As I ran around the side of the house, I stopped again. My mouth fell open. Then I shut it because I could taste the stench through my mouth just as much as I could smell it through my nose. There were bodies all over and vultures stood and were pecking at some of them. Khoush soldiers. Men and women. With their chests burst open. I twitched and I was back on the ship in the middle of space. The smell of blood and now decay. How is that possible? I thought, because my stunned senses were telling me I was alone on the Third Fish again and the Meduse had just performed moojh-ha ki-bira. It had just happened.
Happened.
No warning.
So many.
I saw stars. Red and blue and silver. Bursting before my eyes. My mouth was full of decay, as it hung open, trying to pull in air. Now I couldn’t breathe. None around me were breathing. I stumbled, gasping, and one of the vultures lazily spread its wings and hopped away.
I blinked and I was back at the remains of the home where I’d been born. The violence was here now. I’d brought it by leaving home and coming back home. I was hyperventilating now. What did my therapist Saidia Nwanyi say I should do when I can’t breathe? I thought. I put my hands behind my head, though doing so made me feel more exposed to the gruesome sight before me. There had to be fifteen, maybe even twenty bodies strewn about like fallen trees. “Five, five, five, five, five,” I chanted as I let myself tree. Each time the number left my lips, I was able to take in more breath. And with each breath, I came back to myself. The moment I could move, I fled.
When I reached the back of the house, I stepped onto a sheet of solid yellow glass. It cracked and shattered beneath my foot. I took another step and stopped, realizing this was the spot where Okwu’s tent had been. Mwinyi stood in the blackened center. Not far to the left was what remained of my brother’s garden, a charred skeleton of tomato bushes and ash. Rakumi sniffed the greener parts and began munching on a tomato bush.
“Did you see—”
“Yes,” he said, still looking at the cracking glass beneath him.
“I think Okwu did that,” I said.
“Maybe because the Khoush did this,” he stamped on the glass and his sandal went right through it, shards flying this way and that.
I shut my eyes and took deep breaths, holding myself shallowly in the tree, numbers and equations cartwheeling and floating around me. “This explosion would have killed anything it hit,” I said. “Unless Okwu wasn’t in the tent.”
“I don’t think they killed it,” Mwinyi said.
“Why?”
“Your family was hiding inside the Root when they set it on fire.” He paused to inspect my face. “They burned the Root because they couldn’t find you or… or Okwu.”
The idea hit me so hard that when I turned and ran off, I didn’t care about the possibility of glass cutting my feet through my sandals.
The road into town was dusty and my sandals kicked it up with every step. Even as I ran further and further from home, the air continued to smell of smoke. The Yennes’ house was still burning. The Mahangu building was blown to bits. The Omuzumbas’ house was still intact and I glimpsed someone on the balcony watching me run by. How many others were watching me run down the road? How many had fled the destruction?
A Khoush ship had just flown by, which meant they were still in the area. I didn’t care. I passed the remains of the souq, where it looked as if the market’s women and men had left everything behind in a rush. There were overturned tables and booth dividers and in some places crushed and rotten meat, vegetables, piles of grains, and crushed baskets. The smell of spices, snuff, and incense mixed with the stench of smoke here. I leapt over an overturned bench. Sweat was pouring down my face now, and my heart felt like it would smash through my chest.
I stopped at the lake and stood there. Its water was so serene that it looked like the glass burned into the sand where Okwu’s tent used to be. “So calm in all this chaos,” I said, breathing hard. The sweat was getting into my eyes, so I wiped my hand down my face. My hand came away red orange with otjize. I heard someone behind me.
“What… are… you doing?” Mwinyi asked, jogging up. He bent forward to catch his breath, putting his hands on his knees. “We don’t know if the Khoush are around here!”
“I… saw the Night Masquerade again,” I said. “In broad daylight. We don’t know anything anymore.”
“Back at the Root?” he asked. Even Enyi Zinariya people believed in the Night Masquerade.
I nodded. There was movement to my right and I turned my head. Two men. Himba. I knew them. I knew most everyone in my village. The Council Elder Kapika and his second wife Neeka.
“Binti?” Chief Kapika said, coming closer. Neeka followed. And as they came closer, I noticed more people peeking from behind market dividers and from within homes across the street.
I hesitated, then turned to the water and walked into it. I felt all eyes on me as the lake water washed off the thin layer of otjize on my legs and sweat washed it from my face, neck, and arms. In front of all these people, Himba people. I went in up to my waist, then I opened my mouth and shouted, “Okwuuuuuuuuu!”
My voice echoed across the water and then there was silence. I could hear people behind me whispering. Still, I waited.
And then the water began to ripple as Okwu swam up and rose before me. I smiled, tears stinging my eyes. Its dome was a deep blue in the sunshine. And it was covered with clusterwink snails. I stepped back as more domes emerged around it. More Meduse. A woman screamed from the group of people and there was the sound of scuffling feet as people fled.
I waded back to the land, joining Mwinyi. “How did you know?” he asked. He sounded more than nervous, but he didn’t step away as the Meduse emerged from the water.
“Because I know Okwu,” I said, turning to Okwu. In Meduse, I asked it, “Are you alright?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you answer me?”
“I didn’t want you to come.”
“I thought you were dead!” I said.
“It’s better than you being dead, Binti.”
“W—… what happened? Why is… The Root! They burned it! And there were dead soldiers. Many! What happened?” I was shaking and crying now.
Okwu blew out gas and both Mwinyi and I started coughing.
“When you left, I stayed in my tent,” he said in Otjihimba. “Your family was kind to me, except for your sisters, who like to yell. Your family had a meeting that evening, so many were there. The Khoush came in the night when your father took me out in the desert to meet with your elders in private. The elders wanted to speak with me. And as we talked, from where we were we saw the Khoush ship fly in and blow up my tent.”
“What?” I whispered.
“The elders told me to stay with them in the dark, as your father ran back, shouting at the Khoush to stop. He told all your people to run inside for safety. There were Khoush on the ground at this point. One of the Khoush argued with your father. I could hear it; the man called himself General Staff Kuw and he had no hair or okuoko on his head. He didn’t think I was in the tent and he wanted to know where I was. Your father refused to tell him and the general accused him of sympathizing with the enemy and having a daughter who’d even mated with a Meduse—”