THE GHOST IN AFRICA

NOWHERE IN SIGHT

I had been quiet for the past five minutes. The others should be looking for me by now. I imagined Adaeze and Usman squabbling over whose fault it was that I had disappeared. Not that it mattered if they were worried or not, I didn’t really mind.

Maybe I just felt safer with the group than with Suliyat who seemed further and further away from reality with each glance in my direction. She didn’t seem to be as the others. I stared at her for a few seconds trying to figure out what made her appear so unique.

Her gown was long and flowing, made from African print materials. She had two long vertical tribal marks running down either side of her cheek that gave her the appearance of some witch from another part of the planet trapped in the body of a girl.

“How was it like when the darkness took you?” I asked, unable to rein my curiosity any longer.

“Who says the darkness took me?”

“Everyone. They had seen it happen. Or were you not taken by the darkness?”

Suliyat was perusing over scattered pieces of paper just like the one she had shown me earlier. She didn’t even bother lifting her head to spare me a simple glance. I floated closer to her, close enough to watch the expression on her face as she went over sheets and sheets colored drawings by a child.

“Suliyat” I called, immediately regretting it. I sounded like a scared little four year old.

“You’re not the ninth kid, Elias, haven’t you figured that out yet?” She replied.

I backed up a bit and thought it through. There was Adaeze, and Usman, and the boy in the superman pajamas, and Suliyat, and the triplets and the twin girls. That made them nine already. I was the extra. How come the others have not noticed yet? It couldn’t be. Usman appeared so meticulous that he would spot an oddity even if it were a million miles away.

“How come no one has noticed yet?”

Suliyat shrugged. “You ask the most stupid questions, you do know that right?”

“I didn’t ask a stupid question” I replied. “Usman is very meticulous, and Adaeze knows every person that has come in to this house up till date. They should have noticed that there is an oddity in the number of children.”

“Unless of course that’s what the house wants them to believe” Suliyat said.

“The house?”

“I’m not so sure, but I think so. You must have noticed that the house has a mind of it’s own right?”

“I have noticed, but my guess is different from yours.”

“Talk to be Einstein. What’s your big idea?”

I felt annoyed by Suliyat’s retort but decided to play it cool. There was no need stressing an issue I knew I was never going to win.

“My guess is, since they feel you have been taken by the house, I am the replacement for you.”

“The house doesn’t make that sort of mistakes, aboki”

That aboki thing again. “Stop calling me aboki” I retorted.

“Aboki, or what?”

I heaved. It wasn’t worth it after all.

“This is THE BOOK Usman speaks of right?”

“Yes”. She didn’t bat an eyelid.

This girl was so much like Usman she could pass for his twin and not be asked twice.

“Suliyat” I called again.

“Hm” Was she even listening to me at all?

I asked anyway. “What do you think happened to my parents?”

“Cabbages. They’re cabbages now.” She still didn’t give it a moment’s thought. I wondered what their home must have been like. Suliyat and Usman.

“What is that supposed to mean? You all say that like it’s supposed to have any meaning to me”

No response.

“I’m going to look for her”

She chuckled. “Good luck”. She didn’t even flinch at my bluff.

“Are you not going to try and stop me at least? Convince me I can’t survive out there on my own and offer to help me survive? That kind of stuff.”

This time she laughed. “You really watched too many movies, Aboki. Why would I?”

She still hadn’t looked at me, her attention still focused on the paper scattered before her.

“Jesus! How can you be so heartless? You…”

“Aboki, see” she shoved another piece of paper in my face. I was done with pictures. They first one she had shoved still scared me and one another. I brushed it aside.

“I don’t care about your pictures, Suliyat. I want my parents.”

“We’re out of time already. They belong to the house now.”

She stared at me for seconds and I almost melted under her strong gaze.

“We had better get going then.”

“We?”

“You’d never survive on your own.”

“Oh. So you do care.”

“I don’t”. Somehow I believed her. She glided left and we emerged just outside the wardrobe.

“You mean all along we were still in that same box?”

“Shhh”

The all too familiar sight of my room greeted my eyes. The walls were draped with wallpapers of my favorite superhero, The Batman. Although the lights in here were flickering, I still noticed a couple of clothes on my unmade bed. With Suliyat leading the way, we glided through the wall and into the lobby, heading for the stairs. A few months back, Daddy had developed an obsession for collecting medieval weaponry, real or fake. In no time, he had acquired quite a collection – A two headed axe and a Grecian shield, Aspis. Up until now, I had never thought of them as beautiful. The gold lights that flooded the stairs made it seem like some relic at a museum. I always thought it odd that he opted to hang the axe there without a glass case. He claimed it made cleaning and hands-on admiration possible.

Suliyat must have caught the relief on my face to see the light.

“Scared of the dark, Aboki?” I totally ignored her question, asking her one of mine.

“You know of the darkness?” I asked.

“You really know how to ask foolish questions.’’

“Sorry”

“It doesn’t matter. It is not the darkness you should fear. It’s what dwells inside it.”

I looked at her, my eyes pleading that she doesn’t end her story halfway

“Ever heard of La llorona?” she asked

I shook my head.

“She’s a wandering ghost. Hitchhikers they are called. A myth is told of how she killed her children and was cursed to forever roam looking for them. Somehow, I believe this wandering spirit is trapped in this house with us. She could harm us while we were still alive; separating us from our bodies and all that, but right now, all she can do is scare us.”

I was getting scared now.

“Are you being serious now?”

“Who knows?”

We were the stairs now, gliding down swiftly. Then I saw my parents. They were seating on their favorite ‘couple sofa’, watching a soap opera. “Thanks Goodness they’re okay” I almost exclaimed when I noticed their faces. They had weird smiles plastered to their faces, like Halloween cabbages, as they stared at the screen of the television. Daddy was a handsome man. Light skinned and clean shaven, with his ever obviousbiceps. I remember once, over dinner, when hearing Mummy say he looked too young to be a father of two. That was about four months ago, before I knew that Mummy was pregnant. Mummy was gaping at the television. Her weird smile had not dented her beauty at all. She had a black gown Daddy had always complained was too ‘improper’ for a five month pregnant woman, not mentioning her heels.

“They’ve been this way since yesterday”

“You knew?” my shock somehow transformed to anger. I faced Suliyat forgetting my fear for a split second. “All along you knew everything and yet you played dumb?”

“Don’t get all fired up, kid. I did tell you your parents were cabbages now, didn’t I?”

“And that was supposed to make any meaning?”

“Stop scolding like I did anything wrong, Aboki. You wanted your parents now you have them.”

“I what…? Now that does it! I’ve had enough of your bullshitting Suliyat. You might have been raised in a family devoid of love, but that doesn’t mean you should be as insensitive as this!” that was low, but I didn’t care. Had I met my parents earlier, maybe I would have been able to save them.

Suliyat said nothing; she merely pointed a finger in the direction of my parents, obviously taunting me.

I remembered the drawings she had shown me earlier, how the key hands of the second clock had started ticking the moment I had touched it. Some sort of countdown.

Suliyat was still unfazed at my apparent anger. She still pointed towards my parents.

“Their eyes are like the darkness” She whispered.

“Your grammar is all wrong” I whispered back, following her gaze.

Mom and Daddy were on their feet now, their eyes still woody. My parents were now zombies. They moved towards the lobby.

“Aboki, wait. We need to…” Suliyat whispered rather forcefully, but I was already after them.

Swoosh! I floated right through them.

“Mummy! Daddy!” Fruitless. They were now game characters taking orders from some controller I couldn’t see. As they both headed towards the stairs, I screamed, calling out to them as I glided through and through.

“Quit wasting your time, they can’t hear you.”

“You don’t get it, Suliyat. I just can’t lose my parents.

“Suliyat? You’ve met her?”

I turned to face a scrawny girl in a floral gown. Suliyat was nowhere in sight.