Children of Misfortune

I was four when some men stormed into our compound, caught my cousin by the arm, and spoke to him as if he were a grown-up: "Why did you close their wombs? Why are you causing harm?" My cousin swore that it wasn't him, but his cries met deaf ears. They led him away, and that was that. It was the last time I saw him.

I asked Mother why they took him away, and she said, "Because he is an ajogun."

"What's that?"

"They're children of misfortune. They make bad things happen to people without meaning to."

I've carried that explanation with me ever since.

I've carried the fear too.

But no one explained ajoguns to me the way Tinu did. She was an older girl from the next hamlet, who used to teach the younger ones how to dance. Kolade and I went to drum, but really, we went to breathe in her air. When her students were spent from dancing, they collapsed into the grass, and she filled the lull with stories or answers to their questions.

They have energies that harm those around them.

Some say they were born with a spell.

We remove them because there is no cure. Where? — I don't know where.

No, we don't hate them; we just want them far from us and to never return.

How are they discovered? Oracles sense their energies.

Her words stayed with me.

So did her face. (I get dizzy thinking about her.)

She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

Those lips, that perfect smile — they made you steal glances until she felt like a secret — your secret.

I've dreamed about her more times than I can count. Mother knows how I feel about her, but she doesn't know I'm a peeper.

The night the rain nearly fell, our soldiers limped into the village like rain-beaten dogs. No drums greeted them — no parade through the market. No bonfires. No dances. Nothing.

People say they ran from spirits in the forest.

A stupor hangs over us like a bedtime lantern with its flame dimmed. Mother hovers over the simmering bathwater while Kolade and I watch the goats in the yard. A male goat mounts a female and rides it.

"Those goats never get tired of that game," I say.

"It's not a game. They're making a baby."

Oh. So, those nighttime grown-up plays I saw were not games.

Kolade notices my hesitation and asks, "What?"

"Can they change it from a girl to a boy when there is a baby already?"

"I don't know. Why do you ask?"

"Baba Ojo told Aunty Mufin she's carrying a girl, and he can make it a boy."

"Baba Ojo has medicines for everything, you know that."

"It wasn't medicine."

"What, then?"

"That." I point to the goat on the back of another, bumping furiously.

Kolade whips his head around and stares. "Where did you see them?"

I saw them in Baba Ojo's hut, but I will be in trouble if I say that. Kolade can't be trusted.

I shake my head. "I didn't see. I heard."

"What did he say?"

"Why do you want to know?"

He twisted my arm until I cried out in pain. "Tell me," he says.

"He said... He said... Let me climb your back and change it to a boy."

Kolade fell on his back and laughed hard. "Liar. You didn't hear anything. Grownups say, 'let me lie with you.'"

"No, they don't. That doesn't even make sense."

"Kolade," Mother calls. "Put some wood in the fire."

Kolade gathers wood from the stack beside our hut and slips it into the fire heating a big pot of bath water. The flames throb and settle. I go to Grandfather and climb onto his lap.

"Better a coward than a loser in battle," Mother says to Grandfather, and he snorts.

"What's the difference? Lose in battle, and you run like a coward." He laughs to himself.

Grandfather was never a soldier; after falling from a tree and injuring his leg, he chose woodwork instead.

"What about the carnival?" Kolade asks.

"It will hold," Mother says.

"Yay!" I shout as Kolade spins and breaks into a quick dance.

"It should've been canceled," Grandfather mutters.

Mother feeds the stove more firewood. "And what, then, becomes of Modekun's marriageable girls?" She stirs the simmering water, her eyes narrowing against the steam.

"Wait for next time, or accept private proposals."

"Seems to me like you have ideas."

Grandfather laughs like a little boy.

"The palace says, since there are no war heroes this season, they'll use a wrestling contest to decide who gets first pick of the brides."

"Why the long face?" Grandfather asks.

Mother turns the water with a stick. "Wrestlers fight for themselves. Soldiers fight for each other. Soldiers make better husbands."

They argue and talk like boring adults.

Kolade is restless. He puts his fists up and makes wrestling gestures at me. He's challenging me to a match. I slip out of Grandfather's grasp and square up, hands raised. We circle the yard, stamping and faking blows until one of us grows bold enough to lunge. It's only play, but in my mind, I'm fighting for Tinu in a real contest. It doesn't help. He hooks my foot behind the ankle and sends me crashing to the ground. Before I can recover, he's on top of me, folding my arms over my chest and shoving them up against my throat. His weight bears down, his sneer tightening as he cuts off my breath. Stop. His eyes are intense.

It began as a game, or so it seemed. Is it my fault? Am I giving off bad energy that's making him act crazy?

"Say I'm the winner," he says, pressing harder on my chest.

"Iya!" I scream.

Kolade quickly climbs off me before Mother turns on him.

I go to bed — not because I'm sleepy, but so I can be with Tinu.

I open my eyes, and my sight slowly sharpens.

I'm cold. And wet.

I try to sit up, and something slips off my face and clatters to the floor. A wooden mask. Who put it on me? Obviously Kolade. Not funny.

Talismans. Prayer beads. Gourds — our wall protection from evil spirits.

What happened? Why is my family crowding around me — Mother, Father, Grandfather, Aunty Tade, and Aunty Mufin? They're all staring at me — faces too close. Even the familiar ones seem strange as I've never seen them inside my room before, or anywhere near my bed. I haven't taken my bath. Is that why they woke me?

"Akindele?" Mother calls.

Her eyes are red and shiny, like she's been crying. Father stares, lost, like he wants to say something but can't find the right words.

"He's alive! He's alive!" Mother jumps up and spins around the room. Prayerfully, she raises her hands to the roof.

Grandfather isn't convinced. He squints at me like a startled hare ready to run.
Baba Ojo rises from the floor. His body shines with a black, sticky substance like charcoal potion. Did he fall?

"Back from the dead," Grandfather says.

I'm shivering. I think I'm sick — no. I'm wet. Soaked. My bed is too.

"Ekwele," Mother says, pulling me into her arms. "Kolade! Wrapper! He's freezing!"
She says they shook me and called my name. When that didn't work, she told Kolade to dump a bucket of water on me. She meant for him to carry me outside first.

Aunty Mufin sighs. "You frightened all of us. I've never seen anyone sleep so deeply."

"Sleep?" Baba Ojo frowns. "He wasn't sleeping. He was missing from his body."

Aunty Tade shakes her head. "Sorry, Dele. We beat you to wake you. But you're stubborn like a tortoise in its shell."

"Dele the dead shell!" Kolade snickers.

I watch them all, distant. My secret is still safe. But I'm getting careless. This is the worst time for me to get caught: everyone thinks an ajogun gave the warriors nightmares in the forest. I know it wasn't me, but I can't be sure: ajoguns never know what they cause.

Baba Ojo sends everyone out so he can examine me. When it's just us, he asks:

"You left your body. So where did you go?"

I pretend not to understand. How can I tell him I can leave my body and take a walk? That I see and hear things I shouldn't — things I'm too young to hear?

Each time he presses me, I think of Tinu. I remember happier times:

"I didn't go anywhere," I say to Baba Ojo. "I was here."

"So you were here?"

"I am here. I never left."

Baba Ojo nods as if that means something. "How do you feel?" he asks. "Different?"

I've felt different since I was four — ever since I found out I could spy on others in my sleep. At first, I thought they were dreams, but when I saw myself asleep beside Kolade, I knew they were out-of-body experiences. It's like holding my breath. When I stay out too long, I pass out and wake up in my body. In spirit, I saw Baba Ojo treating Tinu's injuries — she had been in a fight with her friends. It wasn't long ago. Now, he's here.

Oh. So the people who hurried him away were talking about me.

"Does anyone know about you?" Baba Ojo asks. His necklace has the skull of a young goat as its centerpiece.

No one. I nearly gave myself away today — to Kolade. What a mistake that would have been.

I'm under the weight of Baba Ojo's stare — the tang of his medicines returns along with the damp scent of my soaked straw bed.

The curtain at the doorway rustles, and Mother enters the room.

"Akindele has a visitor," she says to Baba Ojo.

"Let him in," he says. "I'm almost done."

Mother disappears behind the curtain and returns with...

Baba Folarin!

My heart stops. I can't think. I can't breathe. He's an amoye. If I were an ajogun, he'd be the one to know.

"Welcome, Baba," Baba Ojo greets. "If you had come earlier, you would have witnessed the most amazing thing."

Shut up!

Baba Folarin grins. "Yes. I hear you made the most startling discovery."

Mother's glare snaps me back to my manners. "Eku iro le, Baba," I say to our guest.

"The boy's ori inu left his body," Baba Ojo says.

"I was sleeping," I blurt.

Baba Folarin muses. "And where is it now?"

"It has returned."

"I see. You must be proud."

He can't return or change anything. He's a quack.

"And how did you perform this miracle?" Baba Folarin asks.

"I hid his face with a mask. So that when the thief passed back to taunt the boy, it didn't recognize him. So he released his soul. Examine him for yourself."

"Of what use? He's back, isn't he?"

"It was a miracle, Baba Folarin," Mother says. "Dele was slumped like a sack."

Baba Ojo stuffs his mask and medicines into a bag. Mother waits in the doorway. He's halfway out when he stops and asks, "Any news on the ajogun?"

"What ajogun?" Baba Folarin asks.

"The one responsible for the army's nightmare."

"Who said it was an ajogun?"

"What else could it be?"

"If we are looking for a reason why termites fled a pot of soup, we should first check the pot's temperature before its contents."

Baba Ojo stares, confused.

Mother asks Baba Folarin to explain the proverb, and he replies, "Always check the surface before delving into what you cannot see — check the ordinary before the extraordinary."

Baba Ojo's jaw drops. He studies Baba Folarin for a heart-thumping while, and says, "It is odd to hear that from an amoye. Let others look for the ordinary. We need you for —"

"You need me for insight and advice. Now that the soldiers are back, they will sleep better. I advise that we move forward."

Baba Ojo stares at Baba Folarin, brows wrinkled, brain thinking. To my great relief, he cackles and stumbles out, laughing hysterically.

Alone with the oracle, he says to me, "You scared a lot of us tonight — kept us up when we should be asleep."

"I'm sorry."

"It is not your fault. Ojo loves to make ordinary things look extraordinary. So he can get a big reward."

I nod, keeping my gaze down. My toes won't stop their wriggling. Relax, Dele.

"They woke me up this late to see a boy whose soul has gone out of him. Well, I am here. Apparently, I am too late. How convenient."

He lifts my chin gently and looks into my eyes. "Who reincarnates in his old body?"

I smile shyly as he grins. He doesn't know, nor does he believe the medicine man.

I'm snorting inside and imagining things going back to normal. I must have tittered because it's all he needs to explode into a full-blown cackle. His laughter rings like music. I only smiled with relief, but he thinks I was laughing at Baba Ojo. The harder he laughs, the sharper a twitch jabs at my belly. Can't fight it anymore. I roll on the bed, clutching my ribs.