17

BOLA YUSUF

“Thank goodness it’s this way,” Sunny said, rubbing a hand over her drying Afro. She absentmindedly took out the Mami Wata comb and used it to pick her hair out a bit. They were walking down a dirt path that ran through the forest that they usually took to get to Anatov’s place.

Orlu sucked his teeth. “If it were back in Leopard Knocks, we’d find a way to get there.”

“Tired of having to ‘find a way,’” she muttered. “Just want to be normal, like everyone else.”

“It’s not far now,” Orlu said.

They were walking side by side, shaded by the thickening trees. Sunny suddenly felt glad that it was the middle of the day. Who knew what was lurking in the bush. She giggled nervously to herself.

“What?” Orlu asked.

“I . . . I was just thinking, what could be worse than the river beast?”

“Sunny, there are crazy dangerous beasts like that in these forests, too.”

Sunny quickly reached into her pocket for her juju knife. She fretfully babbled, “What . . . what kind of beasts? Are they big? Hidden like the lake beast? Do you think the lake beast would . . .”

“Put that away,” Orlu said, chuckling. “The worst things around here and in Night Runner Forest come out at night, just after dusk. Relax.”

When she still wouldn’t put her knife away, he took her hand, and every hair on Sunny’s arms and neck stood up. They walked in shy silence for the next five minutes, watching the trees or their feet. Then they came to a clearing in the trees. A large black solid steel gate stood here, with an image painted on each of the two doors. On the left was a painting of Mami Wata herself. She was more the Uhamiri version that Sunny didn’t see very often. Instead of the long straight hair and Indian features of the more popular image of Mami Wata, the traditional Uhamiri version had skin black like a beetle’s wings and long bushy dreadlocks that floated behind her like powerful-looking brown vines. She was grinning with white teeth and holding her long fin against her human torso.

On the other door of the gate was the contrasting image of a brown-skinned man with thick matted hair wearing chains around his ankles and wrists. Sunny frowned. The man had to be onye ara, a person suffering from madness.

“Bola’s a Mami Wata priestess,” Orlu said, seeming to read the question in Sunny’s mind. “So she’s a healer.”

“Of what? Like malaria or . . .”

“No, stuff Lamb doctors can’t address. You know, people suffering from being ogbanjes and women who can’t have children no matter what the doctors do . . . and”—he pointed at the gate—“madness. A lot of Leopard People are struck with it. Maybe from some juju misfiring or someone being bitten by something in our forests, whatever. But Bola’s also a really strong oracle. Her predictions and visions are never wrong, when she has them.”