Chichi has not said a word since they left Joey’s house.

  Neither has Ama, to be fair. At first, it is because she is on high alert, her every faculty operating at a hundred and ten per cent. Every passing car is a potential threat, every staring pedestrian an axe wielding psychopath. Until now, she never realized how bright the city is, how steeped in light pollution. Her heart rate only slows down somewhat when the honking and babel of central Accra are finally replaced by the fluid whooshing of passing countryside. Ama welcomes the lonely road, grateful that its lampposts do little to dilute the surrounding darkness.

  When Ama begins to feel safer, she asks Chichi if she is alright. Her sister does not respond, staring straight ahead at the oncoming blur of asphalt. She has asked no questions, demanded no explanations. Ama cannot imagine why. Although to be fair, she herself has offered no answers. She wouldn’t know where to start. At one point, Ama tries resting her hand on Chichi’s head and she flinches. Ama keeps her hands to herself after that, and their trepidations soak in the silence.

  Exhaustion swaddles Ama like a heavy blanket as she drives. Exhaustion and another feeling she cannot quit place; it suffocates her heart and numbs her thinking, washing out the colors of the world into shades of grey. She wants nothing more than to curl up in the backseat. Not to sleep.

  To weep.

  Ama almost envies her cousin who, last she checked via the rearview mirror, is still unconscious in the backseat. The silence isn’t helping, Ama decides. She reaches for the dial on the radio.

  “WHILE OFFICIALS CANNOT CONFIRM THE CAUSE OF THE ATYPICAL SPOTS ON THESE SATELLITE IMAGES—"

  Ama fumbles desperately for the volume dial.

  “—Scientists are quick to point out that there is no shortage of atmospheric anomalies in extreme climate regions like Atacama, the Arctic Circle, and with this latest mystery, the Sahara. Investigations are ongoing—”

  She changes the channel.

  “And I say-uh! Unto you-uh!” A loud evangelical preacher. His words are almost drowned by the background of fervent ‘amen’s. “It is appointed unto man to die once-uh! And then…judgment!”

  She changes the channel.

  Throbbing bass. “Shakey, shakey, shake that thang girl, shake that thang! Shake that thang girl, shake that—!”

  Ama switches off the radio, reeling.

  “Where are we going?” Chichi asks. Her voice is soft and subdued, but it catches Ama off guard anyway.

  “We’re eh, on the Dodowa road,” Ama says, sparing a quick glance at her sister.

  Chichi isn’t looking at her. “I know that. Where are we going?”

  Is there an edge to her voice, or is Ama imagining it? “I don’t know yet. Wherever is safest for now.”

  That isn’t entirely true. Ama is toying with the idea of taking them to Nana’s. Nana is an old family friend. ‘Old’ in both senses of the word. ‘Friend’ in the loosest definition. Nana is also a witch; the only beyifo Ama knows besides Mama Wu. Well, the only beyifo depending on what Mansa has to say for herself. Either way, Ama hasn’t decided yet if seeking Nana’s help is a good idea. Nana can be…abrasive. But she doesn’t live too far away, in the mountains some forty minutes from here.

  Chichi doesn’t speak again for the next five minutes or so. Then: “Who are you?”

  “What?”

  “I mean, what are you?” she asks.

  “I’m your sister.”

  “You know what I mean,” she says, and then after some hesitation adds, “Are you…human?”

  Ama looks at her again. This time, Chichi is staring wide-eyed back at her. “Of course I’m human.”

  “You broke your neck and lived.”

  “Okay, I’m mostly human.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  Ama sighs and returns her eyes to the road. The steady purr of the engine fills the silence as she tries to piece her thoughts together. But there is no version of her story that will not sound insane.

  “I’m beyisafo,” Ama mumbles.

  “What?”

  “Beyisafo,” she says louder.

  “No, I heard you the first time. Why does that sound familiar?”

  “Probably because it sounds like beyifo, which most people are already familiar with,” says Ama.

  “So,” Chichi says uncertainly, “you’re a witch?”

  “A special kind of witch. Beyifo are born with their magic, and if they grow powerful enough, they can lend some of it to others, creating beyisafo.”

  “Which means what?” Chichi says. “That you can do magic too?”

  “Sort of,” says Ama. “Beyie can mean different things, depending on who’s using it. For beyisafo, having beyie usually means we’re a lot faster and stronger than everyone else—”

  “How strong?” Chichi cuts in.

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  Ama is starting to feel a little cornered. “On you, the beyifo who turned you, the beyie they gave you, how long you’ve been beyisafo, shit, how much sleep you had the night before… One time in the middle of a terrifying fight, I panicked and lifted a whole ass pickup truck over my head. I’ve never managed to do it again since then. It isn’t an exact science. And what beyisafo can do compared to beyifo is pretty limited anyway. We’re just servants at the end of the day.”

  “Servants that do what?” Chichi pushes.

  “That assist our beyifo,” Ama says. “Whatever form that takes. Although most of us are trained specifically to…” She pauses to take a deep breath. “To fight demons.”

  Ama waits for Chichi’s reaction. Chichi says nothing for several beats. “Demons?” she finally says.

  “Or kakai as we call them,” Ama adds. “The word ‘demon’ can be a little…dicey for historical reasons. Let’s not get into that right now.” She pauses again, leaving her sister room to freak out.

  But Chichi is eerily silent.

  “I’m so sorry, Chi,” Ama says. “I can’t even begin to imagine what this must feel like, dumping this on you all at once.”

  “So, that girl back at Joey’s who attacked us,” Chichi says, ignoring her concerns. “She was a kakai?”

  “Hemmaa? No. She’s beyifo.”

  “Then why was she trying to kill you?”

  No, she was trying to kill you, Ama thinks. But she can’t tell Chichi that. Not yet. She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you did something to make the other witches angry?”

  “Maybe. I’m going to figure this all out, don’t worry.”

  “Okay,” Chichi says softly.

  Ama turns to look at her again. Chichi has been remarkably calm so far. She is taking this a lot better than Ama thought she would. But Chichi meets her gaze, and there is a zombielike quality there that buries Ama’s cautious optimism. That isn’t ‘calm’ she’s looking at; that’s years of unavoidable therapy cumulating behind her eyes. In this moment, all Ama wants to do is reach over and pull her little sister into her arms. All she wants is to—

  Mansa swings in between them screaming, “Ama look out!”

  Ama whips her eyes ahead. There’s a figure in the road.

  The squeal of halted tires pierces the night. Ama and Chichi’s upper bodies lurch forward, while Mansa is pitched out from the backseat to slam her face into the dashboard. It feels like they are stopping forever, the screech of burning rubber getting higher and higher. And then, Ama and Chichi are thrown back into their seats and the van is at a standstill.

  Ama’s pulse is racing, her hands shaking. “Is everyone alright?” she asks.

  Chichi is wearing her seatbelt and, other than her rattled panting and vicious grips on the car seat, she seems fine.

  Mansa was not so lucky. She is wedged between the front seats, swearing as blood dribbles down her nostrils to pool into her hands.

  Ama stares at her aghast.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay,” Mansa says shakily, again and again like a short-circuiting robot.

  Ama glares at the one who forced her to brake. The minivan fell short of mowing the person over by only a few paces, and yet they do not seem shaken. But Ama’s anger begins to twist into fear as she takes a proper look at the obstruction. Whoever they are, they are tall. Unnaturally so, pushing at least seven feet. They are wearing a cloak, with a hood that looks to be covering some kind of clumsy headgear.

  Ama sticks her head out of the window. “What the hell, man!” She tries to sound indignant, but her voice is already trembling. And then she feels it.

  The being’s sunsum. Like a mingling of freezing cold and scorching wind, it radiates from them in rhythmic, overwhelming waves. It is furious static on her skin, raising goosebumps across her back. But at the same time, this sunsum feels…hollow somehow. More like the absence of something, than the presence of it. Ama has never experienced an aura so sinister.

  She breaks into an instant sweat.

  The being throws off his cloak to reveal the body of a man, with only a black and white patterned cloth wrapped around his waist. His massive chest and veiny muscles are on full display, his skin darker than onyx and just as burnished. And attached where a man’s head should be is the head of a goat, with horns arching out of his forehead. His fur is shaggy and luminescent white. His nose, dripping and moist. Flames dance out of his eyes.

  Chichi screams.

  The creature lets out a booming, unholy bleat.

  “Shit.” Ama throws the gear into reverse and sinks the pedal. The minivan roars backwards; their bodies lurch forward. Mansa plants her palms on the dashboard to keep from christening its surface with her face again.

  “What is that thing?” Chichi cries.

  “An arch demon, a kakaihene—” Mansa begins.

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  “A goat-man-atrocity? Who cares!” Ama says, as the figure in the road diminishes with distance. “Whatever he is, I’m not letting him anywhere near, what the…” Her words catch in her throat.

  The goat-man has leapt through the air, and is descending upon them like a predatory bird. He crashes onto the windshield, bouncing the entire van with his weight and casting a web of cracks across the glass.

  Yanking on the handbrake, Ama jerks the wheel and pitches the van into a wild spiral. Everything in the van is tossed with the whiplash; Chichi’s head smacks the window, Mansa is tossed back into the back. But the goat-man is flung off the windshield, and that is all Ama needs.

  Ama shoves the door open, times the van’s spin, and launches out of her seat, materializing her witch-arm mid-air. She streaks down towards her attacker, who is just completing a lateral spin to touch down.

  She strikes. Metal meets metal with a resounding clang, yielding sparks. The recoil throws Ama and the goat-man apart, and they each skid to a stop.

  Ama glares at the twin hatchets in her enemy’s clutches, each nearly the size of her own body. She forgot arch demons could summon weapons too. She has heard of these evolved variants of kakai, but has never actually fought one. As far as experience goes, Selasi is the most skilled fighter she has faced. And that was just a sparring session. Will that be enough?

  “Give me the girl,” says the goat-man in Akan. His voice is strangely melancholy, a sonorous vibrato. “Or I will split you apart and water the fields with your blood.”

  “Do you guys rehearse these lines?” Ama says. “Because you have no idea how many threats I hear exactly like that.”

  The goat-man shifts his bare feet apart, bending over as one would before a sprint.

  Ama does not see when he moves. He is suddenly in front of her, displacing the very air around him, his hulking mass an existential threat, a sonic boom in his wake. She spins out of the way just in time, but the shockwave alone throws her off balance. Terror swallows her whole as she tries to regain her footing.

  Chunks of asphalt break loose as the goat-man touches down in a wild slide, twisting around, poising to change trajectory. Ama blinks, and he is already above her, hurtling down with the hatchets drawn over his head.

  She leaps out of his way as he crashes down, erupting stone and dust. Before she can fall back to earth, he flings a hatchet at her. She throws her head back and the hatchet whooshes past her face, half an inch from her nose. And now that her eyes are in the sky, she sees the goat-man is already above her again.

  He slams his free hand into Ama’s face, clamping his digits around her head like an orange. His grip is vicious. Ama releases her blade-staff to rake at his fingers, but she might as well be trying to unfurl a steel trap. They drop like a stone as he brings her smashing back down into the ground.

  Pain tears through Ama’s body as she fights to stay conscious. The goat-man is bearing down on his palm, focusing the full weight of his upper body on her face. She can’t breathe, can’t scream. Her left arm throws useless blows at his chest, his jaw, his neck. His grip on her skull grows tighter still. Her right arm flails at her side, her hand clawing at empty air as she desperately wills her witch-arm to return.

  The double-ended staff whips in from the surrounding darkness and shoots for her wriggling fingers. Without even needing to spare a glance, the goat-man swats at it with his other hatchet, knocking it off course. Ama throws her hand again, locking the staff in place mid-air before it can stray too far. With a clench of her fist, she commands it back, this time veering it towards the goat-man’s head. The staff ricochets off his horns with a dull clack. He grunts like it was a mere fly.

  Ama can feel him multiplying his effort to crumple her head. She can hear the first cracks of her cranium caving in. The asphalt beneath her starts to give way. Her skull is about to break.

  Placing a hand on his torso, she traces his chest with her fingertips, trying to pinpoint a heartbeat. High above them, her witch-arm flips around to reorient itself, till its piercing end is aimed squarely at the goat-man’s back.

  Ama summons.

  The staff streaks down like lightning, meeting the goat-man’s hide with an ear-splitting clang and a fountain or sparks. But it doesn’t even break his skin. Ama summons harder. The staff spins into a high-pitched drill to grind against his endless-midnight flesh. A fountain of sparks becomes a waterfall of blinding, incandescent rain, the sound excruciating. But the witch-arm will not break through.

  “Die with dignity,” the goat-man bleats, turning its head to the side so it can focus one beady eyeball into Ama’s soul. Ama can see the sparks pouring down around them reflected in his eye, as her vision starts to fade. He rasps: “It is the least you can do.”

  Ama’s consciousness is hanging by a thread when a dozen wooden arms creep in from behind the goat-man. They wrap around his chest, arms, and neck, crackling as they grow. As the ligneous tendrils pull him off Ama, he bleats bloody murder. He drops his hatchet and lets go off her face to grab at the roots strangling him.

  Ama gasps for air. The dents in her temples fill back in with two painful cracks.

  “Get behind me!” Mansa calls.

  Wheezing, Ama crawls from underneath the goat-man and scrambles to her feet.

  Mansa is marching towards them, her fingers bending and twisting as she conducts the roots growing out of the street like a maestro. The roots develop thorns as they hoist the goat-man off the ground, encasing him in a coffin of spikes.

  The second the goat-man is immobilized, Mansa puts three fingers to her lips. The air around her ripples and warps, leaving a hundred micro forks of lightning in her wake. “Spirits within,” she incants, her eyes lighting up. “Fly straight and strike true…”

  “Look out!” Ama cries.

  Mansa is suddenly aware of inbound whooshing. She whirls around to discharge her uncompleted beyie; mercifully, it is just enough to blast the goat-man’s hatchet out of the sky. The second hatchet, lying on the street a few feet away, leaps off the ground to streak towards her. In a blink, Ama has her staff in-hand again and lunges, blocking the weapon from reaching her cousin.

  As the hatchets arc into the night sky, making their way around to re-attack, the goat-man flexes his muscles. Needles shatter in the hundreds, and the roots binding him begin to snap.

  “We’re getting out of here,” Ama says, grabbing Mansa by her arm.

  They make a mad dash for the minivan. Ama throws the driver’s door open just as her side mirror is hacked off by a hatchet. The other hatchet buries itself into the roof of the van with a sharp thump, dislodges itself, and tries again, peeking through a tiny crack this time.

  Ama gives Chichi a cursory glance to make sure she is alright. Her little sister is crouched underneath the dash, her head buried between her knees, her fingers clutching at her hair like she might go mad. She’s trembling like a leaf. As Mansa shuts the side door, Ama releases the handbrake, sinks the pedal, and throws the van into a squealing semi-spiral.

  They launch down the road, even as the hatchets continue to bombard the van. Their vehicle is covered in dents and scratches by the time they are out of the goat-man’s range.

  His bleats of rage fade into the distance.

  OOO

  Chichi does not come out from under the dash, even after the ambush is far behind them. Mansa is uttering soft, indiscernible words to herself. There are holes in the roof of the van now, and cold air flows in through them with unbridled enthusiasm. They offer a meagre glimpse of the stars.

  Ama cannot bring herself to say a word. The only sound in the gloomy van is the hum of the engine and the rushing air outside. That is, until Ama begins to pick up a faint knocking sound. The noise is so slight, she knows the others can’t hear it. She feels a stab of panic; the knocks are coming from the engine.

  Ama swears under her breath. “Mansa,” she says, as calmly as she can so she doesn’t panic Chichi. “If we had to stop somewhere—”

  “Stop?” Mansa says in alarm.

  Ama glares at her in the rearview mirror. “If we had to stop, you could hide us right? With beyie?”

  Mansa looks at Ama, glances at Chichi, and gets the message. “Yes,” she says, clearing her throat. “Yeah, sure. I know how to cloak. In theory.”

  Theory would have to do. Ama begins to look around for a place to park.

  None of the filling stations they pass feels safe. Beyond the thick bushes flanking the road, the lights of singular houses dot the darkness, accessible only by narrow, even lonelier dirt roads. They too feel like vulnerable choices for shelter.

  She drives until they come across a cluster of buildings on their left. A mix of single and double storied brick structures, connected by paved streets and stone pathways. Solar lampposts struggle to ward off the surrounding darkness with meager white light. A signboard reads ‘Ghana Christian College’.

  Ama slows down to mull over their options. Just then, the van begins to jerk.

  Ghana Christian College it is, Ama thinks, as she turns into the dust path leading down to the campus.

  “A Christian school?” Mansa says. “Really?”

  “Are you worried you’ll burst into flames?” Ama jokes.

  Mansa scowls.

  “Then you have nothing to worry about,” Ama says. “Universities are on long break, so we’ll probably find an empty dormitory. The number of buildings will make it harder to spot our van as well. It’s not much, but it’s something.”

  The campus is cocooned in deathly silence, punctured by the chirps and whirrs of insects. The van is the loudest thing here, a rumbling, stuttering monster that Ama tries to quieten by driving slower. It makes little difference. Ama looks down each shadowy street they pass, watching out for patrolling guards. If there are supposed to be guards, they either have exceptionally rubbish hearing or they have abandoned their posts.

  Ama drives to the farthest edge of the campus, tucking the van between some bushes behind a bungalow. It’s only when she opens her door that she realizes their parking spot must have doubled as a garbage site over the semester; the soil is most and mixed with plastic waste. Ama makes a face as she steps down.

  “Everybody alright?” she asks. “Anybody need a glass a water, some therapy, a fresh pair of underwear?”

  “What I need is a towel and some ice,” Mansa says, getting out of the van. Her noise is swollen and angry, and there is blood caking around her nostrils. She touches it gingerly and grimaces.

  “Chi, you need help getting out?” Ama asks.

  Chichi does not respond. She doesn’t even look up from her place crouched beneath the dashboard. Mansa throws Ama an awkward glance.

  “Could you give us a minute?” Ama whispers.

  “I’ll find a room and start the cloaking pattern,” Mansa whispers back, before treading away towards the lit street.

  Ama walks around to Chichi’s side of the van and opens the door. Chichi ignores her, even when she rests her elbows on the seat to stare down at her.

  “Hey,” Ama says. “Everything’s going to be fine, okay?”

  “They’re not after you, are they?” Chichi blurts out.

  Her question hangs between them for a moment. “No,” Ama says slowly. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “They’re after me.”

  Another stretch of silence, longer this time. “That’s what I gathered from the goat guy, yeah,” Ama finally says.

  “Why?” Now Chichi is looking at her, her eyes glassy and bright even under the shade of the dash, like a wounded animal’s. “Why are they after me?”

  “I…have my theories, but I’m not entirely sure.”

  “Give me your best guess. I get that you’re beyisafo or whatever. But what’s that got to do with me?” Chichi pauses, and there is a tremble in her voice. She looks away. “Were you supposed to…kill me?”

  “What? No!” Ama says, horrified by the mere suggestion.

  “What is it then?” Chichi asks. “What have I got to do with any of this?”

  Ama’s chest tightens. While she has played out this moment in her head a thousand times, she never actually thought she’d have to face it. Letting out a deep sigh, she begins:

  “When you first got sick, the doctors didn’t have a lot of hope. They uh, they said your leukemia had progressed too far. That you had less than three months. Ma wouldn’t stop crying. She tried to hide it but, you know, puffy eyes and all that.” Ama pauses to consider her next words carefully. “One night at the hospital, I was by your bedside. Ma was asleep. You hadn’t been conscious for almost two days. We weren’t even sure you were going to last the night. And that’s when she appeared in the room and offered me the deal.”

  “Who?” Chichi looks scared. “The devil?”

  Ama chuckles dryly. “Worse. Mama Wu.”

  Chichi makes a face. “Who’s Mama Wu?”

  “The beyifo who gave me my powers. But she’s more than just an ordinary witch. She’s probably the most powerful witch in the country. Maybe even in West Africa. People are scared of her. She has…a reputation. I hear she can be cruel, unforgiving. Of course I didn’t know that at the time of the deal. I was desperate.”

  Silence descends between them.

  “What was the deal?” Chichi finally whispers.

  Ama knows that by now Chichi must have guessed it. Her sister wants her to say it out loud. “To keep you alive,” Ama says. “She couldn’t heal you because, apparently, even witches can’t just magic cancer away. So she promised to find you a cure if I agreed to work as her beyisafo. But now I’m afraid that she’s rescinded the deal or something. I don’t want to believe it, but it’s the only explanation I can think of.”

  Chichi stares back, stunned.

  “Are you okay?” Ama asks.

  “I don’t know,” Chichi says. “Do I look okay?”

  Ama is taken aback. “No. I guess you don’t. I wish I could tell you something more concrete but—”

  “If you can’t, who can?” Chichi asks.

  “Uh, well I tried calling Selasi when we left Joey’s, but he’s on assignment and my calls aren’t going through—”

  “Selasi?”

  “Oh, sorry. Selasi’s my boyfriend.”

  Chichi’s eyes narrow. “You have a boyfriend?”

  “I should have told you that before,” Ama says. “He’s beyifo too.”

  “Jesus, Ama. What about the goat guy? How does he fit in?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How are we supposed to come up with a plan if we don’t know anything?”

  “I-I-“ Ama stammers.

  “Is there anything you do know?” Chichi snaps.

  “Hey!” Ama is shocked by Chichi’s tone.

  Who is this cold, sarcastic girl before her? Where is the tiny girl she lullabied to sleep at night? Her Chichi is sweet, and shy, and understanding. Her Chichi is eight. Eternally so. This girl is gangly, fuming, and preadolescent. How did she never notice how much she’d grown till now? Ama does not know how to placate this person.

  “I’m sorry, okay?” Ama says. “I’m sorry I didn’t predict that the ancient demigoddess who gave me magic powers would suddenly decide to back out of our deal and try to beat your cancer to the punch.”

  “That’s not funny!”

  “I’m not trying to be funny!”

  “You’re always trying to be funny.” Chichi shakes her head and shoves Ama back so she can hop down. She storms off, and Ama strides ahead of her so she can face her sister again walking backwards.

  “Seriously?” Ama says, astounded. “You’re mad at me?”

  “I want to be alone,” Chichi says, through gritted teeth.

  “Well excuse me for selling my soul to save your life.”

  Chichi stops so suddenly, Ama almost trips over her feet.

  “Do you ever wonder if maybe, just maybe, I wanted a say in the matter,” Chichi says, her voice wobbling.

  “A say?” Ama says. “In what? Whether you lived or died?”

  “You don’t think that was my decision to make?”

  Ama can’t believe what she is hearing. “You were eight. And dying. And in a coma!”

  “But it still took you this long to tell me! Don’t you get it?” Chichi steps closer to her, leaning forward as tears spill down her face. “I’ve been sick for more than half my life, Ama. Never getting better. Not even getting worse. Just…sick. Always sick. That was the life you chose for me.”

  “It’s better than dying!”

  “Is it?”

  “Chichi…” The question is a slap in the face. Ama stares unblinking at her sister for a shocked moment. “You don’t mean that.”

  Chichi’s shrug is tired and resigned. “I don’t know.”

  Ama swallows hard and shakes her head, looking everywhere but at her. “I still think I made the right call. I chose to keep you alive, Chi. I would choose to keep you alive every time.”

  “Of course you would,” Chichi says. “Because you don’t have to be me.”

  Chichi resumes walking and Ama is too stunned to stop her this time. As she watches her little sister walk away, her phone starts to vibrate. It might as well have been a ticking bomb, the way it triggers palpitations.

  Quivering, she pulls out her phone to check the screen.

  Ma Calling

  She fumbles for the power button. The phone turns off.