City of Saints & Thieves(50)

“Two words, Tiny: tikka masala.”

“Okay, okay,” I say, but instead I just sit there, a million thoughts pinging around in my brain. What is Mobile Interests? I click open a new window on Boyboy’s computer and search for it. I get nothing but a bunch of cell-phone ads. I stare at the blinking cursor on the search box, then type in Kasisi, Congo.

It shows up as a tiny dot on the map, red dirt at a crossroads surrounded by green. So small. I zoom in. There can’t be more than twenty buildings in what would be called town. I wonder which little spot was my old home; I remember our house but couldn’t tell you where it was. Roads stretch from town up mountains to little bare patches that must be farms. But they don’t go far. Beyond, there is nothing. Just treetops for miles and miles. The Congo rain forest. Terra incognita. There be monsters.

I stare at the green until my vision blurs. I remember looking up at the tree canopy, as tall as the roof Boyboy and I sit on today. Streams gushing cold and rocky. Flowers. Monkeys, hornbills, and shrews. Nimble-toed little antelope and bushpigs with twitchy noses. Centipedes and butterflies as big as my hand. If I concentrate, I can smell the musk of rotting leaves.

Somewhere in all that, there are militiamen who weave narrow trails, guns slung over their shoulders, grass necklaces and amulets swinging across their chests.

I rub my eyes and look back at the hidden notebook papers. These pages don’t necessarily have anything to do with my mother, I tell myself.

But I know they do. I feel it in my guts. He hid them in her photo. They’re labeled with the town we lived in and fled from. There is some connection. I just can’t see it yet.

I hear myself say, “I’m going there.”

Boyboy blinks. He knows I’m not talking about the tikka joint. “Where?”

The idea shocks me nearly as much as it does Boyboy, but out of my mouth, it’s real. There is no other way to find out what happened to my mother, who she was, and what secrets she brought out of that dark forest with her. There is nothing else here in Sangui for me to uncover. There is no one here who will tell me. Before I can keep going forward, I have to go back.

Michael is right. I have to know for sure that Mr. Greyhill killed her. If David Mwika and his video are still there, I’ll find them. And if I don’t, maybe whatever chased Mama out of our home and sent her to Mr. Greyhill is still there, hidden under the leaves. I’ll dig it up.

I realize that I’ve been turning in this direction from the moment I saw my mother’s face in the photo, that first night in Mr. G’s office. The idea of going to the place my mother and I ran from is terrifying, but every bone in my body tells me it’s what I have to do. I have to look again with new eyes. I have to know. I have to know everything.

All one hundred percent.

For myself. For her.

I jut my chin out at the map. “There. Congo. Back home.”





TWENTY-THREE


Boyboy takes it pretty well.

“No way. No way. Are you crazy? You cannot go there.” He literally stamps his foot. “I forbid it!”

“Boyboy, don’t be a queen. I’m going.” I stand up, start looking around to see what I should pack.

“But we just got all this dirt! Don’t you want to expose him? What about your plan? What about dirt, money, and blood?”

“I’m not asking you to go with me.”

“That’s not the point! You think being a cat burglar in Sangui is dangerous? That place is no game! It’s Mordor you’d be heading into!”

“Mordor? I’m going to Kasisi.”

“No,” Boyboy says, throwing up his hands, “I mean Mordor, like Lord of the Rings, Eye of Sauron. You know, definition of evil?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Is that a nerd thing?”

“Yes, it’s a . . . Never mind. Listen to me. You don’t just waltz back into Congo. Why do you think our parents took us out of that hellhole in the first place?”

“Come on, you’re being dramatic. I mean, lots of people still live there, right?”

“Yeah, warlords! Militias!”

I put my second-best knife in my backpack. My sweater. A plastic bottle that I fill from my rain barrel. “Not just them,” I say. “Normal people too. Farmers and stuff.” I look around, trying to keep my face composed, calm. No sense in letting Boyboy see that the idea of going there terrifies me too. What does one take on a trip into the eye of evil? I pick up a can of beans and add it to the pile.

Boyboy swallows, and I can tell he’s trying for a rational voice. “Tina, we were the normal people. And bad stuff happened to us. Please don’t do this.”

I busy myself with arranging the stuff in my pack. “I have to, Boyboy,” I say, unable to face him. “That’s where Mwika is. Mr. Greyhill is going there too. Mama’s murder and home—it’s all tied up like a big knot. Keep working on the decryption, okay?”

Boyboy’s still looking at me like I’m giving him the stomachache of his life. “What are you going to tell Bug Eye?”

I hesitate. Bug Eye told Boyboy my time was up at the Greyhills. “I’ll figure something out. Maybe I can tell him I can’t leave the Ring without Michael getting suspicious. I’ll be back in a few days, before you’re even done decrypting. He never has to know I’m gone.”