Lee-ah (Sister) – H.J. Golakai

“Bury it deep.”

“Shh. I know how to bury things.”

The two girls, on their knees on the ground, stared at each other. The first girl pulled her lips against her teeth in an exaggerated grimace that made the second girl burst out laughing. It was a sign they were thinking the same thing, that the words of the buck-toothed elder who had guided them in basket-weaving two days before had not been forgotten. Curse the ancestors’ heads, the two of you are impossible! You hail from two villages with a long history of conflict, but you have forged this attachment rivalling the rock of ages. You have both been blessed with beauty and cleverness, but your minds are too consumed with mischief. Watch yourselves, or you will never learn to watch each other.

“This is not sprinting or a decoration festival, Omaru girl,” teased the first girl. Her eyes were tawny and her smile coy and quick, revealing small teeth but no other truths. “This is a task for real women.”

“Hehn! The very reason to mind your mouth, fire-dance princess,” the second girl, possessed of a temper more fluid and easy to read, struggled to keep her agitation under control. “Be careful not to hurt your fine fingers, Wasa women are delicate.”

But every minute they lost on banter was costing them.

Their search for sacred ground had unfolded in the style of all tasks they performed together – lazy, playful, and peppered with winding tales. Barefoot and naked save for the vibrant strings of beads in their hair and short lappa wrappers around their waists, the girls had pushed aside branches and stepped over fallen logs, mindful of snakes and scorpions as they swatted at bugs.

Eventually, dusk had threatened, a reminder of the consequences facing them if their task remained unfinished. The mood had sobered and the pace quickened. Finally, they saw it: a patch of ground lit by fading sunlight, nestled near the stub of a fallen mango tree, protected from the energetic course of a nearby stream. The girls held their breath, and as if in answer, the wind kicked a whisper through the forest’s leaves. Their eyes locked. Water, wood, wind, and fire. Earth to act as vessel. Their site had spoken. They fell on all fours and began to dig.

Two pairs of hands – one of honeyed, stripped wood, the other deep cocoa-brown – scrabbled through the dirt, wrist-deep in filth as they tossed handfuls of soil aside. Their scooping gathered momentum as they competed to see who could scoop faster. Two heads of ornate braids – one whose brown locks were woven to the top of her head, the other whose black plaits fell down a long neck and strong shoulders – bobbed up and down, faces fierce with concentration, foreheads close and dotted with sweat, breath laboured in the hush of the evening.

After several minutes, the second girl rocked backwards onto her toes, a glimmer of triumph in her dark eyes, signalling her companion to fling the last handful of dirt to one side in a huff. The hole was deep enough. Deft fingers went to the swathes of lappa around their waists and began to undo knots of fabric.

Nestled within the lappas lay two wooden dolls. Each was clothed identically to its owner and carved from two different trees, one golden and the other umber, much like the hands that held them up. The girls sighed, reverent smiles playing across their lips. The dolls were placed, into the earth side by side, then dirt layered over them and pressed down. A smooth, heavy stone acted as the final seal.

They hugged and laughed. From that night onward they would not only be women, but sisters. Tomorrow, branded high on each of their shoulders would be a ritual marking, a public symbol that they had braved the secret society of womanhood. As they matured, their scars would expand with them, soaking up dreams and desires. They would be forever bound, each a beloved guardian of the other. Sisters in society, sisters in blood.

_________________________

Miatta was tired. The village of Wasa seemed to taunt her, moving farther and farther away with every step she took. She regretted not having set out from home earlier even as the afternoon heat gave way to the evening’s cool, but that could not be helped now. What mattered was the grave situation that demanded she walk these endless miles, one she feared to name even to herself

Many days had passed since the messenger had come from Wasa with urgent news: her bond-sister, Nyenpu, was ill with the fever and had sent for her. She had sent him back with her message – hold on, my feet are flying to you – a promise she had been unable to keep. There were many considerations before embarking on a journey on foot, especially with rainy season at its peak and the rivers and forest in full flush. Treacherous waters often swept unfortunates to their death. The forest, untended for months, grew wild, its animals bold. Miatta was not worried about any of the physical dangers. She had grown up roaming the valley and learning its ways, for amusement as well as safety.

Her worry was the fever.

No one knew exactly where it had come from and which family fell first. The healers and herbalists of both Wasa and her own village Omaru remained baffled. They chanted and stirred and sprinkled their mystical cures, but the fever fought them with a bitter will. They had managed to stay its hand and restore many of the infected, grey and shaken, to the land of the living. But many others had not fared so well. The fever was a proud beast, and wanted the final word. Every so often, waves of wailing rose to the sky as another weakened soul succumbed…

Miatta shook her head. Nonsense. She would not let doubt and fear creep in. Wasa was close and she would arrive just after nightfall, if she kept her stride. The journey would have been easier and faster if not for the extra load, but that had been unavoidable.

As if sensing her disloyal thoughts, the baby on her back stirred and kicked her legs in happy protest. Laughing, Miatta stopped, put down the bag of provisions she was carrying, then stooped and tightened the lappa holstering her daughter. When the messenger from Wasa had brought the news of Nyenpu’s illness, Miatta had hurriedly packed to travel with him the next morning. That night, though, her baby had developed a fever and, frantic, she postponed her journey. The illness turned out to be a common bout, the child recovered in a few days, and Miatta set out as planned. There had been no other choice. Friendship was strong, but it paled next to motherhood. She would explain her tardiness and Nyenpu, blessed with a daughter of her own, would certainly be forgiving.

“Don’t worry, my love,” Miatta murmured and caressed the soles of her child’s feet to calm her. “We will soon reach, then we can rest.”

Her words sounded uncertain even to her own ears, though she knew her daughter was far too young to notice. The sun was sinking quickly and Miatta gathered up her load, and doubled her speed, averting her eyes as she walked on. She could see the divide coming up ahead, the clearing no traveller wanted to cross alone, the dreaded territory that was neither Omaru or Wasa. The area was always devoid of animal life – no birds nesting nor monkeys chattering. Many mothers had simply to lift a threatening finger in its direction to achieve immediate silence and obedience from their daughters. People disappear here. Ghosts walk among men here. THE WITCH WILL EAT YOU.

She kept her back to the clearing, feeling exposed, imagining wispy fingers reaching through the envelope of silence that hung over the place to grab her. All she had to do was keep moving and before long, there would be signs of life. Traders always traversed these parts. They knew well the unpredictability of long journeys and would often offer fellow travelers food and shelter for the night. But before then, there was just she, a lonely traveller with a baby, and the divide, darkening, yawning in her face…

She sneaked a look behind her and saw a thatched roof, the only sign of human occupation, emerging from the bush. A sap tree, the tallest for miles, towered over the equally imposing hut, and they both pushed their way out of the forest as if to swallow her. She broke into a light jog.

Miatta slowed and shook her head once she was past the clearing, scattering her wild thoughts to the wind. Like every young woman, she had seen the inside of that hut and knew it held little to fear. Not that she ever wished to revisit those countless tasks and dull lectures that she had had to endure as a young initiate of the secret society The hut and its memories were no cause for unease, but its occupant was.

The old zoe who lived there, whose duty it was to train young girls and usher them past the veil of childhood, watched her far too closely. Eyes even the other elders dare not meet weighed Miatta at every step – at initiation, at the river, at the fire-dance, on the day of her marriage. Always questioning, probing, demanding. Why, Miatta did not know. Never would she dare question or even approach the old woman. Such unspoken matters ––

Miatta strained her eyes into the dusk. Someone was coming. It could not be, but there was no mistaking that determined strut or the sway of those hips. She broke into a jog, oblivious to the strain of the baby bouncing on her back. The figure picked up speed as well, their slippers snap-snap-snapping against the ground as they ran to each other. Miatta and Nyenpu laughed as they embraced. Miatta forgot the journey, her hunger and gnawing worries. Her friend was safe and sound, well enough to come and meet her on the road.

Miatta recoiled from the embrace after a moment. “Ah-ah, Nyenpu, your skin is boiling!” And such a hungry heat it was, like stepping into the smoking hut where beans would dry after harvest. She laid a hand on Nyenpu’s face and studied her properly. All was not well. Gone was Nyenpu’s fair and radiant complexion, in its stead an unnatural grey pallor that stood out like clay against the deep brown of Miatta’s fingers. Sickness had eaten her meat. Her eyes bulged within juts of bone.

Guilt pierced Miatta’s heart. Weeks had gone by since she or Nyenpu had visited each other’s homesteads. More and more, the daily motions of life had taken priority over everything. If only they were still carefree girls with the leisure of time. If only she had left earlier…but she was here now. She would set her friend right in no time.

“My sister, you don’t look good at all. Why did you leave your bed to come outside this late?” Miatta asked, rocking back and forth to shush her daughter. The sudden sprint to hug Nyenpu had woken the child, and combined with hunger and the evening chill, the baby sounded highly unamused.

“You know how stubborn I am. I heard you were on your way to see me so I decided to come and meet you. I knew you were worried, and I wanted you to see I was doing better.”

Miatta reeled. How high and unnatural her friend’s voice sounded! Like a mosquito had climbed into her throat and taken over her speech.

Nyenpu must have seen her shock because she rushed to explain: “I sound strange, I know,” she coughed into a fist. “The fever changed many things about me. It will take some time before I find myself again.”

They drifted to sit on tree stumps by the roadside, and Miatta proceeded to breastfeed. She waited. There was a story to be told and Nyenpu, spinner of tales, would have her saga of triumph over the fever waiting on her lips.

None came.

Instead they traded family news and village gossip from weeks spent apart. The dark cloaked in and Miatta lit her kerosene lantern. With light and company at hand, she wanted to feel more at ease. But could not. Nyenpu was frail and understandably not herself, but even so she seemed…more unlike herself than ever. In fact, the darker it got, the stranger she became, and in a frightening trick of the light her pupils seemed to glow.

Miatta saw her husband’s face, loving and worried, rise in her mind as she anxiously scanned the night around her. Trade had briefly taken him away from Omaru and before leaving he had begged her not to go, to leave their child behind. Miatta now wondered if, in a haste to see her friend, she had been reckless.

It was also impossible to grasp this business with Nyenpu, who seemed to be worsening by the minute. She had already refused food and water several times, pleading fatigue. Her skin was like a slick hide shrinking into her bones and the pungent furnace of her breath was unbearable. Why leave your sick-bed so promptly after a grave illness to meet someone already on their way to see you? What careless fools had been caring for her, to allow her to slip out undetected in such a condition?

This was not her only worry. The child would not cease her howling for more than a few minutes at a time. Nyenpu had taken her and cradled her, crooning playful words and songs, but to little effect. Her friend soon sank into an uncommon silence, perhaps concerned her strange voice was upsetting the baby.

“We need to go,” Miatta said. Whatever magic or madness had coaxed Nyenpu out of her sick-bed would not hold for much longer.

“You are right. But this one is tired, o! All these tears!” Nyenpu said. “Let me hold her. You can’t carry everything the whole way.”

Miatta shook her head. “Nyenpu, you are barely fit to carry yourself. Don’t worry, I can manage.”

Nyenpu laughed in her high mosquito timbre. “Ah my sister, you’ve had her the whole day, she’s tired of you! Look now, she’s stopped crying.”

The baby, wild-eyed and silent, was already slung to Nyenpu’s chest, and Miatta found her tongue had thickened with a protest she couldn’t voice. She hoisted her provisions bag with unnecessary force, irritated by the uneasiness clawing at the walls of her stomach.

“When we reach Wasa, you can have porridge and milk,” Nyenpu cooed to the baby, blowing her kisses.

Miatta found her feet would not move, no matter how she commanded them. Her heart thumped a hard, unsteady rhythm.

“Maybe we shouldn’t go to Wasa. We should go back to Omaru.” Her words surprised her.

A cruel iciness flashed in Nyenpu’s eyes with such swiftness Miatta felt sure she had imagined it.

“Come stay with me until you recover fully,” Miatta pressed. “We’ll send word for your husband not to worry, and I’m sure your mother can look after your little one in your absence. It’s much better that way.”

Nyenpu smiled. It was a completely different smile from the one Miatta had always known. Her trademark mischievous twinkle remained, but there was a dead, unsettling quality in those fever-pink eyes that the smile did not touch. They locked eyes, and Miatta fought an inexplicable urge to grab her daughter, rip her free of Nyenpu’s bosom and hold her tight against her own chest. And run.

As if reading her mind, challenging her, Nyenpu pulled her lappa tighter. “Then we go to Omaru,” she agreed, smiling softly into the baby’s hair.

____________________________

They spoke little as they walked. Miatta held the lantern up to the night, on guard but lost in thought.

Nyenpu was absorbed in coddling the baby, singing childhood songs, caressing her head, releasing her from the sling to bounce her up and down. But the child had started crying again and remained inconsolable, only resting intermittently from screaming and kicking her legs.

Miatta threw a backward glance and realised how fast she must have been walking. Or perhaps Nyenpu’s pace was far slower. Frowning, Miatta slowed down. Shrunken and ghostly as Nyenpu was, somehow she did not look tired.

People disappear. Ghosts walk. THE WITCH–

Miatta stopped. Tingling with fear, she put down the lantern and carrier bag. Calling out that she was thirsty, she rooted through it, fingers scrambling over one item after another. At last, one hand closed over the water bottle and the other gripped a cool circle of glass. She tipped the water to her lips and angled the mirror in her shaky palm.

Disquiet crystallized into terror as she stared at the reflection. Behind her, the unrecognisable being that was now Nyenpu had stopped walking. It swung the baby aloft, gently at first, then more roughly, its claws gripping the child’s tiny, chubby arms as it lifted her higher and higher. Muscle and bone shifted unnaturally in its face as its jaws spread. A charred, disfigured lump of a tongue curled, twined and whipped into the child’s face. Its eyes burned a red so bright they lit the surrounding skin with a horrifying glow. The baby released another lusty scream and the creature transformed. Nyenpu’s face returned, comforting with kisses and murmurings of love.

Miatta choked down a sob. “I need to urinate!” she cried.

“My friend, you are all over the place today,” Nyenpu shrilled. “First Wasa, then Omaru. Now you drink, then immediately you want the toilet. You worry me now.”

Miatta kept her gaze to the ground, certain her eyes would betray her. They always did, and Nyenpu knew her too well. She had to brave the forest, run to safety. But how to get her daughter safely back in her arms without raising suspicion? Could she run ahead, alone, on the lie that she sought shelter for them in the nearest homestead? Was her only child safe with this soulless version of Nyenpu for even a few minutes? Her daughter gave her a tearful gaze, tiny fingers opening and closing as she strained for her mother.

Without a word, Miatta stepped up and took her out of Nyenpu’s arms.

Their eyes did battle – first a question, then sadness, and at last a squaring off – as realization settled over them both. Miatta’s neck twined up proudly. Nyenpu’s eyes glittered, defiant gems filled with the haughtiness she was known for. The underlying crackle of competition and tension they had always relished began to mutate in the hush of that moment. Were they youngsters again, monkeying up a mango tree to grab the highest fruit, or feverishly twisting reeds into baskets, each one certain her fingers were the most agile? Hips gyrating to the drumbeat as they eyed the same well-muscled suitor, both lightheaded with the hope she would steal his attention, make his blood hot for her love?

No. The challenge before them now was more final, deadlier, than any they had ever faced.

Miatta said, “I will come back soon.”

New-Nyenpu replied, “Then I will wait here for you.”

Miatta veered off the road into the dark, strapping her precious bundle to her back.

____________________________

Miatta ran so hard and fast her feet burned like live coals.

Running in the daytime required a different system from the one employed at night, especially when moonlight and heavy foliage came into play. Crashing past branches and leaping fallen logs, she recalled every skill learned as a youthful sprinter.  She kept her mouth closed and head down, doing her best to pick out the layout of the forest floor before planting her feet. Her slippers were soon abandoned.

Girls with quicksilver were often warned about the dangers of mixing speed and femininity. Society demanded of a young lady that she walk not run, treading with grace and dignity. But Miatta had always ignored the scolding of elders as she raced packs of boys, breasts cupped for support, laughing triumphantly as she won, braving her mother’s switch against her legs with a secret smile.

Now, she called upon her latent lightning, for what was at stake went far beyond punishment and public scorn. An unlucky frog squished beneath her graceless heel and Miatta skidded. Cursing, she felt stones and pebbles give way to softer ground and mud under her feet; she grabbed a branch to brake just before she emerged onto the river bank.

She scrabbled downslope towards the sandy edge of the water, stared at the river’s churning waters and wailed softly in despair. The forest was a snarl of shadows, but a river crossing at night was another brand of madness. She could hear Nyenpu barrelling through the bush, knocking obstacles aside like toys, her shrieks rising to the moon. Bent double, Miatta was heaving from exhaustion. It was useless trying to hide. The baby’s terrified screams betrayed their position too easily. Through the sweat stinging her eyes, she saw Nyenpu break the forest barrier onto the rocky shore, then slow to a slither, each step a taunt.

The creature stopped at the top of the verge and looked down on Miatta, and for a second Miatta saw a flash of her friend, the look on her face impossible to decipher – love, disgust, pain, triumph, mourning – and then both the look and her friend were gone. The gaunt creature moved a final step to the very lip of the edge and Miatta shuffled closer to the water’s edge. Quiet sobs wracked her as the creature ripped a young banana tree from the ground and flung it like a twig. Miatta screamed and leaped out of the way.

Nyenpu cackled. “Haaaay! My sister, stop this nonsense. Why are you running from me? It’s only me. There’s no reason to be afraid.”

Miatta scuttled to the lip of the water’s edge. The ebb was lowest where she stood, but still too tumultuous.

“‘Lightning Legs Miatta.’ You were always so fast. No one could catch you.” Bloody coals bored into her with a look of pity. “I let you believe it too, that you were so much quicker than me. I let you believe many things.”

Miatta hesitated, throwing desperate glances between forest and river.

There was no turning back.

Smirking from atop the sloping verge, Nyenpu picked up a boulder and flung it with impossible force, laughing as it thudded down the gravelly bank. Miatta leapt, stumbling as the squirming baby nearly tipped them over.

The boulder rolled to a stop. With the agility of a jungle cat, Nyenpu dove through the air and landed on it in a squat, gnarled hands dangling playfully in front of her. There were only a few steps between them. Tilting her head, Nyenpu looked past Miatta at the river.

“Can you make it, Lightning?” she hissed.

Miatta sucked in her breath and dove into the churn.

The tide swept in at chest height. She clasped both hands and kept them behind her back to raise her daughter’s bottom as high as possible whilst keeping her head above water. Her soles were rubbed bloody and sore by the stony riverbed. In no time, keeping her balance became excruciating.

At last, she spluttered onto the other bank and took off again. Nyenpu was close, jeering that Miatta was no fine swimmer and did not know the forest as well as she did. But Miatta knew Nyenpu had always been afraid of rivers, disliked their perpetual wetness and unpredictability. Even in death, the creature who wore her spirit would not leap in, would look for a gentler crossing with stepping stones. This bought her time, but not much. Fatigue began to wear Miatta down. The baby’s cries roused a chatter of angry monkeys as they ran. Soaked and exhausted, Miatta begged every ancestor she knew for protection as she scanned the trees for sanctuary.

Her eyes fell on a huge fallen log, its centre rotted away. She slung the baby down and climbed inside the hollow, pressing her close inside the tight space. Choking on the mustiness of their cocoon, she tried to settle her heavy breathing and her daughter’s distress. The baby’s wails dropped to whimpers, yet still her cries carried. Trembling, Miatta squeezed her closer. “Please, my love,” she whispered. “Please be quiet, for me.”

Her daughter promptly fell silent, fumbling in the hollow for her mother’s finger to suck. Footsteps in the undergrowth. Nyenpu called her name, in melodious tones, then plaintively, seductively, and finally shrieked in rage.

“Come with me!”

Miatta shut her senses against the desperation of the plea. Freshly parted from the body, a gina spirit could seduce out what it most desired, using praise, promises or threats, to drag a living soul with it into the afterlife. Darkness lit the flame for it to burn hot and angry, but daylight would melt away its power.

Miatta held her baby and her breath, and prayed and prayed for the sun.

____________________________

“I do not understand.”

Seated on the mud floor, her infant asleep in her lap, Miatta frowned at the old woman.

At first light, she dragged her battered body to the hut beneath the sap tree, falling through its door when it opened before her hand touched it. Now, after hours of rest, revelations flowed.

“She came for you. You know the gina, when it comes for you, you can only fight. Or,” the zoe spread out her hands, “allow it to take you into its beyond.”

Miatta shook her head. “No. Why? We were everything to each other, we made worlds together, from the time we were babies.”

“Your worlds began to separate longer ago than you know. The man that you call husband…” the zoe prompted, and waited.

Miatta stared into the fire.

“Before me, he was hers,” she answered at last, “when we were young girls. She captured his attention first. But Nyenpu…” a sigh trembled from her lips, “…so headstrong… so many games. She could not settle her heart on one young man for long.”

“Neither of you could.” Miatta opened her mouth to protest and the old woman raised her hand for silence. “As long as virtue was maintained,” she allowed. “Beautiful women never easily resolve to love only one man until it pleases them to do so, nor should they have to.”

She stared into the fire, lost in a gone time. Miatta studied her and then guiltily looked away, unable to imagine the worn, wrinkled face had ever held charm.

“He grew tired of her,” Miatta continued. “To save Nyenpu’s pride and avoid her temper, he allowed everyone to think otherwise. But she swore, swore to me, that it did not matter when love grew between us. Yet she wanted me dead.”

“She wanted you with her,” the zoe corrected. “The man was nothing. Your friendship grew so strong, it corrupted her. Nyenpu’s will was of iron, even in death – she could not pass on and leave you behind. In her eyes, you belonged to one another, in life and beyond.”

“I followed her, on the final night of your initiation,” the zoe went on. “She crept back into the forest and removed your idols from the ground.”

Miatta covered her mouth. The sacred idols, once buried, were never to be disturbed.

“She did not trust the ancestors to be the guardians of your bond. By doing this, she chose her fate. Nothing could have prevented the events of last night.”

“When did she die?” Miatta whispered.

“At dusk. Not long after she appeared to you.”

____________________________

Women ran onto the road as she neared Omaru village. Their slippers roused the dust, their lappas fluttered like colourful wings. Their faces were bright with tears.

“Come o-o-o, come!” they cried. “Come and hear it! Your sister Nyenpu has left us.”

Miatta sank to her knees and pressed her forehead to the ground, her first tears falling as her baby stirred on her back.

“I know,” she sobbed. “I know.”