“I’m . . . I’m American,” he said. He grinned. “African American. I have no tribe. Not one that I know of at least.” When the Grashcoatah just looked at him, waiting, Sasha quickly went on to tell Grashcoatah the story of the stolen Africans, the thieving Europeans who stole them, the Native American peoples who got wrapped up in it all, and how he was a descendant of “all that bullshit.”

Grashcoatah listened with complete interest and attention. Clearly, he loved stories just like his mother, Udide the Spider. Then Grashcoatah ate the ugwu and water leaves ravenously; he liked the water leaves much more and went on to eat every leaf in the abandoned booth. The four of them had to pool several naira together to pay for the creature’s meal.

Sunny was relieved when they finally got the grasscutter to consent to fly with them back to Adebayo’s house on Victoria Island. Grashcoatah agreed to fly above them while they caught a kabu kabu. As soon as Grashcoatah disappeared, they got moving. Who knew how long it would be before the creature had another urge to scare the hell out of the citizens of Lagos.

They’d had to walk about a quarter of a mile before they found a kabu kabu who would stop. Chichi and Sasha’s Ujo spell was indeed strong and far-reaching. Up to that point, if there was even a person nearby, he or she would have such a look of terror on his or her face that none of them even wanted to speak to the person. There were several okada that had been abandoned by their terrified drivers as well. Sunny was relieved that none of them had crashed. And people driving cars kept coming and then making a U-turn and screeching off.

“Make na come in!” the driver shouted at them. He was a young man with a shiny bald head, a neat goatee, and a wild nervous look in his eye. “Heard there was something happening around here and where things are happening, there are people who need rides. But the closer I get to the market, the more I feel like I SHOULDN’T BE HERE!”

They jumped in the car and Sunny was pulling the door shut as he sped into a wild U-turn and drove them off, shouting something frantic in Yoruba and then whooping with fear. The farther they got from the market, the more the man calmed, and soon he was back to being rational. As he drove, he apologized over and over. “I’ve had a long day,” he said. “I get you where you need to go, no shaking, no shaking.”

As they drove, Sunny looked into the air. Just as she did, she saw Grashcoatah do it again. Just for a split second, he showed himself. A man on an okada must have looked up in time to see him. So had a driver driving a loaded truck full of oranges. It all happened in slow motion, every moment drawn out.