Tears come to her eyes, spilling into the wrinkles of her dark skin. “It’s been so long,” she whispers. “I never thought I would feel the warmth of magic again.”
My lips part in surprise and I back up, unable to believe my ears. It can’t be. I didn’t think any maji survived the Raid.…
“You’re a maji?” Amari asks. “But your hair—”
Mama Agba removes her gele and runs her hand over her shaved head. “Eleven years ago I had a vision of myself visiting a Cancer. I asked her to get rid of my white hair, and she used the magic of disease to take it all away.”
“You’re a Seer?” I gasp.
“I used to be.” Mama Agba nods. “I lost my hair the day of the Raid, hours before they would’ve taken me away.”
Amazing. When I was a child, the few Seers who lived in Ibadan were revered. The magic they wielded over time helped every other maji clan in Ibadan survive. I smile, though in my heart I should’ve known. Mama Agba’s always had a sage sense about her, the wisdom of a person who’s seen beyond her years.
“Before the Raid,” Mama Agba continues, “I felt the magic sucked out of the air. I tried to conjure a vision of what would come, but when I needed it most, I couldn’t see.” She winces, as if reliving the pain of that day all over again. I can only imagine what horrible images play inside her mind.
Mama shuffles over to her netted windows and pulls the sheets closed. She stares at her weathered hands, wrinkled from years as a seamstress. “Orúnmila,” she whispers, invoking the God of Time. “Bá mi s0r0. Bá mi s0r0.”
“What is she doing?” Amari steps back as if Mama Agba’s words could cut her. But hearing true Yoruba for the first time in over a decade makes it too overwhelming for me to answer.
Since the Raid, all I’ve heard are the harsh stops and guttural sounds of Orïshan, the tongue we are forced to speak. It’s been so long since I heard an incantation, too long since the language of my people didn’t only exist in my memories.
“Orúnmila,” I translate as Mama Agba chants. “Speak to me. Speak to me. She’s calling on her god,” I explain to Amari. “She’s trying to do magic.”
Though the answer comes with ease, even I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Mama Agba chants with a blind faith, patient and trusting, just as those who follow the God of Time are meant to be.
As she calls on Orúnmila for guidance, a pang of longing stirs in my heart. No matter how much I’ve wanted to, I’ve never had enough faith to call on Oya like that.
“Is it safe?” Amari presses against the ahéré wall when veins bulge against Mama Agba’s throat.
“It’s part of the process.” I nod. “The cost of using our ashê.”
To cast magic we must use the language of the gods to harness and mold the ashê in our blood. For a practiced Seer, this incantation would be easy, but with so many years out of practice, this incantation is probably drawing on all the ashê Mama Agba has. Ashê builds like another muscle in our bodies; the more we use, the easier it is to harness and the stronger our magic becomes.
“Orúnmila, bá mi s0r0. Orúnmila, bá mi s0r0—”
Her breath turns more ragged with every word. The wrinkles across her face stretch tight with strain. Harnessing ashê takes a physical toll. If she tries to harness too much, she could kill herself.
“Orúnmila—” Mama Agba’s voice grows stronger. A silver light begins to swell in her hands. “Orúnmila, bá mi s0r0! Orúnmila, bá mi s0r0—”
The cosmos explodes between Mama’s hands with so much force that Amari and I are knocked to the ground. Amari screams, but my shout vanishes under the lump in my throat. The blues and purples of the night sky twinkle between Mama Agba’s palms. My heart seizes at the beautiful sight. It’s back.…
After all this time, magic is finally here.
It’s like a floodgate opening in my heart, an endless wave of emotion rushing through my entire being. The gods are back. Alive. With us after all this time.
The twinkling stars between Mama Agba’s palms swirl and dance with one another. An image slowly crystallizes, sharpening like a sculpture before our eyes. With time, I can make out three silhouettes on a mountainous hill. They climb with relentless fury, making their way through thick underbrush.
“Skies,” Amari curses. She takes a tentative step forward. “Is that … me?”
I snort at her vanity, but the sight of my cropped dashiki makes me stop. She’s right—it’s us and Tzain, climbing through the jungle greenery. My hands reach for a rock while Tzain guides Nailah by the reins to a ledge. We ascend higher and higher up the mountain, climbing till we reach the—
The vision vanishes, snapping to empty air in the blink of an eye.
We’re left staring at Mama Agba’s empty hands, hands that have just changed my entire world.
Mama’s fingers shake from the strain of her vision. More tears spill from her eyes.
“I feel,” she chokes through her silent sobs. “I feel like I can breathe again.”
I nod, though I don’t know how to describe the tightness in my own heart. After the Raid I truly thought I’d never see magic again.
When Mama Agba’s hands are steady, she grasps the scroll, desperation leaking through her touch. She scans the parchment; from the movement of her eyes, I can tell she’s actually reading the symbols.
“It’s a ritual,” she says. “That much I can see. Something with an ancient origin, a way to connect with the gods.”
“Can you do it?” Amari asks, amber eyes shining with a mixture of awe and fear. She stares at Mama Agba as if she were made of diamonds, yet flinches whenever she draws near.
“It’s not I who was meant to do this, child.” Mama places the scroll in my hands. “You saw the same vision as I.”
“Y-you cannot be serious,” Amari stammers. For once I agree with her.
“What’s there to argue?” Mama asks. “You three were on the journey. You were traveling to bring magic back!”
“Is it not already here?” Amari asks. “What you just did—”
“A fraction of what I could do before. This scroll sparks the magic, but to bring it back to its full power, you must do more.”
“There has to be someone better.” I shake my head. “Someone with more experience. You can’t be the only maji to escape the Raid. We can use your power to find someone for the scroll.”
“Girls—”
“We can’t!” I cut in. “I can’t! Baba—”
“I’ll take care of your father.”
“But the guards!”
“Don’t forget who taught you how to fight.”
“We don’t even know what it says,” Amari interrupts. “We cannot even read it!”
Mama Agba’s eyes grow distant like an idea’s taken hold in her head. She scurries over to a collection of her belongings, returning with a faded map. “Here.” She gestures to a spot in the Funmilayo Jungle, a few days east of Ilorin’s coast. “In my vision you were traveling here. It must be where Chândomblé is.”