Where Women are Kings

by Christie Watson

  And so it went, Elijah. I tried not to eat or use electricity, and saved every penny that came my way to give to Bishop. We did our best to beat and starve out the wizard. You would cry and cry, and Bishop would hit harder, for it was the wicked spirit and not you who wanted us to stop. ‘A sorcerer is an abomination to the Lord!’ Bishop cried. ‘The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst!’ I tried with all my being, little son. But no matter how much poison we had you drink, or how we smacked your body to remove him – no matter at all – the wizard remained. How my heart broke in two when I looked in your eyes, little son. I could see you were far away from me. I wanted you back so desperately I would have done anything.

  ‘This will work,’ the Bishop had said. He handed me a small bottle of liquid. ‘It is for the bath, not for his milk.’

  ‘The bath?’

  ‘It is strong medicine that will draw the wizard out. In Akwa Ibom we use it pure and bathe the witches in it directly, but it is difficult to come by, so just add it to his bath. And make sure you rinse the bath carefully afterwards.’ He handed me a pair of rubber gloves. ‘Do not touch the medicine. It is very strong.’

  When you woke later that evening, I had made your little bath, tipped in the medicine that Bishop had given me. I looked at the Bishop’s card, Blu-tacked above our bed, and touched it to feel Akpan’s leftover fingerprints. Akpan believed in the Bishop. I knew he’d know how to help us. I lifted you up and took off your Babygro. The drink was beginning to work and your lower half was covered with foul-smelling diarrhoea: a sign, the Bishop had said, that things would be working. The medicine made my eyes water and made everything smell very clean. I picked you up and walked you to the small bath. Your skin was cold, even through the rubber gloves I was wearing, and you were very thin. I could feel your bones on my fingertips like the keys of Baba’s saxophone. I lifted you over the bath and dipped your legs in slowly.

  Your scream filled my heart and cracked it. You lifted your legs out but there was sudden sizzling and screaming, screaming, the skin on your feet changing colour, turning pink in front of my eyes. Burning.

  I pulled you out and looked at your face. Your face was a giant scream, as though the world had never known pain. I wrapped you in a towel and another towel, but the smell came through it, and I knew you were burnt.

  The bath was full of medicine.

  The medicine was acid.

  THIRTY-TWO

  The first night was always the worst.

  Elijah felt in a dream because he couldn’t remember what happened. He knew the wizard had come back, though, because he had blood on his hands and Ricardo was crying and washing his hands at the same time. They were in a new place with two grown-ups, who were not like parents but more like doctors. Ricardo said they were specialists in extreme behaviours. Elijah was in their bathroom, sitting on the side of the bath. The bath was the colour of an avocado, which was a squishy fruit that Mum put in salad. Once, she said she’d give him a pound if he ate a slice, and he said he’d do it for twenty, and she’d laughed all afternoon.

  ‘Will Mum and Dad come and get me later?’ he whispered. ‘Where’s Mum and Dad?’

  Ricardo kept washing his hands, even though they looked very clean by then. ‘I’m not sure, Elijah. I know you’ll definitely be staying here for tonight.’

  ‘I want to go home.’ His voice came out strange. Nothing felt real. Elijah sat down.

  ‘I know you do. But something very bad happened and, to make everyone safe, we have to keep you safe here tonight. And tomorrow morning we’ll all sit down and talk together, so we can decide what to do.’

  ‘But I want to go home now.’ Elijah started to cry. He didn’t want to cry because Ricardo looked so upset, like he might start to cry again, and Elijah hated making people cry. It was the worst thing ever. ‘The wizard came back,’ he whispered. ‘Didn’t he?’

  Ricardo knelt in front of him. ‘What wizard, Elijah? What wizard? What are you talking about?’

  Elijah sniffed and tried to look away. He couldn’t talk about the wizard. He would never see Mama again. But how could he stop the wizard, all alone? Elijah looked into Ricardo’s eyes and took the biggest breath of his life, made his stomach hard as rock.

  ‘I am full of a wizard. A sorcerer,’ he whispered. He closed his eyes and breathed out slowly. ‘An evil wizard. Wizards are millions of years old. They roamed around at the start of the world. Wizards were here before humans. Before dinosaurs, even.’ Elijah became suddenly quieter. ‘Wizards bring sickness and bad luck and death.’ He opened his eyes again. ‘And, at night, it creeps out of my skin and flies into the air before choosing a victim.’

  ‘Do you mean that you think a wizard is living inside you?’ Ricardo’s eyes were darting all about, searching Elijah’s face. ‘Or do you mean that I am actually talking to a wizard. Because you seem exactly like a little boy called Elijah to me. Wizards aren’t real, Elijah. They’re just not real.’ Ricardo didn’t move, then shook his head slowly. ‘Who told you that, Elijah? Was it Mama? Was it Bishop?’

  Ricardo didn’t believe him. Elijah started to cry again. ‘I am a wizard. There is a wizard inside me. Sometimes it does bad things.’

  ‘Oh, Elijah, you know you can tell me anything? It will help, Elijah. It will help you and help me and help the rest of the team, and even help Deborah, your mama.’

  Elijah looked up, but he could see in Ricardo’s eyes that he did not believe him. Ricardo did not believe in the wizard, so how could Ricardo help anyone at all? Elijah was alone with the wizard. He would always be alone with the wizard.

  Ricardo squeezed him close. ‘You aren’t a wizard, Elijah. You aren’t,’ he said, his voice breaking again. ‘But I don’t want you to think about that right now. All you need to know is that everyone is fine and you’re safe. Mum is fine.’

  ‘Mum?’ Elijah stood up in front of Ricardo. Because Ricardo was kneeling down, their eyes were exactly the same level and he made his eyes look straight at Ricardo’s. ‘Mum is hurt?’

  Ricardo moved his eyes away from Elijah’s and he knew then that something very terrible had happened. He knew that the wizard must have hurt her. He started crying properly, really crying. Ricardo tried to hold him but he didn’t want to be touched. Everyone he touched got hurt. The wizard might still be inside him and it might hurt Ricardo. It hurt everyone. You deserve to rot in hell. Go back to the arms of Satan, where you belong.

  ‘Elijah, you’re safe now. Things will seem better tomorrow, I promise. All you need to do is stay here tonight and get a good night’s sleep, then we will sort everything out tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t want to stay here. I want to go home.’

  ‘I know, Elijah. I know. Come on.’ Ricardo opened the bathroom door and waited for Elijah to follow him into a bedroom. The two grown-ups were outside and said goodnight as they walked past. He didn’t say anything to them. He didn’t even look at them. The wizard would try and eat them if he recognised their faces.

  ‘I want to go home,’ he whispered again. But Ricardo put him into a small bed with a teddy bear, and tucked the cover up right by Elijah’s ears.

  ‘Try and sleep, little Elijah. Things will be better tomorrow.’

  He left the door open a bit and Elijah let his eyes begin to see. The room was not a child’s room. There were no toys and on the wall was a wooden board with a million holes from old pins. It might be an office. He tried to shut his eyes but he was too scared. What happened to Mum? What did the wizard do to her? Was the baby OK?

  He searched the air for magic dust but the air was empty. There was no moonlight, no flashes of tiny fish at the bottom of the ocean, just a universe of emptiness and nothingness.

  Elijah’s teeth were shaking together and he cried and cried, but then he heard banging. Then shouting. ‘Let him come down; this is ridiculous! This will cause more problems than we had befo
re! Call the police – what can they do? Arrest me? – but I’m taking him home.’

  Granddad! Elijah sat up and opened his eyes and listened. His heart sped up. He was coming up the stairs, swearing and shouting. The two grown-ups were talking to him. ‘It’s probably best to wait till tomorrow and go through the proper channels …’

  Granddad burst into the room and removed half of the darkness. His white hair was a halo around his head and Elijah knew at once he was an angel sent by God to protect him, just like Mama had told him. ‘Elijah. Little grandson.’ He rushed over to the bed and lifted Elijah into the air and kissed him all over his wet face. He smelt of coconuts.

  ‘I am filled with badness.’

  ‘Don’t talk about it now. You need to come home. Get your jumper.’

  Granddad turned to talk to the two grown-ups while Elijah put his jumper and jeans over the top of his pyjamas. ‘I don’t care what Ricardo says. This is our son and I’m taking him home. Don’t worry; I’ll take full responsibility.’

  ‘But it’s completely against the rules – we might have to phone the police.’

  Elijah looked up at Granddad in the half-darkness, his soft white hair making him look like the most important angel of all. Granddad didn’t care about rules. He pulled Elijah’s arm and they went down the stairs and outside into the night. They walked quickly down the road, through the cool air. Granddad held tightly on to Elijah’s hand. They waited for the night bus, number thirty-six, and Granddad used his bus pass. When they got to the top deck, Elijah watched the night out of the window, the world full of shadows. He imagined the sound of Mum’s fairy stories, the laugh from Dad’s tummy, and blood everywhere. So much blood.

  ‘The wizard is back,’ he said to Granddad. Granddad had to believe him. Granddad was Nigerian and went to church and sometimes smelt exactly the same as Mama. But Granddad looked at Elijah closely, straight into his eyes.

  ‘Open your mouth,’ he said. ‘Wider.’

  Elijah stretched his mouth as wide as he could until the corners of his lips began to hurt.

  ‘As I thought,’ said Granddad, tipping his head this way and that. ‘There is no wizard inside you. No wizard at all.’

  THIRTY-THREE

  Nikki was up before sunrise. Her stomach was not as sore, but she kept studying the square patch of white gauze that the nurses had put on to the wound. She had called Daddy six times already. Elijah was asleep. Elijah was very shaken, but he was a strong boy. Daddy wanted to talk, face to face, as soon as possible. Ricardo had called at eight thirty, before he’d even got to his office. Nikki paced around the kitchen, stopping to rotate her swollen ankles. ‘They’re coming today for a meeting. All of them. Do you think they want to take Elijah back into care?’ She wanted Obi to come towards her and hold her and stroke her hair, but he didn’t move. He looked like a broken man, folded in half, smaller somehow. He looked at the floor and stared, dry-eyed. ‘I want Elijah home,’ she whispered. ‘I’m scared, but I want him home. They might take him away; they could, couldn’t they?’ Her voice broke. ‘And what if he does it again?’ She imagined Elijah’s eyes looking for her. His tiny voice. ‘Say something,’ she said.

  Obi didn’t answer. Nikki looked down at her crumpled clothes, snatched up from the bedroom floor in a rush. Obi had showered and dressed as usual. His face was smooth: no stubble. She had even heard him take a phone call.

  Nikki stepped backwards. ‘Please,’ she said, but she didn’t know what she was pleading for.

  Obi looked up at her, briefly, with glazed eyes.

  ‘But, if he does come home, it might not be safe,’ said Nikki. ‘What if he does it again?’ She held her stomach. The baby kicked her, hard, as if it was angry with her. As if she wasn’t a good mother to her child, even when it was inside her body. She tried to ignore the stinging of her cut.

  ‘It’s Elijah we need to worry about. Not us. How safe will he be if he doesn’t come home? Elijah will spend the rest of his life in care.’ Obi stood up. ‘How did this happen? We have let Elijah down.’ His voice was distant and his body turned away from her.

  Nikki began to cry again. ‘Please, Obi. Please don’t be angry with me any more. If you need to blame anyone, then blame his birth mother.’ She felt the heat rising through her. ‘What happened to him to make him like this?’

  She walked over and stood in front of him. She could see his eyes water the tiniest bit as he looked away. Or maybe she imagined it. ‘All I know for certain,’ he said, ‘is that it wasn’t Elijah’s fault. We needed to keep everything textbook.’

  Nikki blinked. ‘All I know,’ she said, ‘is what I feel. Life isn’t textbook. It’s messy.’

  She reached her arm towards Obi. ‘But you’re right, we have to try to stick to the advice. We have to find out everything we can about Elijah, about children like Elijah.’ She shook her head. ‘We don’t know anything. Not really. They never told us anything specific.’

  Obi looked at her for a long time, as if he was deciding something. He had the tiniest frown. ‘Elijah must come home. We have to get this right,’ he said.

  Nikki frowned. ‘How can we get this right, if we don’t even know what happened to our son?’

  Obi shook his head and lifted his arm as though he was reaching for Nikki’s, but then dropped it back down again as though he simply didn’t have the energy.

  *

  When all the social workers arrived, Obi was talking once more, but too loudly; how they wanted Elijah back! Elijah, their son, who she loved more than she thought it was possible to love. But there was a voice inside her that she couldn’t talk to the team about. What if he attacked her again? Or Obi? Or Jasmin? Or the baby? What if next time she wasn’t so lucky? Ricardo was sitting next to her on one side and Obi on the other. Across the table was a new social worker they’d never met, a specialist foster-carer, Mike, who Elijah had been sent to stay with until Daddy had insisted on picking him up, the new manager, a sour-faced woman with broken veins across her cheekbones, and Chioma. Chioma was the only person at the table smiling.

  ‘You’ve had a terrible shock,’ Chioma said. ‘We’re all here to find out exactly what triggered this and how we move forwards. We’re here to help.’

  ‘We don’t want to talk about disruption,’ said Nikki. She circled her arms over her bump.

  Obi nodded. ‘We just need a plan to make sure he is safe and that we can safely look after him. He will need psychiatric evaluation and we want a post-adoption support plan.’

  Nikki nodded and went on, ‘But we are also worried about what else Elijah might do. We’d like to know exactly what isn’t in the reports. In fact, we want all the reports. We need to know what happened to our son. You told us some of it, but we never expected this.’

  The sour-faced manager leant forwards and put her cold hand over Nikki’s. ‘This is a terrible thing that happened,’ she said. ‘We haven’t kept anything from you, I can assure you.’

  Ricardo nodded. ‘We talked about the fire, and the suspicion that Elijah caused the fire. In terms of the reports, you can have access to what we have – all of Elijah’s reports. But I’m afraid that you can’t see all of Deborah’s reports, unless they relate to Elijah, as that is Deborah’s private information. And you need to remember that we only know what we ourselves have been told.’

  Obi didn’t say anything; he looked far away.

  Nikki looked around the room at all the faces, and she suddenly didn’t trust any of them. ‘I want everything.’

  The manager let go of her hand.

  The new social worker was writing frantically and had a frown stretching from the bridge of her nose to the top of her forehead.

  Ricardo turned towards Nikki. ‘We’ve shown you everything that we thought was relevant. Elijah’s full C.P.R. You met the medical officer and we also discussed with you his extreme trauma, how it might affect him.’ He stopped talking and cleared his throat. ‘But last night Elijah said something very worrying to me. And it s
eems that more has come to light since the birth mother’s last assessment.’

  Nikki watched the scribbling pen. Obi’s breath beside her was shallow. She thought of Elijah, alone in a strange room in Granddad’s house, only two roads away, and her stomach twisted. She thought of her baby.

  The manager sat forwards. ‘But before Ricardo goes on, I just want to say that this doesn’t really change anything. As far as we’re concerned, nothing would have been handled differently. We would have given you all the same advice. As an organisation, we’re proud to work in a completely transparent way—’

  ‘What has come to light? What does that mean? What did Elijah say?’ Nikki thought of Elijah’s face and smacked her hand hard on the table. The social workers stopped writing. Everyone looked up at her face.

  After what seemed like minutes, Ricardo spoke. ‘Elijah believes he is a wizard, or is possessed by one.’ He bit his lip. ‘That’s what he’s been trying to tell us.’ His face creased. ‘He believes he brings bad luck to everyone around him.’

  Nikki stared. Obi didn’t move. ‘He was shouting something when it happened,’ Nikki said. ‘From the Bible. He’s done that before.’

  Ricardo went on, ‘This fits in with what we’ve learnt about Deborah. I’m afraid it’s what we suspected, back when Elijah first mentioned the wizard. We couldn’t jump to conclusions. It seems that Deborah was more involved with the church than we previously thought and there was certainly some ritualistic abuse happening. The leader of Deborah’s church was arrested but fled to Nigeria, though they are currently looking for him.’

  ‘Ritualistic abuse? What do you mean? What happened to Elijah?’

  ‘Well, we have given you all the information as we had it, but it would seem that the birth mother and the church leaders were trying to exorcise a demon from Elijah’s body. They believed him to be possessed by evil. And it was the methods they used to exorcise that were abusive. We believe that, in addition to neglect and to the physical abuse that you already know about, he was poisoned and bathed in acid. We knew the scars on his body came from physical abuse, but we had no idea about the nature of it.’ Ricardo’s voice was breaking. His face looked very young all of a sudden. ‘He was tortured.’