Read Online Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor - Free Book Online

too.
    “Just making sure,” the man said.
    “After so many years, you still don’t trust me?” Chichi asked.
    “Efik women and girls are the craftiest charlatans,” he said.
    Chichi laughed. “My father was Igbo, remember, Mohammed?”
    “Eh,” the man said, handing her the book and five shiny silver chittim . To Sunny, these looked much more valuable than the dull copper ones. “Daughters are their mother’s children inevitably.” He motioned to Sunny. “The book’s for her?”
    “Yes. This is Sunny,” Chichi said, handing her the book. She put the chittim and the book in her purse and waved shyly at the man.
    He looked at Sunny for a long time and then said, “You should take her to my second wife for a divination reading.”
    “I know,” Chichi said. “Not today, though. Tell your wife to expect us sometime.”
    “She probably already knows when you’ll be coming.”
    They were starving and it was nearly two o’clock, so Sasha suggested that they go to Mama Put’s Putting Place. The small outdoor restaurant was quick. It was run by a fat woman named Mama Put, like many Nigerian women who owned food stands. She stood behind a counter collecting money and barking out orders to her employees. Sunny ordered a large plate of jallof rice and roasted spicy chicken and a bottle of orange Fanta. She paid with one silver chittim and Mama Put gave her back six small gold ones.
    They sat at a table in the shadiest part of the restaurant. The rice was nicely spicy, the chicken savory. As soon as her stomach was calmed, she said, “Okay, talk. I don’t care if you spit food or choke while you do it. Just keep explaining.”
    “Ahh!” Sasha exclaimed, his mouth hanging open. He’d just tasted his pepper soup. “Woohoo! That’s hot! That’s hot !” He swallowed, and then used his napkin to blow his nose. “Damn!”
    “Good, though?” Orlu asked.
    “Oh, yeah. Really good!” He coughed. “Wow. Gotta get used to the food here. Not even good soul food has anything on this!”
    “Mama Put uses tainted peppers,” Orlu said.
    “Those are peppers that grow near spill sites—places where they dump out used magical brews,” Chichi explained to Sunny. “They’re popular in Africa and India.”
    “Definitely not America,” Sasha added.
    Sunny filed this information away. “Okay. Well, come on. Tell me what you know.”
    Orlu stuffed a large chunk of palm oil-soaked yam into his mouth, then took a bite of his large butter cookie. Sasha, now sweating profusely, dove back into his pepper soup.
    “Fine, I’ll do it,” Chichi said, annoyed. “I’m the most knowledgeable, anyway.” Neither boy argued with her. “Let’s start from the start. So there are Leopard People. We’ve always been around, all over the world. In some countries, we’re called witches, sorcerers, shamans, wizards—things like that, I guess. So it’s not just black people.”
    Sunny took a deep breath. “Okay, I have to ask—do you all have anything to do with . . . child witches?”
    In some parts of Nigeria, people marked certain children as evil “witches.” These poor children were blamed for anything that went wrong, from illnesses to accidents to death. Eventually, the community would rise up and enact all kinds of punishment to get rid of their “magical powers.” Really, it was just a form of child abuse. Sunny had even seen documentaries and movies on child witches.
    “No,” Orlu firmly said. “We’ve got absolutely nothing to do with that. That’s just some twisted Lamb superstition gone very wrong. Those children are just normal innocent non-magical kids being scapegoated.”
    Sunny breathed a sigh of relief.
    “Anyway, being a Leopard Person is not genetic, really,” Chichi continued. “It’s spiritual . The spiritual affects the physical. . .. It’s complicated. All you need to know is that Leopard People tend to keep it in the family. But sometimes it skips and jumps, like with you. It sounds like