I glare at his attempt to comfort her, but his words do the trick. Amari fiddles with the clasp and drops the glittering jewels into my pack. The shimmer they add to the shine of silver coins is absurd. This morning I didn’t have a bronze piece to my name. Now I’m weighed down by the riches of royals.
I crouch on Nailah’s back and pull myself onto the wooden walkway. I poke my head through Mama Agba’s curtained door to find Baba sleeping soundly in the corner, curled up like a wildcat in front of a heated flame. His skin has its color back, his face isn’t so skeletal and gaunt. Must be Mama Agba’s care. She could nurse a corpse back to life.
When I enter, Mama Agba peeks her head out from behind a mannequin stitched into a brilliant purple kaftan. The fitted seams suggest that it’s noble-bound, a sale that might cover her next tax.
“How’d it go?” she whispers, cutting the thread with her teeth. She adjusts the green and yellow gele wrapped around her head before tying up the kaftan’s loose ends.
I open my mouth to respond, but Tzain steps in, tentatively followed by Amari. She looks around the ahéré with an innocence only luxury can breed, running her fingers over the woven reeds.
Tzain gives Mama Agba a grateful nod as he takes my pack, pausing to hand Amari the scroll. He lifts Baba’s sleeping body with ease. Baba doesn’t even stir.
“I’m going to get our things,” he says. “Decide what we’re doing about this scroll. If we go…” His voice trails off, and my stomach tightens with guilt. There’s no if anymore. I’ve taken that choice away.
“Just be fast.”
Tzain leaves, biting his emotions back. I watch as his hulking frame disappears, wishing I wasn’t the source of his pain.
“Leave?” Mama Agba asks. “Why would you leave? And who is this?” Her eyes narrow as she looks Amari up and down. Even in a dingy cloak, Amari’s perfect posture and lifted chin denote her regal nature.
“Oh, um…” Amari turns to me, her grip tightening on the scroll. “I—I am…”
“Her name’s Amari,” I sigh. “She’s the princess of Or?sha.”
Mama Agba releases a deep laugh. “It’s an honor, Your Highness,” she teases with an exaggerated bow.
But when neither Amari nor I smile, Mama’s eyes go wide. She rises from her seat and opens Amari’s cloak, revealing the dark blue gown beneath. Even in the dim light, the deep neckline shimmers with glittering jewels.
“Oh my gods…” She turns to me, hands clutching her chest. “Zélie, what in the gods’ names have you done?”
I force Mama Agba to sit as I explain the events of the day. While she wavers between pride and anger over the details of our escape, it’s the possibilities of the scroll that make her go still.
“Is it real?” I ask. “Is there any truth to this?”
Mama’s silent for a long moment, staring at the scroll in Amari’s hands. For once her dark eyes are unreadable, obscuring the answers I seek.
“Give it here.”
The moment the parchment touches Mama Agba’s palms, she wheezes for air. Her body trembles and quakes so violently she falls off her chair.
“Mama Agba!” I run to her side and grab her hands, holding her down until the tremors stop. With time, they fade and she’s left on the ground, as still as one of her mannequins. “Mama, are you okay?”
Tears come to her eyes, spilling into the wrinkles of her dark skin. “It’s been so long,” she whispers. “I never thought I would feel the warmth of magic again.”
My lips part in surprise and I back up, unable to believe my ears. It can’t be. I didn’t think any maji survived the Raid.…
“You’re a maji?” Amari asks. “But your hair—”
Mama Agba removes her gele and runs her hand over her shaved head. “Eleven years ago I had a vision of myself visiting a Cancer. I asked her to get rid of my white hair, and she used the magic of disease to take it all away.”
“You’re a Seer?” I gasp.
“I used to be.” Mama Agba nods. “I lost my hair the day of the Raid, hours before they would’ve taken me away.”
Amazing. When I was a child, the few Seers who lived in Ibadan were revered. The magic they wielded over time helped every other maji clan in Ibadan survive. I smile, though in my heart I should’ve known. Mama Agba’s always had a sage sense about her, the wisdom of a person who’s seen beyond her years.
“Before the Raid,” Mama Agba continues, “I felt the magic sucked out of the air. I tried to conjure a vision of what would come, but when I needed it most, I couldn’t see.” She winces, as if reliving the pain of that day all over again. I can only imagine what horrible images play inside her mind.
Mama shuffles over to her netted windows and pulls the sheets closed. She stares at her weathered hands, wrinkled from years as a seamstress. “Orúnmila,” she whispers, invoking the God of Time. “Bá mi s0r0. Bá mi s0r0.”
“What is she doing?” Amari steps back as if Mama Agba’s words could cut her. But hearing true Yoruba for the first time in over a decade makes it too overwhelming for me to answer.
Since the Raid, all I’ve heard are the harsh stops and guttural sounds of Or?shan, the tongue we are forced to speak. It’s been so long since I heard an incantation, too long since the language of my people didn’t only exist in my memories.
“Orúnmila,” I translate as Mama Agba chants. “Speak to me. Speak to me. She’s calling on her god,” I explain to Amari. “She’s trying to do magic.”
Though the answer comes with ease, even I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Mama Agba chants with a blind faith, patient and trusting, just as those who follow the God of Time are meant to be.
As she calls on Orúnmila for guidance, a pang of longing stirs in my heart. No matter how much I’ve wanted to, I’ve never had enough faith to call on Oya like that.
“Is it safe?” Amari presses against the ahéré wall when veins bulge against Mama Agba’s throat.
“It’s part of the process.” I nod. “The cost of using our ashê.”
To cast magic we must use the language of the gods to harness and mold the ashê in our blood. For a practiced Seer, this incantation would be easy, but with so many years out of practice, this incantation is probably drawing on all the ashê Mama Agba has. Ashê builds like another muscle in our bodies; the more we use, the easier it is to harness and the stronger our magic becomes.
“Orúnmila, bá mi s0r0. Orúnmila, bá mi s0r0—”
Her breath turns more ragged with every word. The wrinkles across her face stretch tight with strain. Harnessing ashê takes a physical toll. If she tries to harness too much, she could kill herself.
“Orúnmila—” Mama Agba’s voice grows stronger. A silver light begins to swell in her hands. “Orúnmila, bá mi s0r0! Orúnmila, bá mi s0r0—”
The cosmos explodes between Mama’s hands with so much force that Amari and I are knocked to the ground. Amari screams, but my shout vanishes under the lump in my throat. The blues and purples of the night sky twinkle between Mama Agba’s palms. My heart seizes at the beautiful sight. It’s back.…
After all this time, magic is finally here.