Two yellow eyes pop open and I jump back just as shiny blade slice through the space and miss my right hand. I stagger and fall back in the alley as a boy the color of the door jump at me. Truly he was the color of the wood, right down to grain, crack, and line. I roll out as he pounce and chop the road, striking off sparks. Couldn’t be more than ten and four years. He say nothing but swing to chop my left foot just as I dodge, then quick as light stab for my right. With his blade hand down I kick him hard in the head and he stumble, roll, hit into the yellow wall of a shop and vanish into it.
I jump up. Grab dagger and sack. Run. So I run back where I come from, and hear footsteps on the roof right above me, though I see nothing but trick of light. A shift in the air, a wall that pop out a boy in the color of mortar. Another wall that pop out a boy in the color of northern blue. This alley longer than I remember. I keep running, hearing the running above me, then dash quick down a lane on the right, this one with more people. I hear him landing on a pile of garbage. I break left when a blow slam into my chest and knock me down. He kick the breath out of me. I roll and roll and roll on the stone road, sticking out my arms to stop. I scramble to my feet, but my chest is heaving, the coughing take away my breath. Part of the road rise up in the shape of the boy and run after me. I will not outrun him. He run straight into the wall beside him as if he just run into cream. Alongside me he is now, the wall looking like a silk sheet with a body running right underneath it. This boy is too fast. Faster. He catching up. We running away from the ship. No choice now but to run till I reach the water, then turn left and run along the seaside till I get to the port. But I mistake the city and run into a dead end. Nothing but walls surround me, no door, no window. The footsteps follow me before I see a foot. He step in mud and stop. I watch him take the color of mud, watch the boy again shape into a boy before me. A tall boy, all muscle, skin, and bone with a black bead belt around the waist. Face, arm, leg, belly, all shiny like he just rub down in clay and fat. He pull the blade again and just then I identify the like. An ida sword coat in pepper poison that if you get the slightest graze, you stop moving. The boy smile impish, like this is some favorite game. Dash at me him do, and him skin turn dry like dust, then as he jump into the air, it turn into nothing, like sky. But I know sky. He land just as I whip wind (not wind) to blast him back and far, and he hit a wall. The boy just shake him head and smile again. The wind (not wind) throw me up on a rooftop and I run and jump from roof to roof. He at my heels. Green boy when he run on green roof, gray when he run on gray, rust when he run on rust. The poison sword glint with each color. Young devil. Sangomin child assassin.
I strike my foot against a loose tile and trip. In the quick, the boy upon me. He thrust the sword, I slip out of the way but smell the pepper race past my nose. He jump back and then stomp with the right foot—somebody school him. But I get schooling too. Here is how he hope it go. He stomp hard so that I look at his foot so he can chop me or stab me as I look down. But I stay up and block his jab with my dagger. I swing away his sword hand with my left hand and stab him straight in the side. The boy hiss, pull back, and clutch him side. He look like old wood now. Smile again the boy do, then charge again like a stick fighter, sweeping that blade wide. The wind (not wind) rise up again, but the blade cut through it. He spinning faster and faster like dervish, and all I can do is stay low like a spider. One little graze was all he need. He coming closer and closer, sweeping the sword wider and wider, the air smelling of pepper poison. He step on a loose tile. I stir my hands and the air stir the tile, and up quick it clobber the back of his head. The boy stagger and drop the sword. My wind swoop the sword and hurl it to the boy neck. The boy clap him hand just in time and catch the blade between him two palm. If he weaken his grip, he die. But if I stay here I will miss the ship. And there it flash for little more than a blink, the wide eye and hanging lips of a boy afraid. The same eyes you see on a dying child who just realize he soon dead. The thought distract me only a little, but that be all he need. He dip out of the way, the sword fall, he catch it and is about to throw it, but the wind (not wind) sweep hard under, throw him up in the sky, then fling him far off before he fall, like a wet sack, ten roofs away.
The ship already push off. One of the sailors say to me later that either his eye was crossed or God was foolish because he never see a man jump that far. Reaching late will cost me a space belowdecks, so I going have to sleep between the two mast.
“Your old shoga already down below,” the sailor say.
You think this story is about revenge. This is about the divine order of goodness and plenty, and how we lose our way because of one wicked imp who think such things shouldn’t be in the world, but only in him. This is about malcontent growing in land and sea, like a lump that grow to a coral that burst out of a woman breast. This is about lands awash in war blood because many more going to suffer. This is not about me. This is not about me, oh. There is a boy in Omororo who is ten and one year in age, soon to be ten and two.
And I going to kill him.
* * *
—
Kill who?” I say.
The three of them look at me as if I supposed to know. Worse, as if I supposed to tell them.
“Answer me. This griot telling me the tail as if I know the head, and what kind of song man this is who don’t even sing, nor speak in verse?”
The old man and the water sprite huddle. Nsaka Ne Vampi look straight at me, locking her eyes with mine for a while before she approach.
“They all gone now, you know. Everyone from that house in Ibiku. Your daughter, she live the longest, some would say out of pure cantankerousness and spite. Mama used to say that even death scared to come near her. Mama also said that she used to fly, but I never see it. You fly? Matisha, she live the longest, oh. Great-Grandmother was always looking off into some place nobody else could see. If we passed a road heading south, somebody would have to grab her or she going down it. Every time the sun set in the west, she look south. Mama used to say that she reach the age where her mind already gone to be with the ancestors, even if her head was still here. But I didn’t think so. I think she was looking south because she knew somebody was coming. Maybe coming back.”
“When did Keme . . . ?”
“Before I was born. You know, Mama, she hold us tight even when we get too big for her hands. Ten and one years old I was before I realize that she used to have pigeons following me. Regard that shit. They would land and snatch something, a grain, a piece of cloth, one time an earring, to report back to my mother. Even the neighbors hear us cussing when I find out. Loosen your grip, woman, or better yet cut us loose, I say. But she couldn’t do that, my mother. She didn’t want to turn into Matisha. Poor Great-Grandmother never stop waiting on the mother who leave her.”
“Is so they tell the story up north?”
“Your story different?”
“I don’t owe you any story.”
“You don’t owe me a thing. Matisha is who you leave bitter, not me. I admire that a woman can do people like a man. You just get up one day and gone. No drums, no pigeons, no note, no word, no nothing.”