When she returned home, she made it into the kitchen before anyone knew she was there. Her father stood in the doorway in his nightwear. “Sunny,” he said in a low voice. “Where were you?”

Sunny’s heart slammed in her chest and she felt her throat tighten. She couldn’t tell him even if she wanted to. “Dad, I . . .”

He held up a hand. “Something has always been wrong with you,” he muttered. “What kind of daughter has God given me?”

“I swear, Dad, I’m not . . .” She froze as it started to happen, her body filling with terror. But she couldn’t help it, no matter how hard she willed. Her spirit face was coming forward! And as it began to happen, Sunny could feel Anyanwu’s shock, too. She turned from her father.

“Don’t swear,” her father snapped. “Don’t swear a thing to me. What are you . . . What is wrong with you?”

Sunny was afraid to speak. But as her spirit face retreated, she relaxed. She turned back to her father’s angry face. Two years ago, he’d surely have beaten her when he was this angry . . . and this scared him. She could see it in his eyes. She was old enough now and had faced enough scary things herself to recognize it. “Are you all right?” he asked in a low voice.

She nodded.

“Did anyone hurt you?”

“I’m okay, Dad,” she said. The djinni bite on her arm itched and ached. Was losing control of her spirit face a side effect?

He touched his forehead and closed his eyes, letting out a breath. He opened them. “Will this happen again, Sunny?”

She pressed her lips together, steadying herself. If her spirit face had slipped forward, would they have returned her right back to the basement? Or something even worse? Why did that even happen? And her father made her angry. She had always known he resented her for not being what he wanted. He was like so many other Igbo fathers. Sons, sons, sons, even when you had two. And if not a son, then a beautiful, polite, docile daughter. “No,” she said, just wanting to escape to her room.

“I’ll tell your mother that you’re home,” he said, making to leave. He turned back to Sunny. “We love you more than life itself.” He paused, his own words seeming to take his breath away. Then his face became hard and angry as she’d known it most of her life when he looked at her, and he continued. “But you worry her like that again and I will disown you from this family and throw you out of this house.”

Later on, her mother didn’t come running to the kitchen or her room. But Sunny could hear her sobbing with relief in their bedroom. She heard Ugonna go to their room. Then he came to Sunny’s room, peeked in, and without a word returned to his room. Sunny lay awake listening to her mother’s sobbing and her father’s soft consoling murmurs. She wished she could go to her parents’ room as she used to when she was younger, before she became part of something that was entirely separate from her family.