“Did your grandmother say anything about how to get in?” Sasha asked.

“No,” she said. “The door just opened or something. I dunno.”

Chichi brought out her knife and blew on the tip, made a circular flourish, and tapped softly on the door. Her eyes grew wide. “Ouch!” she screeched, jumping back.

“Heh, I had a feeling a simple door-opening juju was not going to work,” Sasha said.

“Felt like it bit me!” Chichi said, rubbing her right hand as she held her knife.

“I thought you said there’s no juju protecting it,” Sunny said to Orlu.

“It’s not juju,” Orlu said.

“Ancestral land, then,” Sasha said.

“Exactly,” Orlu said. “Whoever’s ancestral land this is is not human.”

“Let me see your hand, Chichi,” Sasha said, taking it.

“See the red mark?” Chichi said, her voice softening as Sasha stepped closer to her.

“I see,” he said. “Want me to kiss it?”

Sunny rolled her eyes and Orlu looked away, uncomfortable. “Na wao,” Orlu muttered.

They stood there looking at the door for a moment. “Well, if your grandmother liked Nsibidi so much, maybe she used it to open the door,” Chichi offered. “Do you know the Nsibidi for ‘open’?”

Sunny was about to say that she only knew how to read Nsibidi. But then an image bubbled up in her mind. She saw the door opening when she’d read her grandmother’s Nsibidi note. Slowly it swung open like a thick dome of glass. She was playing the image again in her head when she realized there was a flash of something. “Wait,” she whispered. “Wait.” She replayed the image in her mind; there it was again. She held up a hand, closing her eyes. “Wait. Nobody talk.”

She replayed it again, this time slowing it way down. Again, but even slower. And that’s when she saw the symbol. Clearly. It was more than “open.” It was stronger. It was tricky demand and force. Her grandmother had broken into this house when she’d come here. A heavy bronze chittim fell. She heard it clink against the door and felt it land on her sandal. She opened her eyes, slowly bent down, and picked it up. She looked up and smiled at her friends. “Did you know that the images Nsibidi creates when read can be separated from the symbols?”

Always swift with understanding, Sasha and Chichi made her job so simple. “So . . . if you remember the image, you can call back the symbols?” Chichi asked.

Sunny nodded, putting the chittim in her backpack.

“Oh, I get it. You were remembering the image of the door opening,” Sasha said, nodding. “And in that image is the Nsibidi symbol. Clever.”

“Nsibidi, de tin’ dey cool,” Chichi said, impressed.

“I don’t get it,” Orlu said. “But if you can open the door, open it, sha.”

Sunny put a hand on the door’s cool surface. She brought out her juju knife. She paused. The blade of her knife was nearly identical to the substance of the door. Was her knife made from the wing of a beetle from some distant land? She’d consider this later. With her knife, she drew the symbol she’d seen in her grandmother’s Nsibidi on the surface of the round door. She worked slowly, carefully, holding the image in her mind as she tried her best to duplicate it. Gradually, the surface of the door pulled her knife to it like a magnet pulled steel. Pop! The four of them jumped back. Then there was a deep hissing sound as the enormous door unsecured itself. A few budding plants and roots growing over and inside the door ripped and fell, and dust and dirt rained down. The strange clear door opened like a reluctant mouth.