There was another knock on the door.

“What are you talking about in here?” Ugonna said, coming in.

“Just the trip,” Chukwu said. “Why are you up?”

“Are you planning something?” he asked, ignoring Chukwu’s question. He was looking at Sunny.

“No . . .”

“Because I don’t see why you and your friends are going,” he continued.

“If you want to go,” Sunny said, “you could squeeze in. We talked about this.”

“I’m not going,” he said. “I just want to know why you are.” He put his arms across his chest. “I got a weird feeling about it.”

Sunny was about to say he was just imagining things. She was about to laugh and say he sounded like their superstitious aunt Udobi. But she couldn’t do it. For months her brother had been sensing things about her, drawing and drawing pictures that she now realized were of Osisi. He was worried about her in a way that only a brother could worry about his sister. “It’s something I have to do,” Sunny said, taking his hands and looking right into his eyes.

He looked back into hers. He let go and said, “Okay.”

Sunny breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t have said more if she wanted to.

“Text me,” Ugonna said. “Not Mom, not Dad, me. Both of you.”

“We will,” Sunny said.

There was an awkward pause among the three siblings. The air was so heavy with secrets that Sunny could practically feel them pressing down on her shoulders. But at the same time, never in her entire life had she felt so close to her brothers. And that’s why she did something she’d never done: she reached out to both of them and pulled them to her in a tight hug. For a moment, they resisted, but then they gave in.

“Sunny, I will whoop the hell out of you myself if anything happens to you,” Chukwu said into her neck.

“Okay,” Sunny whispered.

When they let go, her brothers quickly left the room. “We leave in an hour and a half,” Chukwu said as he closed the door behind him.

Sunny climbed back into bed. She was tired from reading her Nsibidi book. A good half hour would do. Plenty of time.

Orlu arrived within the hour, early as usual. Chichi and Sasha arrived together minutes later. Sunny stood in the kitchen watching as Sasha and Chukwu were introduced to each other by Chichi. She quickly took off her glasses, wiped the lenses, and put them back on. She wanted to see this clearly. Sasha and her brother were nearly the same height, Sasha being tall for his age and standing not far from Chukwu’s six feet. But where Chukwu was made of bulky muscle, Sasha was lean, springy muscle. Chukwu seemed to flex his biceps more as he held out his hand to shake Sasha’s. Sunny wished she could have been outside to hear them greet each other.