Zahrah the Windseeker

by Nnedi Okorafor

  "Zahrah!" Nsibidi called over the crowd at the entrance of the Dark Market. As always, she wore a long yellow dress, this one made of tiny yellow beads. She must have got it from the southwest.

  Many people looked up when they heard my name. Dari rolled his eyes and smiled.

  "Nsibidi!" I called, running around several people.

  "Sneaky girl," she said, grabbing me in her long arms and hugging me tightly. Nsibidi looked up and pulled Dari into our hug. "You, too. Come here."

  Then Nsibidi held us out so she could get a good look at us. She laughed.

  "You both glow with experience," she said. I nodded. "You've been through your own transitions."

  "Yes, we have," I said.

  "Where are the idiok?" Dari asked, looking past Nsibidi into the Dark Market.

  "They're in their usual place," Nsibidi said. "We just finished with five customers. Obax said you two were on your way, and I wanted to meet you before you entered the Dark Market. I don't want to get you two into any more trouble."

  "Don't worry," I said. "We asked for permission this time."

  Nsibidi touched one of the scratches on my cheek. She sighed and held her chest, and then she smiled mischievously.

  "So, Zahrah, tell me, just how were you able to travel over three hundred miles in three days? Hmm?"

  I smiled sheepishly and looked at my feet. I didn't want to say anything in case people were listening. The market was always full of ears.

  "And you, Dari," Nsibidi said. "You're quite the radical activist."

  "And I know what I'm talking about, too," Dari said. "I've been studying this stuff for years!"

  "Feisty," Nsibidi said. "You keep being curious, Dari. It'll lead you to great places. "

  Dari smirked proudly.

  "Nsibidi," I said. "I just wanted to—"

  She held up her hand.

  "Hold that thought," she said. "Let me go tell the idiok that I will be gone for twenty minutes. Meet me outside the market, next to the iroko tree."

  Dari and I went to the tree immediately. It was far enough from the main road leading to the market that we had a little privacy. Not far away, a few families, who were also looking for some peace and quiet, sat on blankets, eating lunch.

  Dari and I sat close together, basking in the sunlight like lizards. Dari glanced over at me. I was staring at the sky and could see him with my peripheral vision. He looked at my hand and slowly grasped it. I turned to him with a questioning look. He took a deep breath and spoke.

  "You're ... you're the best friend I've ever had," Dari said quietly. "I ... well, I want to thank you for saving my life. "

  "Oh Dari, you don't have to thank me, it's a given," I said, squeezing his hand.

  "But I wanted to say it anyway," he said.

  "Well, you're very welcome, then," I said.

  We stared into each other's eyes for a long time. My belly fluttered, and Dari's hand felt very warm over my hand.

  Then a shadow fell over us and we quickly let go.

  "Did I come at a bad time?" Nsibidi asked.

  We shook our heads. Nsibidi smirked, and we both felt embarrassed and looked away. She sat down across from us, wrapping her long arms around her long legs. She looked at us for a moment and then said, "I didn't believe you could do it, Zahrah. When I found you, you had that wild look in your eye. Something had awakened in you. That day when Dari's mother caught you two in the Dark Market, the idiok told me. They said you two would venture into the jungle, Dari would get bitten, and you would go into the jungle for that egg. It was destiny, and, well, one of the first things I learned from the idiok was that destiny should never be purposely tampered with.

  "For a while, I obeyed. But with Dari in that coma and then when you went into that jungle, that was enough. I just couldn't bring myself to let destiny play itself out. I didn't believe you'd make it, Zahrah. It was too far-fetched! And I felt as if this whole situation were my fault. I was the one who told you to practice."

  "It wasn't," Dari said. "It was our idea to go to the jungle. Not your fault at all!"

  I nodded vigorously. "Please, don't apologize for anything."

  Nsibidi patted Dari's leg and took my hands in hers, her face full of emotion.

  "I looked for you," she said quietly. "I'd finally found you. Vowed not to lose you again. Then I woke up and you were gone! All that next day, I searched frantically with no success. You'd gone off the trail. I was so sure I'd failed you a second time. "

  "No," I pleaded. "Nsibidi, you didn't—"

  "I remembered you as the timid girl I had met in the Dark Market. I knew you'd changed, but I underestimated just how much," Nsibidi said, shaking her head and looking at me with a perplexed smile. "I eventually had to return home." She paused. "Destiny will always have its way."

  She sighed and the three of us were quiet a moment.

  "So..." I hesitated to ask the question I'd wanted to ask for a long time. "You know the Forbidden Greeny Jungle, don't you? You knew it when you were searching for me?"

  "Yes, it's tame compared to where I grew up. It's funny, the attitude Ooni people have. I've never seen such a fear of the unknown," Nsibidi said.

  I nodded. "Dari and I have learned better. "

  Dari sat up straighter.

  "Since you're not going to just ask it, Zahrah, I will," Dari said. "Where—"

  "No," I said, holding my hand up. "OK, I'll ask, Dari."

  Dari's eyebrows went up but he said nothing.

  I turned to Nsibidi.

  "Where are you from?"

  "Ah, so the question finally comes out," Nsibidi said. "You ready for this?"

  We both nodded.

  "You comfortable?"

  We nodded again.

  "Good. I will tell you, but I'd like you to keep it between us," she said. "Kirki isn't ready to know so much about me."

  "We're good at keeping secrets," I said.

  "It's why we got into all this trouble to begin with," Dari said.

  Nsibidi smiled.

  "I'm glad to have met you two," Nsibidi said. She paused and looked at the sky. The tattoo just below her neck looked lovely in the sunlight. Nsibidi settled her eyes on Dan and me and said, "I was born and raised very far from here, way beyond the Greeny Jungle, where the trees grow twice as high and some of them grow flat and wide. This was where my parents settled after years and years of traveling."

  "My family and I lived alone; I grew up knowing no other humans. The idiok's young were our playmates. They taught us their form of language and their culture.

  "When I grew up, I left home. Zahrah, you must know that once a Windseeker learns to fly, he or she is plagued by wanderlust. Rarely do we stay where we were born and raised. "

  I felt Dari looking at me strangely, but I didn't want to look at him. Still, without looking at him, I could read his mind. I frowned. Why would my best friend think I'd ever leave him and my family?

  "It's in our nature to travel and explore, to see and learn," Nsibidi continued. "I wanted to see where my father and mother were born. My father, his name is Ruwan, he's from Kebana."

  "That town's only a few minutes from here," I said.

  "Hmm. But my mother, Arrö-yo," Nsibidi said, her eyes turning to slits, a sly smile on her face, "she is from Earth."

  "Earth!?" Dari shouted.

  "It's real?" I asked, clasping my hand over my mouth.

  "You think you're the only one who has traveled far?" Nsibidi asked playfully.

  "So have you been there, too?" Dan asked with wide eyes.

  Nsibidi only gave a knowing look that said, "We'll save that story for another time."

  She reached forward. "I see you still have my luck charm."

  Dari nodded. "It definitely gave me luck."

  "The idiok wanted you to have it. Your personal spirit told them that you needed to be protected in some way. These charms are blessed by the Mami Wata Mambos."

  Dari and I looked at each other and grinned. />
  "Just looking at you two tickles me. You have so much to learn." She motioned around us with her big hands and long arms. "There is more than this place. This Ooni Kingdom. I knew this, but both of you didn't. You had to learn the truth the hard way."

  Dari and I nodded vigorously, trying to digest Nsibidi's words.

  "So I see that you two have run out of questions for me," Nsibidi said after several moments. "Well, I've got one question for you, Zahrah. It's really a request. I want to see you fly. Not here, somewhere more private."

  "OK," I said, thinking that maybe Nsibidi could give me some tips, since she was far more experienced.

  "And Dari, you must tell me more about your politics."

  "My pleasure," he said.

  Nsibidi stood up. "Time for me to get back to work. Give me your netmail addresses and we will set up a time and place to meet again. No more going into the Dark Market for you two, at least for a little while. "

  Dari and I wrote our netmail addresses on the piece of paper Nsibidi handed to us.

  "I'll be in touch."

  And with that, Nsibidi returned to the Dark Market.

  "Wow," I said when she was gone.

  "Doesn't it feel weird?" he said.

  "Yeah," I said, staring straight ahead. I felt as if my world were expanding. I'd felt that way since I returned from the Greeny Jungle. As if nothing was what it seemed anymore. "And the strangest thing about it is that it seems as if no one else is aware of it at all."

  "No one is, really," Dari said. "Except Nsibidi and probably a few other people."

  We sat quietly for another fifteen minutes, each of us thinking about different but similar things.

  "I want to learn about Earth," I said with wide eyes.

  Dari sighed loudly but smiled. "Me, too. Today let's just go and sit in our usual tree and watch the sunset."

  "OK, but don't expect me to sit on the lowest branch anymore."

  ***