image [https://i.imgur.com/y1XUYA7.png]

22.05.2024 – 12:00 UTC +01.00

Getting around Bilma proved easier than I originally thought. Although I lacked any knowledge of Kanuri, the local dialect, most of the locals spoke Arabic quite fluently. The city was also quite busy with merchants, businessmen and women, schoolchildren, and even the occasional family strolling in the park. The busy streets provided enough cover for an unassuming traveler like me to wander around, without raising much suspicion.

I had made a mental note to keep the use of my Curses to a minimum discreet degree, at least until I could figure out what the stance of the population and the authorities was. Reconnaissance would have to be a bit more traditional today, keeping any Calling at bay and simply relying to my hearing of the Nabd.

It didn’t take long to figure out the layout of the city. The parks seemed to be quite integral for Bilma’s design; buildings were built haphazardly in seemingly randomly developed streets, to accommodate the large parks with their tall trees and small pools of water. What must have been initially a Sahara oasis, was now developed into a sprawling city. At least, that was the only explanation I could think of, as it was obvious that such a city so far away from any ocean could only be sustained by an extremely fortunate volume of water.

People seemed to enjoy being part of such a natural arrangement. The city’s buildings guided vines and plants to grow around them, and at the top of the tallest buildings, solar panels shone and powered Bilma.

Unfortunately, I was not there for tourism. In fact, I was not supposed to stay there more than a day or two, and now my stay had been extended violently by my brother’s condition.

I sucked my teeth in anger recalling the state at which he was when I visited him in the hospital.

“Don’t let anyone but the doctor come near,” I had commanded our bodyguards, doubting the very reasons we were relying on them to begin with. What was the point, if my brother could simply decide to leave their protection? Apparently, last night he managed to “escape” their supervision and go have fun in the naughtiest parts of the city. If I was not so deathly worried about his injuries, I would be screaming at him till the end of the month.

“Absolutely childish,” I said to myself. If he wanted to visit casinos or cabarets he could have done so with his bodyguards and now I would not be going into all this trouble.

I looked around at the street while I strolled, patiently waiting for the sound of the Nabd of his attacker to be detected by my Curse. Whoever it was, they were not far, as I could clearly distinguish it if I focused on it. However, they might have been anywhere within a few kilometers. So, while my Curse would inevitably lead me to them, I had to be a bit smart as well.

A bell rang as I entered a small pub, just as it started operating for its mid-day visitors. It was the fourth I was trying already in the bar district of the city, where I assumed I could retrace my brother’s steps.

I sat in a corner table. A waitress not far older than me approached me, initially asking something in her local dialect.

“Is there something for lunch?” I asked.

“Not much. Some palm nut soup,” she responded, quickly changing to Arabic “You will have to wait just a bit, we only just now opened up.”

“I have time,” I responded, and I was not lying. This is the first place I had entered the past hour, that reacted with my sense of the Nabd. As she left for the kitchen, I looked around in the empty room. There was no one.

But my sense would not lie. I closed my eyes and tried to focus. I did not hear a pulse, I was, however, close to something. Something that was not in this room empty of people. I considered my options, opened my eyes, and walked towards the restroom. I paused for a moment outside the two doors and I entered the male toilets.

A disgusting stench hit my nostrils the moment I got inside.

“Oh,” I sighed as I tried to hold my breath. The toilets were empty but surprisingly messy: the dumpster was tossed around, and one door of the stalls was broken. I walked inside trying to follow my sense, and checked inside the stalls.

The broken door creaked as I forced it open.

I bit my lip. Amidst the mud and the dirty floor, there was a piece of a scarf, seemingly torn in half. It was my brother’s, and had blood stains on it, possibly what had triggered my senses. I had no intention of taking it back, so much doused in dirt that it would never recover. It had anyway served a purpose, a first quick lead to finding out where something happened.

I was ready to depart the scene when something unusual caught my eyes, just a momentary glimpse of what looked too delicate to be among the mud, right behind the scarf, and dropped on the floor. I walked into what I hoped was mainly the mud that covered the floor to take a better look. A big white flower was left lying next to the scarf. Although it appeared familiar, I did not recognize what kind of flower it was. With a center rich in needle-like threads, and petals pulled back, a couple of them plucked even, it was not the standard bloomed flower you find in a shop.

I picked the only petal that seemed not to touch the muck of the stall, and I put it carefully in my pocket.

I left the toilet as quickly as I could, disgusted by what I had possibly breathed into the last minute.

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“That is not the women’s room,” the waitress said the moment I exited the bathroom door. She must have been waiting for me. I got startled but tried not to show.

“Oh, no wonder it is so messy, of course,” I chuckled innocently. “Well, is it normal? So much dirt, I mean.”

She pointed to the other door next to me. I waived as if my needs were already met.

“Not quite. I heard there was a fight here last night,” the waitress said, almost excited to share the gossip. “Fortunately, I missed all the action on my night off.”

“Oh, lucky you, must have been so wild,” I said, trying to pass as little interest in it as possible. I headed towards my table. “Is that usual though? Fights here I mean.”

“Some local gang beat up a kid, that did them dirty. Or something,” the woman paused “You’d better not be a blogger or something, I want no business in that stuff. Last time press was involved in this neighborhood it was not fun for them either.”

“Oh no, not at all. Just, you know, I just love the gossip. Can’t seem to resist.” I scoffed and giggled as I sat at my table. I was trying to play the role of the silly young girl, but I had a feeling I had never learned to act this way, and it showed. I was sure I was not fooling that woman.

As if right on cue, the woman paused and looked at me suspiciously.

“Tell the Ngâm Kúrà, again, I was not here, okay? I want no trouble.”

I did not know how to respond to her. Ngâm Kúrà? That must have meant something in her dialect.

“We are out of soup,” she said emphatically as I delayed responding. “Maybe find another place for lunch.”

“I understand” I lied “Have a good day!”

I exited the store promptly.

So, I finally had a lead. I was now in a proper restaurant in a nearby street, my stomach full of a local delicacy I could not pronounce, and my hands holding the bloody handkerchief. I focused on my brother, making sure his pulse was still beating in the distance. After a moment of silence, I sighed with relief detecting him alive.

I put the handkerchief back in my bag and pulled the white petal out of my pocket. I had no idea what to make of it. But the Ngâm Kúrà was not as difficult. A quick online search revealed they were a kind of local mafia, a gang of sorts that operated in most of this area. They were not often involved in violent crimes, but there were a lot of drug busts in the past years associated with their members. For better or worse, they were not infamous enough to warrant more online documentation of them. I would have to seek them on my own.

I picked up my phone and called my brother.

“Still nothing,” he grunted “I am sorry sister. I do not recall anything.”

“I will ask you once and only once will I forgive your response, this first time.”

“Ask away,” he said audibly confused.

“Were there drugs involved?”

“Sis, no! What the hell?”

“I will not ask again”

“Khalida, do you think I would let you run away and hunt someone if all it was I just got high and jumped into a fight?” He asked. “Wait, why? What did you find?”

“It was a gang. Some kind of local drug gang. I think.”

I could hear him grunt on the other side of the call.

“Khalida, just leave it. This reminds me of nothing, and it seems like you are ready to jump into trouble. Will anything I say change your mind?”

“No,” I said.

“Be fucking careful then,” he said and cursed “I love you”.

“Rest well, Qadir” I said and stopped the call.

After my lunch, I went shopping in the city and returned to the Baobab Inn. I was planning to find the best dress fitting for the bar districts and explore the area at night. How difficult would it be to track any member of a gang? I was quite late by the time I returned to the hotel, and the sun was almost setting when I got next to the entrance, shopping bags at hand.

The wind shifted my hair, and I felt my heart skip a beat. I dropped the bags on the spot and started to walk around the hotel. Once again, I was compelled by my Calling at the worst of times.

Most times when the Calling took over me, it felt more like an invisible counsel, an unseen guide smoothing out the kinks and twists of my thoughts and casting the light forward. Other times, it was a cruel puppet master, openly disagreeing with the nature of my free will and strutting me around. This was one of these times. Even if it seems harmless, the fact I lost complete control over my decision-making reminded me why this was called a Curse.

I was led behind the hotel, where the maid I had met yesterday was tending to the garden. I waited and observed. She was holding a watering can and poured water on the flowers. When she was almost done, she turned to one of the biggest Baobab trees next to her, and emptied the rest of the water can, before leaving it and grabbing the rake to collect fallen leaves.

I doubted this tree needed watering; I thought as I approached her with slow steps, but I could only appreciate her intention of tending to the whole garden. I noticed the branches of the Baobab tree – full of white flowers, still tightly closed and not bloomed. A couple of them were lying on the ground, next to the maid who was now leaving them behind when raking the rest of the leaves.

I walked towards one of the fallen flowers and picked it up.

“Oh Miss, don’t do that,” she said chuckling a bit, “Everybody knows, never pluck a flower from the Upside-Down tree, or the big cats will rip you apart.”

I pulled the petal from inside my pocket and compared it: it was undoubtedly the same flower that was dropped next to my brother’s scarf. My Calling subsided, whatever its intentions were, now feeling somehow satisfied.

“I am sorry, big cats?” I asked.

“Yes. They are cursed. Big Cats. Oh no, that’s not right,” she said visibly struggling with Arabic. “Lions. That’s the word”

“Ngâm Kúrà” I responded.

She laughed. “Yes, yes lions, big cats. Same thing.”

“Same thing,” I said, as my skin crawled.

Message received. This was my Calling warning me. Don’t pluck the flower, or the lions will eat you. I wondered who the flower was and who the lions were in this metaphor.

As my Calling formed a new plan in my mind, the flower opened in my hands, revealing its peculiar interior, with juice oozing from its needles.

“I guess I have to answer the Calling,” I sighed.