I swiped otjize from my face and did the same. Then I turned and ran off. I didn’t look back until I was about to crest the first sand dune. She still stood there, beside the gray stones where I’d found the edan. I wondered what she’d make of the plant growing there.
Early crabs were sneaky and quick, so my parents weren’t surprised when I returned empty-handed. I was no longer that angry with my parents, so when I took the edan to my father two days later, I didn’t have to stifle my emotions. I didn’t tell him about the plant growing on it or where I found it. It’s the only time I’d lied to my father. I told him I’d bought the thing at the market from a junk seller.
“Who was selling it? Which junk man?” my father anxiously asked. “I need to talk to him! Look at this thing it’s—”
“I don’t know, Papa,” I quickly said. “I wasn’t really paying attention. I was so focused on it.”
“I’ll go to the market tomorrow,” my father said, pulling at his scruffy beard. “Maybe someone will have another.” He took it from me, his eyes wide. “Beautiful work.”
“I think it does something that—”
“The metal,” he whispered, staring at the object. He looked at me, smiled and apologetically patted my head. “Sorry, Binti. You were saying?”
“It’s okay. What about the metal?”
My father brought it to his teeth and bit the tip of one of the points. Then he touched it with the tip of his tongue and brought it so close to his left eye that he nearly touched his eyeball. He held it to his nose and sniffed. “I don’t know this type of metal,” he said. He smacked his lips. “It leaves a taste on the tongue, like when you taste the salts that gather on the Undying Trees during dry season.”
The Undying Trees grew all over Osemba. They had thick rubbery wide leaves and trunks spiked with hard thorns that had lived longer than any generation could recall. Their ancient roots were so strong and they snaked so deeply beneath Osemba that the town’s waterworks were not only built around them, they were built along them. The Undying Trees led the founders of Osemba to the only drinkable source of water for a hundred miles.
Nevertheless, the trees were strange. They vibrated so fast during thunderstorms that they made a howling sound, which permeated the city. During dry season, they produced salt on their leaves, which was used by healers to cure and treat all sorts of ailments. Life salt, it was called. The device I’d found tasted like life salt.
“It’s an edan,” my father said and I’d nodded like I’d never heard the word before. He explained to me that “edan” was a general name for devices too old for anyone to know their functions, so old that they were now more art than anything else. That’s what my father wanted it for, as a piece of art to brag about to his friends. But I insisted on keeping it for myself and because he loved me, he let me.
Now here I was walking into the desert with the Desert People. How different my life would have been if my parents had just let me dance.
Lies
By sunup, I knew the Desert People had lied.
“Can you reach your Meduse?” my grandmother asked me. We’d walked through the remainder of the night and morning. Now, it was approaching midday and we stopped until night. We stood in the shade of one of the camels, some of the others bringing out dried dates and switching on noisy capture stations to collect water. I was nearly asleep on my feet, barely able to keep my eyes open. My grandmother’s question woke me right up.
“Reach?” I asked. My eyes met Mwinyi’s, who sat a few yards away crunching on what looked like dried leaves.
“Yes, speak to it,” my grandmother said.
“I don’t know,” I muttered, looking out into the desert. “Maybe? Do I really—”
“Tell it that we will bring you back when we bring you back,” my grandmother said. “Our village is three days’ walk away.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell them this before? Why didn’t you tell me?” I’d wondered why we were still walking when they’d promised to have me back by nightfall. It had been easier to stay in denial. I groaned. I’d gone from one extreme to another, days confined on a ship, then not even twenty-four hours later, days walking through open desert.
“Sometimes it’s best to tell people only what they need to hear,” my grandmother said.
“Can’t someone go back and tell them? I don’t know if I can tell Okwu anything detailed,” I breathed, my heart starting to beat the talking drum. “What if I can’t do—”
“It’s up to you, Binti,” she said, dismissively. She spoke over her shoulder as she walked to two women who’d just set out a large bowl of dried dates. “You do it or you don’t.”
My grandmother wasn’t offering me any real choice. If I didn’t come home tonight, my family would fly into panic. Again. For the second time, they would be forced to deal with my disappearance and the fact that they couldn’t do a thing about it. My mother would get terribly quiet and stop laughing, my father would work too hard in his shop, my siblings would feel an ache akin to one caused by the death of a loved one. Family. I had to reach Okwu.
However, I still didn’t know much about my okuoko. I didn’t understand how they affected me. How they connected me to the Meduse, especially Okwu. Why I could feel sensation through them. Why they writhed when I was furious. What I knew was that I could sense Okwu when I was on Math City and he was in Weapons City, which were hundreds of miles away and that I had once had a very weak but definite sense that the Meduse Chief who was planets away was checking up on me.
I could wiggle my okuoko on purpose, but I couldn’t explain to anyone how I did it. It was like moving my nostrils, I just could. In this way, while petting the shaggy fur of the camel beside me, I reached out to Okwu. I thought about it, willed it. Seconds passed. Nothing. I sighed and glanced at my grandmother, who was watching me. I looked up into the blue sky and spotted a ship from afar that was leaving the atmosphere. A mere speck. The launch port was maybe a hundred miles away. I wondered if it was Third Fish. No, I thought. Third Fish is giving birth soon.
I shook my head. Focus, I thought. Okwu. I imagined the tent my father had set up outside the Root. How it was full of the gas the Meduse breathed. Okwu was the first of its kind on Earth since the Khoush-Meduse Wars. Okwu doing whatever Okwu did in its tent when it avoided interaction with any of my family or other curious Himba. And I softly slipped my mind into a set of equations that reminded me of space and movement across small lengths of it.
Now I reached out again, my hand flat on the camel’s rump, slowly moving up and down with its steady breathing. I strained to reach Okwu and it realized this and reached for me. I felt it grasp and suddenly I felt Okwu’s mind. Sweat poured down my face and I felt all things around me tint Okwu’s light blue.
Binti, I felt Okwu say through one of my okuoko. It vibrated against my left ear. Where are you? You are far.
In the hinterland, I responded. I won’t be back tonight.
Do I need to come get you?
No.
Are you well?
Yes. The village is just far. Days away.