Escaping Exodus
Page 28
A witch.
She laughs at the idea, wishing it were that simple.
Temper
Doubt
“I feel like a drone in an ant colony,” Kasim whispers to me as we follow the curve of a gravel pathway, weaving through swarms of students and passing the big brown mounds of school buildings set into the base of Grace Mountain. Knowing Kasim’s fixation with bugs, he doesn’t mean this as an insult, but I’m sure taking it that way. This is Gabadamosi? I’d expected something grand. Big glass buildings, daring feats of architecture, a place that exuded knowledge from every nook and cranny. This place looks so ancient, so tribal, and not in a good way. Doubt hits me like a punch to the ribs. What have I gotten us into?
My satchel hangs like a noose around my neck, holding the entire extent of the personal belongings we are allowed: two long-sleeved cikis and two short, all ruddy brown linen with orange jacquard embellishments around the collar and cuffs, with the school crest upon the right shoulder. Two matching sets of pants. A few pair of underwear. A sleep gown. Three notebooks filled with twice-blessed paper. A set of defting sticks. A cup, a bowl, a spoon. One comfort item, and a note from home.
For my comfort item, I’ve chosen a pocket mirror, not to stoke my vainglory, but as a quick source of glass shards should the need arise. Kasim has picked a whole carton of individually wrapped Jak & Dee’s dehydrated samp and beans. He eats them right out of the packet when he’s stressed. And instead of a loving note from our mother, we’d both gotten a slur of cusses, punctuated with “how could you?” and “I raised you better than this!” I wanted to explain to her why we had to leave, but how could we tell the woman who birthed us, who raised us the best she could, that her sons were beset by demons? And yet beyond her anger and disappointment, the way she looked at us, it was like she could see those monsters inside us as she slammed the door in our faces. Yes, it stings, but Kasim and I have to focus on figuring out a way to quiet our minds while wielding our powers. Then we can make it up to her.
We draw sharp stares from all directions. There is an unspoken social order about things, the way students move in packs, the paths they take, who yields to whom when those paths intersect, but it is well beyond my grasp. We wear the clothes, but we definitely do not walk the walk. And I can barely stand to walk at all, the way these loafers pinch at my toes. Kasim stumbles along as well, scratching at his collar, like his grace has been left behind along with the rest of our possessions. He walks so close to me that our arms brush. The proximity is like a breath of fresh air. We may have next to nothing, but we have each other, and that’s more than enough.
We near the administration building, another brown mound of old brick and thin panes of dingy glass, evoking images of the simple wooden huts our ancestors once dwelled in. Don’t get me wrong, the place is immaculate, but the buildings cannot escape the burden of their age. We ascend a short set of stairs, our heads passing directly under a Welcome to Gabadamosi Preparatory banner. When I open the door, the dimly lit rotunda is abuzz with school staff scurrying across the packed dirt floor, flitting in and out of the glass doors of offices carrying stacks of precariously high paper and wearing impossibly wide smiles. That all grinds to a sudden halt as each and every eye falls upon us disappointedly. Whispers stir about as we pass, referring to us as those boys before we even get a chance to identify ourselves. Apparently, Uncle Yeboah had called in a huge favor from one of his welshing buddies who sat on the school board. Together they pushed through a Religioning Exchange Program that took poor secular kids from the comfy and immersed them in Grace’s shadow for a quarter. He’d spent many multiples of the money he’d offered to us to pay our tuitions via “scholarship,” bribe the proper officials at Gabadamosi, and keep his name from it all in any shape or form.
One quarter. Or what’s left of it. Ten weeks is all the time we have to learn all we can, and hope that it’s enough.
I place my hands on the front counter and nervously touch one of the pens held by a gilded cup bearing the school’s crest—a bird-faced cheetah with a snake for a tail, wielding a long knife. “Hi. We’re Auben and Kasim Mtuze. It’s our first day.”
The receptionist behind the desk forces a smile upon eir face, but would have had an easier time squeezing water from a rock. “Welcome, new students.” The receptionist smacks eir lips like the words have left a disgusting aftertaste. “Munashe!” ey calls out, annoyed.
A smallish wooden door opens, which I’d thought was a maintenance closet, and out comes a young woman dressed in a high-quality yet ill-fitting blouse, neck adorned with a chunky kola nut necklace, and slacks with their cuffs skimming the floor. Her hair is pressed and fashionably unkempt, though I get the feeling that this was not her intent.
“Hello,” she greets us, face aglow with the compassionate gaze of a child’s doll. She looks a few years older than Kasim and me. “You must be Auben and Kasim. I’m Munashe, recent Gabadamosi alum, class of ’09. They couldn’t get rid of me, and now I’m a new student liaison. I can show you around and answer any of your questions. I’m at your beck and call.”
We shake hands. She seems sincere enough, and her face doesn’t have that look like we’re polluting up the place, which makes me both trust her and feel immediately warier at the same time.
“You should get along with the tour, then,” the receptionist says briskly. “We’ll send all of the necessary paperwork over to your dormitory.” Ey brushes me away with a finger flick, then sets about polishing the spot on the desk where I’d leaned . . . and tossing the pen I’d touched. The receptionist straightens the remaining pens, shuffles paperwork, neatens eir tight afro with a pat, waxes on a smile.
“Don’t mind them,” Munashe whispers to us. “I wish I could say they usually aren’t quite this awful, but then I’d be a liar.” She gives us an impish smile, then bids us to follow her to the exit. “It’s just that everyone is a bit on edge. Gueye Okahim is paying a visit to Gabadamosi today. It’s all very exciting. Rumor has it that he’s seeking out an apprentice. Perhaps one of our students will catch his eye.”
“Gueye Okahim?” Kasim asks.
Munashe stops so quickly, I run right into her back. “Seriously? You don’t know who Gueye Okahim is? For the glory of Grace, this exchange program couldn’t have been any more prudent. Gueye Okahim is the Man of Virtues at the Sanctuary. The man who stands directly in Grace’s shadow. Who has been thoroughly touched by those Hallowed Hands. Who speaks His word. Also a Gabadamosi alum, I have to add. Class of ’71.”
Munashe takes Kasim by the hand and eagerly bids us forth. “Come on. We don’t want to be here when he arrives. I can’t even imagine the extent of the school’s embarrassment if his first visit in nearly five years involved a couple of sec-heads. No offense.” Munashe pushes open the front door, and stiffens as she looks out. Coming up the stairs is a man clad in dark purple sequined robes that kiss the ground, his thin black thighs peeking from the slits upon either side. A collar of stiff pheasant feathers frames his head like a lion’s mane. Hints of age dance lightly about his wizened eyes, though no evidence of his years exists anywhere else upon his chiseled face. His hair is shorn, except for a smooth bald band straight through the center, where the symbols of the seven virtues have been branded front to back. The one for grace overlaps onto his forehead.
Munashe immediately falls to her knees and makes the quick gesture we have seen our uncle do enough times. Kasim and I exchange a worried glance, and in the instantaneous language shared by twins, decide that we should at least make a minimal effort to fit in. We also go to our knees, but refrain from the religious gestures.
It soon becomes apparent to the three of us that we have chosen to show our respect right in the doorway to the building so that it is impossible for the Man of Virtues to pass. I slowly start to stand, but Munashe tugs me back down by the collar of my uniform. “We can’t move until he’s passed,” she rasps to us. “Or until he’s addressed us to do so.” Unless the Man of
Virtues intends to step over us, it will have to be the latter. He will have to speak directly to Kasim and me, and we have no idea what to do or how to respond. “Don’t look at anything besides his feet. Say nothing other than ‘Yes, Amawusiakaraseiya.’”
Say what?
My eyes stay fixed upon glimpses of bare feet peeking from beneath Gueye Okahim’s robe. The feet stop inches away from us. I hear the amused smirk on his face as he says, “Arise, my children,” in a voice full of intonation and power.
We comply thoughtlessly, like puppets pulled by strings.
The scurrying of many feet fills the rotunda behind us. I dare to part my glance from Gueye Okahim’s feet to see the small army of school administrators with horrified faces.
“Amawusiakaraseiya,” Munashe says, a quivering mess. “I am incredibly sorry you have been inconvenienced by these students. Please—”
“There is no inconvenience. I am here to be among the students and to witness how the Hallowed Hands have touched the minds and souls of our young ones. You,” Gueye Okahim says, lifting my chin up with one of his ageless fingers. “I trust this fine institution is seeing to your religioning in an adequate manner?”
“Yes—” I try to get my mouth around the title, but the syllables refuse to cohere. I do the next best thing I can think of “—sir.”
I swear I hear Munashe gritting her teeth at me.
“And you.” Kasim’s chin is lifted as well. “Do you feel your time here has brought you closer to Grace?”
Kasim grimaces, his mind churning over one of his sideways truths. “It certainly hasn’t brought me any farther away, Amawusiekeseiya.” The word slips effortlessly over his lips.
The air in the room is sucked thin by a collective gasp.
Kasim flushes. “What? I said that right, didn’t I?” he whispers to Munashe.
Her mouth gapes, then opens and closes like a dying fish. “I throw myself upon your mercy, Amawusiakaraseiya. It is my fault. These students here do not know any better. They are exchange students sent over from a secular school in a nearby comfy. They do not mean any offense.”
“None is received. It is a good thing for His hands to reach into the hearts that need Him the most. It is good to meet you both. I am called Gueye Okahim by birth, Amawusiakaraseiya by His hands. You may call me Gueye if it is easier for you.” He presses both of his hands around mine.
“I’m Auben, Gueye. Auben Mtuze. It is an honor to meet you.”
“Likewise,” he says with a major helping of humility.
“I’m Kasim Mtuze,” Kasim says. “We’re brothers. Twins.” He stands next to me, his arm pressed against mine. It is like we are a united front in Gueye Okahim’s presence, and together we might get through this unscathed.
“Kasim? It is interesting that parents raising a child in the secular way would give him such a highly religious name. Controller of temper it means in ancient Sylla.”
“There were a dozen Kasims at our former school,” Kasim says with a shrug. “I think it was a popular name at the time.”
Munashe stands tight-lipped, her wide eyes drilling into Kasim’s. I think a “Yes, Amawusiakaraseiya” was meant to go there. Sweat beads prickle upon her forehead, and I’m sure she’s stopped breathing.
Gueye Okahim looks us over intently. We have caught his eye, and definitely not in a good way. “Yes, perhaps,” he says with a short bow. “May Grace walk with the both of you.”
And then he takes his leave. As soon as he is out of sight, Munashe hyperventilates. She attempts to speak at us between her quick and desperate breaths, but all that comes out is a broken string of indistinguishable consonants and airy vowels.
“That was an absolute disaster,” she finally wheezes. “But it’s all my fault. It’s always my fault. Sorry, boys. I’ve got a mess to repair. Here are your class schedules.” She shoves crest-embossed folders into each of our hands. “There’s a map tucked inside. Come to me if you have any questions . . . just not today!”
About the Author
NICKY DRAYDEN is a systems analyst living in Austin, Texas, and when she’s not debugging code, she’s detangling plotlines and mixing metaphors. Her award-winning debut novel, The Prey of Gods, is set in a futuristic South Africa brimming with demigods, robots, and hallucinogenic high jinks. Drayden’s sophomore novel, Temper, is touted as an exciting blend of Afrofuturism and New Weird. Her travels to South Africa as a college student influenced both of these works, and she enjoys blurring the lines between mythology, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and dark humor. See more of her work at nickydrayden.com or catch her on Twitter at @nickydrayden.
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Endorsements
Praise for The Prey of Gods
Winner of the Compton Crook Award and the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award (Science Fiction)
“Fans of Nnedi Okorafor, Lauren Beukes and Neil Gaiman better add The Prey of Gods to their reading lists! This addicting new novel combines all the best elements of science fiction and fantasy.”
—RT Book Reviews, “June 2017 Seal of Excellence—Best of the Month”
“This dense and imaginative debut is . . . a book like no other, with a diverse cast that crosses the spectrum of genders and races, and a new idea (or four) in every chapter.”
—B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, “The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2017 So Far”
“Drayden’s delivery of all this is subtly poignant and slap-in-the-face deadpan—perfect for this novel-length thought exercise about what kinds of gods a cynical, self-absorbed postmodern society really deserves. Lots of fun.”
—New York Times Book Review
“Thanks to a rip-roaring story and Drayden’s expansive imagination, it all coheres into the most fun you can have in 2017.”
—Book Riot
“One of the biggest pleasures of this book is the plurality of its voices and story lines, and the way Nicky Drayden skips and weaves between them. . . . It’s a book full of energy and momentum, strange wit and sensitivity. It is a LOT. And it is wonderful.”
—Vulture, “The 10 Best Fantasy Books of 2017”
Praise for Temper
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2018 and a Vulture Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book of 2018
“Drayden . . . crafts a tangled, fantastical African society as the setting for her spellbinding sophomore novel. . . . Drayden takes speculative fiction in an exciting direction with a harrowing and impressive tale of twisted prophecy, identity, and cataclysmic change.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“[Drayden] excels at making every twist and turn of the plot meaningful to the story. Moreover, the world-building is deliciously lush and complex.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Drayden is an amazing writer and deft plotter. The twists are unexpected and never feel contrived, just as the novel explores real-world issues without sounding preachy.”
—Library Journal
Also by Nicky Drayden
The Prey of Gods
Temper
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
escaping exodus. Copyright © 2019 by Nicole Duson. Excerpt from the prey of gods © 2017 by Nicole Duson. Excerpt from temper © 2018 by Nicole Duson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented,
without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Harper Voyager and design are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers LLC.
first edition
Cover design by Richard L. Aquan
Cover illustration by Courtney “Seage” Howlett
Frontispiece art © Fernando Cortes / Shutterstock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Digital Edition OCTOBER 2019 ISBN 978-0-06-286774-2
Print ISBN 978-0-06-286773-5
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