As a kid, I once watched Baba haul Tzain from the depths of a lake, ripping him from the seaweed that had trapped him underwater. He pumped on his fragile chest, but when Baba failed to make him breathe, it was Mama and her magic who saved him. She risked everything, violating maji law to call on the forbidden powers in her blood. She wove her incantations into Tzain like a thread, pulling him back to life with the magic of the dead.
I wish Mama was alive every day, but never more than this moment. I wish the magic that coursed through her body ran through mine.
I wish I could keep Tzain and Baba alive.
“Please.” Despite everything I believe, I close my eyes and pray, just like I did that day. If even one god is still up there, I need her to hear me now.
“Please!” Tears leak through my lashes. Hope shrivels inside my chest. “Bring them back. Please, Oya, don’t take them, too—”
“Ugh!”
My eyes snap open as Tzain bursts out of the ocean, one arm around Baba’s chest. A liter of water seems to escape Baba’s throat as he coughs, but he’s here.
He’s alive.
I fall to my knees, nearly collapsing on the wooden walkway.
My gods …
It’s not even midday, and I’ve already risked two lives.
* * *
SIX MINUTES.
That’s how long Baba thrashed out at sea.
How long he fought against the current, how long his lungs ached for air.
As we sit in the silence of our empty ahéré, I can’t get that number out of my head. The way Baba shivers, I’m convinced those six minutes took ten years off his life.
This shouldn’t have happened. It’s too early to have ruined the entire day. I should be outside cleaning the morning’s haul with Baba. Tzain should be returning from agbön practice to help.
Instead Tzain watches Baba, arms crossed, too enraged to throw a glance my way. Right now my only friend is Nailah, the faithful lionaire I’ve raised since she was a wounded cub. No longer a baby, my ryder towers over me, reaching Tzain’s neck on all fours. Two jagged horns protrude behind her ears, dangerously close to puncturing our reed walls. I reach up and Nailah instinctively brings her giant head down, careful to maneuver the fangs curved over her jaw. She purrs as I scratch her snout. At least someone’s not angry with me.
“What happened, Baba?”
Tzain’s gruff voice cuts through the silence. We wait for an answer, but Baba’s expression stays blank. He gazes at the floor with an emptiness that makes my heart ache.
“Baba?” Tzain bends down to meet his eyes. “Do you remember what happened?”
Baba pulls his blanket tighter. “I had to fish.”
“But you’re not supposed to go alone!” I exclaim.
Baba winces and Tzain glares at me, forcing me to soften my tone. “Your blackouts are only getting worse,” I try again. “Why couldn’t you just wait for me to come home?”
“I didn’t have time.” Baba shakes his head. “The guards came. Said I had to pay.”
“What?” Tzain’s brows knit together. “Why? I paid them last week.”
“It’s a divîner tax.” I grip the draped fabric of my pants, still haunted by the guard’s touch. “They came for Mama Agba, too. Probably hitting every divîner home in Ilorin.”
Tzain presses his fists to his forehead as if he could smash through his own skull. He wants to believe that playing by the monarchy’s rules will keep us safe, but nothing can protect us when those rules are rooted in hate.
The same guilt from earlier resurfaces, squeezing until it sinks into my chest. If I wasn’t a divîner, they wouldn’t suffer. If Mama hadn’t been a maji, she’d still be alive today.
I dig my fingers through my hair, accidentally ripping a few strands from my scalp. Part of me considers cutting all of it off, but even without my white hair, my maji heritage would damn our family all the same. We are the people who fill the king’s prisons, the people our kingdom turns into laborers. The people Orïshans try to chase out of their features, outlawing our lineage as if white hair and dead magic were a societal stain.
Mama used to say that in the beginning, white hair was a sign of the powers of heaven and earth. It held beauty and virtue and love, it meant we were blessed by the gods above. But when everything changed, magic became a thing to loathe. Our heritage transformed into a thing to hate.
It’s a cruelty I’ve had to accept, but whenever I see that pain inflicted on Tzain or Baba, it cuts to new depths. Baba’s still coughing up salt water, and already we’re forced to think about making ends meet.
“What about the sailfish?” Tzain asks. “We can pay them with that.”
I walk to the back of the hut and open our small iron icebox. In a bath of chilled seawater lies the red-tailed sailfish we wrangled yesterday, its glistening scales promising a delicious taste. A rare find in the Warri Sea, it’s much too valuable for us to eat. But if the guards would take it—
“They refused to be paid in fish,” Baba grumbles. “I needed bronze. Silver.” He massages his temple like he could make the whole world disappear. “They told me to get the coin or they’d force Zélie into the stocks.”
My blood runs cold. I whip around, unable to hide my fear. Run by the king’s army, the stocks act as our kingdom’s labor force, spreading throughout all of Orïsha. Whenever someone can’t afford the taxes, he’s required to work off the debt for our king. Those stuck in the stocks toil endlessly, erecting palaces, building roads, mining coal, and everything in between.
It’s a system that served Orïsha well once, but since the Raid it’s no more than a state-sanctioned death sentence. An excuse to round up my people, as if the monarchy ever needed one. With all the divîners left orphaned from the Raid, we are the ones who can’t afford the monarchy’s high taxes. We are the true targets of every tax raise.
Dammit. I fight to keep my terror inside. If I’m forced into the stocks, I’ll never get out. No one who enters escapes. The labor is only supposed to last until the original debt is worked off, but when the taxes keep rising, so does the debt. Starved, beaten, and worse, the divîners are transported like cattle. Forced to work until our bodies break.
I push my hands into the chilled seawater to calm my nerves. I can’t let Baba and Tzain know how frightened I truly am. It’ll only make it worse for all of us. But as my fingers start to shake, I don’t know if it’s from the cold or my terror. How is this happening? When did things get this bad?
“No,” I whisper to myself.
Wrong question.
I shouldn’t be asking when things got this bad. I should ask why I ever thought things had gotten better.
I look to the single black calla lily woven into the netted window of our hut, the only living connection to Mama I have left. When we lived in Ibadan, she would place calla lilies in the window of our old home to honor her mother, a tribute maji pay to their dead.
Usually when I look at the flower, I remember the wide smile that came to Mama’s lips when she would inhale its cinnamon scent. Today all I see in its wilted leaves is the black majacite chain that took the place of the gold amulet she always wore around her neck.