18°41'34.2"N 12°55'10.6"E - Bilma, Niger

23.05.2024 – 11:45 UTC +01.00

I stepped in the path opening in front of me. The world had rearranged the building in front of me each side of the alleyway mirroring the other. Vines crawled all the way on the wall and arched over the path, shading the inner part of the path.

I took a few careful steps, tightening my grip over my mother’s book. My Calling did not react or try to control me, and I could sense nothing of the Nabd, so I must have been alone.

The vines behind me circled the entrance, and I could sense the mirroring walls closing in and rearranging behind me. I was in the manifold ward. I pulled out my phone and used its flickering flashlight to see ahead. There was a door at the end of the pathway. I started walking towards it.

“Sh,” a voice whispered through the corridor. The shushing sound echoed again and again. I was not alone, but I could sense no heartbeat.

“I am looking for Yahaya,” I said, not in the most confident way. I had already had my second thoughts about following through Aisa’s offer.

The whispers intensified, as a feeling of dread engulfed me. Something unnatural was sitting behind me, I could feel its breath and its gaze upon my body, but there was no Nabd to sense. My phone’s light weakened.

“Shush,” a voice whispered. Its echo commanded silence and ripped it apart at the same time. I started running towards the door ahead of me, not daring to look behind. If I did, something terrible would happen.

I ran to the end of the path, I pushed the door open, and the whispers ended. A woman, startled as I burst into the building, yelled and I heard plates falling onto the ground.

A woman scolded me, in an African dialect. It sounded southern. I looked around in frustration: I was in what looked like a library and a kitchen at the same time, with tables and chairs arranged in the middle, and shelves of books lining the walls.

The woman cussed as she looked at the mess she had just made. She was about to say something to me when she noticed me. Her eyes rolled back, revealing the grey whites of their backside.

“Who are you and what do you want?” She asked in Arabic.

“I am Khalida. Aisa sent me, she said to ask for Yahaya,” I responded as quickly as I could. I raised my hands in what hoped would be recognized as a sign of a peaceful approach.

The woman’s eyes turned normal, and I saw her weep tears of strain.

“What’s with the phone?” She asked, pointing at one of my hands. I still held my phone with the flashlight on.

“Oh, it’s a… never mind. It was dark outside,” I said and hastily turned it off. As I was talking to her, I could not help but notice: she was very young. There was a momentary pause as we both observed the other one.

Perhaps she looked younger than she actually was, but she could not be older than twenty years old. She was dressed in clothes that would look already too hip and risqué for me to try, her legs covered in a long jean skirt and a colorful headscarf.

“So, are you Yahaya?” I asked.

“No. Yahaya is gone. I am her pupil and the master of this ward,” she answered. “State your business. Did you bring food?”

I was taken aback by her formal behavior and the question. It did not match her image. She looked like a high-school dropout. And why did she think I had food?

“Aisa told me if I came to find Yahaya, I would be able to help with a problem she is facing. So here I am. No food I am afraid.”

“I do not know who Aisa is,” the girl answered.

“The Lioness?”

She raised her eyebrows and clicked her tongue, “No clue.”

“From the Ngâm Kúrà?”

“I have no idea what these cats are. You will have to wait for Miss. And help me out with the mess you caused,” she said, pointing at the dishes that were lying broken and their pieces scattered across the floor.

“Okay,” I said. It was clear this was not the moment to ask more questions. I helped quickly with collecting the pieces from across the floor and threw them in the trash, while the girl scooped up remains of food diligently.

Once we were done, she offered me a chair and a table.

“Here. You can read a book while you are waiting,” the girl said pointing at the shelves around the big room. I wondered if there were more floors to this place.

“Sure, I can wait.”

No more than ten minutes had passed when the girl joined the table with two cups of tea. She sipped some while offering me the other.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I nodded thankfully.

“So, you look like you are from the North,” the girl said.

“Hm. Libya. That’s a nice tea.”

“I am from Nigeria originally. My name is Tiwalade. But I have spent most of my life here in Bilma, studying under Miss.”

“What are you studying?”

“My Curses. I am the one protecting this ward, but Miss taught me how to,” she explained.

“Was it your trick? The one with the shadows outside?”

“I call it mindmist. This was just a hex I had placed, as extra protection. But it cannot do much more than scare someone,” Tiwalade explained. She started talking about the mindmist hex and how her Curse lets her instill fear in others. I admired her excitement about her Curse. I always feared explaining mine.

After she had walked me through all she had learned to do with the mindmist and the manifold wards, she offered more tea. I realized she was enjoying my visit more than she let on. It was almost as if she was bored here. Too bored.

“So, say, how long is Yahaya going to take to come back?”

“Uhm. I do not know. Anytime now, she should be back.”

I awkwardly turned to follow her as she stood to make some more tea.

“Well, how long is she gone?”

The girl did not respond.

“Tiwalade where is your Miss?” I asked.

“She has been gone for almost a week now. She said she would be back in a day, so she is now very late. But she won’t take long, I am sure,” Tiwalade explained. In her optimism, I could sense some desperation.

I stood up worried.

“Have you told anyone? Or,” I paused, “have you even left this building at all?”

“I cannot, okay? I just cannot. If I leave the manifold will not unravel for her. She will not be able to return.”

“So, for the past week…”

“I had plenty of food, don’t worry. And there is a game console in my room. It got lonely but I can handle it. But now food is running out, but luckily you are here,” she said as she quickly hurried through the kitchen and searched in a box. I heard coins shuffling around. She grabbed some of them, along with some bills, and handed them to me. “If you bring some nice cereal, I would be very grateful. And soy milk. I am vegan.”

I grabbed the money speechless. Tiwalade’s previous serious and strict façade had dissolved into what really should have been: a desperate teen who was only now learning how to be an adult without a parent.

“Uhm sure. But Tiwalade! Please focus. Where is your Miss? Did she say, where she would go or what she would do? Maybe I can get some help for her.”

“She never says. It will be fine,” Tiwalade bit her lip. I thought it was just dawning on her, the gravity of the situation. Her Miss was missing for a week, and all she needed was a stranger to snap her out of her fear of considering it. “Maybe she is not fine. She did say someone called her. She had to be somewhere. I don’t know much. But she told me that I should not go into her room.”

I could not even respond to her – that’s how fast my Calling snapped my limbs into motion. I started walking towards the other side of the room.

“Wait, let me show you!” Tiwalade ran ahead of me. As she headed right into the wall, it unwrapped, wrapped, and unwrapped again to reveal a staircase. The whole building was wrapped under her Curse.

I followed her as she mumbled in her dialect. On the next floor, we turned right into a corridor and right onto a door.

“Here. I think you are right, we need to check this,” Tiwalade said, although I had not spoken a word since my Calling had taken over me. There was something I needed to see in this room.

She waved her hand over the door, which unlocked promptly. I made a mental note of the handiness of her Curse – probably there was nothing that could be hidden from her.

As the door opened, I gasped in awe. The room’s east side was covered in circular windows, letting the sunshine in and gifting us a nice view of the city of Bilma. The room itself had furniture carved in wood around its perimeter, along with a big bed that was left in a visible mess.

What had triggered my awe and Calling was however in the center of this circular room. It was meters wide from both sides, and it seemed designed in proper scale: a whole model of Bilma, all carved in wood.

“She is… unique,” Tiwalade said, feeling obliged to explain what would seem like a mad hobby, “but she has her reasons. She is trying to protect Bilma, from the shadows. Not like other Cursed. I swear.”

She sidestepped and rushed towards a desk in the northeast part of the room. She started shuffling through her papers and letters, mumbling again in another language.

I could not share her worry. Frankly, I did not care for Yahaya, more than the mystery that was now surrounding her. I sensed from Tiwalade’s Nabd that she was afraid for her Miss, but also afraid of her. Of a potential punishment for stepping into her inner sanctuary. I had no reason to fear that. My Calling was moving me, feeling me with confidence, as I stepped towards the miniature Bilma.

I walked around it until I started orienting myself. There was detail in each pool of an oasis, the sky-high buildings, the parks, and the neighborhoods. I found Aisa’s club. The wood was covered by black stains as if dark dye was poured over it again and again.

“She did not even leave a note,” Tiwalade complained. I ignored her.

I walked around the circle once more, scanning the city’s wooden model. There it was, the Baobab Inn, with the Upside-Down trees, where we had been staying for the past few days.

I initially felt a surge of horror and worry. My Calling subdued them, leaving me with a twisted sense of breathlessness. The Inn’s wooden model was splattered in a red dark substance, which pooled and dried around the trees.

“Khalida, I think we might need to find another way,” the girl complained and then started brainstorming some ideas, which I could not hear, as I heard my own Nabd pulsate and feel me with anger.

“That witch saw me coming,” I exclaimed. I raised my hand, and for once I agreed with my Calling. I took a deep breath in. I felt Tiwalade’s pulse stop.

“Sharara,” I commanded. Her pulse reversed, or at least it felt like that. Her eyes stared blankly right at me.

This was new. My Calling was making me stronger, but I had heard of this. I knew what to say.

“You will lead me to your witch. Your Curse will open the path.”

Tiwalade, for once completely silent, walked clumsily towards the window of the room. Her movement was cold as her heart, which was now beating backward per my command. Tiwalade started praying in her native tongue, while the circular windows started shifting like a kaleidoscope.