Blood of the Harmattan Moon

Accra didn’t watch, and that was the only reason I hadn’t killed anyone this century. The harmattan had scraped Osu raw. Redgold dust filmed my gallery windows, coated the mango trees, and settled on the boy slouching on my doorstep like a second, sickly skin. He was too thin, drowning in a second hand security uniform with MASLOC stitched over the pocket in fading thread, two sizes too big, the sleeves swallowing his wrists. His CV shook in both hands like it was the only thing keeping his spine straight. “We’re closed,” I said through the glass, and didn’t bother to unlock the door. He flinched at the sound of my voice. Good. Fear was honest. Fear was safe. Fear didn’t ask you to love it and then die in a war. “I—I saw the sign, Madam.” His Twi was thick, Ashaiman rough, syllables cut short like he expected to be interrupted. “Night security? The one that says ‘Apply Within’?” Mortal. Desperate. Repulsive. I’d fed on cleaner things than pity. I’d sworn off his kind after 1824. After Blood Law. After the Eclipse Court made me watch them take his head because loving a human was treason. Two hundred years, and the sound of that blade still lived in my molars. Mayflies. That’s all they were. They buzzed, bled, loved, and died before I learned their middle names. “Go away, boy.” I turned back to my desk, to the El Anatsui forgery I was appraising for a minister’s wife. “We don’t hire charity cases.” Thunder rolled. The sky outside was a flat, dumsorblue. No clouds. No rain. Just harmattan and heat. Yet thunder rolled again, closer, like it lived in my chest. The clay pot in my back room answered. A low, bonedeep hum. Sealed with cowrie shells and bloodinked Fawohodie — independence. My bed. My cage. My reminder that freedom was a lie told by people who’d never been crowned. “Please, Madam.” He still hadn’t left. Stupid thing. “My uncle... I can’t go back there. I’ll do anything. Clean. Fix things. I fixed your sign outside. It was crooked.” I looked past him. The “Night Security Wanted” board was, in fact, straight for the first time in three years. The wood was old, the nails rusted, but it hung level now. Annoyance pricked behind my teeth. Competence. The one human trait I couldn’t stand. Competence meant I’d notice when he died. Competence meant I’d remember his face. I unlocked the door and stepped out. Let him see me properly. I don’t wear makeup. Don’t need to. Two centuries had taught my face how to be still. My eyes are too dark in sunlight, my skin too cold in harmattan heat, my canines just a fraction too sharp when I speak. Humans usually backed up. Their sunsum knew predator before their brain did. He didn’t back up. He just swallowed and stared at my shoes. Black flats. Scuffed. Sensible. “What’s your name, boy?” “K Kofi, Madam. Kofi Addo.” His voice cracked on the Addo. Kofi. Born on Friday. Afiada. A day for bo, creation. The gods had a sense of humor, naming him for beginnings when he looked so close to ending. “You’re shaking, Kofi Addo.” I stepped closer, letting the scent of him hit me. Fearsweat and something else. Iron and rain. Like the air before a storm breaks over Lake Bosomtwe. Disgusting. Interesting. “Thieves don’t shake. Incompetent men do. Which are you?” “I’m not— I’m not either, Madam. I just...” He dragged in a breath. “I need the job. Please.” Please. The last man who said that to me had been kneeling. The Eclipse Court had called him a liability. A breach of Blood Law. I’d called him love. They took his head anyway, and the crown I didn’t want went dormant, and I ran. Old rage, cold and familiar, filled my mouth with the taste of copper. I snatched his CV. “I don’t hire men who beg.” I tore it, slowly, down the middle, listening to the rip. “I hire men who are useful.” His face crumpled. For a second, I thought he’d cry. Good. Cry and leave. Crying humans were easy. Crying humans didn’t stay. He didn’t cry. He just looked at the torn paper in my hands like I’d ripped his lungs out instead. Then, with hands that wouldn’t stop trembling, he bent and picked up both halves from the dust. He tucked them into his uniform pocket, careful, like the halves could still be saved. “The sign is straight now,” he whispered. “So... you won’t have to look at it crooked anymore. Even if you don’t hire me.” Thunder cracked hard enough to rattle the gallery glass. A car alarm started shrieking down Oxford Street. I should have thrown him into the street. Should have bared my fangs and watched him piss himself and run back to Ashaiman. Should have been the monster the Eclipse Court claimed I was. Instead, I said, “₵50 a night. Cash. You start at sundown. If I find you asleep, you’re gone. If I find you stealing, I’ll call the police. If I find you stupid, I’ll throw you out myself.” His head shot up. Hope was uglier than fear. It made his eyes too bright, his mouth try to smile. “Thank you, Mad—” “Don’t thank me, boy. You’ll earn every pesewa.” I turned my back on him, because looking at hope too long made my chest ache. “And don’t call me Madam. My name is Nana Akosua. You will use it when you speak, or you won’t speak.” A pause. Then, soft: “Nana Akosua.” He said it like the name was a prayer he didn’t deserve. Like it was something holy he could break by speaking. Foolish mortal, I thought, walking inside, letting the door slam behind me. You’ll quit by midnight. He didn’t. By sundown, he was oiling the front door hinge so it wouldn’t squeak. By 9pm, he’d swept the gallery floor without being asked. By 11pm, he’d made me tea — sobolo, hibiscus and ginger — and left it on my desk. I poured it into the fiddle leaf figire The plant would die before I admitted I wanted it. At 2:17am, I found him asleep on the gallery floor. He’d taken the gallery’s one throw pillow and his security cap, made a nest by the door like a stray. His cap was over his face. His breathing was too loud. Too human. Too alive. The clay pot in the back room hummed louder. I should have kicked him awake. Should have fired him. Should have dragged him outside and told him to never come back. I took the black coat from my office chair instead. Cashmere. A gift from a French diplomat I’d drained in 1993. I draped it over his thin shoulders. He sighed in his sleep. Didn’t wake. I stood there for one minute. Sixty seconds. Counting. Then I hated myself for every single one. This is how it starts, a voice said in my head. It sounded like me at 19, before the fangs, before the crown, before the Court. This is how you get another headless ghost. I went to my office. Locked the door. Outside, thunder rolled again. The sky was still clear. Foolish boy, I thought. Foolish me. He was still there at dawn.