Sugar Cream was a frail old woman of medium height. She had rich brown skin and a face that reminded Sunny of her grandmother on her father’s side. She had no idea if her mentor was Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, Efik, Ijaw, Fulani, or any other ethnicity. Sugar Cream didn’t know either, really, since she’d been abandoned in the jungle when she was very young. If Sunny had to guess, she’d have said Yoruba. But all this began to melt. Her clothes billowed as they were emptied. The wrinkly skin on Sugar Cream’s face began to shrink. Her entire body shriveled in on itself. Sunny felt nauseated and couldn’t hide the look of complete disgust on her face. Her stomach lurched, and she hunched forward just as Sugar Cream’s now lumpy flesh of a body collapsed forward on her desk with a soft thump. The same brown as her skin, it writhed and rolled.

Sunny gasped, shutting her eyes tightly. Count to ten, a papery and dry voice whispered within Sunny’s head. Then see me.

Sunny slowly counted to ten. When she opened her eyes, she was looking into the green-yellow gaze of a large bright green snake. To speak while in alternate form, Sugar Cream said in her head, must be learned. But to change, once you have mastered it, is not difficult.

She did not move, her body still mostly in her clothes. When Sugar Cream changed back, Sunny understood why she’d stayed in place. She filled her clothes with the ease of an expert. “To see me change back does not have the nauseating effect,” Sugar Cream said. “It’s only the first time that throws one off. You will not experience that again when you see me change. Also, your gift is different from mine. When you change into mist and glide, you can bring your clothes.”

They started first with breathing, for part of gliding between the wilderness and the physical world was understanding that you typically had to stop breathing to do it for any extended period of time. “You can glide across the bridge or through a keyhole. That is easy,” Sugar Cream said. “But can you glide from here to your house?”

Gliding between the wilderness and the physical world was one thing, but Sunny knew what Sugar Cream was slowly working her toward. Dropping completely into the wilderness. To do so meant she’d have to die, really truly die. But she was born with this ability, so she would be able to always come back . . . if she did it correctly. She wasn’t in any hurry to try, and Sugar Cream wasn’t in a rush to have her try, either. “Not this year,” Sugar Cream said. “But maybe next year or the year after that.”

Sugar Cream worked her hard. After the gliding exercises, they worked on Night Frames, various states of being that you achieved only during the night. Night Frames required a combination of juju knife flourishes, humming deep in the throat, and a blue juju powder that left her skin oily. Night Frames were primary phases of slipping wholly into the wilderness.