Who Fears Death (Who Fears Death, #1)

by Nnedi Okorafor

He didn’t have to.

Those days leading up to the retreat were the worst for the five of us. Diti, Luyu, and Fanasi refused to speak to one another. And both Luyu and Diti continually disappeared during afternoons and evenings. Fanasi befriended a few men and spent evenings with them talking, drinking, feeding the camels, and especially cooking bread. I didn’t know Fanasi was such a good baker. I should have. He was a bread maker’s son. Fanasi made several types of bread and soon women were asking for his bread and to be taught how to make it. But when in our camp, he kept to himself. I wondered what was on his mind. I wondered about all three of them. On the surface they seemed okay but it was only Luyu who I felt really was okay.

Aside from no one touching me, I loved these people. I was welcome here. And I got to know names and personalities.

There was a couple living in a tent near us, Ssaqua and Essop, who had five children, two of whom had different fathers. Ssaqua and Essop were a lively couple who argued and discussed every issue. They called Mwita and me often to settle disputes. One of the arguments they called me to settle was over whether th...

Children in the village of Ssolu ran amok, in a good way. They were always somewhere helping or learning from someone. Everyone welcomed them. Even the very young ones. As long as a baby could walk, he or she was everyone’s responsibility. I once saw a child of about two get fed by her mother and then run off to explore. Hours later, I saw her sitting to lunch with another family on the other side of the village. Then that evening, I found her with Ssaqua and Essop and two of their children, eating dinner!

Of course, Eyess visited me often. We shared many meals together. She liked my cooking, saying that I used “so much spice.” It was nice having a little shadow, but she always grew annoyed when Mwita came and took some of my attention from her.

Everyone here could build a rock fire. They just knew how to do it. And when I’d sung, people had been pleased and amused when the bird landed on my shoulder. The idea of my singing having such a calming effect on them didn’t bother them.

My mother had been like the Vah in how she accepted the unanswerable and the mystical. But when we got to Jwahir, to civilization, it had become something to hide.

What would I have been like if I grew up here? I wondered. They had no issue with Ewu people. They embraced Mwita like one of their own. They gave him hugs and handshakes, patted him on the back, let their children hang around him. He was wholly welcome.

WHEN I AM NOT MOVING TOWARD MY FATE, it comes to me. Those days leading up to the retreat were really the beginning of the process Ssaiku hinted at.

Still, I woke up relaxed, content, rested. Mwita’s arm was around my waist. Outside I could hear the drone of Ssaiku’s storm. Over the noise I could hear people chatting as they started the day, the maa of goats, and the sound of a baby crying. I sighed. Ssolu was like home in so many ways.

A tiny white head with a small red wattle hanging from its beak was peeking into our tent. It whistled softly. I laughed. A guinea fowl. In Ssolu, the plump docile birds roamed about as freely as the children and they knew never to go near the storm. I wrapped my rapa around myself and sat up. I froze. I smelled that strange smell, the one that always came when something magical was happening. The bird pulled its head out of my tent.

“Onye!” Diti shouted from outside. “You better come out here!” “Do it slowly,” Luyu said. They both sounded several yards from our tent. I sniffed the air, the strange otherworldly aroma filling my nose. I didn’t want to leave the tent but Mwita pushed me, pressing close behind. “Go on,” he whispered. “Face whatever it is. It’s all you can do.” I frowned, shoving back. “I don’t have to do anything.”

I sucked my teeth, fear pressing my lungs. “I don’t know what I left home for anymore. And I don’t know what’s out there....waiting for me.”

I kept thinking about the retreat, how something would happen there. Our tent was security—in it was Mwita and our few belongings, it was a shield from the world. Oh Ani, I want to stay in here, I thought. But then the image of Binta popped into my mind. My heart pounded harder. I moved forward. When I pushed the flap aside and crawled out, I almost bumped right into it. I looked up, up, and up. It stood directly before our tent, tall as a middle-aged tree. Wide as three tents. A masquerade, a spirit from the wilderness.

It was made of tightly packed dead wet leaves and thousands of protruding metal spikes. It had a wooden head with a frowning face carved into it. Thick white smoke dribbled from the top. This smoke was what was producing the smell. Around it strutted about ten guinea fowl. They looked up at it every so often, heads tilted, softly whistling questioningly. Two sat on its right and one on its left. A monster that attracts cute harmless birds, I thought. What next?

What next, indeed? I have to stop highlighting.

Onyesonwu, it said. Mwita. The voice came from every part of it, creeping from its body like its smoke. Traveling in all directions. The guinea fowl stopped their soft whistling and the ones who were standing all sat down. I greet you, it said. I greet your ancestors, spirits and chis. As it spoke, the wilderness sprung up around us. I wondered if Mwita could see it. Brilliant colors, undulating tubules extending from the physical ground. They looked like trees if there were trees in the wilderness.

It got up, sprinkling us with moisture and smoke. It turned and began to walk away, toward Ssaiku’s tent as it dribbled its trail of wilderness smoke. The guinea fowl followed single file. Several people followed, too. Someone brought a flute, someone else a small drum. They played for the masquerade as it walked, still laughing.

She smiled at me but didn’t try to take my hand again. “Talk. Tell me.” I looked away, suppressing the urge to cry. I didn’t want to burden anyone with any of it. I turned to her, noting dark brown skin, flawless even after all we’d been through. Her thick lips pressed firmly together. Her large almond-shaped eyes looked deep into mine, never flinching. I sat up. “Okay,” I said. “Come walk with me.”

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.

I walked over to the electronics at the back of the cave. We’d avoided these items more than the corpses. They were the old devices of a doomed people.

CHAPTER 1 Rewritten

To the ancestors, spirits and that place so often called “Africa.” To my father, whose passing caused me to ask, “Who fears death?” To my mother. To my daughter Anyaugo, nephew Onyedika, and niece Obioma for cheering me up when I was writing the parts of this novel that got me down. To my siblings (Ife, Ngozi, and Emezie) for their constant support.

To Jennifer Stevenson for having nightmares spawned from this novel. To my agent Don Maass for his vision and guidance. To my editor Betsy Wollheim for thinking, seeing and being outside the box. To David Anthony Durham, Amaka Mbanugo, Tara Krubsack, and professor Gene Wildman for their excellent feedback along the way.

And to the 2004 AP news story by Emily Wax titled, “We want to make a light baby.” This article about weaponized rape in the Sudan created the passageway through which Onyesonwu slipped into my world.