Read Online Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna - Free Book Online

and pulled out her possessions, sat on the floor surrounded by strewn clothing. Other times she slept. We took over her duties, cooking and carrying the food down to the plantation workers. We told nobody, except Pa Foday. We said she suffered from the fever, though it was not the time of year. Between us no mention was made of it; we dared not look at each other. Instead we shared out the tasks, uncomplaining. For once, no bickering.
    But the snuff gave us away. We did not have our mother’s special knowledge of the precise amounts, the balance between the ingredients. I carried it to Madam Bah, who coughed for a long time, then stepped out from behind her counter and followed me to our room. We, my mother’s daughters, waited outside. After a short while Madam Bah went to Ya Namina’s house next to the mosque, and together they returned and went into mama’s room.
    From that day we ate our meals in Ya Namina’s house.
    Mama was sick. Nobody could heal her. So she went in search of a cure of her own. The door to her room left standing open. Dressed only in an old gown. Hair uncovered and loose, standing out at every angle, like the dolls we made with sticks and goats’ hair. She rose from her bed and walked out of the village.
    When a person dies our people cry and sing. The drums sound. The house is home to many visitors. When my mother went awaythere was silence. My father’s house was still. The silence slid down the mud walls. Great drops stretching slowly from the eaves, smothering the thoughts that hung in the air. It clotted every crevice. It rose in the back of my throat when I tried to ask about my mother, and threatened to make me retch. It filled the house until we could no longer open our mouths for fear of drowning in it.
    My father, in order to avoid being drowned, went away on business with his sixth wife.
    And this same time was when the dancing stopped. The steps followed mama when she walked out of the village. She went, leaving behind everything, even her name. So I wrapped it in longing and kept it for her.
    Clouds spread over the sky. Overripe fruit drops from the trees at night and morning brings the smell of wet earth and the sweet stink of rotting flesh. The river is dammed. The water rises. After dark, house-children — black-eyed geckoes — feast on swarms of mosquitoes.
    I was sharing a plate of rice with my sisters at the back of Ya Namina’s house when mama’s ghost walked back into the village. Three people saw her with their own eyes. Salia Bangura and his woman had argued and he was late that morning. She walked past them both without a word of greeting. The alpha was shaving with a piece of broken mirror on the steps of the mosque. Over his shoulder he saw the figure of a woman, dripping with dew. Afterwards he pointed at the shattered glass, dropped in fright. Old man Bangura, spoiling for a fight he could win, began an argument over whether a ghost would possess a reflection. Nobody could agree. What they did agree on was this: spirit or mortal man, it walked straight up the main road towards our father’s house.
    We heard them shout and dropped our plate. We ran with greasy mouths and fingers. But by the time we reached the place where the three of them stood with open mouths, she had vanished.
    The next time I see her for myself.
    Up the river mangroves crowd the banks. There we like to dive into the muddy waters and pull oysters from the tangled roots. Below, the river spreads out, glistening green, weed streaming just below the surface like a witch’s hair. Here boulders are scattered across the sand, black pearls at a Tuareg woman’s throat. It is morning, raining. Drops of rain splash on to the water, as though on to a scalding pan. Steam rises from the bottomless below. Insects race along the surface of the water, escaping on pinpoint feet. It was once my favourite place. I used to come here and dig fish out of the mud, fish with