Chapter 1 New Beginnings

I stumbled through the dark cassava patch, bloody knife clutched in my right hand, a voice in my head shrieking, “Faster! He is coming! He will catch you again!” The waning moon failed to give me enough light. My eyes still held the glare of my mother’s brewery, the single lantern bright overhead. My bare feet felt for the rows between the plants, my hands rustling through their leaves, releasing their grassy scent into the night.

The feeling came back into my left hand by prickles and tingles. My upper arm throbbed where his grip had squeezed the blood out of it. I would have bruises by morning.

I had to get away, had to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Flashes of horrible memory blotted out the here and now. The stink of his rotten teeth. The stale beer on his hot breath in my face. The weight of his body leaning down on me, pressing me against the outside wall of the brewery. Laughter from my mother’s customers inside. So close, so far away.

He said, “Abia, you are mine now. As you should be.”

I struggled to draw enough breath to speak. “No. You are husband to my mother’s sister. This is not right. Let me go.”

He pulled me away from the wall, then slammed me against it again. His head rocked back and his eyes, wide and bloodshot, caught the moonlight. He raised his fist to the sky and shouted, “You are mine! Mine!” He squeezed my arm so hard I thought the bone would break.

I gasped out, “Your wife is with child. You should be with her.”

“MINE!”

He would not listen. Not to me. Not to anyone who might hear me scream.

I would not give him what he wanted. His anger would turn to rage.

He would kill me if I did not get away.

His hand on my arm. I had to get his hand off my arm.

I swung my right arm. Felt the knife cut deep. Meat is different from fruit. I had enough practice to know the difference.

The pain finally cut through the fog of drink and he screamed. His hand opened. I kept pushing. His arm fell away from me, released me. Warmth splashed my hand, down my body. His body leaned away, giving me room to breathe, to move.

I ran.

My right hand still clutched the fruit-cutting knife. I had been helping my mother, and just stepped outside for a moment. I did not know that he had been waiting, and followed me.

I should drop the knife now. It marked what I had done.

No. I should keep the knife. He might catch up to me.

I reached the edge of the jungle and staggered against a tree. I held the knife up. Blood, black in the weak moonlight, covered the blade and my hand. I looked down and saw the same black stain spattered over my clothing, down my leg. He had bled a lot.

I could not go back. Could not.

No one would believe me.

My mother. My older sisters. I did not want to leave them, as annoying as they could be. But I knew they would all have to take his side. His wife and children, the work he did when he was sober, his many friends. It would cost too much to throw him out. Easier for them to believe his lies. Easier to punish my family if they tried to defend me.

The only way to protect my family was not to be there.

I took a deep breath and stepped into the jungle, onto the path the hunters for bush meat followed. No one would follow me there in the dark. Only a fool would walk barefoot into the night jungle, reeking of fresh blood and armed only with a short fruit-cutting knife. A fool, or one with no other choice.

The jungle closed around me. The weak moonlight peeked through here and there, putting tiny spots on leaves. Not enough to light my path, but enough to spoil my night vision.

In daylight, I would carry a bush knife and cut my way. In the night, I kept my left hand in front of my face, pushing the back of my hand and arm against fronds and leaves and tendrils and branches, keeping the plants away from my face. My arm would be swollen and sore in the morning. The jungle plants defended themselves with sap and thorn, burning anything that touched them.

The jungle plants did not frighten me. Not enough to slow my flight from the one following me.

A hunter had talked, after too many beers, of his secrets, how he moved in the jungle. Broken rhythm, slow, not too much at once. Go around, not through, where obstacles were heavy.

I tried to move that way. Thought about the small animals, the ones that could not fight the bigger ones. Stealthy. Freeze and listen. Move when other small animals made noises, too. Silence meant a predator nearby.

The slower I moved, the more I kept my ears to the trail behind me. “Faster, faster,” my fears whispered.

If I heard drunken crashing and swearing I would move off the trail and freeze.

The trail snaked around boulders and trees, through dips and over rises. When the trail crossed a small stream, I stopped to clean off the blood. Predators were attracted to blood, but so were insects and scavengers and other things I did not want to meet. I stripped off my clothing and rinsed it in the flowing water. I wiped down the knife. I washed myself as best I could in the dark. Passed my hands over my body, checking for leeches and worse. Wrung out my clothes, put them back on.

Stepped back onto the path. Kept the knife in my hand.

As the moon sank, the path became harder to follow. When I could only find my way by touch, and was not sure if I was even on the path any more, I found a large boulder and climbed on top of it. Brushed away the territorial markings other animals had left. Mine now.

No sound of anyone behind me on the path. No bobbing flashlights.

Maybe he had bled more than I thought. One more reason not to go back.

Bird and insect and small animal sounds around me. No scary silence.

My heartbeat, my breath, slowly quieted. My thoughts chased themselves around and around and down a deep, dark hole. I slept.

***

Waking up in the jungle reminded me why no one did that if they had a choice. Something skittered away from my back when I sat up. My skin had more bug bites than I wanted to count. Things tried to nest in my hair, my ears, my nose. Ick.

I could see the path by the washed-out predawn light. Hunters would be coming down this path soon, some of them friends of the man I had cut. I had to stay out ahead of them, ahead of any pursuit. I could not count on hiding from them. These men made a living finding animals that did not want to be found.

I oriented myself by the angle of the light through the leaves. This path would not take me all the way to my goal. I would have to make my way through unbroken jungle.

The short night had gifted me dreams and a solution to my problem. My main problem, anyway. I could not go back for my things. What I stood in, that is all I had. I could not go back to my mother’s brewery, to any part of my mother’s village, or to any of the villages around it along the road between Bossangoa and Bossembélé. He would find me there, and cause trouble again.

My great-aunt lived apart from all that. My mother and my older sisters and most of the village said bad things about where Omba lived, but they all depended on her advice if they were sick or childbearing. I had heard them talk often enough about the path to Omba’s home deep in the jungle. I would have to find my way there, to this thing called monorail.

***

Finding my way through the jungle took most of the day, going around obstacles, avoiding the many natural dangers. My pursuer stayed always in my mind as the worst danger. My last clean drink had been in mother’s brewery, my last bite of food even earlier. My body wanted to drink from the nearest stagnant pool, grub up a root or tear off a shoot, eat and lie down and sleep. My head kept me going, and away from temptations that I knew would certainly slow me down and might even kill me. I did not want another night alone in the jungle.

At last, I stepped out of the jungle into a cassava patch. This one looked better than the patch behind my mother’s brewery, watered and healthy and ripe for harvest. The far side of the patch butted up against a path under a long row of trees like nothing I had ever seen before.

Each tree had a trunk so wide I could not reach my arms halfway around it, yet smooth from the ground to the top without split or knot or root-top or insect hole. The canopy spread four times the height of a tall man above the ground, and shaded a space almost as wide as it was tall. Solid shade, too, not patchy with sunlight peeking through. The canopy of one tree joined smoothly with the next, and the next, as far as I could see in both directions.

I could see a long way, too, because these trees grew in a straight line, and no other trees grew near them or under their canopies. What I could see from where I stood was larger than any plantation I had ever heard of. I gaped as I thought, who planted these trees? Where did they find the cuttings? What did they harvest from them?

A slender gray-haired woman stepped out of a house built under the canopy next to one of the strange trees.

“Omba!”

***

Omba held a bowl of food and a water gourd out to me. “Eat. Drink. Talk after.”

We sat side by side on her step while I emptied both the bowl and gourd. I did not take long. My head cleared, my mouth and throat did not crack. Wise auntie. I could talk better now.

Omba listened to my story. Sighed, and shook her head. “Abia, let me see this knife.”

I held out my hand, the knife balanced across my palm, edge toward me. Shivered. Too many fresh memories.

“Hmm. There is still a little blood, where you could not clean it so well in the dark. Come with me.”

She led me into another house next to one of the big trees. It was cleaner and neater than any house I had ever been in. I looked down at my filthy feet, already dropping dirt on the spotless floor. I tried to make myself smaller.

Many strange things sat on the floor or clung to the walls. Everything looked smooth and polished as a worn knife-edge, nothing ragged or rough like everything in my home village. How were these things made? Who made them?

Omba put a hand gently on my shoulder and said, “Abia, you have questions. I do, too. I will try to find answers for you, and for myself.”

She pulled a thing down from a wall, unfolding it. “This is a very powerful knowing, a science. We use the machines to take a little of this blood, stuck between the handle and the blade of the knife.” Omba passed the end of the science thing over the knife in my hand. I held very still.

“You say this man is the husband of your mother’s sister? Is he the father of your mother’s sister’s daughter, the one who had a child last year?”

I said, “I think so. She looks a little like him.” Talking about family gave me something ordinary to think about among all this strangeness.

Omba shook her head. “Trouble, that one.” She put the science thing against my upper arm. It made a t’cha sound. I did not feel anything, but I jumped at the noise.

Omba touched my arm and looked into my eyes. “Peace, Abia. You will not be hurt by this. It will help me keep you safe and well.”

She turned away. “So. We have a sample of your blood. Your blood tells us you are connected to your mother, and through her to her sister, and through that sister to her daughter.”

Omba waved at a flat dark shape on the wall. It lit up to show writing and drawings I did not understand. But I wanted to understand.

Omba said, “This sample of his blood will show his connection to that daughter. I have a sample of that daughter’s blood, from when she came to me for help in her childbirth. We can look at that blood and see the connections, both to you and your mother’s line and to the father’s line.”

Omba peered at the wall, tapped and dragged. The glowing letters and lines moved under her hands. Could I learn to do that? Dare I ask?

Omba said, “Yes. Both sets of connections are there. This knife carries the blood of that man.” She snorted. “The blood on the knife also shows that the man was very drunk. Why am I not surprised.”

Omba thought for a long moment, her eyes turned inward. “LEGBA, preserve this knife in a safe place. Do not release it to anyone but me.”

A long white skeletal arm reached down and took the knife out of my hand. I did not jump, well, not much. I watched it fold back up and disappear into the ceiling.

Omba clucked her tongue. “Abia, sit here. You are all over bug bites and plant rashes.” She began cleaning and dressing my many injuries, both with her hands and with the machines. I had lost track of the itching and soreness, but she made them go away as soon as I felt them again.

Omba said, “I know of this man. You are not the first girl he has gone after.”

I nodded. “Each time his wife has been with child, he has done this. The whole village whispers about it.”

“You are not ready to have a child.”

I shook my head. “I am only fourteen. And not with him, never with him.” I shivered.

One of the machines buzzed and clicked over a cut on the back of my left hand. The dried blood went away, and the itch and soreness lessened.

Omba said, “Where did you cut him? Where did your knife touch him?”

I moved my right hand across my body, remembering my action. “His hand, his arm.”

“Not his neck? His body?”

I shook my head. “I only struck to get his hand off my arm so I could get away.”

Omba nodded but did not speak. We both had much to think about.

The buzzing and clicking of the machines stopped.

Omba rested a hand on my arm. “Abia, your blood also shows your connection to me. You and I, we are family. Part of you, what you are, comes from me. But that man is not in our blood at all. We owe him nothing.”

Omba’s words made sense. A deep tolling in my body, a bell ringing at her truth. Somewhere after stepping into this strange house I had lost my overwhelming fear. Now my wonder for this science filled my head, a hunger as if I had not eaten for days.

“Omba, I have so many questions.”

Omba laughed, her mood changing instantly. “Of course you do. Abia, your wounds are tended but you are still filthy. Take a shower.”

I tried to remember if I had ever heard that word before. “What is a shower, and where do you want me to take it?”

Omba lightly smacked her own forehead. “My fault. Abia, go into that little white room. Take off your clothes and toss them on the floor out here.”

I paused. Omba had not hurt me. She must have a reason for this.

Omba said, “If your mother had allowed you to visit me, more of this would be familiar. I am sorry that catching up will be confusing for you, at least at first.”

I stepped into the little white room. There was no other door or window, nothing to sit on, just some shiny metal things on the wall. It sounded funny, all hard and echoes. I took off my clothes and tossed them out the door.

Omba said, “LEGBA, shower on, medium warm, medium pressure.”

I squealed as water hit my body like a hard rain. At first, it felt too hot and too cold all at once. After the first shock, the warm water felt just right. I tilted my head back and let the water run down my body.

Omba said, “Abia, there is soap on the wall to your left. Use that to clean your body and your hair. Lather up and rinse off, then do it all again. It may sting some of your wounds, but it will help them heal. Any questions?”

I said, “Where does the water come from? Where does it go?”

Omba said, “The pylons have deep wells. Machines heat the water, push it into the shower, and drain the shower water away for other things.”

Omba gave me answers, but each answer grew more questions.

“What is a pylon?”

“That very large thing that looks like a tree, beside this dispensary? That is a pylon.”

Oh. Pylon. “All those big round things, as far as I could see, those are pylons?”

“Yes. The pylons hold up the monorail.”

I stopped moving. “This is the monorail? This line of trees—pylons?”

“Yes. Keep showering, you need to get clean.”

I kept scrubbing while I thought. “What is a dispensary?”

“You are in the shower of my dispensary, where I treat people and give them medicines.”

The second time with the soap made my skin feel cleaner than I could remember. The itching went away completely. Some of the insect bites and scratches and cuts hurt a little. I liked this new shower idea.

Omba said, “LEGBA, shower off.”

The water stopped. I tried not to feel disappointed.

“Abia, hold up your arms and put your feet apart. Close your eyes.”

I did as Omba told me.

“LEGBA, shower air dry, medium warm.”

I jumped at the strong wind wrapping around my body. Just as with the shower water, after the first shock it felt good. I blinked my eyes open once, then shut them tightly as the air did not feel good against my eyeballs. In a very short time all the water left my skin, and only a little stayed in my hair.

Omba said, “Do you think you can use the shower on your own, now?”

I nodded. “It is new to me, but I like it. Much better than a stream or a bucket.”

“Good. You are getting too old to be bathed by your mother or aunties.” Omba smiled. “All right. Let us take another look at your injuries.”

I stepped out of the shower room. Omba went over every part of my body again, putting ointment and a few bandages on the worst spots. I let my eyes drift closed. The shower had been very relaxing, once I got used to it.

“Abia, I think you did not kill him.”

I tried to keep my breathing calm. “Why do you say that?”

“LEGBA, give Abia a set of scrubs.”

I opened my eyes to see another skeletal hand holding a bundle out to me. I reached to take the clothing. How quickly all this strangeness became familiar!

Omba said, “We will get you more clothing soon. For now, these scrubs will have to do. Put them on.”

I pulled on the top and stepped into the trousers. Clean skin, clean clothing. I could not remember the last time I had felt this good.

Omba looked me up and down. “Clothing is part of our protection against the world. Illusion, mostly, but it makes us feel safer than when we are naked. The more you can clothe yourself, the safer you will feel. Odd, but there it is.”

Omba tapped a forefinger against her opposite wrist. “You say you cut at his hand or arm. Just one stab with your short fruit knife, and a push to get his hand off your arm. You did not slash or stab at him again. A strong, healthy man who does not want to die does not bleed to death from a cut arm, not unless he is so drunk that he is close to passing out anyway. The machine says he was not that drunk.” Omba reasoned step by step, so different from the way my home villagers thought.

Alive. I had not killed him. Relieved? Yes. Still worried? Oh, yes. Wanting him to be dead? Maybe. Too many feelings and thoughts, all mixed up.

Omba looked into my eyes. “Abia, he may come after you as soon as he is able. You need to be ready, as ready as we can make you. You are clean and healing, fed and watered for now. That is a good start.”

Omba looked at my feet. “You need to be ready to run, and not barefoot through the jungle. Before we step outside again, I want to teach you a new habit. LEGBA, give Abia a pair of shoes.”

The skeletal hand again, this time with a colorful pair of rounded shoes that looked soft.

Omba said, “Abia, putting your bare foot on the ground can give you lots of bad sicknesses. Bare feet inside a clean house are fine. When you step outside, before you put foot to ground, put on these shoes. Every time, no exceptions. Do this because I say so for now. In time, your questions will be answered and you will understand for yourself. Do you agree?”

I put on the shoes. They felt good, soft and squishy, wrapped around my feet. I could move quickly in these without hurting myself on rocks and sharp edges. “Yes, auntie. I will wear these shoes outside.” I took them off again, but kept them in my hand.

Omba said, “Most of the people in the monorail villages follow this habit. When you go to visit, take off your shoes and leave them on the front step, where it is easy to put them on again as you leave.”

I nodded. So much to think about.

“Now let us get the last traces of his blood out of your clothing. Pick up your dirty clothes and follow me.”

I did. Omba led me out the dispensary door, where I paused to put on my new shoes, then down the row of pylons to a nearby house. At the door, I paused to take off my shoes and leave them on the step. Omba nodded at me, and did the same with her shoes.

The inside of the house held only some big machines against one wall, and a couple of deep counters attached to the other walls. High windows let in plenty of light, and screens kept out the bugs but allowed the breeze through.

Omba said, “Abia, you have shoes to protect you from sickness in the ground, the shower protects you from sickness on your skin. Now we will get rid of sickness in your clothing.”

She moved to the larger machine and lifted a door in the top. She waved at the dirty clothing in my hands. “Just drop the clothing in this machine, close the lid, press the big button.”

I stepped forward and dropped my clothing into the machine. I reached for the door—no, lid—slowly. Omba nodded. I closed the lid, pressed the big button, and the machine started to make noise like the shower. I stepped back.

Omba smiled. “The machine will call you through LEGBA when your clothing is clean and dry. All his blood traces will be gone.”

She saw the look on my face. Getting rid of the last bits of him, clinging to me all this time, was more of a relief than I thought it would be.

Omba said, “You can do your laundry here whenever you like.”

Like the shower, but for clothing. I used to have to carry my family’s laundry to the river and pound it on rocks. I liked this way a lot better.

“One more thing. Follow me.” Omba walked outside, put her shoes on, and led me down the footpath to the next pylon. There she started to climb stairs that wound around and around a smaller pylon. I followed her, holding on to the railing attached to the stairs. I touched the small pylon as we climbed: smooth, warmed by the sunlight, a made thing, not grown.

The stairs ended at a flat platform a tall man’s height below the canopy. Omba stepped onto the platform and motioned for me to stand beside her. “This is the monorail. One of these platforms is always five hundred paces or less, anywhere along the monorail. That is the farthest you will have to run to find safety.”

I said, “Five hundred paces. Along the footpath.” That was much easier than running through the jungle. The view from the platform drew my eyes. I could see so far along the monorail, pylon after pylon, until they faded into the haze of the thick jungle air, lit by the orange light of the setting sun.

Omba said, “If you can get to one of these platforms before he sees you, you can lie flat and wait for him to go away. He cannot use the monorail and may not know how the platforms work.” She watched my face. Looking for a reaction, or understanding?

I nodded. It made sense, but the idea made the fine hairs on my arms stand up.

Omba said, “If he sees you and comes up after you, you will need to get away.”

That idea, of his climbing the spiral stairs after me, made me shiver again.

Omba reached into a pocket. Her clothing had pockets! So did the scrubs I wore. I could get used to that, being able to carry things, leaving my hands free. Omba took out a small flat rounded thing like a river rock with a loop of bright red cord. “Put this around your neck. Do not lose it.”

In a different voice, Omba said, “LEGBA, assign phone to Abia.”

The rock said, “Hello, Abia. Welcome to LEGBA.”

I jumped. So many new things, one after another.

Omba said, “LEGBA runs the monorail. If you need to travel, simply climb up to a platform and tell your phone where you want to go. LEGBA will send a gondola to carry you, even as far as Bossembélé.”

“Gondola?”

“Like a big basket, big enough for both of us to sit in. The gondolas travel along those rails.” She pointed to things like thick, perfectly straight vines that connected the pylons under the canopy.

I heard the words and saw what Omba pointed to, but my thoughts muddled and twisted. I needed time to think, to work it all out in my head. Getting away fast. That was a good idea, I understood that. “What if he calls a gondola, too?”

“He cannot. LEGBA does not serve him. He is not welcome here.”

Omba watched me, her eyes narrowed. “Now that you are watered and fed and cleaned and patched up, and we have a few ways to help keep you safe from that man, we need to talk about what is next for you. But I think your head will work better if you get a good night’s sleep.”

“Wise auntie, your words are the truest I have ever heard.”

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