Akata Witch: Prologue–Chapter 3

My hair was on fire!
I screamed and smacked my head as hard as I could. My burning hair singed my hand.

I’d seen the end of the world in its flame. Raging fires, boiling oceans, toppled skyscrapers, ruptured land, dead and dying people.

The term “Leopard Person” is a West African coinage, derived from the Efik term “ekpe,” “leopard."

All people of mystical true ability are Leopard People.

Obviously, juju was used to cover up the fact of the Great Attempt, very strong juju. By whom? There are many speculations, but nothing solid...

“Sunny’s essay received the highest mark,” Miss Tate announced, ignoring the class’s sneers and scoffs.

“Not only was it nicely written, but it was engaging and humorous.”

“Each of you will come up and Sunny will give you three strikes on the left hand.” She smiled wryly. “Maybe she can beat some of her sense into you.”

Sunny wiped blood from her lip and said, “Shut up, you snail-sucker! I’m albino!”
“‘Albino’ is a synonym for ‘ugly,’” he retorted.

She added bass to her voice and enunciated the word “idiot” with her most Nigerian accent, making it sound like eeedee-ut.

Like hers, his house was white with a modest fence surrounding it.

She was fine-boned, dark brown, and elfin, but her voice was loud and strong and arrogant.

Chichi loved bombast and trickery, too. She bragged that she sometimes approached strange men and told them how lovely they were, just to see their reactions.

Sunny rolled her eyes. Not this again, she thought. So cliché.

Sunny’s nose was assaulted with the smell of flowers and incense as soon as she entered.

“In the Shadow of the Bush by P. Amaury Talbot. Nineteen twelve. Shadows, bushes, jungles, the Dark Continent. Sounds so stereotypical, but there’s much in this old thing. The man who wrote it managed to preserve some important information—unbeknownst to him.”

He had gone to school for many years to become a barrister, and then gone on to be the most successful child in his family.

But here was Chichi’s mother, surrounded by the hundreds of books she’d read, living in a decrepit old mud hut with her daughter.

“See!” Chichi said. “I was right!”
“Oh, stop,” Orlu snapped. “You don’t know for sure. She could just be sensitive.”
But Chichi looked very smug.

“Do you solemnly swear on the people you hold dearest, on the things dearest to you, that you will never speak of what I am about to tell you to anyone on the outside?”

Sunny raised a tentative hand in greeting.

They walked for a while, passing buildings and avoiding hawkers selling cashew fruits, suya, phone cards, cell phone accessories, and plantain chips.

They stopped at a small path that led into a patch of lush bush.

The bush seemed to close in around them. Where it had been hot, it was now sweltering.

Minutes later, the noise grew to the sound of crashing water. It was a river so angry that its churning waters threw up a white mist.

Anatov’s hut was much bigger than Chichi’s. It was long with a thatch roof.

The red walls were decorated with white symbols and caricatures of people.

Sunny was trying to be polite when she stifled her sneeze, but the sneeze was so hard that she blew snot into her hands instead.

To her further embarrassment, he watched intently as she wiped the snot from her hands and face and blew her nose.

Suddenly, she burst into water. It had 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.

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.

Anatov came toward them, a wicker chair following of its own volition, like a faithful dog.

Anatov came toward them, a wicker chair following of its own volition, like a faithful dog.

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.

“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?”

“Man, I wish I’d have known. I’ve never seen an Ekpiri initiation on a free agent. I was half asleep outside when I heard your return. Splat!” He laughed.
“It was loud like that?”
“Yep,” Sasha said. “Like a load of rotten entrails dropping on the floor.”

“Oh, don’t give me that!” Orlu said. “You rationalize everything. That’s why your parents sent you here.”

Up to now you've known masquerades to be mere symbolic manifestations of the ancestors or spirits.

Men and boys dress up in elaborate cloth and raffia costumes and dance, jeer, or joke, depending on whom they are manifesting.