The Way of the Wizard

by John Joseph Adams

  “Uh . . . I didn’t . . . you’re a witch?”

  “I listened to my uncle,” she continued. “He taught me great things. He was the real thing, sha. He taught me how to eat poison and live, force plants to grow, how to cause my father to become rich in the stock market. Juju is not all bad, you know. But then my . . . my mother and my sister . . . ” She swallowed hard. Nkem glanced at her with a frown as she closed her eyes and clenched her fists. He turned his eyes back to the road, feeling a shiver creep up his spine. “What happened to your mother and sister?” Nkem carefully asked.

  “They died. And I don’t know why! Some sort of flu,” she said, after a moment. “I didn’t do it!”

  Nkem remained silent, waiting for her to continue.

  “My . . . my uncle was wild with grief when they died,” she said. “He had to blame someone, so he cursed me. He was so close to all of us.” She took a deep breath. “Maybe ten miles from here, just outside of Owerri, my uncle had a farm, raising emu.”

  Emu, Nkem thought. That’s what they’re called.

  “He changed me into one and threw me in with them,” she continued. “Twenty years he left me there.”

  Nkem was having a hard time concentrating on the road. The damn emu herd running alongside the car wasn’t helping, nor was the growing crowd of gawkers on the road to his left. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and took a deep breath. Nonsense, he thought. This is all nonsense! Maybe someone slipped a mild sweetie into my breakfast or something. Maybe one of the cooks hated my films. It was a possibility. Such a thing had happened to another actor some years ago. But the strange thing was that Nkem believed every word this woman said. Somehow he just KNEW all that she was saying was true.

  “Twenty years I hid and avoided my uncle,” she said. “Business was good for him. Owerri’s a good place to sell emu meat.” She glanced out the open window at the running emu. She lowered her voice. “People like it. Most don’t even know it’s emu. They think it’s beef. My uncle thought that I had long ago been slaughtered and sold as meat like the other birds. But he taught me well. I had ways of hiding in there. But I could not escape; there was an electrical fence.”

  Nkem felt another chill. “Last night—did the storm do something . . . ?”

  “To the fence, yes,” she said. “It was struck by lightning. The minute I saw our chance, I got all the emu to stampede. The fence was still sparking and many of us were killed. I . . . I didn’t know that would happen. It was terrible.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “So, you see, when I saw you speeding toward me, I thought fate was providing me an opportunity. I wanted to end my life . . . ”

  Her words touched him in an odd way. Although her story was fantastic and strange compared to Nkem’s, on some basic level, how she felt was how he felt too. He wasn’t of this world. Maybe he didn’t want to die but he wanted to leave this life of his behind.

  “The sacrifice must have broken my uncle’s juju,” she said.

  As they drove, more vehicles around them slowed down. Soon, Nkem found he could barely drive faster than twelve miles per hour. Neither Ogaadi nor the rest of the herd liked this. The birds began angrily making that strange drum beat sound in their chests. Ogaadi grew more and more anxious as she looked at the crowd of gawkers.

  “Why do these people do this?”

  “Come on,” Nkem snapped. “Who wouldn’t come and look?”

  Up ahead, the traffic stopped in what looked like another very annoying bit of go-slow. Suddenly, Ogaadi looked at Nkem with bulging eyes and hollered, “You’re working with him!”

  “Eh? Who? What?”

  “He can stop everything! I know his ways!” She suddenly grabbed at the steering wheel.

  “What are you doing?” Nkem screamed.

  They narrowly missed two cars as they whipped to the right, careening off the road. Nkem heard the hiss of grass as they rolled into the foliage and thankfully came to a stop without hitting anything. Ogaadi opened the door and leaped out; the emu, meanwhile, did the opposite and lunged at the car, pecking and kicking. Nkem’s mind was in a muddle. “Stop it!” he screamed, jumping out of the car.

  Nkem was shaking so badly that he fell to the ground. He got up and clumsily ran at one of the emu. He tried to push it away from his car but it was too heavy and strong. It snapped its beak at him and he jerked his head back just in time to save his nose. “What is this? Oh my god what is all this?!” he shouted, pulling at his hair.

  Arms suddenly encircled his waist and pulled him backward. “Don’t you bring harm to my people!” Ogaadi hissed in his ear as she dragged him away from the car.

  They tumbled to the ground. Nkem tried to roll away but she held him there. With all his might, he kicked forward with both his legs, bucking himself out of her arms. She came at him again and next thing Nkem knew, he was grappling with the bird-woman in the grass.

  “Stop it!” he cried, breaking free of her at last.

  “He sent you!” she screamed. “You think I’m stupid?” She lunged at him and they fell to the ground again. Nkem was sweating profusely as dirt mashed into his locks and shirt. He was beginning to panic. Ogaadi was immensely strong. She rolled him over, straddling him with her long legs and holding his arms above his head. He was helpless.

  “What is wrong with you!?” he bellowed, looking up into her wild face. Stinging sweat dripped into his eyes caused them to tear up. He blinked them away.

  Like the birds, she smelled strongly of grapefruit and she too was sweating. She was looking into his eyes with her “chocolate in front of the sun” eyes as she breathed heavily. Her face began to relax into a stunned frown.

  “He didn’t send you, did he?” she asked.

  “No!” Nkem said, and they both fell silent.

  “Isn’t that Nkem Chukwukadibia?” he heard someone say.

  Nkem and Ogaadi both looked toward the road. Cars had stopped and people had gotten out to watch the spectacle. No one came to help. Nkem wasn’t surprised. He and Ogaadi were yards into a grassy area. The place could be full of snakes. Nkem cursed and feebly tried to kick at one of the birds, despite Ogaadi sitting on him. The bird was so focused on pecking his vehicle that it didn’t notice.

  “Oh God,” he moaned, giving up and laying back. “My life is such shit.” He looked at the sky, begging it to fall on him. There was the damn eagle again, probably watching the whole incident from above. Ogaadi just looked down at him, disgusted.

  “I hate weakness,” she said.

  “I don’t care what you hate!” he snapped.

  “Weakness doesn’t suit you.”

  “What do you know about me?” He shoved at her. “Get off me, goddammit!”

  As if he’d personally insulted it, one of the birds turned to Nkem and stared at him. Nkem looked back at it frowning. It made the deep booming sound in its chest. Then it shook its head. Its eyes were white orbs.

  “Oh . . . oh shit,” he whispered as the bird lowered its head and started angrily strutting toward him. Nkem eyed its three-toed long-nailed powerful feet as it came at him. Perfect for stomping, raking and disemboweling a human to death. He resumed his escape efforts, frantically wriggling and thrashing. “Get off of me! Biko! Look at it! Its . . . ”

  Ogaadi didn’t budge as she pensively watched the approaching emu. She held up a hand. “Leave her,” she said to the emu. The bird shook its head and then clumsily sat down. Nkem gasped as the bird’s eyes cleared, regaining their deep red color. He felt prickly, as if he were on the verge of understanding something very, very important. He heard blood pulse in his ears and sweat trickling down the sides of his face.

  Ogaadi looked down at him and leaned close to his face.

  “What did you do to it?” he asked. “Did you see its eyes? Something in the eyes . . . ”

  She sniffed him. “I . . . I can smell it on you,” she said. She frowned. “You don’t belong here.”

  “What?” he whispered.

  She leaned closer, b
ringing her face close to his, their lips nearly touching. He didn’t move. This close, she smelled sweeter, more like the inside of a grapefruit tree’s flower than the actual grapefruit. She sniffed his breath again. “Ogbanje,” she whispered. She sat straight up. “You?”

  He wanted to speak but his throat felt heavy and useless.

  “Don’t you even know?” she asked.

  He slowly shook his head. He felt a mosquito bite him on the leg and more sweat trickle down his back. “How? . . . ” He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts. “I nearly died three times as a kid for three different reasons, animals, crazy animals,” he said, his eyes still closed. If he looked at her or the damn emus or the gathering crowd, he’d lose his train of thought. “My . . . my . . . my mother used to make jokes but . . . ”

  “Always seeking to return to the spirit world,” she said, vaguely. “Yes.” She nodded. “Now it makes sense. You are no coincidence.” Suddenly, Ogaadi reached out and felt Nkem’s pocket.

  “Hey!” he said, slapping her hand away. “What are you—”

  “What is this thing in your pocket?” she asked, poking at it again. He slapped her hand away and she slapped his hand hard. “Stop it!” she snapped.

  “I’ll get it!” He reached in and pulled out the piece of quartz. But it wasn’t transparent as it had been when he first found it. It was gold, pure gold. She snatched it from him and held it close to her face. “What the—!” she whispered. Then she stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. She touched her tongue to the golden shard and humphed. “Where did you get this?”

  “It fell off you when I picked you up,” he said. “When you were still an emu, a dead emu.”

  “What did you do to it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  He rolled his eyes.

  She looked down at him disgusted again. “You?”

  Behind them, the crowd had grown to more than thirty people, watching, snapping photos and broadcasting with their net phones, and commenting to each other and online.

  “What is that?” Nkem asked. “Why’s it gold now?”

  “Is this some sort of joke? You’re not a child,” she said. “I’m supposed to have a child.”

  Nkem looked at her blankly. “Uh . . . I can’t . . . I mean . . . ”

  “I’m supposed to get a child!” she shouted. She slapped him hard across the face.

  “Hey, stop it!” Nkem shouted, trying to buck her off him. If she did that again, he didn’t care who was watching, he was going to beat the hell out of her . . . once he got up.

  “I’m . . . sorry.” She looked at the gold stone again. “I didn’t mean to. You?”

  “Me what?” He pounded his fist in the dirt and winced as his back ground against a stone. “Fuck! Get off me!”

  “Ogbanjes seek freedom,” she said, not budging. “Always seeking freedom. My uncle was one, too. That’s what I sensed about you. If I could find him . . . and I will, the first thing I will do is make him very, very small and imprison him in a very small iron cage.” She clenched her fist. “You’re an ogbanje, too. If animals have been trying to kill you, they are possessed by your spirit friends who want you home. They sense your weakness. They can always sense when one of you wants to die.”

  There it was. He was an ogbanje.

  He’d been hearing it all his life but only now did he really take it in. And as he let it sink in, it was as if his entire life started to make sense. I was a lucky kid, he realized. They’d been trying to kill me.

  The “friends” of ogbanje children were rarely true friends. They were spirits who’d been his companions in the spirit world. And they were envious and territorial beings who ached to experience the physical world for themselves. Since they could not, they didn’t want him to enjoy life, either.

  So whenever he was weak, they would try to pull him back into the spirit world. When the chickens had attacked, he’d had malaria. When the goat attacked, he’d been deeply depressed because his dog had died that morning. When the horse attacked, he’d been weak from not eating for two days. Since he’d found his calling, the day of the spectacular accident, he could not remember when he’d last been sick, depressed, or deeply distraught. It had all been good. Until today.

  Nkem glanced at the crowd. Then at the emus. Then at his beat-to-shit car. “Jesus.” He licked his lips. He couldn’t believe what he was thinking but there it was.

  He and Ogaadi spoke at the same time: “You want to leave your life for a while,” she said, as he said, “Can . . . can you change me?”

  Again, they spoke simultaneously. “I can,” she said, as he said, “You can’t make me do anything.”

  She held a hand up. “Listen for a second,” she said. “When we reach a certain age . . . ”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “People like me, amusu,” she said. “We take on one we will teach. We have a stone that changes when we meet our student.”

  “And I’m your ‘student’?”

  She nodded. “The stone changes to gold when it is touched by the student.”

  He laughed hysterically. “You’re barely older than me,” he said. “Look at you.” He gazed up at her. Her skin was smooth and her thighs were firm and muscular and she smelled like grapefruit and flowers. Suddenly he had to get her off him. He glanced at the crowd. There had to be close to fifty people now. He sat up but she didn’t move. “We need to get out of here,” he said.

  She climbed off of him and they both stood. All Nkem had to do was look at the crowd and his growing erection disappeared from whence it came.

  “I thought you wouldn’t be so . . . . old,” she said.

  “Hey, I’m only twenty-five!”

  “Students are usually only five or six! I was only under that spell for twenty years!”

  “Maybe time works differently for birds,” he said, then frowned, wondering where he’d come up with the idea.

  She turned away from him. “Twenty years trapped and I have no time to be free before a student is thrust on me. Nonsense,” she mumbled.

  He heard a woman chuckle and say, “I wonder what his wife will think of this. Na wow.” He wanted to pick up a stone and throw it at her.

  Ogaadi looked at the woman, bent down, picked up a stone and threw it at the woman. It landed right at her feet. “Chineke!” the woman exclaimed as she jumped back and bumped into a man beside her. Several people beside her all exclaimed at the same time, “Heeey!” But none of them moved to leave.

  Ogaadi made the deep booming sound in her chest and all the emu stopped pecking at Nkem’s car and instead ran at the crowd. People screamed and ran, losing shoes, net phones, and purses. They hopped in cars, SUVs, and trucks and screeched away. Others ran down the road pursued by the large birds. Soon Nkem and Ogaadi were alone.

  “Don’t mind them,” she said.

  He chuckled. “You don’t know who I am. All of Nigeria will know about this in an hour.”

  She waved a hand. “Nonsense.” She looked him up and down. “So did you mean what you said?”

  Nkem walked over to his car and ran his hand over the scratches and dents. No one would believe this. Even with all the pictures and live footage. The emus had even cracked the glass of two of his back windows and windshield. Still his wife would be on the war path. He turned to Ogaadi. “Can you protect me from my spirit ‘friends’?”

  “Only if I am there.”

  Well, I’ve escaped them four times so far, he thought.

  “What exactly . . . ”

  “I can’t tell you until you accept,” she said.

  He looked at the now empty road. “How long will I be . . . gone?”

  “That depends,” she said with a sigh as she looked at her jagged nails. “You’ll return to acting in your movies when I finish with you and your movies will be . . . something else.” She paused. “You said you needed some free time. I could use some, too. Do you still want that?”
<
br />   “Yes.”

  She laughed and nodded. “Ogbanjes are all the same. Irresponsible as hell.”

  Even before the word escaped his lips, he felt his body changing. Pulling in on itself, shifting, breaking. It hurt but not in a terrible way. He felt like sobbing but soon he was not able to do even that. But on the inside, he cried; he was leaving all that he held dear behind: his wife, his family, his career, the goddamn gossiping crowd. He was leaving them all behind. He was leaving the road full of congested traffic to sneak down a side road. For a while.

  Ogaadi’s voice sounded sharp and full. “You come back to me when I call you. Then we’ll get started.” She laughed. “Today is a good day. We’re both free! But beware of your spirit friends.”

  Nkem knew.

  When Nkem flew into the sky, it was like flying over a fence. She’d turned him into an eagle. He’d been afraid she’d turn him into an emu. She must have read his mind. The eagle was a creature he’d envied since he was a boy. They made meals out of chickens and easily soared above even the most insane goats and horses.

  She was a powerful amusu, indeed. He was so elated that he opened his beak and shrieked with joy. He flew higher and higher. And then Nkem flew away.

  Krista Hoeppner Leahy’s fiction has appeared in Writers of the Future, Vol. XXV, Shimmer, and flashquake. She has an MFA in Theater, and is a graduate of the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop. Her poetry has appeared in Free Lunch, Raritan, and Tin House.

  The Odyssey is one of the great stories of Western civilization—an epic tale of one man’s determination to triumph against all odds. By the end of the saga, it’s apparent that those odds are steeper than he could have imagined. After all, Odysseus sets out on his journey with a full complement of warriors and shipmates, but he is the only one to arrive home.

  Our next story digs into the untold life of Elpenor, a figure best remembered for his untimely death on Circe’s island. As the author says, “Elpenor, in my opinion, gets kind of a raw deal. Through the ages, his death has been held up as an example of the recklessness and drunken foolery of youth. I asked myself, what might have driven him to drink, to lose himself so completely that he would fall off the roof?”