The Night Masquerade (Binti, #3)(36)
I had followed Mwinyi up the corridor, marveling at New Fish’s young interior design. I soon slowed down, overcome with a thirst and hunger so strong that I felt as if my body were trying to consume itself. By the time we reached the Star Chamber, I’d sat down right there in the middle of the room and could say nothing but “Water,” and then when I had that, “Food.”
As I ate and drank, things around me cleared and soon I was just chewing on the meat because it was tasty. Mwinyi sat beside me, eating a handful of dates. Okwu hovered near the other wall of windows, chicken bones scattered on the floor beneath it. I’d never actually watched Okwu eat; Okwu liked to go off and eat alone and for a while, I’d wondered if it ate at all. Thus, seeing it consume the roasted chicken it had brought up from storage had been a sight. Meduse eat like delicate old ladies, slowly picking at and drawing in the meat bit by bit with their okuoko. Watching it eat had brought me my first real smile since I’d sat up and had a living body to smile with.
“Okay,” I finally said, taking one more gulp of water. “I’m listening.” I looked at my right arm, flaking the remaining old otjize off to reveal my dark brown skin.
“Wait,” Mwinyi said. “Before New Fish speaks to you, Okwu and I want to tell you what happened after you … after they killed you.” He frowned, a pained look on his face. “I can’t believe I can say that to you. ‘Killed.’” He let out a breath.
“I know,” I said. But somehow, out there in space on New Fish, with a Meduse and an Enyi Zinariya master harmonizer, it all seemed so bizarre, what was the added detail of me coming back from the dead? “When one dies, the Seven take you, no matter who you are. You join the whole again. The wilderness. You don’t come back.”
“Meduse always come back,” Okwu said, quietly. “We reincarnate.”
“Do you remember the Seven?” Mwinyi asked, ignoring Okwu. “The Principle Artists of All Things?”
“I do,” I said. Seeing the shock on Mwinyi’s face and the puff of gas that Okwu blew out amused me. They hadn’t expected me to say that; however, I did remember. “But tell me what you need to tell me.”
When he got to the part about my family, I screamed. I jumped up, knocking over my cup of water. I didn’t know where to go, so I just stood there. I just stood there. My chest tight, the heart inside it beating strong again. My legs strong. My flesh naked. My okuoko, which were now past my waist, vibrating. I pressed my hands against the sides of my face. Then I lifted my dress to my knees and did my village’s fire dance, stamping my feet hard to make my anklets jingle. When I looked at my legs, I saw that I didn’t have any anklets. I danced anyway, hearing the jingling in my mind.
“I spoke to the Root,” Mwinyi laughingly explained as I danced and danced with joy. “And it opened up. And we were able to get everyone out.”
“Everyone,” I said, stretching my hands toward the window, toward outer space. “No one was hurt?”
“Everyone was well,” Mwinyi said.
I whirled around, ran to him, threw my arms around him, and kissed him long and hard. And through my okuoko, I threw a blue spark, the size and shape of a large tomato, at Okwu. I jumped back and began to dance again and when I saw Okwu vibrating its dome with laughter, I danced harder. My family was alive! My family was alive! The Root was alive, even if the house built on it had been burned to ash. We survive.
“How?” I asked.
When Mwinyi told me what my mother had said, I stared at him in awe. “She used her mathematical sight?” I whispered. “My mother, she sees the math in the world, she was born with it. That’s where the sharpness of my gift comes from. She was never trained, though. She just used it to protect the family during storms, to fortify the house, sometimes to heal you if you were sick. My mother is so powerful.” I laughed to myself, tears welling up in my eyes. “I can’t believe it! Thank the Seven, praise the Seven, the Seven are great, they make circles in the sand!” That was why I couldn’t see her during my fevered zinariya visions. While everyone else had moved from the walls to get away from the smoke and heat, my mother had gone toward the danger to find the spot that woke the Root’s defenses.
“I’ve contacted my home,” Mwinyi added. “They are sending people to meet with the Himba. Your man Dele will lead the meeting with them.”
I paused at him referring to Dele as my “man,” but quickly moved on. “Dele was there?” I remembered. “Oh! Mwinyi, he was the Night Masquerade! I saw him! I saw him!” I wrapped my arms around myself, tears welling in my eyes.
“The Himba Council did betray you,” Mwinyi said. “But Dele didn’t. He was there as the Night Masquerade to give you hope and strength.”
I listened in silence as Mwinyi explained. This part I had to let sink in. The Night Masquerade was a secret society of men? And Dele was in it? A part of me still rejected this. That first time I’d seen it from my bedroom window, it had looked like a creature, not a man in a costume. And what of my uncle and my father who had also seen it? Did they know of the tradition too?
Regardless, I felt good. About everything. The war had begun again, my home would never be what it was, but this, I understood more than ever now, was inevitable. Change was inevitable and where the Seven were involved, so was growth. My family was alive, the Enyi Zinariya were going to meet them and help Osemba survive and evolve. And if any people knew how to survive and evolve, it was the Enyi Zinariya. Osemba would change and grow.