by Julia Ember
Jelle tipped his head to her and lifted his palm, holding it up flat. Kara nodded back to him but then looked to me in confusion. I chuckled and said in Echalende, “That’s a gesture of respect and greeting. Jelle is a friend of mine, from when I was a child.”
Kara lifted her hand and tried to mimic Jelle’s movement. “How do I say ‘it’s nice to meet you,’ in your language?” she asked.
“Nimefurahi kukutana nawe.”
She repeated what I told her, her tongue slipping awkwardly over the foreign words. But I loved her even more for trying. Jelle’s grin got bigger.
“Well,” I said, giving him a final squeeze. His body felt so warm and solid, anchoring. “We’re in a rush, and we need to speak to my father. It’s been too long, Jelle. I missed you.”
I jumped back onto Elikia, and we trotted quickly through the grazing lands, passing through herds of sheep, goats, and cattle. Their herders looked up as we passed. Some failed to recognize me in my strange clothes, accompanied by a foreigner. They watched us with suspicion, while others scanned my face and waved, huge smiles cracking their faces. I knew everyone. Every face. A lump formed in my throat. Even after what had happened, this place was home, and I should have visited long ago.
We rode through rows of crops next, our pace slowing as Kara investigated plants she didn’t know. She plucked leaves and lifted them to her nose to absorb the scents. The aroma of citrus and mint filled the air. All the crops looked strong, green. Sagadi wasn’t a rich village. We didn’t have silks or imported furniture like they had in Mugbani, where the General resided. But what we grew, we shared, and no one ever went hungry. I noticed that in a year, many of our corn and plantain fields had been replaced by tall sugarcane stalks. If that continued, the people here would soon see more of foreigners who looked like Kara.
On the other side of the farming fields, we came to a square, fenced on all sides. Two wells stood in the middle of the square, guarded by two of my father’s finest warriors. My lungs suddenly contracted like I’d breathed in a mouthful of water. I looked past the wells to the road. He was there. All I wanted was to turn and gallop away. Before I could stop her, Kara jumped down and took Brekna’s reins, leading him toward the fence.
“Kara, stop!” I called.
“Why?” she asked, mouth quirking into a scowl. “Brekna needs more water. Elikia could probably use it as well. Why is the well guarded? Doesn’t everybody need to use it? Do you ration it?”
“It’s not a well for water,” I whispered.
“Ah,” Kara said, putting her foot back in her stirrup and hopping aboard again. “Oil? A coin hoard? Some people in Echalend keep their money underground too.”
I swallowed, closing my eyes. “We call them The Pits of Regret. They’re prisons.”
Kara’s mouth gaped. “Prisons? You keep human beings down there? In those small wells, in the dark?”
I nodded, unable to say more without my voice breaking. I cast a glance over at the pits, chewing my lip.
“For how long?” Kara demanded. “Those wells don’t even look big enough for a person to lie down. How long do they stay there? For what crimes?”
I braced myself as a familiar crawling sensation spread over my stomach and abdomen. If I’d learned anything about Kara in the last few weeks, it was that her questions wouldn’t stop unless I gave her some answers. “Only blood crimes can you get sentenced to the Pits: murder, rape, assaults that permanently maim or disable. We have them in all our villages and cities in Nazwimbe. Things like theft or not paying taxes, we give whippings or fines. How long they stay in there depends.”
“On what?”
I took a long shuddering breath. Why was she pressing me like this? Couldn’t she tell how uncomfortable I was? “The people they’ve wronged. When someone is sentenced to the Pits, they must stay down there until their victim or their victim’s family decides to forgive them.”
“For a blood crime… who would forgive them? That’s a life sentence, right?” She cast her gaze back over at the wells. “Years, at the least.”
I shrugged, avoiding her eyes. “Once a year, we lower a dagger. Then the prisoner must choose: wait another year in hope of forgiveness or take his own life and end his suffering.”
She studied my face and her hand went to her mouth as a shock of realization seemed to wash over her. “The man who attacked you… raped you… is he… is he down there?”
I nodded, pressing my lips together. “He is, or he was. It’s been over a year now, and I don’t care to ask whether he lives or not.”
Kara sighed. “We’ll be on our way, then. And I won’t ask anything about this place again. I’m sorry.”
One of the guards watched us closely, and before we could ride away, he raised his arm to stop us. Chief’s daughter or not, when flagged by a warrior, I had to stop. If we moved on without hearing what he had to say, then for the protection of the village, he was allowed to throw a spear or use a crossbow. At the distance, he probably couldn’t see my face anyway. He wore a mask of wood, with a solemn frown painted on it in white and red. A beaded fringe hung across his eyes. On his right hand, he wore the ceremonial weapon of our people: five metal blades attached to rings, worn like claws extending over the fingernails. My eyes locked on those blades and my whole body went rigid.
As he approached us, he removed his mask. I remembered his face but not his name. He raised his hand in respect. “Mnemba. I haven’t seen you in months. Passing through or do you have words for our prisoner?”
“I have nothing to say to him. And we’re in a hurry. We need to get to my father as fast as possible.” I gritted my teeth. I should have expected this.
The guard nodded. A heavy silence passed between us. My attacker’s actions had split the village apart. Before he became the beast who raped the chieftain’s daughter, the monster who ripped my stomach and savaged my womb with the blades on his fingers, Obasi had been a warrior. He smiled often and let young boys try on his mask and wave his spear. The village had loved him. Try as I might to forget it, there were some in Sagadi who still did and who held on to the hope that I would forgive him.
Unbidden, Elikia trotted forward along the road. I wasn’t sure if she sensed my need to be away or she had started to recognize the land and was beckoned by the grains at home. Whatever the reason, I felt a wash of gratitude to my horse. I mentally promised her all the corn she could hold when we reached the house.
EVEN THOUGH I’d tried to tell her otherwise, Kara still held on to the idea that I was some kind of princess. To her understanding, a chief was a ruler. And in Echalend, as my tourists had told me over and over again, rulers lived in palaces of marble with the largest, fanciest streetlamps of all. As we reached my family’s home—a long white oval building with a roof of thatched sugarcane, surrounded by a daub fence and a flurry of chickens—Kara crinkled her nose in surprise. Although larger than the wooden huts most of the villagers owned, our house was not ornate, and we didn’t have any lamps—fancy or otherwise.
The foal whinnied and butted Kara’s arm. “He’s hungry,” she said. “And his mother’s milk has run out.”
“Behind the house, we have a stable with about twenty broodmares,” I said, dismounting again to undo the latch on the gate. Like the town’s outer wall, we had only a simple fastening to keep the animals inside. “I don’t know if his stomach will handle horse milk, but that’s the closest I think we can come by. I’m sure at least one of them will have a foal at heel. He’s so tiny he won’t need much.”
As I pushed the gate, the front door to the house swung open. A tall, slender woman stepped outside. She raised one hand to shield her eyes from the sun, peering down the garden path toward us. My heart beat faster and I gnawed my lip, hiding a smile. Mama.
Leaving Elikia by the gate with Kara, I sprinted up the walk toward her. Her narrow-eyed look of suspicion transformed into a giant smile as I approached. She spread her arms wide, and I threw myself into her embrace, inha
ling the scent of flour and daffodils.
“Mnemba,” she breathed, pushing me back to kiss both my cheeks. “What a surprise… a good surprise…. Tumelo finally convinced you to come back home?”
I swallowed. “In a manner of speaking.”
“Is he here with you?”
“No.”
Mama peered over at Kara, scanning her from to head to toe, her eyes gradually widening as she took in the girl’s appearance and the unicorn foal slung over her shoulder. She raised a carefully plucked eyebrow. “Something tells me this isn’t just a social visit, is it?”
I shook my head, suddenly not trusting myself to speak.
For the time being, she let me off the hook. Mama braced her hands on her hips and beckoned to Kara. She immediately spoke in Echalende as soon as Kara was within earshot. “You’d better come in, then. Turn the horses out back. You’re in time for dinner. Your father is in the kitchen, mixing up some of his famous strong ale—I think Imrai is helping him. I’ve got a whole chicken roasting in the oven, so there will be plenty.”
Despite the welcome in her words, Mama’s face was guarded, her stance rigid. She wanted me to come home out of desire to see my family, not because some disaster had happened at the camp.
“I’ll bring the horses out back,” Kara said, looking at her feet. I could tell she felt out of place, unwanted. “I’m sure I can figure out where they go. Go spend the time we have with your family.”
I nodded. It would be easier to break the news to my father without her there. I didn’t need anybody else to witness the scolding I was sure would follow. Years of ruling our village had taught my father a deathly calm. He never raised his voice or displayed his anger, but somehow could manage to make me feel the size of an ant.
“We need milk for the foal,” I said to Mama. “He’s an orphan. I’m not sure if horse milk will do, but it’s the closest thing I can think of.”
“The strawberry-colored mare had a foal last week. She’s producing more than enough milk for two. After we eat, I’ll collect some of her milk for you girls to feed him. If that doesn’t suit, we can try the goats. How did you stumble across a baby unicorn?”
“It’s all part of the story, Mama,” I said, closing my eyes tiredly.
Kara gave my arm a squeeze and then led the horses away behind the house. As soon as she was out of earshot, Mama exploded. “I don’t know what’s going on, but if you’ve brought a girl like that all the way here, without Tumelo, I have a feeling it’s not going to be good. You both look exhausted. Like you crawled off your deathbeds. How bad is it?”
“Bad. Really bad.” My voice wavered and tears fell down my cheeks.
She wrapped me in her strong arms again, sighing. “Come inside. Whatever it is, your father will know what to do. He always does.”
I followed her in, removing my boots at the door, breathing in all the smells of home: roasting chicken, fire smoke, fresh fire-baked bread, and the basket of new flowers Mama always kept full on the table in the kitchen. The woven rugs of corn husk felt scratchy against my feet, now that I’d gotten used to the furs and cotton rugs of the South. Everything looked the same as when I’d left, even though it had been a year. My grandfather’s weathered elephant statue still stood in the hall; the mellow green painted walls were still scuffed and marked. My father was in the kitchen, our main room, shaving a ginger root into the clay pot on the table.
Even with all the tourists I had met, Adebayo Ohakim still was the largest man I had ever seen. He dwarfed Tumelo, standing over six and half feet, with a broad chest and arms that bulged with muscles the size of melons. He wore feathers woven into the long black and gray braids on his head. His green chief’s cloak was slung over a chair in the corner of the room, and for now he wore a simple linen tunic. He held my baby brother, Imrai, balanced on his hip. The toddler chewed on a corn husk. Another wash of pain filled my chest. At two and a half, Imrai had lost most of his baby roundness now. While I was away, he’d transformed into a little boy—a tiny copy of my father with the same skin, coffee-dark and smooth, with long, curled lashes. He wouldn’t even know who I was.
When he looked up, Father dropped the ginger root and immediately placed Imrai on the floor. He bit his lip. Like me, he always did that when he was trying to stop himself from showing too much emotion.
“Where have you been?” The question was harsh, but his voice was gentle.
“You know, around,” I said and edged over to smell the ginger ale inside the pot. “Smells like a good batch.”
He nodded and lifted a stirring spoon full of the warm gold liquid to my lips. “Go on. You were always my toughest critic.”
I took a sip and coughed. “Too much yeast!” I gagged.
My father chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. “I let Imrai decide how much we’d put in.” He bent down and picked up the toddler again. “Can you say hello to your sister, Imrai?”
The boy batted his eyelashes at me. He had light gray eyes like my mama, uncommon in Nazwimbe. Mine were dark, like my father’s. His face held no trace of recognition, but he obeyed my father anyway. “Hello, sister.”
I reached for him, and he shrank away back into my father’s neck. Adebayo shrugged. “He’ll come around, once he gets used to seeing you again. It’s good to see you, safe and whole.”
Mama made her way into the kitchen and sat on the edge of the table. “Safe and whole… interesting choice of words, Ade. It might interest you to know that there is a foreign white girl behind the house, carrying an orphan unicorn foal. And Tumelo didn’t come with her.”
My father frowned and passed Imrai to Mama. She took the boy out of the kitchen and into the large bunk-bedroom we all shared. He tilted my chin up to look at him. He sighed, as if noticing the puffiness of my eyes and the greenish circles around them for the first time. “What’s happened?”
I collapsed against his chest, and the words spilled out like water.
When I finished telling him about the poachers, the unicorns, and Tumelo’s capture, he shook his head slowly. “I can’t believe you would be so reckless. I expect that kind of thing from Tumelo—he’s always been rash and silly. But we raised you to take more caution and to think before you try something so stupid. How did you think you could possibly get away with something like that? If they’re smart enough to make a railroad without the General’s knowledge, they’re smart enough to catch a couple of teenagers. I know Arusei from years ago. Now I’ll have to clean up your mess.”
When tears started to fall down my cheeks again, he softened. “It’ll be all right. I think you’re right to say that if Arusei wanted Tumelo dead, he would have just shot him. He’s holding him. They’ll be nervous now, knowing you got away and hoping that you’ll come back to get them. At least he doesn’t know who you are. Tonight, we’ll feed you up, let you sleep in your own bed. All you need to focus on is getting to know your brother again.” He brushed the tears away from my face with the edge of his thumb. “You look too skinny. Tumelo’s working you too hard. When we get him out, I’ll have words with that boy.”
I snuggled deeper into his chest, wishing that I was still Imrai’s age and still believed that my father’s arms could make everything better. While his hold still comforted me, it had lost its magical ability to heal a year ago.
“We’ll ride for the capital in the morning,” he said. “Why don’t you bring your friend inside?”
I released my hold on him and went to find Kara. As I put on my boots, my father appeared behind me at the doorway. “And Mnemba, when this is all over, don’t let it be another year before we see you again.”
WE ATE dinner in near silence, nibbling at the spiced chicken my mother had prepared. I watched Kara struggle to eat without a knife or fork, the way we did here. After each bite, her greasy fingers hovered in the air and she looked down at her lap in confusion, as if willing a napkin to materialize from nothing. The foal nestled on the floor close to her feet, happy and bloated now that
we’d fed him half a bucket of mare’s milk. My parents spent the meal exchanging looks, a silent language only they understood. Only Imrai seemed at peace. He made mountains out of his potatoes and galloped imaginary fig horses across his plate, chattering to my mother with his mouth stuffed.
Father didn’t speak any Echalende. Before they met, Mama had once worked as a secretary in the capital, taking records for the General. She had taught me snippets of the language as a child and Tumelo had helped me get better. I knew my father didn’t want to offend by speaking Nazwim around Kara and my mother wouldn’t want to make my father feel ignorant by showing off her Echalende. So instead none of us said anything, sitting in straight-backed silence.
“This is very good,” Kara said, tentatively breaking off another piece of the tender meat. She held it up and smiled, so that my father could catch the gist of what she was saying. She lifted the unicorn foal from the ground into her lap. “If it’s all right, I’m going to take him outside and feed him again.”
“I’ll help,” I said, rising from the table before Mama could say anything to stop me. I knew the foal might not be hungry again, but I’d take any excuse to leave the table with her.
We went out behind the house, and I followed Kara into the stable block to the strawberry mare’s stall. I recognized her as one of the first horses I’d ridden as a child. She’d been young then, and frisky. Too wild for a little girl, Mama had complained. But Father thought riding wild ponies turned children into formidable adults. I soothed her and played with her inquisitive foal’s ears while Kara pressed the unicorn directly to her teat to suckle.
“It’s nice, seeing your home,” she said, pulling the unicorn’s nose back to make him feed more slowly. Surprisingly, he was ravenous again. “I wish it wasn’t under these circumstances, and I’m sure your family does too, but still, I like it, seeing where you come from.”
