Sunny and the Mysteries of Osisi

by Nnedi Okorafor

  After Sunny did this, Chichi took some powder between her fingertips. It looked like soot in the dim firelight. She blew it towards the men, and it travelled easily in a dark mist for several yards, mingling with and dimming the firelight. Chichi brought up her juju knife and spoke some rapid words in Efik, then she stabbed her knife into the soil and twisted it.

  “Is that it?” Sunny asked, when nothing happened.

  “Shhh,” she said.

  Sip! Something black flitted in front of them. Then it was gone. Then it came again and hovered before them. Even there in the dark, mere feet from the men who’d nearly killed her brother, Sunny found herself smiling. It was just so… cute! The small batlike creature was covered in downy black fur, its wings batting like those of a hummingbird. It hovered perfectly still so she could see its big black eyes, tiny snout, and pointy fox-like ears. It smelled strongly of perfumed oil.

  “Who are you?” Chichi asked it.

  It rapidly cheeped three times, and then said in a low voice that sounded like that of a very tall big man, “Od’aro.”

  Every hair went up on Sunny’s body as she went from delighted to terrified.

  “It calls itself ‘goodnight’ in Yoruba,” Chichi said. “Typical.” Then she spoke to it in either Yoruba or Efik. It did a quick turn and then zipped off. Sunny heard it cheep, and there were more responses from the treetops, which had started to shed leaves and shudder. The Red Shark members stopped singing, listening. One of them pointed at the fire, wobbling on his feet. But the fire was quickly dying, and soon they were all in darkness. Silence.

  “Stupid boys think they are above reproach because they hurt and kill,” Chichi whispered. “Let them learn.”

  “What are they going to do?”

  “Watch.”

  The darkness that had fallen suddenly grew heavy and thick. The cheeping in the trees stopped, and the silence was as pure and weighted as the darkness. Sunny grabbed Chichi. She opened her mouth wide, to make sure there was still air and she could breathe it. She could. Then the screaming began.

  “What is happening?” Sunny asked.

  “Murks like to slap,” Chichi said. “Their wings feel like hot steel.”

  Sunny and Chichi stood behind the bushes listening to the screams, yelps, and moans. Let them hurt and remember my brother’s face and his pain with every slap and scratch, she thought. The sound of them running in all directions made Sunny freeze. For the amount of time Sunny had set the timer on her phone, the Murks would follow them to their homes, bringing their darkness and remaining quiet as air. And then when the members went to sleep, the Murks would bring the nightmares. Nightmares that would call up her brother’s face and name and warn the members to leave him alone forever or suffer more consequences. Chichi’s plan was flawless. But it wasn’t enough. Not for Sunny.

  The darkness was lifting as the Murks broke away from one another and chose which member to harass. The fire exploded with light and for a moment, Sunny had a clear view. She saw the backs of several members’ red shirts as they fled into the bush, some towards the way they’d come, others in opposite or adjacent directions. One member ran right into a tree, falling onto his back, a Murk scratching and slapping at his head. And there was Capo on the ground. He’d fallen over his own chair and was too drunk to get up with any speed. Beside Sunny, Chichi was quietly laughing her head off.

  Sunny jumped up.

  Chichi hiccupped as she fought to speak. “What the hell are…”

  Stop, Sunny thought. At the same time, she dug within and touched but did not bring forth her spirit face. She didn’t touch her juju knife. This was hers. Natural. Her temples ached and her skin cooled, just as Sugar Cream had said it would. She didn’t hesitate. She held out her hands and pushed as one would push water. She’d stopped the rush of time. Silence. Complete and total silence. And stillness. She didn’t look at Chichi. Nor the suspended Murk that was flying after one of the suspended members. There was Adebayo, looking over his shoulder, a Murk right above his head. Sunny didn’t bother with him, either. She walked to where Adebayo was looking. Towards Capo.

  As soon as she saw him up close, she didn’t doubt what she’d done. The ground beneath him glowed a dull red, in the shape of curled and sprawled skeletons. She could see them all over, just beneath the ground. And Capo himself glowed with the same dull light, especially his hands and mouth. This guy was a Lamb version of Black Hat in the making. He’d killed with his hands and mouth. Cannibal. Ritual killer. Sunny felt her belly roll with nausea. How did her brother manage to fall in with these guys? This man? Chukwu was lucky to manage to fall out alive.

  Capo was the only thing that was moving. He rolled onto his back, clasping his throat. He wheezed loudly, his watering eyes bulging. Sunny felt light-headed but otherwise perfectly fine. She looked down on him with disgust and pushed back her black hood. Capo’s eyes grew wider.

  “Do you know who I am?” she asked.

  Still wheezing for air, slowly he nodded.

  “You will die in less than a minute,” she said. “You aren’t albino, so you can’t move outside of time.” She paused, utterly enjoying the look of pure terror and approaching death on his face. And she enjoyed the fact that she was lying to him. This was far more than a mere medical condition; it was her being a Leopard Person born with a specific talent that she was practising every day and night. And it was her being her. “I’m Chukwu’s child witch of a sister,” she said. “You see me clearly. My name is Sunny Nwazue.” His eyes were starting to close. “My brother will return to university. If any of you people lay a finger on him, I will bring a painful death to every one of your relatives and then you, especially you—I know what you’ve done. Do you understand?”

  Capo nodded weakly as his eyes closed. Sunny quickly moved back to Chichi. Then she let go. Letting go was easier than getting ahold of time. She sank to her knees beside Chichi. She’d been standing on the other side of Chichi, and Chichi was still looking where she’d been. Now she turned to Sunny and did a double take. She looked where Sunny had been and then back to where Sunny now stood. “Sunny, what did you do?”

  Sunny only shook her head, watching Capo yards away. All the others were gone. Capo wasn’t moving.

  “Did… did you kill him?” Chichi whispered. “Why didn’t you just leave him?”

  “You didn’t see my brother,” Sunny coldly said.

  Capo twitched and suddenly jumped to his feet. He looked around drunkenly, and Sunny and Chichi ducked down. When he saw that he was alone, he started walking away. Then he turned back, dumped the water from the cooler on the fire, and then stumbled back the way they’d all come.

  Chichi and Sunny stayed down for a while in the dark. When it was clear that everyone was gone, they stood up. “What did you do?” Chichi asked again.

  “What needed to be done.”

  Chichi looked hard at Sunny. “You were beside me and then you weren’t. And I didn’t see you near Capo,” she said. “But… I saw him slump after you disappeared.” She frowned as she thought hard. “Did you hold? Hold time? Is that what you and Sugar Cream have been working on?”

  “Some, but that was the first time I tried it.”

  “He saw your face?”

  She nodded.

  “Damn,” Chichi said.

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  They walked back to the main road. It took them a half hour in the darkness even with a torch. When they reached the main road it wasn’t five minutes before the black council car drove up to them and demanded that Sunny get into it. Sunny did so without a word of protest.

  “Let my mum know that I’m okay,” she told Chichi.

  “Okay,” Chichi said. She paused. “Give me your phone. If you don’t, they will take it from you.”

  Sunny handed Chichi her phone. They looked at each other for a moment. Then Sunny said, “I’ll… I’ll be okay.” For now, she thought. She didn’t know about later. Still
, as the car drove soundlessly down the dark empty road, past the satellite hostels where the university students who were not up to satanic mischief slept soundly, Sunny felt it was worth it.

  13

  DEBASEMENT

  The ceremonial masks stared at Sunny. There were fifty-two of them. Over her months as Sugar Cream’s student, she’d had plenty of time to count. The first time she was here, she’d thought there were only twenty, but then again, she’d been distracted by the fact that she was there at risk of being caned for showing her spirit face to Jibaku.

  The masks didn’t stay in the same spot, either. Every few days, some of them moved—sometimes across the wall, sometimes switching with the mask beside them. And some would change the expression on their faces. Sunny had learned early on not to touch them or mutter anything in anger near them. They would sometimes lick, smooch, try to bite or spit on her hand, and they’d tell Sugar Cream anything she said.

  Now all the masks looked either angry or deeply interested. Sugar Cream was scowling at Sunny. Sunny gazed right back. It was 5am and she’d walked up the Obi Library stairs alone, since she knew the way to Sugar Cream’s office and she knew the consequences would probably be greater if she fled. She found Sugar Cream in her office sitting at her desk wearing a cream-coloured nightgown, a cup of warm milky coffee in her hand.

  “What happened?” Sugar Cream asked icily.

  Sunny told Sugar Cream everything. She’d stood with her back straight and chin up. She’d fought to keep her eyes dry and won, though when she described her brother’s ordeal, her voice cracked twice and she felt light-headed. When she told of holding time, only then did Sugar Cream’s eyebrows rise. But only the tiniest bit. Otherwise, her face remained like stone. This early morning, Sunny’s mentor looked ancient. This morning, Sunny knew that she’d be caned.

  “Chichi was right,” Sugar Cream said when Sunny finished talking. “Do you see her here?” She paused. “Huh?” she suddenly snapped, making Sunny jump. “DO YOU SEE CHICHI HERE TO BE PUNISHED?”

  “No, ma’am,” Sunny quickly said.

  “No, you don’t. And it’s not only because she made sure you two remained hidden and that those foul young men thought it was the devil attacking them and not you two. Those men rock the foundation of learning in this country. We Leopard People have been working for years to eliminate these confraternities at their root. You two were given a pass for what you did. But then you crossed the line. You let your rage get the best of you.”

  Sunny looked down, frowning. I don’t care, she thought. She knew if she had it all to do again, she’d do the same thing. She had to protect her brother. Sugar Cream knew this, too.

  “Do not forget, your power carries a great responsibility, Sunny,” Sugar Cream said. “You’re young. You’re a free agent who knows very little, but who is bursting with potential and passion. You’re not the best or smartest of your age mates, but you are… interesting. This is why I took you on. But you need to learn control.” She took a sip of her coffee. “And you need to learn the consequences.”

  After explaining to Sunny what would happen to her, Sugar Cream called two older students in the building. They were not to speak to Sunny. They weren’t even to look at her. All they were to do was walk in front of and behind her. They led Sunny down the hallway to a grey door, and one of the students opened it. It led to a stairway. Sunny followed him in, the other student following behind Sunny. The walls here were made of a grey stone that looked like it had been carved bit by bit with an ice pick.

  The steps were also made of the same roughly chiselled stone. As they descended, Sunny couldn’t help the tears that fell from her eyes. She counted thirty steps and still they kept going. It was like travelling into an underground cave. The air grew cooler and cooler until Sunny was shivering. She was glad that she still wore her jeans and the black hooded sweatshirt over her T-shirt.

  Down, down, down they went. To the Obi Library’s infamous basement. Sugar Cream had ordered Sunny to stay here for three days as punishment for pulling a Lamb outside of time, a severe violation of Leopard doctrine, even for someone of greater experience and age. Because Sunny was under twentyfive, her punishment was milder than if she were an adult. “If you were twenty-six,” Sugar Cream had said, “you’d be caned and then sent down there for three months.”

  “Go in,” one of the students now said. “And don’t try to come up.”

  They left her. They didn’t lock the door because there was no door, just an opening in the stone wall with the dimly lit stone stairway that led back up. Sunny turned around and took in her prison. The basement was large, smelled of dirt and mildew, and was filled with bookshelves of mouldering books. Books that had been replicated and brought down here to be disposed of in due time. The bookshelves had rotted, buckled, and fallen into decay. Obviously, some of the books had been forgotten. In the centre of the basement was a dusty wooden platform with an old bronze statue of a squat toad with overly bulbous eyes. Sunny touched its large head with her hand and sat on it as she watched the students leave.

  Each day, they would bring her a meal and a large pitcher of water. She was given a bucket as her toilet, which would also be taken and emptied daily. Other than that, she would be alone down there. No blanket, no bathing, no light other than the dim one high on the ceiling.

  As the sound of their footsteps receded, the fear set in. She’d heard terrible things about the basement. She sunk to the floor, leaning her head against the toad’s head. “I did the right thing,” she whispered. “I don’t care what anyone says.”

  There were red spiders all over the place, especially on the ceiling. As she stared up at it, she noticed a large patch of churning red in the far left corner over one of the few bookcases that still stood. Slowly, Sunny walked across the dusty floor, her sandals grinding on the white marble. It wasn’t just covered with dust, there was sand, too. From where, who knew? She stopped feet from the ceiling corner above, her mouth curling with disgust. Hundreds, maybe thousands of nasty, mewling red spiders churned in the corner. She squinted and shuddered. They were all milling around one enormous red spider the size of a dinner plate.

  “Oh God,” she whispered, stepping away slowly. She was sure the thing was watching her, watching closely with its many eyes. She stumbled back to the large bronze toad, the only thing in the room that felt… okay. She rested her back against it and wrapped her arms around her knees. The metal was comfortingly warm and immediately fatigue fell on her. It had to be nearing sunrise.

  She’d snuck out of the house, journeyed to campus with Chichi, located and terrorised one of the most powerful confraternities in the area, and now here she was. This was the longest night of her life. Her eyes grew heavy. But there was no rest for the weary. The basement had no windows. She was deep beneath the ground; the place was like a tomb. And the one light bulb, which just had to be near the spiders, was greasy and faint, shining down on the discarded books. There were corners and crevices between fallen shelves, and the room was full of shadows and hiding places. All this made the scraping sound that much more terrifying.

  The sound seemed to bear down on the marble floor. Then it dragged. Slow and steady. Then it stopped. Then it dragged and then stopped. It came from right behind one of the bookcases to Sunny’s left. And she could see a bit of a shadow through two fallen shelves. But nothing more. Sunny had nothing with her. Nothing to throw. Nothing to clutch with fear.

  “Oh,” she whispered, trying to stay still. Willing herself to be invisible. She could become invisible. But not for very long. And to do so, she had to travel, to move. Would whatever it was come at her? What was it?

  Scraaaaape. Pause. Scraaaape. Pause. It stopped just before it came into view. Sunny waited for what felt like fifteen minutes, but the thing didn’t show itself. Instead, quiet as smoke, a flame burst from behind the books. A smokeless one. No smell. No burning. Just the light and shadow of a flame. Sunny, helpless and exhausted, leaned against the nec
k of the bronze toad, staring at that which she could not see. Soon her eyes went out of focus, and then slowly they shut.

  Scraaaaape.

  Sunny’s eyes shot open and she jumped up. Her legs wobbled and buckled, and she fell against the toad, banging her hip. A rotten-egg smell of sulphur stung her nose. She winced, turning towards the sound and the stench. What she spotted beside the bookcase made every hair on her body stand up. Even from feet away, she could tell that they were human bones, and not only because the one piled at the top was a clearly human skull. One near the bottom was heavy and long. A femur. And there was a hand sticking out of the centre. The pile looked about the size of one human being, the bones a dirty, rusty grey red.

  Sunny didn’t move. She couldn’t move. Her eyes stared and stared. Then they started to water.

  Tap, tap, tap. She gasped and looked towards the staircase. Someone was coming down. She looked back at the bones. They were gone.

  It was Samya, one of Sugar Cream’s closest assistants. She was one of the few third levellers under the age of thirty that Leopard Knocks had. To pass Ndibu, one had to attend a meeting of masquerades and get a masquerade’s consent to be a third leveller. To attend such a meeting, one had to slip into the wilderness, which meant the person had to die and come back. Only third levellers and up knew how this was done when one was not born with the natural ability. To reach the third level of Ndibu was like earning a PhD, and it was rare for one to be under the age of thirty-five. Samya was twenty-four.

  She was a bookish woman who wore red plastic glasses and a long red dress, and had reddish-brown skin like Chichi and Chichi’s mother. She’d piled her long braids atop her head as she carried the small tray. “Oh, Sunny, are you all right?” she asked. The worried look on her face cracked Sunny’s wall of strength like a sheet of thin ice.

  Her body grew warm and tingly, and her eyes stung with tears. “No,” she whispered as Samya quickly came to her. She put the tray of food on the floor beside Sunny and gathered her in her arms.