She could hear commotion outside—Grashcoatah roaring, a squishy sound, buzzing, Sasha giving a warrior’s cry. Something large hit the front of the house where she and Sasha had been standing moments before. A blast of frigid air flew in, conflicting with the warm air inside. But Sunny’s focus was on the giant tree in the center of the house that wasn’t really a tree, not anymore. It had expanded by ten feet in diameter, now twenty, thirty, bringing down the ceiling above and then the roofing. Then bark fell away to reveal tightly packed and layered dried palm leaves. There Ekwensu stood. Again.

And now, for the first time, Sunny could see her face. Faces. At the top of the great mound of tightly packed palm fronds was a cloth hood of wooden masks. Sunny could see three of the masks, one facing her and one on each side, and there was probably one more she couldn’t see. Like the Aku masquerade Chichi had called last year, each mask had a different expression; the one facing her was smiling.

Water began trickling down through the open roof. It was raining. With the deep rhythmic drum that was beating, Sunny hadn’t realized that a storm had come in, too. The rain hitting the dried palm leaves of Ekwensu made the sound of a large audience clapping.

Ekwensu began to dance. She rocked her huge body of packed dried fronds back and forth to the musical flute, bringing down more of the house. Chunks of stone fell; some landed right before Sunny. She was afraid, so afraid. But she didn’t move. She stared at Ekwensu with dead eyes. Ekwensu began to spin.

Sunny heard the crash of lightning and Orlu screaming her name. Something meowed loudly like a giant cat. There were spirits lurking all around the room. She could see them clearly as she’d seen the market over the empty road. There were glowing blades of grass in the walkway that swayed to the rhythm of the flute music and large blobby white shapes pressing into the corners. Something green cartwheeled away from her on her left, leaping into the open mouth of the gold mask.

They feared Sunny. Even without Anyanwu. What did that mean? But they were not her concern. Sunny stretched her neck as she watched Ekwensu preparing to strike. That’s how she’d always operated, Sunny remembered. Sunny flexed her legs and rolled her shoulders, the way she’d always seen Chukwu do just before running onto the soccer field for a game. She touched the juju knife in her pocket and focused on Ekwensu’s spinning body, squinting as she tried to see individual leaves. If she waited any longer, Ekwensu would be spinning too fast. Sunny held her breath and ran forward. If I die now, I die, she briefly thought. And she meant it.

There!

She grabbed on to the first frond her eye caught. It crumbled in her hand, and she quickly grabbed another, reaching as close to the root of the leaf as possible. The velocity took her, and soon she was spinning. For several moments, Ekwensu didn’t notice and Sunny took advantage of this, using her strong, strong arms to pull in her body and then haul herself up as the great masquerade spun. She saw a red bead like the one that had hit her between the eyes tumble from between the fronds and drop to the floor. Then another. She gasped, looking frantically for more. Hadn’t Sugar Cream said if Sunny caught one of those beads she could end Ekwensu?