“Look, boy, I am the servant of Mami Wata, goddess of the water, and as black Americans like to say, this is how we roll,” she said. She looked at Sunny. “Did I say that right? You’d know better than me.” She winked.

“Yeah,” Sunny said.

“Relax, Orlu. Okay?”

Orlu only nodded, looking at the ground.

“I’m glad you brought him with.” She paused, narrowing her eyes at Sunny. “My husband has spoken of you. Can you read the Nsibidi book he sold you yet?”

Sunny nodded.

“I like your hair comb,” she said, grinning.

“Thanks.”

“Now, you know I can’t do a divination reading for you without you having something to give, right?”

“Oh,” Sunny said. She reached into her pocket. “Of course. I don’t have much but . . .”

“No, no, no, not chittim, not even your Lamb money,” she said. “I want a story . . . one from Anyanwu.”

“Huh?”

“I have heard of Anyanwu, that she may not be a good teller of stories, but she has good stories to tell.”

“I . . .” Sunny looked at Orlu and then at Bola.

Bola gasped and said, “Oh. I see it now.”

Sunny nodded. “Something happened to me.” She felt her face flush hot, her eyes filling with tears. “I feel lost.”

“You are,” Bola said, growing very solemn. “How long have you been like . . . this?”

“Two days,” Sunny said, her vision blurring from the tears. When she blinked, she saw that Bola was staring hard at her.

“But . . . it should have killed you,” Bola said, her eyes wide.

“What are you talking about?” Orlu asked.

“My spirit face,” Sunny said. “She’s gone. I can’t call her up! That’s why I couldn’t cross into Leopard Knocks on Thursday. That night, I tried working even a small juju and couldn’t! And Anyanwu is gone and . . .”

The shock on Orlu’s face was so much that Sunny stopped talking.

“All this time?” Orlu asked. “Since Thursday? You haven’t had a spirit face?”

“Tell me what caused it,” Bola said.

When Sunny told her all about the river beast, what she’d seen, and the bead hitting her in the face, Bola said, “This explains the oil spills in the delta.”

Sunny nodded. “Ekwensu.”

“We all sensed Mami Wata’s fury yesterday morning,” Bola said. “Yeeee, there is work to do, o.” She sighed deeply and shook her head, looking troubled, and then looked up at Sunny. “Keep talking. Spit it all out.” Sunny told her the details about her battle with the djinn in the basement and her previous encounter with the lake beast.

“Kai!” Bola exclaimed, clapping her hands to enunciate her outrage, when Sunny finished. She got up and paced back and forth. “This is something new. This is something new, o.” She started speaking in rapid Yoruba to herself.

Sunny felt Orlu’s gaze burning a hole into the side of her face, but she refused to meet his gaze. She wished she’d had him stay in the waiting room.