Death’s head is hard.

- Akan Proverb

The explosion sends Selasi flying back across the moonlit desert floor. Touching down on the heels of his leather dress shoes, he skids backwards without losing his balance. By the time he comes to a stop, he is almost crouched. He swats at the purple flames on his trousers, quenching them as he rises: a svelte, dusky boy with close-cropped hair, in a slim cut black suit. He tightens the grasp on his witch-arm—the slender, silver sword in his trembling hand—and frowns.

About a hundred yards away, a pillar of lilac fire rises from the ground, shredding its way through the night air and into the sky. The earth quakes beneath the raging pillar, and the wind whips into a swirling frenzy, drawing eddies of sand around the fiery column, up to the darkening clouds.

It is a catastrophe. One that Selasi has tried and failed to approach six times thus far. He isn’t injured. Yet. But his skin is glazed with sweat, and his otherwise fine clothes, covered in layers of dust he will never successfully wash off. 

Just as Selasi’s despair brims, a voice next to him says, “How did this happen?”

There is a woman at his side who was not there a second ago. She is petite, with the visage of a middle-aged woman, although Selasi knows better. Her chunky dreadlocks, too large for her head, tumble down her stern face to rest on the shoulders of her bright blue kaba. Her sable skin is already sheening from the heat of the pillar. But there is an unmistakable toughness about her that suggests ancient baobab roots grow in place of flesh and bone beneath her skin.

Selasi fights back the impulse to weep gratefully at Her feet. Where have you been? He wants to cry.

Instead, he fights the quiver in his voice when he answers her. “I don’t know. I came as soon as I got the call, but I have no idea how things got this bad. I’m sorry, Mama Wu.”

Mama Wu sweeps her braids off her shoulders and binds them into a headwrap. “And the others?” she asks, right before the pillar blows another gust of burning wind.

“Kiira and Kamari said they were busy.”

Mama Wu narrows her eyes at him. “Busy?”

“Hemmaa didn’t even respond to my texts.”

“And Shi?”

“Oluman Shi has still not arrived.”

Mama Wu’s expression is dark, severe, still. Her gaze is bottomless.

“I know,” is all Selasi can say.

Mama Wu turns back to the pillar of fire. “Go. Check on the village.”

With a nod, Selasi leaps away, each bound distancing him from the ancient witch by several hundred feet.

Mama Wu rolls her head around to loosen her neck, and throws a hand out to her side. An item begins to materialize in her grasp, drawn into this world by crimson forks that snap and crackle off her fingertips. The item is a sickle—broad, crescent, forged from moonlight and damascened with ribbons of sun-fire. And across its argent face, runes of other worldly beyie  stir and shift in an eternal dance.

She begins towards the pillar of fire, her steps slow but firm. “Hello!” she calls into the flames. Her voice carries a haunting reverb. “Can you hear me? Do you understand me?”

There is a silhouette at the heart of the pillar. A man’s. His eyes are lightning, and his screams thunder, the fire engulfing but not consuming him. He stretches his palms towards her and—

The fireball is the size of a truck, streaking out of the pillar to strike Mama Wu with an ear-shattering explosion. Fire and dust twist and swish at the point of impact. With a wave of her hand, Mama Wu dismisses the purple flames, casting them off her body like a dirty blanket into the wind.

“I’m sorry,” she says, as she spreads her feet apart and poises for attack. “This is mercy.”

Her movement is wind, a crack, a trail of light. In one blink, she is outside the pillar; the next, she is within the roaring fire, right behind the tortured silhouette. Her sickle is slick with blood.

It takes a second for the man to realize the gash in his side spraying ruby life. He lets out a low moan, and shudders from shock. The pillar dissipates with a resounding rush, like the final breath of a dying giant.

Silence settles upon the desert.

The man grabs his side, as Mama Wu’s sickle fades away. And then he crumples. Mama Wu breaks his fall and they drop into the sand together.

On closer inspection, this isn’t a man. This is a boy. Fifteen at most. “I-I couldn’t help myself,” the boy whispers, his eyes filling with tears.

Mama Wu wipes away the wet trail forming down his dusty face. “I know, child,” she whispers back. “I know.”

The darkness of the Sahara seems to grow infinitely around them, closing in like a vignette as Mama Wu cradles the dying boy. An eternity passes.

Mama Wu sings a lullaby under her breath:

Babi kaa fo

Ŋgbɛ o mami ete?

Ete lai

Mɛni hewɔ eshi bo?

As she sings the same four lines on repeat, her voice grows softer and the boy gasps for his last breaths, his fingers clutching at her clothes. Desperately at first. Then weakly. And then, not at all.

Mama Wu feels the exact moment his sunsum leaves his body. She makes sure to hold his gaze as it happens, knowing his eyes no longer see her.

Still, she sings. She rocks him. She runs her thumb over his cheek. Gently back and forth, back and forth.

Eventually, she feels Selasi’s presence again behind her. And she can sense his trepidation. If he is reluctant to speak, that can only mean one thing.

“The village is gone, isn’t it?” she asks.

Her back is turned to him, but Selasi still cannot lift his eyes when he answers. “It is. Every inch of it. Reduced to ash.” He swallows. “None of them survived.”

Mama Wu is silent for a long time, her body motionless.

“This wasn’t an accident,” she says.

“I didn’t think so,” Selasi says.

“Somebody deliberately corrupted his sunsum. They wanted him to lose his sanity. To turn on the village.”

“You don’t think it could be… I mean, there’s just no way they would…”

“We’re the only ones who showed up, Selasi,” Mama Wu says, finally letting go of the boy to rise to her feet. “What do you think?”

Selasi clenches his fists. “Shit.”

As Mama Wu turns around, sunsum begins to rise from her body like a luminous vapor. It is a dense, sizzling, seething aura; one notch away from bursting into a full-on inferno like the one she stopped this very night.

“I have theories. But until I know for sure what’s going on, we handle this with the utmost discretion,” Mama Wu says. “Not a word to anyone about our suspicions, do you understand?”

“Of course.”

“And—” Mama Wu hesitates. “I cannot stress this enough, but that means Ama too.”

“Ama?” Selasi is taken aback, confused. “Why would I tell Ama? What’s she got to do with any of this?”

“Just a precaution,” Mama Wu says. “We must tread carefully. One mistake and I fear it will mark the end of everything.”

Selasi throws a glance at the dead boy in the sand. “And what’s the plan when we find them? The ones responsible for this?”

“Is the answer not obvious?” Mama Wu says as she walks away. “We will kill them all.”

OOO

Ama is scrolling through her social media feed when she feels it—like a phantom limb, its frozen fingers wrapped around her heart, trembling, tugging. Dread drains into her veins, as she looks up from her phone, and blinks at the semi-darkness around her.

Her prey is close by.

It’s almost midnight, and for the last hour, Ama has been seated on the outdoor deck of a café. The café is technically closed; but it is attached to a 24 hour fuel station, and none of the pump attendants have bothered to shoo her yet.

Ama stares into the face of her smartphone one last time, hoping it will sense her unease and offer some fleeting distraction. A dumb joke. A clever meme. Anything to temper her anxiety before she begins her hunt. But tonight, her feed is chock full of arguments over sex and politics, and the bad takes make her gag.

“Thanks for nothing,” she mutters, rising out of her seat.

As she leaves the fuel station, she receives a notification. Someone has mentioned her in her group chat, made up of her friends from school.

@Afro_Mage Weather app says it might rain tonight, and I’m dying at the thought of it lol. Try not to look into a mirror kid, you’ll turn into stone!

The message is from Joey, one of the few people in her life who knows that cold weather turns her hair into a frizzy disaster.

Ama smiles and taps out a reply: @KupOfJoey Find a bucket of water and drown in it. Send.

But her best friend is right, and it isn’t long before the first drops plop against the sidewalk. With a groan, Ama pulls over the hood of her jacket, and tucks her hands into its pockets. She has never liked rain. Her tangled mess of black curls is unruly enough, and it never agrees with precipitation. 

The sounds of the city are soon dampened by the rise and fall of capricious showers. Traffic lights blink amber. Cars whoosh past, their headlamps gleaming off the slick street. The world is a blur behind the curtain of rain.

As Ama ventures into quieter and quieter neighborhoods, she lets her foreboding lead the way. At each new junction, she stops to mind her heartbeat. And with every correct turn she takes, it quickens. A visceral game of hot and cold. Even after three years of doing this, she still isn’t quite used to the way her heart pounds tracing sunsum.

The rain has softened by the time she arrives at the gated community. As she looks through the bars of the metal gate, her heart goes into overdrive. She’s close.

There is a guard asleep in the security booth with his feet on the counter. His radio is still on, the wails of an exuberant gospel singer muffled by the glass. He isn’t waking up any time soon.

Ama clears the twelve-foot gate in a single bound, and lands half-crouched on the other side, noiseless as a cat. She throws curious glances about the neighborhood as she walks down the street. Double-storied homes, manicured lawns, and luxury vehicles in the driveways. Everything nice and clean and in its place.

It never ceases to shock her how far removed places like this can be from the rest of the city, with its littered streets, noisy traffic, and tired people. She can practically smell the money in the air. The circles in which Ama runs have a significant lack of that. Well, except Joey. But even he gets shit from the rest of the group for having a whole second house just for vacations.

Turning a corner, Ama finally spots the object of her tracking. The wolf kakai is almost as tall as the lamppost under which it is seated, the grey of its fur lending its form an almost ghostly quality. Its tail swishes slow, serpentine paths upon the pavement. Its ear twitches against the swarm of mosquitoes drawn to the light. Its eyes are trained on the second-story window of a house across the street.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Casually, Ama walks up next to the wolf kakai, and turns on her heel to face the same house. The demon does not react to her presence.

After a stretch of silence, Ama says, “What are we up to?”

The kakai looks down at her in surprise, and Ama tilts her head up to meet its blood-red eyes. There are four of them, and they glint like rubies beneath the lamplight.

“So you can see me,” it growls.

“Yup.”

It cocks its head at her. “And yet, you are calm.”

“Not much escapes you.”

“Ah,” It says. “Then you are one of those. I have met hundreds of your kind over the years. Fewer of you this century. But still. Remind me what you call yourselves in this region. Beyifo?”

“Yeah,” Ama says. “But more specifically, I’m beyisafo. Same cloth, similar colors, very different cut. The thing about us beyisafo is—”

The kakai has lost interest now. “A witch is a witch,” it says, returning its attention to the house across the street. “And I abhor competition. Do not expect me to share my prize.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” says Ama.

“Although you may remain to witness my glory.”

“How kind,” Ama says.

In a manner of speaking, Ama already knows this creature. The kakai has been loitering around Accra for weeks now. Ama will sense its presence and track it to a location, only for it to be gone just before she arrives. Kakai are usually smart about where, when and how they hunt to avoid drawing attention. Most will even devour their victims whole to limit the evidence of their activities. This one though has been brazen. It leaves anything from bones, to entrails, to half-eaten bodies behind, out where anyone can find them. The news stations don’t know what to make of it, and the police are on a fruitless hunt for god knows what.

But here their culprit is. A big dog. Ama cannot imagine how it has avoided being exorcised this long.

“So what’s the plan?” Ama asks.

“There are two humans in that dwelling,” says the kakai.

“I see.”

“They spawned a newborn only days ago.”

Ama’s stomach turns. “I…see.”

“I have been craving something tender, and the new ones are always so tasty. I find it delightful how their tiny bones crunch when—”

“I get the idea,” Ama cuts in quickly. “What are you doing out here then? Waiting for the parents to fall asleep?”

The lupine demon lets out a low, rumbling chuckle. “Why, they’re the main course. But you may feast on the scraps I leave behind if you like. Your kind enjoys the innards, yes? I myself am not fond of livers, awful things. You may have those.”

“As generous as that sounds, I do have a small confession,” says Ama. “I may have misled you with the way I walked up to you. And now you’ve obviously assumed I’m the eats-human-flesh-to-grow-more-powerful class of beyifo. But actually…”

Slowly, the kakai tilts its head down to focus its bloody gaze on Ama again. “Do not dare say—”

“Yeah sorry, I’m the other kind,” Ama says. “You know…”

They stare at each other.

“The kakai hunting kind,” Ama finishes with a smile.

The demon’s claws whistle over Ama’s head. She ducked just in time. And when it takes a second swing at her, she leaps back to create some distance.

The wolf kakai drops into a slinking prowl as its hackles rise. “You humans always did have an excess of audacity. Standing at my side, addressing me as though you were in no danger at all.” Its steps are slow, calculated; Its four eyes brim with violent lust. “Damned glorified apes. Do you really think just because you have witch’s power, I cannot make you my dinner as well?”

Ama, only now slipping her hands out of her pockets, flexes her fingers. “Actually, I talked to you because I like to think understanding kakai makes me better at my job.” There is a flash of wispy, scarlet energy, and a double-ended staff with broad, curved blades materializes before her. She snatches it out of the air. “My job being, of course, to take your head off.”

“I will rend you limb from limb, and draw the marrow from your bones till every drop of that tasty witch sunsum is mine.”

“I don’t know,” Ama says skeptically, as she settles into a fighting stance. “I am notoriously hard to kill. But you’re welcome to try.”

The kakai launches into a relentless flurry of swipes, lunges, and snaps. Ama is a spinning blur, the blades on the ends of her staff whipping about to intercept every flash of its claws with a resounding clang. Sparks rain down around her.

She lifts her blade-staff when the demon pounces, practically landing on top of her. Razors clash against her snath; more sparks fly. Ama grits her teeth, resisting the creature’s weight.

“Runts! Insects! Vermin!” it snarls over Ama. Globs of sulfurous drool drip down from its jagged mandibles, and plop onto Ama’s forehead. “We were here before you were a drop in whatever primordial soup spawned you.” It shoves her, sending her skidding back. “And we will be here long after you are gone!”

“Maybe,” Ama says, flipping laterally over a swing aimed at her torso. “But the question is…” Spinning her blade-staff around, she redirects another clawed swing from slicing her feet. “Will you be around to see it?” She twists on her heel to deliver a powerful kick to the side of the kakai’s head.

The beast tumbles off the sidewalk and onto the lawn with a howl. Before it can scramble back to its feet, Ama springs high into the air. With considerable might, she brings the flat of her staff’s blade crashing down upon its head, and the sound of a sharp crack splits the night.

Almost instantly, the kakai’s thrashing becomes a feeble stir. Its body heaves as it gasps for air. Its tongue dribbles spittle into the grass.

Ama draws closer, rests her foot upon the side of its twitching face, and says, “Any last words?”

“Please…” It pants. “Spare…me…”

“Like you spared those innocent people?” Ama says. “Like you would’ve spared that child?”

 “S-spare…” It croaks. “M-me…”

Ama narrows her eyes at it for a long stretch of silence. “Amanehunu. You’ll stay there if I cast you back?”

Ama knows little about Amanehunu except it is supposedly the home realm of all kakai-kind. How the creatures make it from there to Earth is above her station. How to send them back permanently however, is another story.

It takes the kakai  a moment to respond. It seems to be struggling harder and harder to breathe. At this rate, Ama wonders if it will survive either way.

“I’ll…never…return…” It says.

Ama takes a deep breath, and sighs. “Hold on,” she mutters, taking her foot off its face. She turns around to open a rift. Pretending to let down her guard is her go-to test. A final offer of mercy.

Ama senses movement behind her. She whirls back around to an empty lawn, as a shadow passes over her.

“Of course,” she mutters.

The kakai lands on the nearest rooftop, and leaps onto the next. It appears to be making a beeline for the main entrance to the housing estate.

But Ama endured long-distance runs as part of her training to become beyisafo. And when she ran, she was clocked every single time. Eighty miles per hour is her time on a bad day.

She sprints down the street and around the corner, her sneakers a blur against the asphalt. From the corner of her eye, she spots the kakai on higher ground. She makes it to the entrance just as it begins to bound over the main gate. With a jump, Ama ricochets off the top of the gate to intercept the demon. It makes one last-ditch effort at clawing her mid-air.

Ama arches back, the attack missing her chin by an inch, as the tip of her staff’s blade sinks into the soft underside of its neck. Her blade runs along its body as they fly past each other, slicing it completely open to spill fire and sulfur and blood.

Ama lands on the balls of her feet, stands, and in one fluid motion, whips the blood off her blade-staff. The kakai falls behind her, a flaming, lifeless mess.

“Weird,” Ama says, dismissing her witch-arm. “You guys never choose home.”

The demon’s body will have disintegrated by morning. Not that it matters; no one without beyie can see it.

But Ama is still just as visible as anyone else, and there are lights turning on in the windows now. The commotion has woken the neighbors. People will be outdoors soon.

Ama jumps the gate, seconds before the security guard bursts through the door of his booth. He scans the area in a panic, his flashlight useless beneath the bright lampposts, his baton at the ready. He looks up, and scratches his head in confusion.

There is a dent in the wrought iron gate.

And Ama is gone.

OOO

Ama’s neighborhood is not the kind one roams at night. Not if they are looking to pass through with belongings and limbs intact.

A glance at her phone tells Ama it is quarter past one, and some of the older boys in the area are still awake, loitering. ‘Area boys’, they are called. They hang around in packs of four or five, leaning against walls, or seated in plastic chairs on the dirty patches that pass for lawns around here. They talk loudly, swig beers, and smoke, jeering at anything that crosses their path, from people to stray cats.

They’re always nice to Ama though.

“Ey Ama, wossop?” a pack leader calls to her from a lawn as she walks by.

She throws a peace sign back, and they nod their appreciation.

The night after Ama’s first patrol, an area boy tried to take her phone from her. She broke three of his fingers. The next night, another punk tried the same thing. She broke all ten this time. Finally, six of them ganged up against her to try and teach her a lesson. The only teacher that night was her, her knowledge in the form of cracked ribs, shattered wrists, two misaligned jaws, and one displaced pelvis. She and the area boys have an understanding now. They don’t bug her; she doesn’t send anyone else rushing to the emergency room wailing like a two-year old.

Ama crosses the street and frowns as she draws closer to her house.

Ma forgot to pay the light bill again. Theirs is the only home on the street without power, a lone assemblage of shadows in a line-up of bungalows with lit porches.

The front door is always locked this late, so Ama goes round the back. Stepping into the darkness, Ama shuts the screen door gently behind her and blinks, waiting for her eyes to adjust.

She finds Ma in the living room, curled up and asleep on their battered couch. Her mother is damp with sweat, wrinkled with fatigue, and hasn’t bothered to change out of her nurse’s scrubs. She moonlights most nights. And in four hours, she will be up again and in the shower, preparing to return to the hospital.  Anything to make a little extra money.

There is a half-empty glass of water on the center table, next to an open bottle of pain pills and a plate with a half-eaten sandwich. Ama stoops to pick up the dirty dish, when she spots the dark rash on Ma’s wrists. If not for the weak light from the living room windows, she would have missed it. She doesn’t even need to check her mother’s ankles to know she’ll find the same bruise-colored welts.

“Dammit,” she mutters. It feels like her mother has had those rashes, on and off, for as long as she can remember. No matter how many different remedies they try, the rashes always come back.

Ama considers running her hand across the irritated skin to check how bad it is this time. For a second, her fingers hover over her mother’s hand. But she doesn’t want to risk waking her. On second thought, the dirty dish can wait too.

Ma has always been her sweetest asleep.

Ama sighs and mutters, “Goodnight,” before heading to her bedroom.

Ama could feel him long before she entered her house. The feeling only grows stronger as she steps into her room. This aura is nothing like the one she tracked earlier tonight. Her reaction to him has always been…different.

Heat rises up her face, and her stomach turns somersaults. She is suddenly too aware of every step she takes, and annoyed with the placement of her arms. Are they too stiff? Did they always feel this unnatural when she walks? She does not like that he can hear her heart going a hundred miles an hour. She does not like that he knows the effect he has on her.

Trying to ignore him, Ama moves through her room to the larger of the two beds, where her little sister Chichi sleeps. Ama is careful not to wake her when she sits beside her.

Chichi looks so much like Ma. Ama watches the subtle rise and fall of her chest, tracing her tiny features with her eyes. She looks so frail underneath her sheets, curled into a  fetal position, her scalp perpetually stubbled with new hair. Sometimes, Ama worries that she is too small for her age. Surely, eleven year olds are bigger than this. But the doctors insist otherwise. Chichi is doing decently, they say, always leaving out the rest of the sentiment. Ama knows they mean to say her sister is lucky anyway, considering.

Considering the cancer.

Ama’s visitor clears his throat.

“Where is she tonight?” Ama asks without looking. “Mama Wu?”

His voice floats out of the darkness behind her. “Here and there. It’s…been a hectic week.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Ama murmurs. “Is she still trying to find us a cure? Or was that always a lie?”

There is silence for a moment. “I know she’s been working on something,” he says. “But she doesn’t say much about it.”

“I’ll bet.”

“You know how she is.”

Ama isn’t sure that she does. “What are you doing here then?”

“Me?”  He sounds surprised. “I just wanted to see you.”

New waves of warmth rush over Ama’s cheeks. She steels her expression before turning to face him. “Alright then,” she says. “Good evening, Selasi. Well, good morning.”

Selasi is in the corner of the room, shadows clinging to shroud his form like a cloak. His eyes hang in the darkness like silver moons. There is light from the house next door coming through the window, and when he steps out of the darkness, it illuminates his lean form.

Tonight he is, as usual, in a simple suit and dress shoes. He smiles and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Hello, you.”

Ama stands to meet him under the light. He is not much taller than her, but Ama still has to tilt her head slightly when they’re standing this close.

“You’re so annoying,” she says.

Selasi looks taken aback at first, and then he laughs. “What have I done this time?”

“You’re too tall now. Did you get taller while you were away? I could swear you weren’t this tall the last time I saw you.”

“Since a couple of weeks ago? I haven’t grown an inch, I don’t think.”

“Well, I’d know better if I saw you more often,” Ama says, regretting the words even as she utters them. She isn’t trying to guilt him, but that’s what it sounds like. “Not that I’ve missed you,” she adds. “At all.”

His smile weakens. “Sorry. We’ve been a little—”

Ama waves off his apology. “I know, I know. So many kakai to banish to realms of eternal darkness, so little time.”

Selasi’s smile doesn’t quite recover, but he manages to maintain what is left of it. “More or less. How are you?”

“Only a little more tired since the last time you saw me. One more week and I’ll finally be done with high school. Can’t wait for that nightmare to be over, so I can focus on the regular nightmare I already live doing this job. Yay.”

This time, Selasi’s smile is more sincere. “Long night?”

Ama shrugs. “No longer than usual.”

“Were the kakai any trouble?”

“There was only one tonight, but yes. I dealt with it. Gave her a stern scolding and made her promise never to hunt in Accra again. She left politely.” Ama releases a strangled laugh. “I’m kidding. She tried to rip me to shreds, so I cut her down. I’m sorry. I’m tired.”

“No, I’m sorry that you’re tired.”

There is a momentary lull, and Ama wonders if he wants to tell her something. Or do something. Maybe hold her. It has been a while. She notices his eyes moving past her to rest on Chichi for a second.

“Don’t worry, she’s asleep,” Ama says.

“I have to go.”

Ama blinks. “Oh. That was quick.”

“I have to be somewhere.”

“Okay.”

“Mama Wu has me chasing a lead. It’s important. I…might be gone for a while.”

Ama smiles weakly. “Sure.”

Selasi cups Ama’s face in his hands. His battle-weary palms are jute against her cheeks, but gentle. Her heart stops, as he slowly leans into her. His breath caresses her upper lip, and he brushes his lips against hers.

“I’ll be back…” he whispers, kissing her. “…as soon…” A second kiss. “…as I can.” A third, this one stronger, deeper. Ama kisses him back, exhilaration exploding through her chest like fireworks.

Maybe she has missed him a little.

“And where’s Mama Wu sending you again?” she whispers back, when they finally pull apart.

Selasi only smiles, and then plants a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll see you soon.”

Ama watches him step back into the shadows, and melt into the darkness. His aura disappears with him.

“Ammie?” Ama hears Chichi’s small, confused voice utter.

“Hey…” Ama slides into bed with her, so she can stare inches away from her chocolate browns. “You should be asleep.”

“I heard you talking,” she whispers.

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“Are you okay?” she murmurs sleepily.

“Mm, don’t worry.” Ama places a hand on her face, and gently strokes the baldness behind her ears with her fingers. “I was just making sure there were no monsters under the bed.” As she speaks these words, it occurs to Ama that they may not be wisely chosen. Speak of monsters can rouse old persisting fears, and keep her sister awake for hours.

But tonight, it seems that sweet slumber supersedes fear. Chichi gives Ama a small, barely conscious nod as she shuts her eyes and with a sigh, resumes her sleep.

Ama listens to her gentle breathing, hoping to distil for herself some peace of mind. Something about her conversation with Selasi left a knot in her stomach. He has always had secrets, a requisite for his job as Mama Wu’s right-hand. She thought she had grown used to it. Apparently not. His words echo in her head, and she tries to push them out.

Eventually, Ama’s eyes grow heavy, and she welcomes rest with desperate gratitude.

But anxiety pursues her into her dreams.

It is only ever the one dream.

A sweltering afternoon. A living room. Ama is eleven, Chichi is five. They have a cousin over and nothing to do.

Boredom is its own special class of sin.

A tattered book. A shadowy creature plucking a child out of bed. Singing vegetables, snickers, and laughter. Ama’s voice saying the same words again, and again, and again, and again…

Like I’d ever be so lucky.