Mike’s POV

Mike! Mike!

Nikita was screaming in my head. She seemed to be in great pain.

“J.K. Rowling is a woman?” I shushed Neil. I waited to see if she’ll scream again. She didn’t, I tried to communicate with her, and I found that I couldn’t even find her.

“What?”

“Nikki is in danger” I ran like a mad man. Jumping from the tree house and then racing to the kitchen. Neil was right behind me.

I was not mentally prepared for the scene I saw. Nikki was lying in a pool of blood and my mother was on top of her, screaming some words from the Bible. I screamed her name and rushed towards her. Neil muttered some words and my mum flew back, like someone had pushed her and fell in a heap on the floor, unconscious. I cradled Nikki unto my chest and called her name some more, hoping that it would get her to be okay. She was bleeding from her ears, nose and mouth and it formed a grotesque mask.

Neil put his hand over her face and I pushed him away.

“Mike, I can help her” I was breathing too loudly now “Mike!”

“Okay okay”

Neil put his hand over her face and then muttered some words in fante. I recognized pata, sunsom and mesere wo. After about a minute, she stopped bleeding. I let out a breath I did not know I was holding. She was still, too still.

“She’s not moving”

“Lay her on the couch” Neil said, also breathless “Come on” he urged when I wasn’t moving.

My mother begun to stir and Neil had his eyes fixed on her almost immediately. I dragged my sister into the couch in the living room, my heart pounding.

I feel her anger, I feel her joy and her happiness in waves and waves of color a kaleidoscope that painted a map of her emotions. I even feel her aversion to Neil, how her stomach twisted when he smiled so how did I not feel it when she was being attacked? I heard a vase get knocked over as Neil tried to hold my mother, to prevent her from running away.

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He tied her to one of the chairs of the dining room as she was screaming about how Nikita was the devil from the pit of hell and about how she’ll bring death and destruction to the family. I went over to her and she smiled in relief, thinking that I was finally on her side. Instead, I put a napkin in her mouth to muffle her screams and closed the door behind me, leaving her in the kitchen alone.

Neil put himself to work by scrubbing the floors where Nikki’s blood had fallen and sweeping up the bits of vase that had fallen on the floor. He then filled a basin with water and brought a towel to me to clean her up. There were clothes on the line so I told him to bring some for her. He did so and then went to the kitchen where my mother was and then locked it, leaving the room to Nikki and I.

I worked in silence, wiping the blood that had dried up and crusted on her face. Soon the water was red with blood and even though it turned my stomach, I did not stop. I rubbed her face till my fingertips hurt. Then I cleaned her hands and her legs and her stomach. I then changed her clothes. Now she looked like she was just sleeping, her chest lifting up and down as she breathed. Soon I was looking at her with tears in my eyes.

I blamed myself for all of this. How was I to be a divinator if I couldn’t save my sister from this? How could I be sense anything if I couldn’t sense my own twin’s pain?

Amidst crying, I heard a sucking sound behind me. I did not need to turn my head to know who it was, it was Ifa, the god of divination. My teacher, the one who had offered quite terrible advice, the regal one with gold and silver ornaments and tattoos of the fruits of creation.

I kept my head on Nikita’s stomach in embarrassment. It was a childish move because he was a spirit, he did not care if cried. I hid my face anyway, because it was for my benefit and not his. He stood there for a while, looking at the back of my head.

“What do you want?” I said.

He still kept silent. Until I removed my face from Nikita’s stomach and faced him.

“The two became one at the beginning and the two is one forever more” I had thought he would continue, but he didn’t.

Why couldn’t spirits just say things plainly? Must everything be a code?

“Once again great Ifa, I do not understand you”

“Yet you execute what I say perfectly” was that amusement I heard in his voice?

“I suffer to do them and you know it”

“But you do” a smile broke on his face. I was not amused.

He walked over to my side, his body simmering and stirring as he moved. He stared at Nikita, his face looking sorrowful for the first time since I’ve known him.

“The two became one at the beginning

and the two is one forever more

The path is one

But that will not always be so

The one must become two” he turned to look at me “Or death will come knocking at our door”

This was the first time Ifa said something I understood, but did it have to be bad news? Must everything be bad news?

He nodded at my comprehension and shivered into non-existence.

As soon as he left, I heard a car pull up into the driveway.

Dad.