Who Fears Death

Two hours later, Luyu comes to get Onye for the feast. As they head over, Onye observes the Vah culture. She guesses they’ve been nomadic like this for a long time, as “Their tents were set up in a matter of hours and were no less comfortable than houses” (256). Juju is common, and they have schools as well, although only a few books because of the weight. As Onye watches them at the feast, she observes that “they were the most beautiful people [she’d] ever seen” (256).

Several young men welcome Diti and Luyu; women welcome Fanasi, as well, but he is too busy watching Diti and Luyu to take much notice. No one welcomes Onye in the same way, and she wonders if the Vah also demonize Ewu; however, when she gets to her seat, she sees Mwita sitting close to a Vah woman and realizes this is not the case. This strikes a note of jealousy in Onye, for the woman is likewise beautiful; further, the woman is older, and she had heard rumors in Jwahir that Mwita had liked older women. The woman, Ting, introduces herself to Onye; Onye feels the same irritation toward her as she felt toward Ssaiku and realizes she is his apprentice.

When it is time to eat, as they approach the banquet, a woman accidentally brushes against Onye, and a blue spark pops off her, hurting the woman; the woman apologizes to Onye and averts her eyes. Ting offers to get food for Onye but doesn’t explain the spark. As she waits, this happens twice more with two men who pass to close to her; again, the men apologize to her.

Most people avoid her, except for a small girl named Eyess who only laughs when the sparks pop. Eyess tells Onye she looks strange and asks her if her mother was a camel; Onye says no, but Eyess, who talks to camels, asks why Sandi said she takes care of Onye. Something catches her eye and she disappears.

When Mwita goes for seconds, Ting asks Onye about the rumors she’s heard about her powers. Most of it is exaggerated. Onye asks Ting about the writing all over her arms. The markings are Vai, Bassa, Menda, and Nsibidi, magical markings and languages that Onye would have eventually learned if she had continued apprenticing. Writing scripts are Ting’s magical center.

When Mwita returns, Ting questions him and Onye about their relationship, given that Onye has not completed training; she is concerned, as she, too, is forbidden from being with men by her master. They reassure her but leave it at that.

After their meal, Ting takes them to see Ssaiku, who does not usually participate in the feasts. After some talk, Ssaiku tells them that Sola told him to find and take them in; there is a part of her training that she must complete, and with which she’ll need help. He tells them that in ten days, when the women Hold Conversation with Ani, Onye will go with them.

When they leave, Eyess grabs them and asks Onye to sing; Onye doesn’t know any of the Vah songs, so she sings a song of the desert. The Vah are impressed.

When they return to their camp, Fanasi is drunk, alone, and depressed. Onye chastises him, telling him to find one of the many beautiful women in the village who will have him rather than complaining about not having Luyu and Diti.

Once they are alone, Onye jealously questions Mwita about Ting and about the other women, as she believes he and Ting slept together. Mwita tells her that Onye wasn’t his first, but reminds her both of Ting’s training, which forbids her from intercourse, and of the words he spoke, Ifunanya. Onye apologizes and goes to wash up.

The next morning, Fanasi is still staring into the fire when Onye wakes up; she tells him to go to sleep, and he stumbles into the tent and crashes. Shortly thereafter, Diti returns; a few hours later, Luyu returns with a Vah man in high spirits. Onye tells her that Fanasi waited up for her; the man asks if it’s her husband and says that he hopes Fanasi doesn’t mind that his brother took Luyu for the night. The liberal sexuality the Vah practice shocks Onye. That evening, Luyu moves back into her own tent.

Over the next few days, Diti and Luyu continue to go off on their own, while Fanasi spends his evenings hanging out with Vah men, talking, drinking, and baking bread. Onye observes that the free-spiritedness of the Vah extends to all aspects of life—they are passionate, and the children are raised by the whole village.

Aside from the fact that no one can touch her, Onye enjoys living among the Vah, who treat her with respect, and especially who do not find her magic to be strange or troubling, simply accepting “the unanswerable and the mystical,” as her own mother had (272). Onye wonders what her life would have been like had she grown up around people who didn’t reject Ewu.

Three days after joining the Vah, Onye wakes up and recognizes a strange but familiar smell: outside their tent, waiting for her, “tall as a middle-aged tree” and “wide as three tents” is a “masquerade, a spirit from the wilderness” (274). After staring at one another for a bit, the masquerade descends to the ground, packing itself up into itself into a sitting position, so Onye sits down with it. She tries to have the onlookers move back; however, they respond that they know what the creature is, and they just want to watch.

The masquerade greets Onye and Mwita, who greet it in return. It then asks Onye to hold out her hand; Mwita stands and asks what for, but the masquerade reads his mind and tells him that he cannot take her place or interfere, though he can touch her. Suddenly, the masquerade whips its needles at Onye, covering every inch of her. The masquerade then stands, turns, and walks back toward Ssaiku’s tent.

Although she is covered in needles, Onye is in no pain, though slightly nauseous. After a time, the needles begin to fall out, one by one. Onye has no idea what the masquerade did to her; however, when Luyu touches her, a spark pops, meaning that now no one but Mwita can touch her.

The next day, Onye is too sick even to eat, and when she does, the food produces sparks against her teeth. She suspects that the masquerade has introduced poison, medicine, or both into her system through the needles, but considers that it could be neither, as either would suggest that its actions were about Onye rather than a larger plan.

She finds herself awash in a hyper-clarity and perpetually on the edge of the wilderness. As she walks one day, a wilderness tree tries to grab her; however, she fights back, ready to tear the tree apart, but the tree retreats and she collapses.

Later, Luyu convinces Onye to tell her what’s happening, and she explains as best she can. Luyu argues that she needs to tell Mwita so that he can try to help; when Onye becomes hyperaware of a lizard and collapses, Luyu leaves to find him. The lizard, however, speaks to Onye, telling her to let Luyu go in a vaguely familiar voice.

The lizard tells Onye that it will take her where she needs to go. Before she knows, the lizard has changed into a Kponyungo, a firespitter, a creature her mother used to tell her about. The Kponyungo and Onye float up into the sky, and it tells her to change herself into one, as well. The Kponyungo takes Onye to a place she’s never seen before. They fly many miles very quickly, until they reach a land that is green as Onye has never seen green before, a vast forest. This gives Onye hope: “If a forest, a true vast forest, still existed someplace, even if it was very far away, then all would not end badly. It meant there was life outside the Great Book” (287).

As soon as Onye returns to Ssolu, though, and reverts to her human form, the sickness overcomes her again.

Onye continues to feel horribly ill, flitting between the real world and the wilderness. Mwita stays with her, and when he does not, Luyu does instead. Fanasi and Diti check in on her, but Onye believes they look “like mice waiting for the right moment to flee” (289).

The morning of the retreat, Onye walks with the women to the edge of the dust storm. There, Ting marks Onye with written juju, “with a symbol of the crossroads where all [her] selves will meet” (291). Ting tells her to pray despite that she doesn’t believe in Ani. As she does, she feels as if something is holding her down; a long time passes, then suddenly, Onye drops into the sand.

Onye is destroyed: she becomes nothing, then becomes something again, “put back together, bit by bit” (292). As she is put back together, she is arranged in a new order, “An order that made more sense” (292). When the last piece is put into place, she feels relief.

She feels falling again, then suddenly is back in the tent. She was gone for seven days, after which she fell from the sky and reappeared, “like one of Ani’s missing children in the Great Book” (293). She is more powerful than she ever was before; she immediately leaves to go after her father.

She finds him in Durfa and pounces on him; however, her father attacks her, “the kind of pain that death wouldn’t stop” (294). “He sang as he tore, gorged, stabbed, and twisted at parts of me that I didn’t know were there” (294). As Onye tries to retreat, her father grabs her arm and marks her with a symbol, telling her to “Go back and die in the sands [she] arose from” (294).

Onye dies a second time before coming back to life miraculously. When she awakens, she can barely remember Mwita, but the memories flood back to her, including her encounter with Daib, filling her with fear and shame.

The symbol is that of a worm coiled around itself; when Mwita tries to touch it, he recoils in pain. Ssaiku arrives and asks for a report. Mwita’s report of her physical injuries is dire, but hopeful; however, he is less certain about the mark on her wrist. They call for Ting, who recognizes the symbol as Nsibidi meaning “slow and cruel poison;” she tells Onye that the lines of the symbol will “travel up her arm to her heart and squeeze it dead” (297). Ting tells Onye to try to change herself; she is able to do so except for her hand. Ting leaves to consult with Ssaiku, believing that Onye has a day to live.

Three hours later, Ting returns and tells her she may be able to stop the poison. She warns her that it will be permanent, and suddenly the heavily inked arms of her future make sense: she was, and will be, covered with Nsibidi tribal symbols.

Ting has Onye bathe, then sits across from her with her tools; she asks Ssaiku for two hours of protection from infection, and Onye realizes that he cannot maintain the storm and protect her simultaneously. Ting begins, falling quickly into a deep focus as she works; however, the symbol, alive, fights back as she draws her own symbols. When she thinks she is finished, they discover that the symbol has simply jumped to her left hand instead. Ting asks Mwita to hold Onye down and continues drawing; when she has entrapped the symbol, it tries to burrow into Onye, but Ting completes the last circle and the symbol jumps to the floor. It tries to run away, but Ssaiku crushes it underfoot. Ting sits back, exhausted.