So that night, I prayed to Ala. I didn’t want to do it in English even though I knew she would understand; language is only a human thing. Igbo had always been stunted coming from me, but there was one word that was easy, that slipped from my tongue like salted palm oil and tasted correct.
“Nne,” I said, and the word was double-jointed. Mother.
I felt her immediately and the brothersisters lifted off my mind in a hurried cloud. I was cast into a vast, empty space and everything around me was peaceful. It felt like the otherworld—that’s how I knew that I was inside her, suspended and rocked.
Find your tail, she told me, and her words slithered. They were silver and cool.
Her voice came with meaning. I had forgotten that if she is a python, then so am I. If I don’t know where my tail is, then I don’t know anything. I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know where the ground is, or where the sky is, or if I’m pointing away from my head. The meaning was clear. Curve in on yourself. Touch your tongue to your tail so you know where it is. You will form the inevitable circle, the beginning that is the end. This immortal space is who and where you are, shapeshifter. Everything is shedding and everything is resurrection.
The second time I called her, she said nothing. She just took me and put me inside a calabash. I was tiny like a hatchling, lying against the curve and feeling the fibers beneath me. I was curled up. I was so small and she was wrapped around the outside of the calabash, her scales pressed against the neck. No one would touch it once they saw that she held it, which meant that no one would touch me.
It is hard to ignore a god’s voice, especially one like hers. The message was so simple; I couldn’t pretend not to hear it. Come home, my brothersisters sang. Come home and we will stop looking for your trouble. I bent my neck and raised my hands and submitted. What else was there to do? You cannot wrestle with your chi and win. In this new obedience, I decided to go back to Umuahia and see my first mother. I knew it would be impossible to close the gates, but I was the bridge, so it did not matter. If I was anything else, maybe I would’ve been uncertain and full of questions, looking for mediators or trying to speak to my ancestors. But I had surrendered and the reward was that I knew myself. I did not come from a human lineage and I will not leave one behind. I have no ancestors. There will be no mediators. How can, when my brothersisters speak directly to me, when my mother answers when I call her?
Like the historian said, you have to know your place on this earth. It was very hard, letting go of being human. I felt as if I had been taken away from the world I knew, like there was now thick glass between me and the people I loved. If I told them the truth, they would think I was mad. It was difficult to accept not being human but still being contained in a human body. For that one, though, the secret was in the situation. Ọgbanje are as liminal as is possible—spirit and human, both and neither. I am here and not here, real and not real, energy pushed into skin and bone. I am my others; we are one and we are many. Everything gets clearer with each day, as long as I listen. With each morning, I am less afraid.
My mother draws closer now. I can see a red road opening before me; the forest is green on either side of it and the sky is blue above it. The sun is hot on the back of my neck. The river is full of my scales. With each step, I am less afraid. I am the brothersister who remained. I am a village full of faces and a compound full of bones, translucent thousands. Why should I be afraid? I am the source of the spring.
All freshwater comes out of my mouth.
Acknowledgments
From the very beginning.
Enuma Okoro, for saying to me in a restaurant in Providence, “Oh, you have to write the spiritual book first!” For your friendship and the feedback on early chapters. The painter, for tenderness and having my back when I started on this path. The priest, for breaking me. The historian, Ed Keazor, thank you a thousand times over for being there.
Tiona McClodden, for every moment of your unflinching and active belief in my work, for inspiring me with yours. For the multiple ways you saw and supported me, for teaching me rigor. Christi Cartwright, for being an excellent and meticulous reader. For always coming through with the industry insight and being my friend. Dana Spiotta and Chris Kennedy, for the first draft feedback. The Creative Writing MFA Program at Syracuse University, for funding me during the year in which I wrote the book. The Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop where the book concept solidified and the Caine Prize Writing Workshop where I finished the first draft. Cave Canem, for the poetry workshops in which I wrote Chapter 15.
Chimamanda Adichie, for the Farafina Creative Writing Workshop and the ripples from that. For that moment when I started to tell you about the book and you tilted your head, looked at me, and said, “Ah, so you’re an ọgbanje.”
Binyavanga Wainaina, for making me cancel my Uber to talk about the work. For being such a staunch champion of this book and making sure it was taken care of. You believed in it so much that I did too.
To Eloghosa Osunde and Nana Nyarko Boateng, for reading the manuscript and giving me reasons why this work matters, for always seeing and loving me. Isaac Otidi Amuke, with all my love. You know why. Sarah Chalfant, Jackie Ko, and Alba Ziegler-Bailey at the Wylie Agency, for being amazing. My brilliant editor, Peter Blackstock, for believing.
My mother, June, for letting me interview her and my little twin sister, Yagazie, for that time when I was freaking out about what I needed to believe in order to write this book and you told me to treat it like I was a method actor, to surrender. So I went in and never came back out, which was perfect. Also, for everything else. Thank you.
The lovebears and squad, for being my community and chosen family. We all we got.
Bobbi, mi hermana mi amor, thank you for everything. And always, my darling Rachel, for all these years of fierce and unwavering love.
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