Ikenga

by Nnedi Okorafor

  “Stop it!” a woman screamed. Beeeeeeep! The noise was coming from straight ahead. Up the road. In the dark. Nnamdi frowned. Yes, it was dark, but—but he could see. Like he was a cat.

  “Stop it! Please!” the woman screamed. “Take whatever you want; just don’t hurt me!”

  Nnamdi felt a powerful combination of complete confusion and an instinct to help. The need was so strong that he was overcome with dizziness and nearly fell over. Instead, he stumbled against the wall beside him. He steadied himself, pressing a hand to the concrete. The wall was rough and grooved and . . . as he ran his hand over it, he could hear every grain of concrete and dirt on the wall rolling and crumbling beneath his palm.

  “Get off me!” This time Nnamdi heard the woman so clearly that she could have been a few feet away. He heard her hand shoving against the person trying to hurt her. Then he heard a slap! And a male voice growl, “Get out!”

  Still dizzy, Nnamdi took off toward the shouts, again following his instincts. He wildly ran along the side of the empty road, the shouts sounding as if they were just in front of him, yet nothing appeared. He turned a corner and there, finally, he saw the car. A shiny silver Mercedes with its headlights on. The engine was still running. There were barbed logs on the road and a car stopped before them. A man and a woman were struggling at the front door.

  “Ged out b’fore I break your head!” the man yelled in a slurred voice.

  He pulled at the young woman’s arm, but she held fast to the inside of the door. What is . . . ? But there was no time to process any of it. The woman was in trouble. Thinking of his mother at the mercy of a criminal like this, Nnamdi ran at the man and grabbed the collar of his shirt. What am I doing? Nnamdi thought with terror. This man is going to tear me apart! But Nnamdi yanked at the shirt anyway. Maybe the woman will at least get away, he thought. Even in the darkness, Nnamdi could see the drunken man’s shirt was filthy, stiff with dirt, grime, and sweat. And he could smell him. Like putrid garbage and unwashed socks.

  Nnamdi looked deep into his eyes: they were dreamy and unclear, like milk mixed with too much water. Nnamdi knew who this man was, as he knew all the crazies of Kaleria. This was Three Days’ Journey, the dirty carjacker, who, despite his constant drunkenness, managed to steal close to a hundred cars each year. He would take the cars to Tse-Kucha, a town three days’ journey away, where he would sell them for a nice price. Now, somehow, Three Days’ Journey seemed to be having trouble pulling away from Nnamdi’s grasp.

  “Leave her alone!” Nnamdi shouted, yanking Three Days’ Journey back and throwing him to the dirt. Nnamdi vaguely noticed the deep, echoing sound of his voice, but he was too focused on Three Days’ Journey to wonder about it. As Nnamdi moved toward the wild man, several things dawned on him at once.

  1: Three Days’ Journey, a grown man of over six feet, was scrambling away from him, a twelve-year-old boy.

  2: The low voice had been his own.

  3: The woman behind him had shut the car door, turned the car around, and driven off.

  “Please! AYEEEE! Don’t hurt me, o!” Three Days’ Journey shouted as Nnamdi stood over him. “Whooo!” Three Days’ Journey jumped up, wobbling about. “I was just . . . please! Devil! Spirit! Whatev’r you are! Spare me, o!”

  Nnamdi couldn’t believe how wildly this man was behaving. He was screeching and dancing about like a madman. Because of me? he wondered. “Calm down! I’m just . . .”

  “Chineke! You don’ have to speak! Ah, ah! I’ve learned my lesson!”

  Nnamdi frowned and took a small step toward Three Days’ Journey, holding out a hand. “Let me help you,” he said.

  “AYEEEEE!” Three Days’ Journey screeched. Then he turned and fled into the patch of nearby bushes, his long, skinny arms in the air like a terrified orangutan.

  Nnamdi stood there in the darkness. He could clearly see Three Days’ Journey shambling off through the bushes as if he were looking at him in broad daylight. The man tripped and fell, got up, and continued running away. How can I see that? Nnamdi wondered. Then he remembered how strongly he’d held the man. He looked down at his hands and gasped. They were the hands of a grown man! A large man, dark-skinned. Not “dark”—black-skinned, as if he were stitched from the night. He touched his face and felt stubble. He gasped, pulling his hand away with horror. “My body, o! My body, o!” he cried. He twitched, hearing his low, deep voice. “What’s happened to me?! Witchcraft?”

  Nnamdi turned and ran home.

  He ran past people strolling on the roadside. Market women returning from a late night. More people headed to his compound for the party. He looked around, breathing frantically, wondering what he must look like. Where had they been when all this was happening? Cars and trucks passed him on the street. All he heard was his own breathing, like some huge man, and the sound of his huge feet slapping the dirt. He wasn’t floating high above the ground; he was just super-tall. He briefly wondered what clothes he was wearing, for surely his own clothes were too small. He didn’t look down to check.

  His breathing grew faster and faster, and soon he was hyperventilating. His vision rolled around him, stars of red, silver, and blue bursting before his eyes as he finally arrived at his gate. He stumbled between the parked cars. He moaned, his vision blurring. Then, right there at the gate, he passed out.

  * * *

  “Nnamdi!”

  Someone was shoving him.

  “Nnamdi! Wake up!”

  He felt someone grab his shoulder and shake. He didn’t want to open his eyes, afraid of what he would see. His chest ached, his throat burned, and a stone was grinding into the small of his back.

  “What happened to you?” Chioma asked, her voice heavy with concern. She shook him again. “I know you’re awake. Get up before someone sees you!” She grunted as she tried to pull him up. “Do you want to scare your mother?”

  That reached him. Nnamdi slowly opened his eyes to see Chioma leaning over him. He sat up. “Ooh,” he grunted, the blood rushing from his head. “Do I . . .” He paused. His voice sounded normal. “Do I look okay?”

  Chioma grinned, looking him over as he slowly got up. “No blood,” she said. “You have ten fingers and probably ten toes. You’re fine!”

  Nnamdi chuckled despite himself. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  He was lucky to not have been run over by one of the cars. Maybe I wasn’t out for that long, he thought. It was dark here, but his clothes were white; well, now they were a dirty white. And, he noticed, not torn. Maybe it was all a dream. He felt a sinking disappointment in his gut.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Did that strange man beat you for following him?” She frowned. “But you don’t seem hurt.”

  “You saw him?” he asked louder than he’d wanted to.

  “Yeah.”

  “Clearly?”

  “Barely, but yeah. It was a man, I know that. I tried following you when you were running, but it was so dark and you just took off!”

  He blinked and frowned. “Yeah, I don’t know why I did that.”

  She nodded. “It was kind of stupid.”

  “Maybe.”

  They looked at each other until Nnamdi looked away. What was he supposed to tell her? He looked at the spot where he’d fallen and froze. Slowly, he knelt down and picked it up. “Oh my God,” he whispered. The Ikenga. Immediately the aroma of strong palm wine descended on him. It had all really happened.

  “What’s that?” Chioma asked, taking it from him before he could stop her.

  “Hey! Don’t touch it!”

  “Why?” She laughed, holding it up in her right hand. “Is this . . .” She brought it closer to her eyes. The smile dropped from her face as the Ikenga’s head seemed to twitch. She screeched, shuddered, and shoved it back into Nnamdi’s hands. “What is that? Something from your father’s bookshelf? Oh wait, maybe it’s a Nigeri
an action figure. Do they make those yet? Let me guess his name: Cosmic Juju Man!” She laughed.

  He quickly put it in his pocket. “It’s nothing.”

  Chioma looked from her hand to Nnamdi, shaking her hand as if the Ikenga had left some residue on it. “Seriously, though, what is it?” she said. “I don’t like it at all.”

  Nnamdi shook his head, babbling, “No, no, it’s not . . . it’s just . . .”

  “Nnamdi, Chioma. Why are you two out here?”

  They both turned around.

  “Uncle Innocent,” Nnamdi said, his voice too high.

  “Good evening,” Chioma blurted, wiping her hand on her dress.

  “Nnamdi, where is your mother?” his uncle asked in his gruff voice. Nnamdi had always thought he sounded like a lion. He’d always hoped he would grow up to have the same voice. A voice that made people stop and listen.

  “She’s inside the house,” Chioma said, pointing behind them.

  Uncle Inno frowned at Nnamdi. “What happened to your clothes?”

  “Oh . . . I . . . uh, fell.”

  Looking unsure, his uncle Inno said, “Go clean up.”

  “I will, Uncle,” Nnamdi said.

  As soon as Uncle Inno went inside, Chioma and Nnamdi went and sat on the bench away from the party.

  “What happened to you?” Chioma asked.

  “I don’t . . . know.”

  “How can you not know? It was only a few minutes ago,” she pressed.

  He sighed. “Chioma, please. I . . . I need to think.”

  “Who was that man?”

  “I . . .” He shook his head again.

  She narrowed her eyes at him, then she sighed. “It’s okay. Tell me later.”

  He nodded.

  “You’re okay, though, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m going to go dance then. Your uncle was right—you should go change.”

  Wonder

  IT WAS JUST past midnight and Nnamdi was finally alone. On his bed. In his room. He was Nnamdi again. But that didn’t make sense; who else would he be? And who was he really now? What was he?

  Nnamdi rubbed his temples as he sat on his bed. Had he really seen his father and then beaten up one of the most notorious carjackers in Kaleria? Three Days’ Journey had looked at him and cowered. He’d pleaded for his life! Then Nnamdi had flung the big man aside like a piece of paper. And Nnamdi had felt . . . he’d felt strong, like some sort of superhero! Like his favorite hero, the Hulk!

  He was twelve. Right now. How old would he be when the spell came upon him again? If the spell came upon him again.

  He got out of his bed and walked to his bedroom window, where he looked out into the darkness. The darkness that no longer seemed as scary anymore. Not when he could become what he was earlier this night. Thieves would cower before him. Murderers would bow at his feet and beg to be locked up. If it happened again. And what was it? He didn’t like not knowing.

  He picked up the X-Men pencil case sitting on his nightstand, on top of his most valuable possessions: his one and only Naruto graphic novel and stack of Incredible Hulk comic books. Slowly, he brought the Ikenga from his pocket. It was still warm, and holding it sent a sort of electrical current through his hand that made his fingers slightly curl and the muscles ache. And it still smelled of palm wine, something his father had loved to sip after particularly stressful days. Nnamdi put it into the case and placed it on top of his stack of Hulk and Naruto books. As he drifted into sleep, he felt uneasy.

  His dreams were full of smoke and heat and screams. Kaleria was on fire. The houses and buildings. There was the crash of glass as groups of thugs laughed and entered a burning building and then came out again. One single man carried an entire refrigerator. Another carried a screaming woman. Still another carried three large flat-screen televisions stacked one on top of the other. Nnamdi stood there, watching it all happen. But he was nothing but a shadow behind the flames.

  * * *

  He awoke hearing the happy Sunday morning chatter of his mother, his auntie Ugochi, and uncles Egbe and Inno from downstairs. He lay there. The air in his room was clear, smoke-free. No one was screaming. Everything was fine. He was holding his breath. He opened his mouth wide as he let it out.

  “Just a dream,” he muttered. “Thank goodness.”

  Nnamdi came down the stairs to find his mother and auntie in the kitchen, huddled around the Kaleria Sun newsletter on the table. Nnamdi greeted them and sat down, wondering what was for breakfast. He was starved and he smelled fried eggs. He peeked at the newsletter headline and immediately lost his appetite.

  The headline read: “Three Days’ Journey Thwarted in Three Seconds.”

  There, on the front page, was a picture of a grinning woman, the very woman he’d saved last night.

  Tina Adepoju, a mother of three who drives a silver Mercedes, had stopped when she came across a spiked log lying in the road. Before she knew it, the infamous carjacker Three Days’ Journey set upon her car. He threw her door open and tried to drag her out, but not before she could lay on her car’s horn. As she struggled with Three Days’ Journey, something happened. “This enormous . . . man! He just came out of nowhere,” Adepoju said. “He was tall like an iroko tree, very dark-skinned, and very strong. He threw Three Days’ Journey to the ground like the rubbish he was!” Whoever this man is, I hope he’s from Kaleria. And if he’s not, let him come and live here.

  Three Days’ Journey was given his name because it’s believed that he drives the cars he steals to a secret chop shop “three days’ journey” from Kaleria. He first . . .

  Nnamdi sat back with wide eyes. He felt an odd tingle in his throat. The news story was not very accurate about what he’d looked like and he didn’t remember hearing a horn, but it told him one clear truth: He’d done something terrible yet wonderful. Him. He had caused this woman to gush with happiness to reporters. He had saved someone from being yet another victim of Kaleria’s crime problem. His mother, aunt, and uncles were smiling. His father would be proud.

  “The story sounds as if Nnamdi’s father was out there last night!” Auntie Ugochi said.

  Nnamdi’s mother nodded. “Especially the part about throwing Three Days’ Journey. Egbuche really disliked that man,” his mother said with a chuckle.

  “Mommy,” Nnamdi said, getting up. He needed some air to clear his mind and think. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Don’t be too long,” she said. “Your food will get cold.”

  My father, Nnamdi thought as he quickly watered the garden. Did he really come back? He felt like going to his room right now and touching the Ikenga once more and imagining he was touching his father’s hand through it. He paused, looking at the garden. He’d pulled most of the weeds, turned the soil around the yam, and planted some sunflower seeds Chioma had given him years ago. He’d purposely not told her, because he wasn’t sure if they’d grow. Plus, he wanted them to be a surprise, if they did. He’d been tending to the garden for days, and already the garden looked in better shape than it had all year. His eye fell on the yam and he grinned. Several new leaves had unfurled from the snaking vine.

  He would tell no one about what had happened last night. Not yet. Not even Chioma. Only his father knew his secret, and it was nice to share a secret with his father.

  Beneath the Palm Tree

  IT SEEMED AS if everyone were reading a copy of the day’s paper. People standing on the side of the road waiting for the bus, market women, people on their porches. When Nnamdi got to school, it was more of the same. Teachers stood in small groups, newsletters in hand, giggling and smiling and quoting sections of the story.

  “The man is such an idiot,” one of the teachers said. “Serves him right. I hope that man knocked Three Days’ Journey’s teeth out when he threw him aside.”

  And the story wasn’t just in
the Kaleria Sun, either: Ruff Diamond said it was also in newspapers from neighboring towns. “My uncle brought a newspaper from Aba and it was even in there!” The story had traveled far! Nnamdi put his chin to his chest and rushed off to the palm tree that grew in the middle of the school grounds. As usual, Chioma was there. She was sitting, reading a newsletter with a big grin on her face. She laughed loudly and pushed back her untidy braids. “This is crazy,” she whispered.

  “Kee ka ịmee?” Nnamdi greeted her in Igbo, leaning against the tree.

  “You read this?” she asked, pointing to her paper.

  “Who hasn’t?”

  “It’s hilarious! Three Days’ Journey getting tossed like a sack of dry grass?” She giggled again. “This is the best news Kaleria has had in a long time!”

  “Heh, yeah,” Nnamdi said. His lips felt chapped as he smiled.

  Chioma squinted at him and folded her newsletter. “So are you going to tell me what happened last night? Come on, Nnamdi. I know you. You’re hiding something.”

  “No,” he said, looking out at the other students, who played and chatted nearby.

  “No, what?” she asked. “No, you’re not going to tell me what happened or no, you’re not hiding something?”

  Nnamdi sighed heavily. Chioma shielded her eyes against the sun and looked up at him. “Talk. You tell me everything. I’m not enjoying this new secretive side of you.”

  Nnamdi frowned.

  “You didn’t tell your mother you passed out, did you?” she said.

  “No,” he said, sighing loudly. “She has enough to worry about. Look, Chioma, I’m fine. Stop asking.”

  After a pause, she said, “Okay, o. So about the incident last night . . . it had to have happened close to where you were. You were lucky you didn’t run into Three Days’ Journey.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I told you not to leave the gate.”