“I wish I could study you,” he say.
White science. Outside, two from the Green Army gather. Or more, I can’t tell in the dark. Then the Aesi do something. I can’t tell what he doing, dancing, prancing, working up some heat between his hands and trying to throw it at me, whatever it is he do it frustrate him so much that he yell at the men to attack me. That do it, that make both lions leap at them. Ndambi swipe her paws left and right and slash the soldier’s head clean off. But Ehede, my lion, my boy, leap right into the spear that the other soldier raise in the quick. The point burst through his chest, then his back. My son slump and I scream again. Everything I then see, I see in red. The Aesi talking about how regret is flooding him, how he is so sorry it have to end this way, but the world is moving forward and one who can pull us back to the past is a danger of the worst kind. But everything I seeing, I see in red. My daughter ripping and ripping at the soldier until I see his ribs poke out, the Aesi somehow deeper inside my house and still waving, dancing, conjuring something, and something coming to my house. Flutter of wings booming like thunder.
But my boy.
My lion won’t move.
Something in me, it don’t have a name but I feel it popping under my skin. I wail for him and the wail lift me up and hurl me against the Aesi. The soldier’s dagger is in my hand and I going for his throat, but the floor break off into rocks that fly into my face and chest, knocking me down. My head swirl and sounds rush in and out, and before I can make out his face, he grab my neck and squeeze. Lurum skip over with a stick but he swat him away. Serwa rush him but Aesi swat her away too, his hand still squeezing my neck. The wind (not wind) not coming, and I can’t even curse it. Instead I think of my son breathing, of him pulling air in and blowing it out, of him blowing a goat stomach out by blowing in, and I look at the Aesi’s face, which have determination on it, but no malice, and I know.
He squeeze tighter and I grab him. The Aesi smile with his eyes, enjoying my weakness, already bored. But I not trying to pull his hand from my neck. I want him to touch me. My skin on his skin even if he is colder than a Waxabajjii morning. Strangling somebody won’t happen in the quick, so he try to release me, but I don’t release him. My hands grip his wrist and all his pulling won’t set him free. The ground start to rumble, and right then black birds fly into the room, pecking at my children. But I don’t let go. The Aesi don’t feel anything at first. But then he gulp, and belch, and belch again. He look down on himself, then gasp at me. He can’t believe his state as it begin, his belly swelling and pushing and rolling and churning, like a fat fish swimming right under the skin. The Aesi gurgle. His eyes widen. I release him and he try to get up but fall to his knees. A loud rattle come out of his mouth and he clutch his buttocks in a fright for the sound coming out of there too. Then he look at me and know that this is my doing. He try to reach for me again, but the wind (not wind) is with me, doing my will when I want it for once. The Aesi grab his belly but can’t stop it from blowing up bigger and bigger and bigger, his neck too, and his buttocks and his balls. Because I grasp that while my boy was blowing that skin that if wind (not wind) can birth itself from without, then it can from within too.
Aesi losing grip on himself and he start to float. All over him his skin start to tear and bones crack. The birds, no longer under his control, fly into the walls and each other. Then a small, gentle hand touch my shoulder. Matisha. She say no words but her eyes tell me plenty. Whatever I am thinking, she is thinking too. Together we turn to the Aesi and his eyes and nose pop blood as his tongue flop loose. Then he swell, and swell, and swell, and then he explode. A loud big blast that shake the house, a loud big burst so mighty that all that leave of him is red spray.
New breeze blow in and take the spray away. Young Keme, who was hiding all this time, come out from under the bed to see me and Matisha standing in the air—both of us still in the air but slowly moving to the ground. Matisha run to the doorway. Only the gods know why as her crying get louder and louder, I turn my back to all of them and try to cover my ears. Yelling don’t matter. Screaming don’t matter. All of the bawling for their mother don’t matter. As long as I don’t turn around, my lion not dead. There. Decided. I was going to face this way for the rest of the night and the morning too. And the morning after that, and the one after that too. Mama, Matisha shout. Mama, look. But I not looking. I won’t look. I can face the wall, or look out the window into a night where Ehede and his father are out hunting prey. Hunting prey, that is it. They will be hunting all night, all quartermoon if they have to.
I hear a rumble and a kick and a big man coughing. Keme dig his way out of the ground. I can feel him take up space in the doorway.
“Sogolon,” he say. “My love.”
Don’t call me that. Don’t call me anything right now that you didn’t call me at noon, or in the morning, or a moon ago.
“Sogolon.”
I stare at the wall and remember a woman who used to claim that I lick them. A hand touch my shoulder, a bigger one this time.
“Sogolon,” he say
“Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!”
“He’s—”
“Shut up shut up shut up shut up. Leave me be.”
“Woman, no.”
“I don’t have no use for your words. You hear me? I don’t have none.”
He grab my shoulder this time and all I can think is to get his furry paws off me. But when I spin around to slap, there at the door be my boy in his sister’s arms and a long spear sticking out of his chest. My lion changed back into a boy. A boy so little that I allow my mind to ponder how such a big lion was also such a small child. Like all of my small, beautiful children. I want to yell at him to get up and stop making his sister cry. Get up, boy, enough of this foolishness, enough of it, you hear me?
“Sogolon.”
And I still don’t know that I shouting all of this, not thinking it.
“Ehede, game time long done. Get up and stop scaring your sister.”
Matisha look at me, the most confused eyes I ever see, a confusion that interrupt her tears for a jolt, which make her cry harder. The children gather around Ehede and all I can say is, “Give the poor boy some air. You going to crush him. Move, I say!”
Now I furious. These children not listening to me, not giving my boy a chance to cough or to stand. I push Keme aside and march over there, knowing which child is going to get which kind of punishment. The children sense my anger and pull away, leaving Ehede to fall back on the ground.
My boy with the spear that nobody will take out of his chest.
My lion.
He is lying on the floor and he won’t get up.
Get up, I say five times in my head before I decide to let it slip from my lips. But instead of words, what come from me is a scream.
SIXTEEN