Orlu grabbed her hand when she got through, pulling her closer. She felt her phone buzz again, this time indicating that she had voicemails, too. “No, I’m not,” he said. “What do your eyes tell you?”

Her eyes told her what she knew was the truth. At least a day had passed since they’d entered Udide’s cave. The New Year was well on its way.

“Udide loves a good story,” Orlu said. “So why not thicken our own plot by throwing us off a few days?”

Sunny felt ill. She knew exactly what all her messages were about. She just didn’t know how severe. Were they from her brother or her parents?

“Hurry up,” Chichi said over her shoulder. Sunny and Orlu hurried after them. Chichi was right. Grashcoatah had told them he would meet them on the outside of the market. It was best not to keep him waiting.

The chaos began long before they made it out of the market. It started with nervous whispering and people losing interest in buying. Sunny caught snippets of conversation.

“Need to get out of here . . .”

“. . . . the other way.”

“Something near the . . .”

“. . . if they’re armed robbers, I have my cutlass . . .”

The four of them kept moving, and soon they found themselves fighting against a tide of increasingly terrified people. Sunny and Orlu grabbed a wooden pole as the deluge of people increased, sweeping past them. Some were screaming, all were rapidly fleeing. When the tide of people slackened, Sunny saw that Sasha and Chichi were clinging to another pole. They silently looked at one another and then broke into a run. When they emerged from the market, the normally packed entrance was deserted. The last few people were fleeing in cars, okada, and on foot. There was a great cloud of dust rising in the open area in front of the market, and Sunny’s stomach dropped.

“You didn’t!” Sasha shouted at the settling dust.

“Don’t!” Orlu said. “Don’t acknowledge him.”

Sasha immediately understood, closing his mouth. He stopped running and walked back between an abandoned cassava-and-melon stand and a booth selling bunches of bushy green ugwu and water leaves. Sunny stepped up behind him. “Why would he do that?”

Sasha laughed. “He thinks this is all funny.”

“I’ll bet he landed in the middle of everyone and appeared for a second and then disappeared,” Chichi said. “Just long enough to make people think they saw something and not be sure of what they saw. There are Leopard rules for beasts like Grashcoatah, too. If he causes too much trouble, the Library Council would come and put him down.”

Sasha nodded. “Yeah, appear for a millisecond and let Nigerians do the rest. Y’all already superstitious as hell. An owl landing in a tree will cause a riot. It doesn’t take much.”

“We have to get him out of here,” Orlu said. “Before people come back, out of curiosity.”