Niki’s POV

Neil started acting all strange towards me and it made me feel a bit uncomfortable on the car ride to his home. Nkosi said it wasn’t safe for me to stay at the Red Hut and said I should not leave Neil’s place until he came to see me. I was trying to reach Mike but he seemed occupied on something else.

I felt I was in danger, but who was the threat, Mawu or the humans? Mike did not say anything about me being a sort of fugitive instead of going to school.

“Neil, talk to me dammit” he jumped and then turned to look at me.

Oh, for the love of Christ he is startling when I talk. Great.

“What is it? What’s the matter? Why am I being treated like a sort of fugitive?” Neil sighed and then said,

“There is a villain in The Vodun community. We call her The Queen of the Bloody Tears, or just Blood Queen. In more superstitious areas she is called Viviti Mawudↄla, Dark Angel. She is extremely powerful and dangerous and attacks people of power, like council members, representatives and what not”

“What has this Blood Queen got to do with me?”

“She went to Wagadu and skipped levels like crazy, she was in Level 5 in 3 years. No one understood why, she skipped classes, she passed all her exams and was better than all her mates.”

“Neil I still don’t understand”

“She’s an initiate and she lost it her mind the moment she reached Level 5”

Suddenly it dawned on me, Blood Queen and I had similar life experiences so it was logical to assume that I would also lose my mind the same way she did.

“What’s her name?”

“No one knows except the older generation. After she left and she begun committing her gruesome crimes people were afraid that mentioning her name would summon her. So, her name was almost never mentioned”

I was about to ask him more questions but we had reached his home. It looked cozy, albeit smaller than mine with just one storey but I liked how simple it was.

A woman my mum’s age but with a little more flesh on her emerged from the house. She wore a kente dress and simple sandals. I noticed light make up on her face and her simple afro twists were in a simple bun. I thought she was a bit dressed up for someone who was just lounging in her home.

“Hello my baby boy!!” she exclaimed and embraced Neil. She was only a little taller than her adopted son but was lighter than him. He looked a bit embarrassed but looked extremely happy to see her as well. “Your father and I are so proud of you! look at you, a Level 3 boy who had just finished his first mission!”

“Mama!” Neil exclaimed in embarrassment but subtle pride, breaking himself away from the embrace but holding her hand “This is Nikita” he pointed towards me and smiled awkwardly.

I smiled awkwardly back.

Before I could greet her, she launched herself on me and squeezed “Hello Nikita I’m so glad to see you! I am Afua Mensah, I’ve heard so much about you!”

Wait what?

When Neil saw my face, he chipped in “She’s in the Vodun Council. They know a lot of things”

“So, they already know my Level?” I said when she let go of me.

“Yes, but that’s not what we’re going to talk about that today. Today you’re going to be welcome and well taken care of. Neil dear help her settle in her room and then the two of you freshen up for dinner” With that, she tipped the driver, gave me one final hug and then entered back into the house.

Neil led me to my ‘room’. It had a wardrobe and a cupboard and a window that faced the street. The bed was queen sized and was laid with flowery bedsheet and 2 pillows. There was also a bathroom and washroom in there laid with tiles and was immaculate.

“It’s not much but it’s what we have” Neil said shyly after laying my bags at the foot of my bed.

“It’s great, thank you” I sat on the bed and felt the mattress, it was soft and I almost didn’t feel the bed boards underneath as it was so dense. I tried to reach Mike again but to no avail. I missed him.

“Is everything okay?” Neil said sitting beside me.

“Things are more complicated than I thought it would be. I mean today I learnt I might be a villain.”

“My parents are both Vodun philosophers so everyone thought I would be too. That even what I thought I’d do. But I’m a warrior. You don’t have to be what others tell you to be. Be what you want to be”

“Thanks”

“Or maybe you’re down because of Mike?”

“Urgh, I hate it when you do that” I found myself smiling nonetheless.

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“There’s a field around Wagadu that prevents telepathic communication with people outside here.”

I did not know that. So, then it means that our only chance of communication is in the spirit realm.

“You’ll be fine” Neil said taking my hand. We sat there for a while and then he got up to leave “Freshen up and let’s go eat dinner. My mum makes the most amazing Ampesi you’ve tasted in your entire life”

He did not lie. I had to restrain myself from licking my fingers and my plate and seeing my enthusiasm, she offered me a second helping which I gratefully accepted.

“I don’t know why you would even offer to go for missions when you could stay home and eat!”

“Your mother doesn’t feed you?” Mrs. Mensah asked.

“She does, but not a lot. She says respectable ladies do not eat a lot” Mrs. Mensah frowned but recovered quickly with a smile.

“Well as long as you’re in this household, we eat big and workout big!”

Workout? In an African household?

“How do you think we are able to keep our figures?” she said handing Neil his third helping. She herself had had two big servings “There’s a gym in here, we do small workouts everyday but the main workouts are 4 times a week, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Regular exercise is an important part of Vodun training here at Wagadu, a healthy mind lives in a healthy body”

I was immediately intimidated by my upbringing. We did not even remotely exercise, except for the diets my mother did to keep he figure and her belly flat. My dad was always stressed from work that when he got home, he ate and slept. However, I was impressed about how progressive this household was. I do not know why I assumed that Wagadu would be a dilapidated community within the forests and huts as homes. It was probably due to how the African magical community was presented to us in the media. They always occurred in the village setting and somehow there was always a forest or river involved with dilapidated magic wielders who were always seen as evil. Probably some propaganda by the Christian community to keep Vodun or others who think that the traditional religions are not that bad.

As I thought about how Wagadu was nothing I expected, the front door opened and in walked a man. He looked to be in his late 40s and he was nose deep in his phone texting. His hair was neatly cropped with little to no hair on his face. He wore a simple shirt on trousers and sandals. Mrs. Afua walked over to him and kissed him. He took his eyes off his phone for a while to kiss his wife back and promptly went back to his phone. Mrs. Afua tried to tell him something, probably about me but he said something along the lines of he’ll freshen up and will meet us during dinner.

“That’s my husband, Bright, he’s a teacher at Wagadu, he’ll probably be teaching you” she said with a bright smile. I smiled back and took the last morsel of food left on my plate. Neil went around to gather up the plates and even though Mrs. Mensah was not in favor, I helped him clean up after dinner and washed the dishes.

“So,” Neil said rinsing the dishes while I washed them “What do you think?”

“Your parents are awesome!” I said with a laugh “I don’t know why anyone in their right minds would go for missions when they have a place like this as their house”

“Yeah yeah” he said beratingly “I’m in my right mind alright. As grateful I am for my parents, I want to be a lot more than mummy’s or daddy’s boy. I want to go out there and happen to things instead of things just happening to me”

“I respect that” and I did. It takes a lot of courage to leave a perfectly good and supportive home to make life for yourself.

“Oh no no” I heard Mr. Bright’s voice in the doorways of the kitchen “No visitor will ever wash…” when I turned to smile guiltily at Mr. Bright and apologize, probably say something about how my gratitude makes me want to wash dishes. However, when he saw my full face, he froze. He just stood there open mouthed, looking at me like he had seen a ghost. The phone he was holding in his right hand was soon forgotten.

“Dad?” Neil asked, trying to determine what was going on with his dad. I hoped he found out because I didn’t know either.

After hearing his son’s voice, he shook himself, whispered a small apology to the fridge and then left. Mrs. Mensah appeared from the doorway, apparently standing there the whole time. She asked Neil what was going on and he just shrugged. She told me to rinse my hands and go and catch some sleep because the days coming would be very hectic.

I silently obeyed her, went to my room and locked the door.

Why does this keep happening to me? People see me and they freeze, people hear about my rank and they say I will become some Blood Witch or something. I mouthed “Viviti Mawudↄla” a few times, feeling it’s strange aura as I said it out loud. I wondered what exactly she did to instill fear into everyone like that. She killed powerful men and position, and if there was anything I knew from politics, it was that powerful men are dangerous men as well and maybe she was just trying to do the right for the people. That also made her a dangerous person and probably took things too far. ‘Who would watch the watchmen’ was something my dad told me whenever we saw examples of vigilantism in the news. Probably whoever was her god, but I was still weary of her.

These thoughts ran about my head until I fell asleep.

I woke up in the spirit realm and saw Mike, tending to the ground?

“Mike?”

“Shh!” he said turning towards me with a finger on his lips. I don’t see him for over 10 hours and he shushes me.

“Dude, seriously?” I knelt down beside him “What’s more important than…”

And then I saw it. Emerging from the brown loose earth was a tiny green sprout. I didn’t think it was possible for plants to grow in the spirit realm.

“They are not” Mike said, digging carefully around the seedling.

“So, what happened?”

“Shh!!”

“Dude come on!!”

“Just shut up and listen!” he said placing a hand on my shoulder “Shh and feel”

As soon as I stopped talking a felt an almost negligible breeze against my cheek. I stared open mouthed at Mike.

“Oh. My. God”

“I know.” He was grinning elatedly

“What does this mean?”

“I don’t know. But something’s coming and it’s big”

We sat there in the vast land we previously thought was barren, and every breeze we felt on our cheek brought excitement. After a while, Mike asked

“How was Wagadu?”

I had almost forgot about my troubles in the real world. I told him everything and after he heard how Neil’s father had acted, he raised an eye brow.

“People can’t surely be that suspicious”

“People act crazy even when they aren’t sure that there is magic, so imagine how the people act when they know there is magic”

“I’ve not heard of this Blood Queen person. And these people are terrible at names. What is Queen of the Blood Tears?” I laughed at the comment.

“I like Viviti Mawudↄla” I smirked “it sounds cool, I guess. Maybe it’s because she makes people cry blood or something”

Mike sat there in thought for a while “Something is wrong, isn’t it?” I asked.

“There are so many signs, but nothing to interpret them”

“Mike I can’t do this alone” I said, getting the words that I had been trying to swallow for a long while. “People are judging me, and I haven’t even done anything yet. Neil’s family is great, but I’m afraid things are going in a direction I can’t handle. Ask Ifa again, please, I beg you”

From the way Mike looked back on the ground, I knew that it was unlikely.

I began to dig a little in the dirt and found another seedling.