The Mantis Bride of Modekun

Chapter 4

I never imagined a situation where a community is unwilling to give up its ajogun. Unthinkable as this is, the Seed, as they call it, is a cherished hexer.

I spend seasons honing my meditative gift. They yell at me, “You’re distracted. You’re not trying hard enough.” I miss how the palm trees around my hamlet rustle with hushed gossip when you pass, their slender trunks bending gracefully to observe you. I miss how, whenever I return, my cluster of hamlets rises in the distance through parted leaves, with the thatched roofs of huts blending into the forest skyline. And how my hamlet stands apart for its massive roof—a hill of twigs and straw that looks like a breeding ground for a bird colony: a nest of nests. It took tons of frustration with leaking ceilings to mount such a barrier. I miss how, as you draw nearer, the loom of palm trees fades, and the hamlet comes into full view, its striated pale-yellow eaves spilling over the front porch like a frozen waterfall. I miss how I would duck under the low entrance into a dim alleyway, darkness enveloping me for a moment too short before I shamble into an open-air courtyard. The alleyway blinds everyone except those who stand there, growing accustomed to the dimness.

I miss Shola.

I pine for her.

I think of her constantly and know she’s doing the same. My long absence may kill her—if it hasn’t already. This fear gnaws at me—the thought of her pain, a constant ache in my chest. We are one in every sense, not just in ecstasy.

"Focus," Badimun, my trainer, barks, "this is where you need to be."

My hosts fell trees and split them into firewood. They hunt and prepare their kills for a cooking fire, turning them into scrumptious roasts. My function is simply to eat, rest, and train.

Using wild animals as targets, I tune out my surroundings and tune into their emotions, experiencing a mix of trepidation and food cravings. Sometimes, it's s****l excitement—I have desired honey badgers, bush babies, hedgehogs, and porcupines the way I desire Shola.

One evening, Ajasin and his men return from the forest with a wild pig that grunts and kicks in their grasp, trying to break free. They light a fire, hog-tie it, and sharpen their knives. The agonized squeals of the pig having its throat slit are too much for me to bear. In a desperate attempt to ease its suffering, I do something rash: I spirit-tune and swap our emotional states. The pig’s anguish is paralyzing, even without physical pain.

I must have passed out from it because Ajasin is shouting in my face when I regain myself, his voice sharp and vehement:

"Don't you ever do that again, you hear me? You could have gotten yourself killed. And all our efforts would have been in vain!"

"What did you do that for? What were you thinking?" Adenikiyen chimes in.

"Your mind is both your strength and your weakness," Ajasin says, "something like that could stop your heart. Shock can kill."

At bedtime, Badimun and Adenikiyen (whom everyone calls ‘Adeniki’) recount the incident. They say I had screamed like I was being butchered. That was how they knew. Jibowu had rushed to me and knocked me unconscious. But despite all their wisdom, they are missing something: what it must be like for someone like me. They don’t know why I did it. They have no clue about my empathic shifts—the mood exchanges I used to only experience through touch. If they did, they would know that, with my newfound telepathy, I don’t need contact anymore to be vicarious. Overcome by grief, I craved the escape of self-sacrifice; I wanted to ease the animal’s suffering even if it meant dying in the act.

Being a telepath and an empath opens the door to the pain of the world and leaves you with deep, lingering sadness. Witnessing cruelty overwhelms you with so much sorrow that you despair. Yes, there are moments of joy, but the sorrow stays with you longer. These men don’t know what it's like to be me. Or what it's like for me to be without my wife—their sacred vocation forbids them from marrying. Or what it's like to be in a union where you both know what the other is feeling and have that taken from you. Or how the only thing that keeps me going is the sweet vision of Shola's eyes lighting up when she sees me a long way off.

My mind is their prisoner, not my body. Ajasin makes sure of this when he takes me to secluded places far from the noise of human habitation to talk. I’ve been to wildernesses where rainforests sprawl below us like living, breathing tapestries—where trees form a dense, interwoven canopy, their leaves shifting in the wind, the hum of insects and the distant rush of water a constant murmur.

With the wind howling around us, sharp and clean, carrying the voice of the wild, he would often say, “Ah. Relax and fill your lungs with air.” Here, in this timeless expanse of nature, where the world feels both ancient and immense, he discusses our mission—its sacredness—rehashing his worldview on the need to protect a mortal's ayanmo (his disposition for self-improvement, a prerequisite for reincarnation) and talks until it’s burrowed deep into my psyche.