Before Ify can get out a tired “Hello Amy,” the frantic voice on the other line bursts into her head. “It’s—it’s Peter,” Amy stutters. “He . . . he tried to hurt himself and we found him in his bedroom and the knife was on the floor and there was just blood all over the sheets and oh my God, what is going to happen? I’m so scared, why would he do this, Ify, please please please come home.”
The rest of Amy’s words turn into a dull hum, a buzz, as though Ify’s ears have been stuffed with gauze. She knows it is foolish to think this, knows that she doesn’t possess this degree of power, knows that she wouldn’t have been as malicious in handling it even if she did, but she cannot help but whisper to herself, “What have I done?”
CHAPTER
14
Every day I am returning to Lagos to look for Xifeng.
I am moving like thing that can only live in shadows. I am hiding in alleys between buildings, and is tough sometime because buildings in Lagos too close together. And there is being no order to the streets, so it is being easy to be lost. But in my head, I am mapping my way so I am knowing what streets I have search before. But is difficult because I am thinking that tomorrow Xifeng is standing on street I am walking on today, so I am looking and looking.
I am thinking the best time to see her is being in daytime because one time I am looking for her at night and man is looking at me like something to eat, like suya wrapped in old piece of paper. And he is licking his lip and coming to me, and I am breaking his arm but I am not killing him because Xifeng is not wanting that and I am not child of war anymore. I am only doing bad thing to protect people. Sometime I am doing bad thing to protect me, but I am never killing to protect me because I am not as important as Xifeng. I am knowing that she is leader of army of rememberings and I am soldier, and something in my brain is telling me that soldier must do everything to finish mission even if everything is meaning I am dying.
Sometime when I am thinking of Xifeng, I am also thinking of man who we are calling Commandant and who is being like father to us and who, when he is first giving me helmet and gun and making me to be carrying ammo crate, is knocking on it and saying, “I saved your life. I saved your life. I saved your life.” And, when we are preparing to storm bridge, me and other child of war, he is making us to be singing and dancing before, and as we are singing and dancing, he is pressing his ear to our chest to be hearing our heartbeat, and if he is liking what he is hearing he is choosing you to fight that day. And I am thinking of how he is always making me to be looking into his eyes and how there is silent pledge happening between us. I am making promise that I will be protecting him and killing enemy. So when I am looking in Xifeng eyes, I am making promise that I will be protecting her and killing enemy.
I am also looking for Xifeng in daytime because police come at night and they cause bad thing to happen. They are stopping people for no reason and sometime they are shooting and sometime there are drone in sky watching all thing and is too many thing looking for me. So I am spending night under bridge where no police come.
Under bridge is all shadow and people moving like me, from shadow to shadow. If there is drone, it is drone that is spraying the water with thing that is killing mosquito, then leaving. It is not drone that is shooting us.
Many people here are sleeping in tent, and there is being drug in the air that they are putting in their face, and they are walking like thing that is dead and alive at the same time. I am not liking this because dead thing is supposed to be dead and alive thing is supposed to be being alive. But even though people are sometime being mean to each other, they are also being kind to each other. They are sharing blanket sometime and they are sharing tent sometime and sometime they are coming back wet because they are going to beach and splashing in water and laughing.
I am seeing people leaning against pillar under bridge and closing eye to sleep, and I am doing the same and it is feeling familiar to me. In my brain I am seeing Enyemaka, and she is showing me how she is being given life and how it is because someone is spitting nanobots into her ear, and when I am seeing people who are looking dead, I am wanting to spit in their ear, but then I am remembering Xifeng telling me that this is not what I am supposed to be doing with people, and she is laughing when she is telling me this.
I am remembering time when I am sleeping standing up, and when I am remembering that I am remembering crawling under razorwire and I am remembering holding gun as big as me and I am remembering climbing wall and running and saying YES, SAH very loudly to Big Man and this is me being soldier, I know.
When I am pretending to be sleeping even though I am still standing, my mind is walking other places like it is finding rememberings on its own. And I am inside a mech that is rattling jagga-jagga all around me, because I am flying fast fast through the sky and this mech is old and is being rusty because of radiation in the air around me, and I am pulling trigger and bullet is coming from my mech’s gun like BUDUBUDUBUDUBUDU and stitching enemy mech I am chasing like TKTKTKTKTKTK. And is all katakata, but it is like I am not really seeing or hearing or smelling. My body is moving without me. It is pressing button on console and it is pulling gearshift, and it is like my mind is vanishing. It is feeling like lying in warm sand and letting water wash me, and it is feeling like being in womb and I am remembering Xifeng hugging me. That is what it is being like when I am remembering flying. It is feeling like I am being hugged by someone who is loving me.
But I am remembering other thing too. I am remembering riding in jeep hovering above the ground like a bird flying low, and big leaf—too big—is poking through the windows SWISH SWISH against my face, and it is annoying the man driving and the man next to him but I am child and I am liking the feel of big leaf SWISH SWISH on my face. And I am remembering that I can make hologram out of my rememberings, and when other people under the bridge are sleeping, I am making hologram and I am watching and it is glowing blue and sometime red and sometime it is full of color, and I am knowing that this is my life. Leaf making SWISH SWISH against my face. Smelling beans and okra that commander is eating at table in command tent. Learning that I am not needing to eat or to sleep because I am not like normal child.
Then, I am seeing white ceiling, and when I am getting up in vision I am seeing that I am lying on bed and I am asking what am I and I am being told that I am having all of her gifts and none of her pain and I am not knowing who “her” is, but I am seeing camp and I am seeing other girl who is looking like me and I am seeing one smiling at me and she is having small thing like bee come out of her hair and swim around her head like cloud of mosquito and she is smiling at me and I am thinking that I am smiling at her too, and then I am in spacecraft and I am floating and this girl is floating and we are touching and we are putting lip together and she is humming against me her whole body is humming against me and I am seeing camp again and I am seeing beach and I am seeing sun touch water and turn all around me to gold and I am looking down and I am seeing girl sitting next to me and she is pointing at tiny shiny things in the sky and I am following her finger and I think I am smiling again and I am calling her Ify.