Chapter 21

Anyway, she focused on the feast of fruits laid before her. She was famished, so she dug in, quenching her thirst with their juices and filling her grumbling stomach. Just as she reached for a mango, a loud rustle above distracted her.

She noticed Chinua flinch out of the corner of her eye before his fingers scratched his chin, his gaze lost in the distance, as if his mind were plagued by thoughts too heavy to share. He crossed his legs and barely ate, which was totally unlike him. Maybe he found it hard to share more about himself because she barely said anything to him. There was an unspoken tension whenever silence enveloped them.

“Olee! What’s it like up there?” she cooed, her voice playful, startling him. Chinua blinked, turning with a glare, mumbling something inaudible before looking away. “You’re always stuck in your own head, like a spider tangled in its own web,” she teased. 

A faint, wry chuckle escaped Chinua’s lips. “You sound like her, always preaching about...” He cut himself off, strangling the words before they could escape.

“You lost someone,” Obiageri hinted, her tone like the soft drizzle of rain. It was a dumb thing to say—of course, he had. Why else would anyone join a journey as dangerous as this, unless they were desperate? 

“Doreen,” Chinua whispered, the name slipping bitterly from his lips.

“What was she like?” Obiageri pressed, her gaze fixed on his.

“She was... kind. Fiercely creative. She had this way of lighting up every room,” Chinua answered without thinking, gaze dropping to the ground.

Obiageri’s eyebrows shot up, a gasp escaping her lips. “Was she your ịhụnanya? Were you going to marry her?” Maybe he was doing this for love. It made perfect sense. Chinua was just a hopeless romantic.

“I couldn’t,” he replied sharply, his voice cracking. “It wasn’t like that…” Chinua’s shoulders slumped, and he wrapped his arms around himself, as if he was trying to hold on to something that was slipping away.

Obiageri tried to figure out what exactly he was hiding behind that sadness written all over his face. Maybe he wasn’t ready to open up, and she should drop it— but her curiosity got the better of her. She scoffed. “So, did you two…you know…ever—?” 

Chinua shot her a sharp glare, cutting her off. “It wasn’t like that,” he shot back, his voice firm. “What I felt for her wasn’t lust. She was my best friend. She got me through my worst times…through my…” 

He stopped, turning away as he crossed his arms over his chest. Obiageri watched him closely, wondering if he’d open up if she shared a bit about herself. 

“Chai! At least you had that,” Obiageri signed, her voice rising. She traced the beads on her neck delicately. “I wasn’t so lucky. Making friends was always hard for me. Mama…she was the only one I could talk to.”

Chinua was barely listening, scratching the scars on his wrist. Obiageri wondered how he got those scars. He always lingered with them when he was nervous, like a coping mechanism. “Were you hurt?” she queried, her hand reaching out to him.

Before Chinua could answer, a voice boomed from behind them. “Ngwa ngwa! Onye Ohoo would see you now.” Eze Iroko’s footsteps stirred the earth as he walked by. “You must be extra careful. He’s in a foul mood, as usual.”

Chinua quickly pulled his arms away, hiding them behind his back. Obiageri stood, wondering why he went to such great lengths to hide intimate things about himself. Could those secrets jeopardize their mission? As a shepherd, she had to consider every eventuality. It puzzled her that there was a possibility she didn’t know about. It made her feel blindsided. And as a guardian, she hoped she could resolve it while earning Chinua’s trust.

Obiageri inhaled deeply, trying to steady her nerves. She knew about her tendency to overthink—like the time she was two and wondered where the head of a snail went every time she got close to one. She would stand in the rain, following those creatures from dusk to dawn, until her mother warned her sternly to come inside. Would he trust her with his secrets over time as they earned each other’s trust, or would she have to devise a plan to wring them out of him?

A tiny moth perched on Obiageri’s finger as she stood. She watched it closely as its dark grey wings fluttered. When she looked up at the sky and then back at her finger, the moths had doubled. In a second, they had tripled, and soon they fluttered everywhere. The wind blew, and leaves glided on them, followed by dust that swirled around the circle of brown earth surrounded by grass.

Obiageri’s skin tingled as she noticed the air around her thicken. She could hear the wind whistling, and the atmosphere hummed. The ground began vibrating, and a fresh scent of lemony mint clung to the air. Rising dust particles stung her eyes, so she covered them with her arms. A whirlwind tossed around with gusts of wind, and when it settled, a tree stood in their midst. Its roots were tangled, covered in dirt, resembling a woven web. Thick branches for limbs bristled with twigs and leaves, looking like rashes.

Obiageri could barely fathom how it appeared in their midst, but she would rather not ask questions—not because she feared the answer, but because she preferred to observe and listen rather than speak and miss something crucial that could aid her journey.

The tree before them had bark lined with cracks, behind which slits revealed deep, hollow eyes. White bird droppings and patches of moss littered what appeared to be his mouth. When he spoke, a thick white sap oozed from his lips. What was this mystical being? Obiageri wanted to know, but as the tree turned toward her with a crinkled look, she stepped back. It didn’t stop the tree from leaning toward her and speaking in a tone like cascading waterfalls splashing against rocks. “You seek to confront the Great Evil Spirit? I sense your doubts, your fear…”

“No!” Chinua interjected firmly. “I am the one stuck between worlds.” He furrowed his brow, but his hands trembled.

The tree—Onye Ohoo, Obiageri guessed—shook its wooden face, chuckling. “You? This scrawny boy?” His laughter echoed, leaves flinging from its branches like confetti. “I must’ve eaten too much manure. You are the hope of the pantheon?”