Zahrah the Windseeker

by Nnedi Okorafor

  "The book, however, says there's a cure," the doctor continued with a soft chuckle. I held my breath. "But even if this were true, it's impossible to obtain. The yolk of an unfertilized elgort egg. Elgorts are raging with life, angry with it. The rage is transferred from mother to baby through the egg. For some reason, or so it says in this book, the extracted yolk reverses the effects of the venom."

  "Elgort?" his father whispered. "But that's—"

  "Yes, impossible, " the doctor said. "And even if the book was right about the antidote and one could get an unfertilized elgort egg, Dari would have to be administered the elgort egg serum within about three to four weeks for it to work."

  I glanced at Dari's parents. His father's eyes were shut, his eyebrows pressed together, his lips quivering. Is it not the worst pain to know there is a cure for your child's illness and then not be able to obtain it? Oh it must be one of the worst types of pain in the world, I thought. And it was my fault.

  Dari's father must have wanted to tear himself away from his wife and run into the forbidden jungle and find an elgort, but even he knew that if he did so, the book's serum recipe might not work. And even if it did and he went in search of it, he'd never see his family again. One of the many mysteries of the forbidden jungle would certainly kill him before an elgort got the chance to do that. Most people of the Ooni Kingdom knew of the elgort, though very few had ever seen one. They were nightmarish monsters that populated the stories of children's books, adult horror novels, and gory digi-movies. The closest people came to elgorts was in the market, where hawkers sold false elgort teeth.

  My cheek was warm from Dari's warmth, which radiated through his green pajamas. He still wore the glass luck charm Nsibidi had given him. It glowed a faint green. I looked at his serene face. I wasn't used to seeing him like that. He was usually smiling broadly, making jokes, telling stories based on history, and laughing loudly. Tears slowly dripped sideways down my face and onto his clothes. It was at that moment that I made my decision. It was like a seed sprouting, slowly growing and taking over my mind.

  "But we have the best facilities to make sure he stays healthy," the doctor said. She paused and then softly said, "I'm sorry." Then she left the room.

  I had things to do.

  Chapter 13

  The Chosen Path

  I started my journey using the same path Dari and I had used only three days ago. I'd taken two days to think long and hard about my decision. I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing. And in the end, I concluded that there was no other way.

  I left Dari's side for the first time the morning before I went.

  "You need to go home for a little while, Zahrah," my mother pleaded with me. I hadn't said a word to anyone while maintaining my vigil at Dari's side, and both sets of parents were growing worried.

  "Take a bath, get some sleep, " Dari's mother said.

  I sighed and said, "OK. But can I have a few minutes with him in private?"

  The moment the door shut, I leaned close to Dari's ear and whispered, "I'm planning something." I glanced behind me. "Don't worry. Maybe I'm too afraid to fly, but I'm brave enough to save your life."

  My mother drove me home, and when I stepped into my room, I stared at my schoolbooks. It was Monday, and I hadn't even thought of the fact that I was missing the last day of school for the dry season. It didn't matter anyway. If I didn't do what I was going to do, Dari would miss more than the last day of school.

  "Will you be all right?" my mother asked. "I have to go to work."

  I only nodded, sitting on my bed.

  "Take a bath," my mother said, and I took her advice. As I sat in the water, sponge in hand, I thought about my decision. I would pack my things that night and leave the next morning before my parents awoke.

  ***

  So there I was, all alone, less than a mile from the forbidden jungle. I wished I'd had a chance to talk to Nsibidi before leaving, but there was no time. I stopped and looked at my digital compass. It was the size of a coin, and its face glowed a lime yellow. It pointed north. I pressed the button on its side and turned it on; it was showing the bright yellow rotating flower I had programmed it to show.

  Then it said in its high-pitched whiny voice, "You are heading north into the bowels of the Forbidden Greeny Jungle! I have no idea why you would do such a thing, but I am just a compass and you are just a thirteen-year-old girl. I must warn you, you are five hundred and forty yards north—"

  I sighed and pressed another button on the side to shut the compass up. I wished there had been a built-in option to change its voice. And its attitude.

  "Fine. You don't want to hear my words. It's your loss. Carry on then," the compass said.

  I put it into my pocket, making sure that there was no way it could fall out. Of all the things I had, the compass was not something I could lose. It was the only thing that would lead me back home.

  I carried a satchel on my shoulder and a bundled blanket strapped to my back. I'd considered bringing a carrying pod to hold the elgort egg in, but I had no idea how large elgort eggs were, and a pod would have been too heavy for me to carry as far as I had to travel. I figured I'd find a way to hold the egg when the time came. If the time came.

  I held a paring knife that I'd taken from the kitchen in my left hand and a glow-lily hand lamp in my right. I had never gone camping, but I looked up tips the night before on the network. But even with that information, I felt like a fish out of water. I tried not to think about the fact that I really didn't know what I was doing.

  I paused at the jungle border and bit my lip. On one side was the red soil, which was my home, all that I knew—safety and family—and on the other the dark brown soil, the unknown—danger, madness, and very possibly death. Fear landed on my shoulder like a heavy, bloodsucking masquerade. I pushed the story the farmers told Dari and me out of my head. It was just a story, I told myself. Maybe. I closed my eyes and stepped with a shaky leg across the line. This time I didn't look back.

  I stopped at the tree where Dari was bitten. Of course the war snake was gone. But the digi-book Dari had dropped was still there. I brushed the spot with my foot to see if anything was skulking around the book. Then I flipped the book with my foot to make sure nothing was underneath. I slowly picked it up and pressed the "on" button. Nothing happened.

  I pressed it again and still nothing happened. I jiggled the digi-book a bit, as I'd seen Dari do, and smacked it on the side. With the second smack, it made a peeping sound, and I quickly pressed the "on" button and up popped the title page. It showed the lush green jungle of palm, coconut, rubber, banyan, bush baobab, iroko, and mangrove trees, each of them labeled. The picture looked very much like the jungle around me.

  The authors of the field guide were the Great Explorers of Knowledge and Adventure Organization, a group of radicals who had trekked into the Forbidden Greeny Jungle at different times over fifty years ago. Dan had read about these people. Just before he was bitten, these explorers had been his idols. Of course, the digi-book was packed with information about each of the many contributors to the book.

  "They were a group of students from Ooni University who were determined to change the world," Dari had said during one of our days in the jungle. "Many of them didn't live past thirty! And even more of them emerged with odd afflictions. One came out of the jungle with strange green birds nesting in her hair and some even stranger disease that made her skin grow fish scales! But she also wrote three books about all that she saw!"

  Dari said the digi-book offered not only lists and descriptions of creatures and plants of the jungle but also an extensive list of cures and precautions and even short stories and poems written by the authors while they were in the jungle.

  Nevertheless, it wasn't until that moment that I became curious about the book. I guess I had been more absorbed with my ability, which I think was understandable. I clicked on the arrow, and the digi-book displayed the first page. I began to read.

  Good
morning, afternoon, or evening.

  I'm glad you have chosen to enlighten yourself about the world around you. Down with ignorance! If there is one thing we, the Great Explorers of Knowledge and Adventure Organization, cannot stand, it is the fact that the people of Ooni choose to remain ignorant of the world around them! The Forbidden Greeny Jungle is the world. How can a whole sophisticated, matured civilization choose to live in a span of a few hundred miles? It is primitive! It is preposterous!

  I had heard my father use this word, preposterous, when he was angry or thought something was ridiculous. I smiled and continued reading.

  Now, we assume that you, reader, are sitting in your home, in front of your comfy computer, a cup of black tea or Ginen root soda in your hand, reading this for a good laugh. We, the Great Explorers of Knowledge and Adventure Organization, are not here for your amusement! This is real! Our travels are real and they were very difficult. Thus, we feel better pretending you are one of us, an explorer interested in venturing outside your little bubble, your silly comfort zone, and seeing the real world!

  The first thing you need to travel there is a good, old-fashioned compass. We hear that there are digital talking compasses out there on the market, but we have yet to really see these pieces of science fiction. "So get a compass, any compass, as long as it works.

  I closed the book, feeling better ... a little. I felt a twittery fear. But I had a compass. At least I'd done something right. Dari might have been reading this for fun, I thought, but this book might save my life. Save his life. I shivered, the weight of my task pressing down on my shoulders. What I had to do was big. I was venturing miles and miles into the forbidden jungle to get the egg of a vicious mythical beast. If I didn't get it and get it within a month, my best friend might die. I could feel my hair heavy against my back.

  I wished I'd found Nsibidi. She might have been able to give me a little advice. I sighed. Am I not a wise woman ? I thought. Or at Least a wise girl? Whatever. It's supposed to be in my blood ... well, that's what I've been told, anyway. I do have a lot of hair on my head. And birds would love to nest in it, I'll bet. I didn't check, but I hoped there were precautions listed to keep birds away from my hair.

  "Thank goodness for Dari's strange interests," I said, putting the book in my satchel. A movement in the tree in front of me caught my eye. I smiled. It was the dormouse.

  "Sorry," I said sadly. "No fruit for you today."

  The dormouse just stared at me, unsure of what to do when it wasn't offered any food. I hiked my bundle higher onto my back and wrapped a thin cloth around my glow lily so I had just enough light to see where I was going. I didn't want to attract too much attention.

  I wasn't carrying a lot, just a small blanket, some food and water, a lighter, my bottle of rose oil for my hair, my daily vitamins, soap, two toothbrushes, and a few other things. I wore green pants with a large mirror on the hip and a caftan with mirrors around the collar that I'd taken from the suitcase of clothes in Dari's hospital room. I wanted something of his to bring along.

  Sneaking out of the house that morning felt awful. It wasn't that I risked getting caught. I was very quiet. It was just that I was very afraid. It's a really strange feeling to be starting a journey so dangerous that you could get killed, to willingly leave the comfort of your home knowing this, while your mother and father slept.

  I had thought about it all night, too. And the more I thought about it, the more afraid I became. When I got outside, my legs were shaking and I couldn't help crying a little. My parents wouldn't have suspected my plan. To do such a thing was so unlike me. But there I was, an hour and a half later, in the dark. In the jungle. Terrified but moving.

  As I moved, I was sure something was watching me. It wasn't the dormouse. The dormouse moved much more quietly. I also knew that the dormouse didn't venture far from its nest, which was around the spot Dari and I had been spending our time in. I was well past that point. Whatever it was was probably more than one thing, too. The rustling leaves and snapping branches were coming from both my right and my left. I paused. Whatever they were, they grunted to each other and began moving away.

  Fifteen minutes later, I was jumping at every little sound around me. I was farther in than Dari and I had ever gone. This fact looped around and around in my mind, and my face grew wet with helpless tears. Helpless because I knew I couldn't, wouldn't, turn back, and I knew that what lay ahead was so dreadful that I couldn't imagine it. Even with my bug repellant, tiny flies kept trying to land on my face to suck up the salt from my tears. I knew I had to stop crying but couldn't.

  I felt faint whenever a bird flew from a tree, an insect buzzed by, a lizard crossed my path, or something snorted in the bushes. I walked slowly due to my shaky legs. And I kept my eyes cast to the ground for fear of seeing something in the trees or bushes that might hurt me.

  Then came the group of spiders, each the size of a small child! There were about five of them, and they moved almost faster than my eye could follow. Their feet kicked up soil as they came at me. I'm humiliated to say that I was so scared that I froze and practically wet my pants! Not only were they huge, they were quite heavy. And when they got to me, they knocked me down and scuttled up and down my body and my satchel. Their many legs felt like stiff brushes scraping the exposed parts of my skin!

  I screamed, instinctively curling myself up into a ball and bracing for the first sting. I was afraid they'd wrap me up in webbing and pull me up a tree to enjoy my blood and guts at their leisure. But after running up and down my body, they scrambled off and regrouped in front of me. They each made a huffing sound, blowing air at me from their mandibular mouths. It smelled like crushed bitter leaves and made me feel woozy. Then they ran off as fast as they had come! I remember reading somewhere that some insects and a few spiders taste with their feet. Maybe these thought I didn't taste very good.

  I lay there sweating and shocked and relieved, blubbering like a baby, afraid to move for fear that they would come back. Eventually my heartbeat slowed down and I felt very tired, even drowsy. Whatever they blew at me must have been meant to keep me from going after them, as if I ever would.

  I began to feel angry with myself. How am I going to save Dari if I behave Like a coward anytime something comes around? I thought. I closed my eyes and asked myself a surprisingly difficult question. "Zahrah, do you really think you can save him? Can you do this?" I'm not one to lie to myself. The answer didn't come right away, and I lay in the soil turning it around in my head for several minutes.

  Then I got up and brushed myself off. I stepped close to a tree, for as much privacy as I could find, and urinated. Better not to take chances. I threw sod over the spot, stood up straight, and took a deep breath. Then I started back on the path. The next time something came after me, I would run.

  Thirty minutes later, I was running from a large, squawking, brown, long-legged bird. I had accidentally crushed her nest of eggs when I stepped around a tree that had grown in the middle of the path. The bird was extremely distraught. I ran for about five minutes before she gave up the chase. When I was sure she was gone, I said a few words to Joukoujou about how sorry I was and to bless that bird with more eggs.

  Two hours later, I was moving along the path, pushing branches and leaves out of the way. The path was getting narrower and narrower. Soon it would cease being a path at all and I would be moving around trees and bushes, checking my compass to make sure I was heading in the right direction.

  Well, I knew the path would eventually end, I thought, wiping the tears from my face. I was surprised and thankful that it went this far.

  "No more tears," I grumbled to myself. The flies were driving me crazy.

  The more I walked the more I became aware of the noises around me and the more I couldn't believe I was doing what I was doing.

  "I am in the Forbidden Greeny Jungle," I said out loud as I slapped at a mosquito. The repellant I had on was working (except for the flies that bothered my eyes), but no repella
nt was perfect. "Over two miles in. Alone." I laughed to myself. "And goodness knows what is watching me right now."

  I kept my eyes trained in front of me. I knew that if I looked to either side into the dense foliage, I'd lose my cool. Since the encounter with the spiders, I had been doing better. But I could feel panic rising with each step I took. Anything could burst through the trees and attack me at any moment. I heard the sound of thrashing leaves from far away and then several loud screeches and surprised clucks. My legs started shaking again, but I kept moving.

  "As long as I don't bother things, then things won't bother me," I said quietly.

  I imagined myself as just another creature whose home was the Greeny Jungle. I was just going about my business. I belong here just like any dormouse or elgort, I thought. And this was how I thought for the next several hours when the path deteriorated into nothing and the sun began to set. I'd stepped around some of the widest trees I'd ever seen and even come across a small pond of brackish water. It was teeming with wriggling mosquito larvae, and I quickly moved on.

  By the time I slowed down, I was exhausted. But I was proud of myself. Since the spiders, I had not completely panicked; nor had I run screaming into the trees, not even when I'd seen the large black horse staring at me through the trees several yards away. The horse was trotting by and it froze, flaring its nostrils when it saw me. I froze too. It was probably deciding whether I was a threat or not.

  Its coat was shiny, and it had a long mane that reached the ground and covered its eyes. When it decided I wasn't a problem, it trotted on its way. I let out a breath of relief and continued on my way, too.

  It was time to find a place to sleep. A safe place. But in the Forbidden Greeny Jungle, there was no such thing. At least none that I knew of. As the sun set, the noise of the jungle grew louder. It was as if more things were waking up than going to sleep. My ears pricked at every sound. There were screeches, clicks, chirps, grunts, cheeps, growls, shrieks, hoots, and caws; twigs snapped, leaves rustled, branches bent, and somewhere a tree fell. It was terribly noisy. I walked tentatively, my shoulders hunched as I tried to make myself as small as possible.