Later that night, her father said, “Fatima, don’t sulk.” He was beaming with glee. “That old box with your dried date in it, if you knew what Parliament Member Kusi paid for it. He’s a terrible man, but his money is good.”
“I think it was some kind of ancient artifact,” her mother said, laughing as she set bowls of rice and stew on the table. “Fatima, be proud you dug it up. Maybe you’ll be an archaeologist when you grow up and this will be the story you tell about how it all started.”
“I didn’t dig it up,” Fatima insisted. “My tree gave it to me.”
“You and that tree,” her father said, laughing.
“It was mine! Now it’s… it’s out there in the world like a lost dog or…”
“That’s enough, Fatima. I’ll buy you that new dress you wanted. You’ve helped the family so much.”
Fatima tried to hold her frown but she lost it at the thought of that wonderful blue dress Mrs. Doud had on display. It had flared sleeves and an embroidered collar. Fatima’s frown melted into a pout and then to a smirk.
“See?” her mother said, poking her in the side. “It’s good that we sold it.”
“What about me?” her brother Fenuku asked.
“Were you the one who found it?” their father asked. Fatima grinned as her brother sulked.
“I’ll buy you that tiny drone you wanted,” their father said.
Fenuku’s happiness was so brilliant that Fatima grinned even wider. As she bit into some roasted goat meat that her mother had prepared, though she still missed the seed, she felt better. It was for the best. Her father was right to sell the box. Fatima fell asleep quickly, her belly full as she clutched the plush brown rabbit her mother had bought her that evening. Still, she missed talking to the seed in the box. The plush rabbit didn’t seem to hear a word she said.
Then came the strange news late that night. She only heard about it because she’d woken up and been unable to go back to sleep. After tossing and turning for two hours, she’d gotten up to play with her plush rabbit. “You are very nice,” she told it as she sat on her bed. “But you’re not like my seed.” She paused, listening with her six-year-old ears.
“It’s not my fault,” the rabbit responded in a soft baby voice.
She smiled. “I know. But it doesn’t change the fact. Adults never understand.”
“Come on, let’s play spaceship,” the rabbit said.
And Fatima and the rabbit shot into space for a few minutes. The rebellion of playing with her new toy when she was supposed to be asleep gave her a bit of satisfaction. And for several minutes, she giggled amongst the stars. She froze, hearing footsteps outside her door. Then low voices. Frantic voices and then the sound of the front door opening and closing several times. Grasping her rabbit, Fatima jumped out of bed.
She peeked out and crept up the hallway to the living room. No one. But she could hear voices outside. She ran across the room and peeked out the open window. Her parents and her father’s best friend Kwesi were standing outside talking energetically.
“Are you sure?!” her father asked, clearly fighting to keep his voice down.
“I have a delivery man, Gustavus, who is stuck right now in traffic because the guy robbed Kusi right there in his car. They were stopped in the middle of the road!” Kwesi said. “A shiny black SUV. Gustavus showed me footage before the police arrived. You see the thief running away!”
“My goodness,” her mother said. “Well, Parliament Member Kusi certainly has a lot of enemies.”
Kwesi was shaking his head. “From my sources on the ground, it was his driver/bodyguard, that man you said was wearing the white kaftan. He took Kusi’s credit cards, bank card, their phones, that thing you sold them, he even took Kusi’s gold shoes.”
Her father snickered. “I can just imagine him standing there all alone on the road in his socks. Serves him right for all the people his policies have harmed.” He snickered harder. “I hope someone got photos.”
Fatima leaned against the wall, stunned. Robberies existed, but as her father liked to tell her brother whenever he went outside to hang around with friends, “You’re safe if you are not stupid. Know where to go and where not to go. And don’t run around at night.” But this man had just been at their house in broad daylight; her own father had willingly handed him her most prized possession. Now her box, the seed that had been gifted to her and no one else, was truly lost to the winds. Her father was still laughing when Fatima sadly slunk back to her room.
Fatima tried hard to forget the box with the mysterious seed inside. To put it all behind her. The politician never returned to demand his money back. That money bought a new truck to help haul shea fruit to the market, all her and her brother’s school fees were paid off for the next four years. It was a dream come true, really.
Fatima was young and happy and if that had been that, she’d have forgotten the gift her favorite tree had given to her. Children heal quickly. However, that was not that.
CHAPTER 3
MOONRISE
Sankofa forgot her real name on the day that she lost everything. She was seven years old, a year older than she’d been when the box with her seed inside it had been sold and then lost. She’d been feeling hot all day.
High up near the top of the shea tree that grew beside her family’s house, she’d been sitting in her favorite spot reading her favorite book, World Mythology. She’d read the book many times in the last year and today she was pretending to be the goddess Artemis and that her tree was a dryad. She tucked her book in the crux of a branch and climbed to the top of the shaggy tree. She gazed over the leaves. She could see the Zayaa Mosque from here. She could see her brother playing football in the field with some boys. She could see far and wide, possibly beyond her town of Wulugu. She’d never been outside of Wulugu, so she wasn’t sure, but she liked believing what she saw was beyond it. The very idea of seeing beyond where she’d physically been made her feel powerful.
A wave of heat shivered across her skin and she felt a little weak. She looked down; it was a long way to the ground. Her mother was inside preparing dinner. Her father was across the dirt road visiting with friends. Neither of them liked her climbing the tree, even though the tree’s fruits had been picked last week.
“I’m strong like Artemis,” she whispered, looking down. This usually worked. But not today. She didn’t even think it would work if she pretended to be the thunder gods of Shango, Amadioha or Zeus.
She dropped her book to the dirt and then climbed down, slowly, lightly resting her bare feet on the low oddly growing branch that made climbing the tree possible. She paused for a second as another wave of heat and light-headedness passed over her. As soon as it was gone, she moved faster. Best to get down before the weakness came back. A few feet from the ground, she jumped, landing silently.
She saw something red run off and shot a glance toward it just in time to see a flick of the animal’s tail as it bolted around the house. She giggled. She’d seen the red-furred creature many times now, hanging around the tree. It caught and ate mice, lizards and other small creatures who lived amongst the shea trees, but it also liked to eat the shea fruit from her tree when they fell. Once or twice, she’d even seen it climb and sleep in the tree.