by Ayana Gray
“Koffi?”
She wasn’t on the ground anymore, and Ekon didn’t understand the tears in her eyes as she looked down at him. Spiders continued to fall around them both as her eyes roved over his body in fear, then snapped back to meet his gaze. “You have to get up!” she shouted. “Please get up! We have to get out of here! They’re coming from above, from the web!”
Get out. Ekon focused on the two words, on the urgency and fear in Koffi’s voice. Get out. Get out. We have to get out. She tugged harder on his arm, pulling him back to his feet. Hundreds of spiders fell from his body. Get out. That was the new focus. Get out.
Koffi pulled her jino blade out and held it tight, and that was the thing that finally brought Ekon back.
“Run!” he shouted. “Go!”
Koffi didn’t need to be told twice. She raced down a path between the trees. “Come on!” she said over her shoulder. “I know the way out!” She darted between another set of trees, Ekon on her heels. He heard the menacing clicks of thousands of pincers around him, the rustling of the spiders as they scuttled across the underbrush, but he didn’t dare look back. Up ahead, barely in view, there was a bright spot of blue—the sky, uninterrupted by the web’s milky strands. They were almost there; they could make it out.
Koffi hurled herself over a log, and Ekon followed. She ducked beneath a long curtain of vines and disappeared. Just as Ekon reached them too, the vines gave a terrible shudder. He stepped back as they turned to blackish brown, as each one of them seemed to fill with spiders. They formed a barrier, an uninterrupted wall of tiny bodies.
“Ekon!” He could hear Koffi’s voice on the other side of the vine-spider wall, frantic. “Please, come on!”
He couldn’t do it. In the second it took him to try and fail to count the legion of spiders surrounding him, he knew it was true. He wasn’t strong like Kamau or Baba, and he wasn’t strong enough for this. His fingers, despite their bites, still tried to add a rhythm to his fear.
One-two-three. Can’t do this. One-two-three. Just give up.
Abruptly he heard a new voice in his head. Not Koffi’s or his father’s but Brother Ugo’s. You do not have to be the largest or most dangerous fighter, Ekon, the old man had once said to him. So long as you are fastest.
Fast. He didn’t have to be strong to get out of here, he just needed to be fast. He clung to that word with a viselike grip, bracing himself. Fast, he just had to be fast. He took a deep breath and charged forward, eyes shut tight as he passed through the mass. His skin erupted, stinging as the spiders bit into his flesh. When he opened his eyes, the spiders were gone.
The jungle around him was warm again, the sun beating down in generous shafts of light as he found Koffi’s wide eyes. Their chests rose and fell hard, and her expression asked a thousand questions he didn’t want to answer.
So he ran.
CHAPTER 18
Scars
Koffi and Ekon ran through the jungle’s underbrush, the crunch of their footsteps the only thing filling the silence.
In the privacy of her mind, Koffi faintly wondered where they were heading, whether their new direction would get them any closer to finding the Shetani or send them back to where they’d started. In all honesty, she didn’t particularly care at the moment. She and Ekon hadn’t spoken in the hours since they’d escaped Anatsou’s web, but there seemed to be a tacit understanding between them that, for now, the priority had changed. It was essential that they got as far from those wretched spiders and their wretched webs as possible.
The jungle grew cooler as midday gave way to dusk, drawing from its depths a different kind of sound and life. Cicadas trilled through the humid air; overhead, the rustling leaves made their own kind of serenade, a sign that, perhaps here, things were safe. Warily, Koffi slowed, and she was relieved to see Ekon do the same. Adrenaline had numbed her body for hours, abating all the usual signs of fatigue, but suddenly everything returned in a rush. The soles of her feet ached mercilessly, and her lungs felt tight with each breath. She was hungry, thirsty, and exhausted, but she couldn’t quite relax, not yet. Her nerves were still as frayed as old rope; every sudden skitter and crunch of leaf underfoot rattled her insides. Her eyes dragged across the trees and fixed on a large snake wrapped around one of its branches. The thing’s body had to be thicker than her arm, rings of black covering its golden scales. It stared at her a moment longer with deep emerald-green eyes before slithering farther up the tree’s trunk and out of sight. She shivered. That serpent’s gaze, cool and piercing, felt unnatural, like everything else in this jungle. She thought of Anatsou and his milk-white gaze. Even now, she recalled the thin, mocking quality of the creature’s voice, the cool prickle of his laughter.
He can’t hurt us, a voice of reason assured her as she and Ekon kept walking through the trees. He’s gone. He can’t get us.
She believed it was the truth, but she couldn’t help remembering. The nightmarish images in the meadow were still vivid in her mind’s eye. She saw her mother, lying in a pool of blood, Jabir in an identical one beside her. Over and over they had called her name; over and over they had died. It had been something born straight from her worst nightmares, horrid.
Ekon cleared his throat, and she slowly realized he’d been looking at her, waiting for her to speak. Guilt racked her. If Anatsou and his spiders had been scary for her, she could only imagine what they’d been like for Ekon. She still remembered the way he’d looked in that thicket, covered in spiders and curled into a fetal position like a child. His face had been contorted in what looked like unimaginable pain. What had he seen? What had put him in so much pain?
“Ekon,” she began tentatively. “I—”
“We’re losing light.” Ekon’s words were clipped. “No use going farther. We might as well stop here and make some sort of camp.”
Koffi clamped her mouth shut again. Was that unusual curtness directed at her, or was it something else? Unsure, she nodded in agreement and shrugged off her bag.
Ekon didn’t give her another chance to speak before he turned and headed behind a cluster of trees. He was gone just long enough for Koffi to begin feeling panicked, but then she heard his returning footsteps. When he came into view again, he was carrying an armful of twigs.
“We’ve still got some dried food in our bags,” he muttered. “It’s not a Kuhani’s feast, but it’ll do.”
“Right.” She watched him kneel before the twig pile and grab two to rub together for a fire. He knew what he was doing—that was obvious to Koffi from the methodical way he worked—but every time wisps of smoke started to rise from the sticks he was holding, he’d flinch in pain and have to start over. After the third failed attempt within the hour, Koffi spoke up.
“Let me try something.”
“It’s all right, I’ve got—”
She snatched the sticks away, then stooped beside him. Almost everything about the jungle felt new and foreign, but doing this felt like home; Mama had taught her years ago how to start a fire. She relished the familiar feeling of the sticks rolling faster and faster between her palms, the smell of smoke and then the gradual warmth. She threw it in with the kindling, and fifteen minutes later, they had a fire. Ekon huffed.
“Thanks.”
Koffi looked to him, about to make a joke, when she noticed something.
“Ekon, you’re covered in bites!” Closer to him, she could clearly discern them, countless red pinprick wounds freckled all over his arms, neck, and face. She resisted the urge to shudder.
“Yeah.” Ekon stared into the fire. “It’s fine, though, none of them really hurt. They’ll heal on their own, hopefully.”
It took everything in Koffi not to roll her eyes. She sighed before she spoke again, in a tone she hoped sounded reasonable.
“They could get infected.”
To her frustration, Ekon merely shrugged. Koffi looked to the s
ky. It was nearly nightfall, the trees’ shadows growing longer in the absence of the sun. She looked around until her eyes fixed on something a few feet away, then abruptly stood.
“Where are you going?”
Koffi didn’t answer but walked over to the familiar yellow-leaf plant she’d just noticed. It was covered in tiny pea-shaped seeds the color of a peanut. She picked as many off the bush as she could before returning to Ekon’s side to drop them before her. She didn’t have the mortar and pestle Mama would have used in this situation back at the Night Zoo, but she improvised, using a rock to grind the seeds against a large leaf. Something prickled in her eyes as she took in their earthy smell and thought of Mama, but she worked until she’d created a lumpy paste. When she looked up, Ekon was watching her intently.
“What is that?”
“You taught me how to do that duara thing earlier,” she said calmly. “Now I’m going to teach you something. This is called ponya seed, and when you mash it into a paste, it’s a great treatment for wounds.” She began to dot the paste onto each spider bite with her index finger. The moment she touched him, Ekon hissed in pain, but she used her other hand to hold him steady. “Don’t move,” she instructed. “It’ll smear.”
“It’s . . . tingling,” he said through his teeth.
Koffi nodded. “Ponya seeds are anti-inflammatory, disinfecting, and, incidentally, an excellent source of protein. Here.” She held the paste-covered leaf up to Ekon’s nose and let him take a long whiff. He frowned a moment before surprise passed over his face.
“It . . . smells good, kind of sweet,” he said.
Koffi kept dabbing at Ekon’s arms, legs, even his face. It was strange being so close to him twice in the same day. He sat perfectly still as she thumbed his neck, the line of his jaw, and a spot next to his mouth. She studied his lips, a second too long for her own liking. At once, she backed away.
“Um . . . does that help?”
Ekon looked down at his body. When he looked back up again, there was a softness in his eyes that made him seem younger, like a curious boy who’d discovered something new and intriguing.
“Yeah, it does,” he said. “This stuff’s amazing.”
Koffi nodded. “When I was little, my mama used to call me her ponya seed. They’re small, but strong, and no matter where they’re planted, they always thrive.”
Ekon’s eyes were careful. “Is your mother still at the Night Zoo?”
Koffi stiffened. She didn’t want to acknowledge the truth because then it couldn’t be avoided, but the words escaped her anyway. “Yeah. She and my friend Jabir.”
“Jabir,” Ekon repeated. “Is . . . a boy?”
“Yeah,” said Koffi with a shrug. “He’s like a little brother to me.”
She didn’t understand the look on his face just then—a mix of curiosity and relief. After a moment, he spoke again. “I heard you call out to them, in the meadow.” His voice was surprisingly soft.
Koffi swallowed a tightness in her throat. “They’re my family,” she said quietly. “They’re all I have left.”
Ekon said nothing but continued staring at her. He still had that analytical look in his eyes, but it was touched by something else. Abruptly he spoke again.
“How did you end up in the Night Zoo?”
“Bad luck,” said Koffi bitterly. “Years ago, my parents and I lived in Lkossa proper, selling produce. It was a good life, but . . . my baba made some bad investments. We ran out of money and had to take out loans, then more loans to cover the old ones. Things just got worse and worse.” She looked to Ekon. “Then one day, my baba met Baaz Mtombé. He offered to pay our debts if we signed indentured servitude contracts and agreed to work for him to pay off the debts. A few years after we moved to the Night Zoo, a sweating fever went around. My baba got sick, and then he didn’t get better. When he died, the city’s inheritance laws were applied.”
“Inheritance laws?”
“I am my father’s only child,” she explained. “So his debts were transferred to my mother and me. We’ve been paying them off ever since.”
“I’m sorry, Koffi.” Ekon’s words were quiet but sounded genuine.
Koffi didn’t answer. She didn’t know what to say to that; she never had. For several minutes, they were both content to sit in silence while they nibbled on their dried fruit and meat. Eventually, she broke the silence again.
“What did you see?” she asked. “In the meadow.”
Ekon visibly stiffened. “Nothing. I didn’t see anything.”
It was a lie, and a bad one. Koffi persisted. “You know, you don’t have to be embarrassed—”
“I said, I didn’t see anything. Drop it, okay?”
Koffi tried not to recoil. In that moment, anger had flashed in Ekon’s eyes, but so had something else. Pain. It reminded her of another lesson Mama had given her at the Night Zoo. Often, the beasts that lashed out the worst were also the ones hurting the worst. Maybe it was the same with Ekon. Maybe something was hurting him far more than she could ever hope to understand.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “For prying.”
Ekon paused, then exhaled hard. “You’re not the one who should be apologizing,” he said. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. It was undisciplined. I should have kept myself in check.”
Koffi couldn’t help herself. “You don’t have to be in check all the time, you know.”
Ekon frowned. “That’s not the way I was raised.”
Koffi understood then that whatever was buried in Ekon was buried deep. If he wanted to dig it out, he’d have to do that himself. No one else could make him, and certainly not her. She decided to change the subject, pointing up to the sky overhead.
“I’ve never seen those before,” she said with a nod to the wisps of silver-white spilled over the blackness above.
“I’ve read about them,” said Ekon, following her gaze. Koffi watched the scowl slip from his face gradually, watched his expression soften to something like wonder. “They’re small clusters of stars, gathered by Atuno the sky god himself.”
Koffi hugged her knees to her chest. “You know, when the sky’s like this, I forget about what the Rupture did to it,” she noted. “I forget it’s broken at all.”
“It’s still damaged,” said Ekon. He said the words with a particular kind of scorn, and Koffi had the sense that, perhaps, he wasn’t just talking about the sky anymore. “Even if you can’t see it now, it’ll never be right again. It’ll always be scarred, flawed.”
Koffi paused before speaking, choosing her words with care. “Maybe there’s a beauty in the scars,” she said. “Because they’re a reminder of what’s been faced, and what’s been survived.”
Ekon said nothing in answer, but Koffi snuck a glance at him and thought she saw his muscles relax, saw the slightest shift in his stiffened posture. Tonight, that was enough.
They sat like that, in perfect silence, until whatever magic had filled the air seemed to dissipate and the dying fire turned to glowing orange embers in the dirt. Eventually, Koffi found a place amid the dirt and leaves, and curled on her side. She noted Ekon had taken his bag and propped it underneath him to use as a pillow, and she did the same. After all that had happened today, she thought she’d never be able to fall asleep in this jungle again, but now she found that her eyes were growing heavier and heavier with fatigue, that sleep was beckoning fast. Her mind floated lazily between reality and sleep, taking in the intermingling smells of smoke, ponya seed paste, and the surrounding trees as they creaked and rustled in the darkness.
CHAPTER 19
A Beautiful Violence
When Ekon woke in the morning’s faint hours, the leaves around him were slicked shiny and wet; the dirt was soft and damp.
Carefully, he rose, surveying the world warily. His gaze narrowed as it dragged over tree trunks and up to the lush
green canopy where sunlight filtered through. It’s changed here, he mused. Something’s different.
Only hours had passed since Koffi’s brave little fire had succumbed to the darkness, but in that brief expanse of time, everything seemed to have grown greener, lusher; even the smell that suffused the air felt fresh in his lungs. It took him a moment to name that change, to understand—it had rained. Instinctively, he touched his clothes and found—to his surprise—that they were perfectly dry, and that, in fact, the place where he’d slept had remained entirely dry thanks to the leaf overhead. It was a colossal plant, with leaves easily the size of a small mule cart.
“Huh.” Ekon stared at it a second longer. “Go figure.”
As quietly as he could, he dug in his bag and pulled out Nkrumah’s journal. By either luck or a miracle, it seemed the old book had survived its most recent adventure. Ekon found a nearby tree to sit against and held it balanced on his lap. Mornings were his favorite part of the day, a perfect time for reading. He flipped through its pages, trying to find where he’d left off. There was plenty of vegetation all over the jungle, and he had his hanjari if he wanted to hunt—maybe the journal could offer some guidance on what was edible here and what was not. Slowly, he skimmed its botanical section.
It still amazed him how extensive the old naturalist’s notes had been, how accurate they were even nearly a century after he’d disappeared. Ekon’s thumb stopped on an illustration of a silvery leaf. It certainly looked interesting. His eyes dropped to the caption beneath it.
Specimen 98A
Name: HASIRA LEAF
Pronunciation: hus-EER-ah
Informal Name: angry leaf, soothing leaf
Habitat: The Greater Jungle, Zamani Region (Old East)
Description: Green leaves, silver-veined
Life Expectancy: Unknown
