Oh Ani, what did you make when you made me?” I whispered.

“All you need to do is to wash your hands in the wilderness,” he said. “You used your hands to manipulate time and flesh and now they’re full of flesh and time. Take them to the wilderness where there is no time or flesh and it will stop.” He got up. “Do it now so we can go back.” He was right, I hadn’t been learning or practicing. Since we’d left, I’d only used my abilities when we needed them or when I needed them. I tried to drop into the wilderness. Nothing happened. I was unpracticed, and I had not fasted. I tried harder and still nothing happened. I calmed myself and focused inward. Letting my thoughts peel away, like the flesh on my hands. Gradually the world around me shifted and undulated. I watched the colors for a while as several pink hazes of color circled my head.

“What’s going on?” I asked Binta, who was just standing there crying. “Ask them,” she sobbed. Fanasi turned his back to me. “None of your business,” Diti grumbled, putting her arms around her chest. I went to my tent, disgusted. Behind me, I heard Fanasi tell Diti, “I should never have come with you. I should have let you leave and been done with it.” “Did I ask you to come for me?” Diti said. “You’re so selfish!”

“It was supposed to make things better,” I hissed. “You can’t fix everything,” he said. He held out a bowl to me. “Here, eat.” “No,” I said, putting it aside.

We’d been falling apart since we left but when I broke that juju, the cracks became more permanent. It wasn’t my fault, I know, but back then I felt everything was.

Luyu stayed with me. We lay in my tent practicing Nuru together. “What think Diti’s problem?” Luyu asked in very bad Nuru. “She’s stupid,” I replied in Nuru. “I. . . .” Luyu paused. In Okeke she asked, “How do you say freedom in Nuru?” I told her. She thought for a second and said in Nuru, “Think I . . . Diti taste freedom and now can’t without.” “I think she’s just stupid,” I said again in Nuru.

“You saw how happy she was in that tavern. Some of those men were lovely . . . None of us were ever allowed to be that free in Jwahir.” I laughed. “You were.” She laughed, too. “Because I learned to take what wasn’t given to me.”

I should have woken him up. This was bad. But what right did I have to stop Luyu from going into Fanasi’s tent? I could hear their rhythmic breathing. They went on like this for over an hour. Eventually I drifted off, so who knew when Luyu returned to her tent. We packed up our things before sunrise. Diti and Fanasi didn’t speak to each other. Fanasi tried not to look at Luyu. Luyu acted completely normal. I laughed to myself as we started walking. Who knew there could be such theatrics in a small group in the middle of nowhere?

BETWEEN DITI’S IGNORANT ARROGANCE, Luyu’s boldness, and Fanasi’s confused emotions, the next two weeks were far from boring.

Not far from us a caravan of people traveled to the town, too. Several times during the day, we’d heard the sound of scooters. Once, the camels had grown extremely agitated, roaring and shaking their dusty hides. They’d been behaving strangely of late. The previous night, the camels woke us up when they started roaring at each other. They’d remained kneeling but they looked angry. They were having an argument. When we got to the town, they refused to go any closer. We’d had to leave them a mile back while we went to the town’s market. “Let’s make this fast,” I said, pulling my veil over my head. Mwita did the same.

The two knew each other, for they lived on the same street. From the day they saw each other, there was an odd chemistry. Not love at first sight. I wouldn’t even call it love. Just chemistry. Zoubeir would share his meals with Tia if they found themselves walking home together from school. She would knit him shirts and weave him rings from colored palm fiber. Sometimes they would sit and read together. The only time Zoubeir was quiet and motionless was when he was with Tia.

You know how the story ends. He escaped and went on to become the greatest chief Suntown ever had. He never built a shrine or a temple or even a shack in the name of Tia. In the Great Book, her name is never mentioned again. He never mused about her or even asked where she was buried. Tia was a virgin. She was beautiful. She was poor. And she was a girl. It was her duty to sacrifice her life for his. I’ve always disliked this story.

Fanasi wore the brown pants and stained white shirt I saw him wear almost every day, but he’d shaved his face and head. This brought out his high cheekbones and long neck. Diti wore a blue rapa and top that I hadn’t seen her wear before. Fanasi might have bought it for her in Banza. She’d combed out her large Afro and patted it into a perfect circle. I sucked my teeth when I noticed Fanasi fighting not to look at Diti and hungrily looking at Luyu. He was the most confused man I’d ever seen. “Okay,” Luyu said, leading the way. “Let’s go.”

“Please welcome our guests, Diti, Fanasi, Luyu, Mwita, and Onyesonwu.” Whispers flew through the gathering. “Yes, yes, we all know of this woman, the she-wizard, and her man.” Chief Usson motioned for us to stand. Before so many eyes, I felt my face grow warm. She-wizard? I thought. What kind of title is that?

“That’s Eyess,” Ting said smiling, as the toddler came running to me and tried to take my hand. I tried to yank it away before she could touch me but she was too fast. She snatched my hand, almost making me drop my cloth of food. Large sparks popped. But she only laughed. The little girl who’d been riding with Chieftess Sessa seemed to be immune to whatever afflicted me. She said something to me in the Vah language. “She does not know Ssufi, Eyess,” Ting told her. “Speak in Sipo or Okeke.” “You look strange,” the little girl said in Okeke. I laughed. “I know.” “I like it,” she said. “Is your mother a camel?” “No, my mother is human.” “Then why does your camel tell me she takes care of you?” “Eyess can hear them,” Ting explained. “She was born with the ability. That’s why she talks so well for a three-year-old. She’s been talking all her life to everything.”

I shook my head. Eyess came and plopped herself beside me. She grinned and unrolled her meal and started eating ravenously.

“Mwita won’t tell me anything. He says to ask you,” she said. “Rumor had it that you blanketed a town in a black mist after they tried to harm you. That you turned their water to bile. And you’re really a ghost sent to the lands to wash away our evils.” I laughed, “Where did you hear all this?” “Travelers,” she said. “In towns some of us visit for supplies. On the wind.”

“Everyone knows,” Eyess added.

I continued looking at her, waiting for her to say more. When she didn’t, I just shrugged. I wasn’t offended. Not really. “What are those?” I asked to change the subject. I pointed at the markings on her biceps and the swells of her breasts. The ones on her breasts were circles with a series of loops and swirls inside them. On her left bicep was what looked like the shadow of some sort of bird of prey. On the right was a cross surrounded by tiny circles and squares. “Can’t you read Vai, Bassa, Menda, and Nsibidi?” she asked. I shook my head. “I know of Nsibidi. A building in Jwahir is decorated with it.” “The House of Osugbo,” she said, nodding.

“I gave these markings to myself. Writing scripts are my center.” “Center?” “What I’m most gifted at,” she said. “It becomes clearest around when you hit thirty. I can’t tell you exactly what my markings mean, not in words. They changed my life, each in their own needed way. This one here is a vulture, I can tell you that.” She met my eyes as she gnawed on a rabbit bone.

The band started playing a song that Eyess apparently loved. She jumped up and ran to the musicians, weaving around people with that gazellelike nimbleness. When she got to the band, she started gleefully dancing. Ting and I watched for a moment, smiling.

“So you know how you . . .” “I’ll die an old satisfied woman, not far from here,” she said. Envy is a painful emotion.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to gloat.” “I know,” I said, my voice strained. “Fate is cold and cruel.” I nodded.

After eating, we left Diti, Luyu, and Fanasi behind. They didn’t notice. Ssaiku’s tent was large and airy. It was made from a material that was black but let the breeze right in. He sat on a wicker chair, a tiny book in his hands. “Ting, bring them palm wine,” he said, putting his book down. “Mwita, wasn’t I right?” he asked, motioning for us to sit. “Very,” he replied, going to the tent’s corner and getting two round sitting mats.

“It was indeed the most delicious meal I’ve ever had.”

Ting returned managing glasses of palm wine on a tray. She handed the first to Ssaiku, then to Mwita and then to me. She only touched the glasses with her right hand. I almost laughed. Ting was the last person I’d have taken to be so traditional. But then again, Ssaiku was her Master and if he was anything like Aro, he expected this. She sat beside me, a small smile on her face as if anticipating an interesting discussion.

“You usually braid your hair?” he asked. I nodded. “Stop,” he said. “Tie it with a piece of palm fiber or string, but no more braiding from this point on.” He sat back. “You’re both so strange to look at. I know Nuru and I know Okeke. The Ewu-born make no sense to my eyes. Eh, Ani is testing me again.”

Ssaiku took a deep breath. “My student is right,” he finally said. “Understand, I never believed the one I was to teach would be this long-legged . . . girl. But it was written. Since then I promised to taper my assumptions. There’s never been an Ewu sorcerer. But it has been asked. So it’s not because Ani is testing us that it’s so, it is merely so.” “Well said,” Ting said, pleased.

“Now, it’s no accident that you’re here. I was told to find and take you in. I’m a sorcerer who’s much much older than he looks. I come from a long line of chosen keepers, the keepers of this moving village, Ssolu. I maintain the dust storm that protects it.” “You’re maintaining it right now?” I asked. “It’s simply juju for me, as it will be for Ting,” he said. “Now, as I said, I was told to find you. There’s a part of your training that you must complete. You’ll need help.” I frowned. “Who . . . who told you to find me?” “Sola,” he said. My eyes widened.

It really didn’t matter. When we got back to the celebration, things were just heating up. The band was playing a song that everyone knew the words to. Eyess danced for everyone as she sang loudly. I think I’d have been like her if I hadn’t been born an outcast.

“I was raised in Jwahir,” I said, when I realized I couldn’t sneak away. “But I’m from the desert. That’s my home.” I paused. “I sing this to the land when it is content.”

I opened my mouth, closed my eyes, and sang the song that I’d learned from the desert when I was three years old. Everyone oohed and ahhed when the brown parrot I’d seen in Ssaiku’s tent came and landed on my shoulder. I kept singing. The sweet sound and vibration coming from my throat radiated through the rest of my body. It smoothed away my anxieties and sadness. For the moment. When I finished, everyone was silent.

Eyess threw her arms around my leg, looking up at me with admiration. Sparks flew from her arms and several people jumped back, muttering mild exclamations. The musicians started playing again, and I quickly left the center of the circle. “Beautiful,” people said as I passed. “I’ll sleep well tonight!” “Ani blesses you a thousand times.”

“This hair.” “I know,” I said. “I’m going to use a long piece of palm fiber and loop it around all the way to the bottom. That won’t be too different from braiding it.” “It’s not that,” he said. I waited but he didn’t say more, which was fine.