I'm going chapter one afia the night of the Archer was born into the musky heat of fonte land a fire raged through the woods just outside her father's compound it moved quickly tearing a path for days it lived off the air it slept in caves and hidden trees it burned up and through unconcerned with what wreckage it left behind until it reached an Asante Village there it disappeared becoming one with the knife left his first wife Baba with the new baby so that he might survey the damage to his Youngs the most precious Croc known far and wide to sustain families coming had lost seven yams and he felt each loss as a blow to his own family he knew that that the memory of the fire that burned then fled would haunt him his children and his children's children for as long as the line continued when he came back into Baba's Hut to find afia the child of the night's fire shrieking into the air he looked at his wife and said we will never again speak of what happened today the villagers began to say that the baby was born of the fire but this was the reason Baba had no milk afia was nursed by kabe's second wife who had just given birth to a son three months before ethio would not latch on and when she did her sharp gums would tear at the flesh around the woman's nipples until she became afraid to feed the baby because of this afia grew thinner skin on small bird-like bones with a large black hole of a mouth that expelled a hungry cry which could be heard throughout the village even on the days Baba did her best to smother it covering the baby's lips with the rough palm of her left hand love her how they commanded as though love were as simple and act as lifting food up from an iron plate and past one's lips at night Baba dreamed of leaving the baby in the dark Forest so that the god Miami could do with her as he pleased afia Grew Older the summer after her third birthday Baba had her first son the boy's name was Fifi and he was so fat that sometimes when Baba wasn't looking efia would roll him along the ground like a ball the first day that Baba let ifia hold him she accidentally dropped him the baby bounced on his buttocks landed on his stomach and looked up at everyone in the room confused as to whether or not he should try he decided against it but Baba who had been stirring bangu lifted her stirring stick and beat afia across her bareback each time the stick lifted off the girl's body it would leave behind hot sticky pieces of bunku that burned into her flesh by the time Baba had finished efia was covered with sores screaming and crying from the floor rolling this way and not on his belly Fifi looked at a fear with his softer eyes but made no noise cobby came home to find his other wives attending to afia's wounds and understood immediately what had happened he and Baba fought well into the night efia could hear them through the thin walls of the Hut where she lay on the floor drifting in and out of a feverish sleep in her dream kabe was a lion and Baba was a tree the lion plucked the tree from the ground where it stood and slammed it back down the tree stretched its branches in protest and the lion ripped them off one by one the tree horizontal began to cry red ants that traveled down the thin cracks between its bark the ants pulled on the soft Earth around the top of the tree trunk and so the cycle began Baba beat afia Ka baby baba by the time afia had reached age 10 she could recite a history of the scars on her body the summer of 1764 When Baba broke yams across her back the spring of 1767 When Baba bashed her left foot with a rock breaking her big toe so that it now always pointed away from the other toes for each scar on afia's body there was a companion scar on Babas but that didn't stop mother from beating daughter father from beating mother matters were only made worse by atheist blossoming Beauty when she was 12 her breasts arrived two lumps that sprung from her chest as soft as mango flesh the men of the village knew that first blood was soon followed and they waited for the chance to ask Baba and kabe for her hand the gifts started one man tapped Palm wine better than anyone else in the village but another's fishing nets were never empty kabe's family feasted off Asia's burgeoning Womanhood their bellies their hands were never empty in 1775 adowa I do became the first girl of The Village to be proposed to by one of the British soldiers she was light-skinned and sharp taunt in the mornings after she had bathed she rubbed shea butter all over her body underneath her breasts and between her legs afia didn't know her well but she had seen her naked one day when Baba sent her to carry palm oil to the girls Hut her skin was slick and shiny her hair Regal the first time the white man came adua's mother asked afia's parents to show him around the village while eduo prepared herself for him can I come if you ask running after her parents as they walked she heard Baba's no in one ear and kabe's yes in the other her father's your one and soon afia was standing before the first white man she had ever seen he is happy to meet you the translator said as the white man held his hand out to ABIA she didn't accept it instead she hid behind her father's leg and watched him he wore a coat that had Shiny Gold buttons down the middle it's strained against his punch his face was red as though his neck were a stumped on fire he was fat all over and sweating huge droplets from his forehead and above his upper lip atheist started to think of him as a rain cloud sallow and wet and chicless please who would like to see The Village the translator said and they all began to walk they stopped first by athea's own compound this is where we live afia told the white man and he smiled at her dumbly his green eyes hidden in fog he didn't understand even after his translator spoke to him he didn't understand pave held ethea's hand as he and Baba let the white man through the compound here in this Village pave said each wife has her own Hut this is the Hut she shares with her children when it is her husband's night to be with her he goes to her in her hut The White Man's eyes grew clearer as the translation was given and suddenly afia realized that he was seeing through new eyes the mud of her Hut's walls the straw of the roof he could finally see them they continued on through the village showing the white man the Town Square the small fishing boats formed from hollered out tree trunks that the men carried with them when they walked the few miles down to the coast ethea forced herself to see things through new eyes too she smelled the sea salt wind as it touched the hairs in her nose felt the bark of a palm tree as sharp as a scratch saw the deep deep red of the clay that was all around them Baba ifea asked once the men had walked farther ahead of them why will marry this many because her mother says so a few weeks later the white man came back to pay respects to eduela's mother and at the end all of the other villagers gathered around to see what he would offer there was the bride price of 15 pounds there were Goods he brought with him from the castle carried on the backs of the Santos kabe made a fias stand behind him as they watched the servants come in with fabric milk gold and iron when they walked back to their compound copy pulled afia aside letting his wives and other children walk in front of them do you understand what just happened he asked her in the distance Baba slipped her hand into Fifi's effia's brother had just turned 11 but he could already climb up the trunk of a palm tree using nothing but his bare hands and feet for support the white man came to take a Dua away afia said her father nodded the white men live in the cape Coast Castle there they trade goods with our people like iron and Millen her father put his hand on her shoulder and kissed the top of her forehead but when he pulled away the look in his eyes was troubled and distant yes we get iron and Millet but we must give them things in return that man came from Cape Coast to Marriott and there would be more like him who will come and take our daughters away but you my own I have bigger plans for you than to live as a white man's wife you will marry a man of our village Baba turned around just then and afia caught her eyes Baba Scout if he looked at her father to see if he had noticed but habe did not say a word afia knew her who her choice for husband would be and she dearly hoped her parents would choose the same man abihu Badu was next in line to be the village chief he was tall with skin like the pit of an avocado and large hands with long slender fingers that he waved around like lightning bolts every time he spoke he had visited their compound four times in the last month and later that week he and a Theo were to share a meal together abiku brought a goat his servants carried yams and fish and palm wine Baba and the other wives stoked their fires and heated the oil the air smelled rich that morning Baba had played in afia's hair two long braids on either side of her center part they made her look like a ram strong willful Athea had oiled her naked body and put gold in her ears she sat across from abiku as they ate please as he stole appreciative glances were you out of dweller's ceremony Baba asked once all of the men had been served and the women finally began to eat yes I was there but only briefly it is a shame edwall will be leaving the village she would have made a good wife will you work for the British when you become Chief if he asked kabe and Baba sent her sharp looks and she lowered her head but she lifted it to find a beagle smiling we were with the British afia not for them that is the meaning of trade when I am chief we will continue as we have facilitating trade with the asantes and the British if he had nodded she wasn't exactly sure what this meant but she could tell from her parents looks that it was best to keep her mouth shut was the first man they had brought to meet her I feel wanted desperately for him to want her but she did not yet know what kind of man he was what kind of woman he required in her hut ethea could ask her father and Fifi anything she wanted it was Baba who practiced silence and preferred the same from afia Baba who had slapped her for asking why she did not take her to be blessed as all the other mothers did for their daughters it was only when afia didn't speak or question when she made herself small that she could feel Baba's love or something like it maybe this was what a biku wanted to abika finished eating he shook hands with everyone in the family and stopped by afia's mother you will let me know when she is ready he said Baba clutched a hand to her chest and nodded soberly Cabe and the other men saw abigu off as the rest of the family waved that night Baba woke afia up while she was sleeping on the floor of their Hut if he had felt the warmth of her mother's breath against her ear as she spoke when your blood comes Athea you must hide it you must tell me and no one else she said do you understand she handed effia palm fronds that she had turned into soft rolled sheets place these inside of you and check them every day when they turn red you must tell me if you looked at the Palm fronds held in Baba's outstretched hands she didn't take them at first but when she looked up again there was something like desperation in her mother's eyes and because the look had softened Baba's face somehow and because of Thea also knew desperation that fruit of longing she did as she was told every day I see a checked for red but the palm fronds came out greenish white as always in the spring the chief of the village grew ill and everyone watched obiku carefully to see if he was ready for the test he married two women in those months araku are the wise and Millicent the half-cast daughter of Avante woman and a British soldier the soldier had died from fever leaving his wife and two children much wealth to do with as they pleased if he had prayed for the day all of the villagers would call her afia the beauty as a beacon calls her on the rare occasions when he was permitted to speak to her Millicent's mother had been given a new name by her white husband she was a plump fleshy woman with teeth that twinkled against The Dark Night of her skin she had decided to move out of the castle and into the village once her husband died because the white men could not leave money in their Wills to their fonte wives and children they left it to other soldiers and friends and those friends paid the wives Nielsen's mother had been given enough money for a new start and a piece of land she and Millicent would often come visit Mafia and babama four as she said they would soon be a part of the same family was the lightest skinned woman efia had ever seen her black hair reached down to the middle of her back and her eyes were tinged with green she rarely smiled and she spoke with a husky voice with and a strange fontay accent what was it like in the castle Baba asked Millicent's mother one day while the four women were sitting to to a snack of ground nuts and bananas it was fine fine they take care of you all these men it's like they've never been with a woman before I don't know what their British wives were doing I tell you my husband looks at me like I was water and he was fired and every night he had to be put out the women laughed Millicent sleptophia a smile and afia wanted to ask her what it was like with a biku but she did not dare Papa leaned in close to Millicent's mother but still ifia could hear and they pay a good bride price eh and I tell you my husband paid my mother 10 pounds and that was 15 years ago to be sure my sister the money is good but I for one am glad my daughter has married a fonte even if a soldier offered to pay 20 pounds she would not get to be the wife of a chief and what's worse she would have to live in the castle far from me no no it's better to marry a man of the village so that your daughters can stay close to you Baba nodded and turned toward afia who quickly looked away that night just two days after her 15th birthday the blood came it was not the powerful Rush of the ocean waves that afia had expected it to be but rather a simple trickle rain dripping drop by drop from the same spot of a Hut's roof she cleaned herself off and waited for her father to leave Baba so that she could tell her Baba she said showing her the palm fronds painted red I've gotten my blood Baba placed a hand over her lips who else knows no one afia said you will keep it that way do you understand when anyone asks you if you have become a woman yet you will answer no if he had nodded she turned to leave but a question was burning hot coals in the pit of her stomach why she finally asked Baba reached into afia's mouth and pulled out her tongue pinching the tip with her sharp fingernails who are you that you think you can question me at if you do not do as I say I will make sure you never speak again she released afia's tongue and for the rest of the night afia chasted her own blood the next week the old Chief died the funeral announcements went out to all of the surrounding Villages the proceedings would last a month and end with a biku's chief ceremony the women of the village prepared food from sunrise to sunset drums were made out of the finest wood and the best singers were called upon to raise their voices the funeral attendants began dancing on the fourth day of the rainy season and they did not rest their feet until the ground had completely dried at the end of the first dry night a biku was crowned Oman chief of the fonte Village he was dressed in Rich Fabrics with two wives on either side of him Athea and Baba stood next to each other as they watched and kabe faced the crowd every so often afia could hear him muttering that she his daughter the most beautiful woman in the village should be up there too as the new Chief obiku wanted to do something big something that would bring attention to their Village and make them a force to be reckoned with after only three days in office he gathered all of the men of the village to his competency he fed them for two days straight got them drunk on Palm wine until their boisterous laughing and impassioned shouting could be heard from every Hut what will they do if you asked that does not concern you baba said in the two months since Sophia had begun to bleed Baba had stopped beating her payment for her silence some days when they were preparing meals for the men or when afia would bring back the water she had fetched and watch Baba dip in with cupped hands she would think they were finally behaving as mothers and daughters were supposed to behave but then other days the long scowl would return to Baba's face and afia would see that her mother's new quiet was only temporary her rage a wild beast that had been tamed for the moment foreign came back from the meeting with a long machete the handle was gold with carvings of letters that no one understood he was so drunk that all of his wives and children stood around him in a circle at a distance of two feet while he shuffled about jabbing the sharp instrument this way and that we will make the village rich with blood he screamed he lunged at Fifi would wander it into the circle and the boy leaner and quicker than he had been in his days as a fat baby swiveled his hips missing the tip of the machete by only a few inches Fifi had been the youngest one at the meeting everyone knew he would make a fine Warrior they could see it in the way he climbed the palm trees in the way he wore his silence like a Golden Crown after her father left and Athea was certain that their mother had gone to sleep she crawled over to Fifi wake up she hissed and he pushed her away even in half sleep he was stronger than she was she fell backward but with the grace of a cat flipped back onto her feet wake up she said again Fifi's eyes flashed open don't worry me big sister he said what will happen she asked she's the business of men Fifi said you are not yet a man atheist said and you are not yet a woman Fifi snapped back otherwise you would have been there with a biku this very evening as his wife effia's lips began to quiver she turned to go back to her side of the Hut but Fifi caught her arm we're helping the British and the asantees with their trade oh and FIA said it was the same story she had heard from her father in a biku just a few months before you mean we will give Asante gold and fabric to the white men Fifi clutched her tighter don't be stupid he said Abby who has made an alliance with one of the most powerful Asante villages we will help them sell their slaves to the British and so the white man came to their Village fat and skinny red and tanned they came in uniform with swords at their sides their eyes looking sideways always and ever cautious they came to approve the goods that biku had promised them in the days following the chief ceremony Cabe had grown nervous about the broken promise of afia's Womanhood nervous that a beagle would forget her in favor of one of the other women in the village he had always said that he wanted his daughter to be the first most important wife but now even third seemed like a distant Pope every day he would ask Baba what was happening with afia and every day Baba would reply that she was not yet ready in desperation he decided to allow his daughter to go over to a biku's compound with Baba once a week so that the man could see her and remember how much she had once loved her face and figure of the wise the first of abiku's wives greeted them as they came in one evening please mama she said to Baba we weren't expecting you tonight the white men are here we can go if he has said but Baba clutched her arm if you don't mind we would like to stay Baba said arakua gave her a strange look my husband will be angry if we come back too early Baba said as if that were enough of an explanation effiah knew that she was lying Kane had not sent them there that night it was Bob however that the white men would be there and insisted that they go pay respects I recruit took pity and left askabiku if the two of them might stay you will eat with the women and if the men come in you will not speak she said once she had returned she led them deeper into the compound effia watched Hut after Hut pass by until they entered the one where the wives had gathered to eat she sat next to Millicent whose pregnant belly had begun to show no bigger than a coconut slung low arakua had prepared fish in palm oil stew and they dug in until their fingers were stained Orange soon a maid servant efia had not noticed before came into the room she was a tiny girl only a child whose eyes never lifted from the ground please mama she said to arakua the white men would like to tour the compound chief of beefu says you are to make sure you are presentable for them go and fetch this water quick Millicent said and when the servant came back with a bucket full of water they all washed their hands and lips if he had tidied her hair licking her palms and rubbing her fingers along the tight baby girls that lined her edges when she finished Baba had her stand between Millicent and arakua in front of the other women and afia tried her best to seem smaller so as not to draw attention to herself before long the men came in abiku looked as a chief should look effia thought strong and powerful like he could lift 10 women above his head and toward the Sun two white men came in behind him there was one who afia thought must be the chief of the white men because of the way the others glanced at him before he moved or spoke this white Chief wore the same clothes as the rest of them wore but there were more Shiny Gold buttons running along his coat and on the flaps above his shoulders he seemed older than a biku his dark brown hair flecked with gray but he stood up straight as a leader should stand these are the women my wives and children the mothers and daughters of you who said the smaller more tibbon what timid white man watched him carefully as he said this and then turned to the white Chief and spoke their strange tongue the white Chief nodded and smiled at all of them looking carefully at each woman and saying hello in his poor fonte when his hello reached a fear she couldn't help but giggle The Other Women shushed her and embarrassment like heat began to move into her cheeks I'm still learning the white Chief said resting his eyes on afia his Fontaine and ugly sound in her ears he held her gaze for what seemed like minutes and afia felt her skin grow even hotter as the look in his eyes turned into something more wanted the dark brown circles of his irises looked like large pots that toddlers could drown in and he looked at a fear just like that and so he wanted to keep her there in his drowning eyes color quickly flooded his cheeks he turned to the other white man and spoke no she is not my wife abiku said after the man had translated for him his voice not bothering to hide his annoyance effia hung her head embarrassed that she had done something to cause a beaku shame embarrassed he could not call her wife embarrassed too that he had not called her by her name Athea the beauty she wanted desperately then to break her promise to Baba and announce herself as the woman she was but before she could speak the men walked away and her nerve faded as the white Chief looked over his shoulder at her and smiled his name was James Collins and he was the newly appointed governor of the cape Coast Castle within a week he had come back to the Village to ask Baba for efia's hand in marriage Bobby's rage at the proposal filled every Rune like hot Steam she is all but promised to a beaku he yelled at Baba When Baba told him that she was considering the offer yes but a beak who cannot marry her until her blood comes and we have been waiting years now I tell you husband I think she was cursed in that fire a demon who will never become a woman think about it what creature is that beautiful but cannot be touched all of the signs of Womanhood are there and yet still nothing the white men will marry her regardless he does not know what she is effia had heard the white man talking to her mother earlier that day he would pay 30 pounds up front and 25 Shillings a month in tradable Goods to Baba as a bride gift more than even a beacon could offer more than had been offered for any other fonte woman in this Village or the next FIA could hear her father pacing all throughout the evening she even awoke the next morning to that same sound steady rhythm of his feet on the hard clay Earth we must make a beaku think it was his idea he finally said and so the chief was called to their compound he sat beside kabe as Baba told him their theory that the fire that the fire that had destroyed so much of their family's worth had also destroyed the child she has the body of a woman but something evil lurks in her spirit Baba said spitting on the ground for emphasis if you marry her she will never bear you children if the white man marries her he will think of this Village fondly and your trade will prosper from it carefully as he thought about it bring the beauty to me you said finally kabe's second wife brought afia into the room she was trembling and her stomach pained her so much that she thought she might empty her bowels right there in front of everyone ibiku stood up so that he was facing her he ran his fingers along the full landscape of her face the hills of her cheeks the caves of her nostrils a more beautiful woman has never been born he said finally he turned to Baba but I see that you are right if the white man wants her he may have her all the better for our business with them all the better for the village kabe big strong man that he was began to weep openly but Baba stood tall she walked over to Athea after abiku had left and handed her a black stone pendant that shimmered as though it had been coated in Gold Dust she slipped into atheist hands and then leaned into her until her lips were touching athea's ear take this with you when you go Baba said a piece of your mother and When Baba finally pulled away Athea could see something like relief dancing behind her smile afia had passed by the cape Coast Castle only once when she and Baba ventured out of their Village and into the city but she had never been in it before the day of her wedding there was a chapel on ground level and she and James Collins were married by a clergyman who had asked afia to repeat words she didn't mean in a language she didn't understand there was no dancing no feasting no bright colors slicked hair or old ladies with wrinkled and bare breasts throwing coins and waving handkerchiefs not even if Thea's family had come for after Baba had convinced them all that the girl was a bad Omen no one wanted anything to do with her the morning she left for the castle Cabe had kissed the top of her head and waved her away knowing that the premonition of the dissolution and destruction of the family lineage the premonition that he had had the night of the fire would begin here with his daughter and the white man for his part James had done all he could to make Athea comfortable she could see how much he tried he had gotten his interpreter to teach him even more words in fonte so that he could tell her how beautiful she was how he would take care of her as best he could he had called her what a beacon called her afia the beauty after they were married James gave afia a tour of the castle on the ground floor of the north wall there were apartments and warehouses the center held the parade route soldiers quarters and guard room there was a Stockyard a pond a hospital a carpenter's shop Smithy and a kitchen the castle itself was a village ethea walked around with James in complete awe running her hands along the fine furniture made from wood the color of her father's skin the silk hanging so smooth they felt like a kiss she breathed everything in stopping at the gun platform that held huge black cannons facing out toward the sea she wanted to rest before James led her up to his private stairwell and so she laid her head down against one of these cannons for just a moment then she felt a breeze hit her feet from small holes in the ground what's below she asked James and the mangled fonte word that came back to her was cargo then carried up with the breeze became a faint trying sound so faint if he had thought she was imagining it until she lowered herself down rested her ear against the Great James are there people down there she asked quickly James came to her he snatched her up from the ground and grabbed her shoulders looking straight into her eyes yes he said evenly it was one fonte word he had mastered ephia pulled away from him she stared back into his piercing eyes but how can you keep them down there crying it she said you white people my father warned me about your ways take me home take me home right now she didn't realize she'd been screaming until she felt James's hand on her mouth pushing her lips as though he could force the words back in he held her like that for a long time until she had calmed she didn't know if he understood what she said but she knew then just by the feet pushes his fingers on her lips that he was a man capable of hurting that she should be glad to be on one side of his meanness and not another you want to go home James asked his fonte firm though unclear your home is no better if he uphold his hand from her mouth and stared at him for a while longer she remembered her mother's Joy at seeing her leave and knew that James was right she couldn't go home she nodded only barely he hurried her up the stairs on the very top floor were James's quarters from the window Athea could see straight out to the Sea cargo ships like black specks of dust in the blue wet eye the Atlantic floated out so far but it was difficult to tell how far away from the castle the ships actually were some were maybe three days away others merely an hour if you watch the ship just like this once she and James finally got to his room a flickering of yellow light announced its presence on the water and with that light Athea could just barely make out the boat's silhouette long and curved like the hollowed out skin of a coconut she wanted to ask James what the ship was carrying and whether it was coming or going she had grown tired of trying to decipher his fonte James said something to her smiled when he spoke a peace offering the corners of his lips twitched almost imperceptibly she shook her head tried to tell him that she didn't understand and finally he gestured to the bed in the left-hand corner of the room she sat Baba had explained what would be expected of her on her wedding night before she had left for the castle that morning but it seemed no one had explained it to James when he approached her his hands were trembling and she could see the sweat building on his forehead she was the one who laid her body down she was the one who lifted her skirt they went on like this for weeks until eventually the comfort of routine began to dull the ache that missing her family had left her with I think I didn't know what it was about jeans that soothed her perhaps it was the way he always answered her questions or the affection he showed her perhaps it was the fact that James had no other wives there to attend to and so every one of his Knights belonged to her she had cried the first time he brought her a gift he had taken the black stone pendant that Baba had given her and put it on a string so that ifea could wear it around her neck touching the stone always gave her great comfort effia knew she was not supposed to care for James and she kept hearing her father's words echoing through her mind how he had wanted more for her than to be the fonte wife of a white man she remembered too how close she had come to really being someone her whole life Baba had beat her and made her feel small and she had fought back with her beauty a silent weapon but a powerful one which had led her to the feet of a chief But ultimately her mother had won cast her out not only of the house but of the village entirely so that now the only other Fontes she saw regularly were the spouses of the other soldiers she'd heard the Englishman call them wenches not waffles wife was a word reserved for the white women across the Atlantic wench was something else entirely a word the soldiers used to keep their hands clean so that they would not get in trouble with their God a being who himself was made up of three but who allowed men to marry only one what is she like if he asked James one day they had been trading languages in the early mornings before he went off to oversee the work of the castle James would teach her English and at night when they lay in bed she taught him fonte this night he was tracing his finger along the curve of her collarbone while she sang him a song that Baba used to sing Fifi at night as ifia lay in the corner pretending to be asleep pretending not to care that she was never included slowly James had started to mean more to her than a husband was supposed to mean to a wife the first word he asked to learn was love and he said it every day her name is Anne he said moving his finger from atheist collarbone to her lips I haven't seen her in so long we were married 10 years ago but I've been away for so many of those years I hardly know her at all fian knew that James had two children in England as well Emily and Jimmy they were ages five and nine conceived in the few days he was on leave and able to see his wife 's father had 20 children the old Chief had nearly a hundred that a man could be happy with so few seemed unfathomable to her she wondered what the Children looked like she wondered too what Anne wrote James in those letters of hers they came at unpredictable intervals four months here one month there James would read them at his desk at night while afia pretended to be sleeping she didn't know what the letter said but every time James read one he would come back to bed and lie as far away from her as possible now without the force of a letter to keep him away James was resting his head on her left breast when he spoke his breath was hot a wind that traveled the length of her stomach down between her legs I want children with you James said and if he had cringed worried that she would not be able to fulfill this want worry too that because she had a bad mother she herself would become one she had already told James about Baba's ski now she had forced afia to keep her Womanhood a secret so that she would seem unfit for the men of her Village but James had just laughed her sadness away all the better for me he said and yet ethia had started to believe that perhaps Baba was right she'd lost her virginity on the night of her wedding but months had passed without a pregnancy the curse may have been rooted in a lie but perhaps it bore the fruit of Truth the old people of her Village used to tell a story about a woman who was said to have been cursed she lived under a palm tree on the northwest side and no one had ever called her by her name her mother had died so that she might live and on her 10th birthday she had been carrying a pot of boiling hot oil from one Hut to another her father was napping on the ground and she thinking that she could step over him instead of going around tripped spilling the hot oil onto his face and disfiguring him for the rest of his life which lasted only 25 more days she was banished from the house and she wandered the Gold Coast for years until she returned at age 17 strange rare Beauty thinking that perhaps you no longer accorded death wherever she went a boy who had known her when she was young offered to marry her as she was destitute and without family she conceived within a month but when the baby came out it was half cast blue-eyed and light-skinned it died four days later she left her husband's house the night of the child's death and went to live under the palm tree punishing herself for the rest of her life Athea knew that the elderly of her Village only told this story to warn the children to take care when around hot oil but she wondered about the end of the story half-cast child how this child both white and black was an evil powerful enough to force the woman out into the forest of Palms when a dweller had married the white Soldier and when Millicent and her mother had wandered into the village kabe turned up his nose he had always said that the joining of a man and a woman was also the joining of two families ancestors whole histories came with the ACT but so did sins and curses the children were the embodiment of that unity and they bore the brunt of it all what sins did the white man carry with him Baba had said that afia's curse was one of a failed Womanhood but it was kabe who had prophecied about a solid lineage Athea couldn't help but think that she was fighting against her own womb fighting against the fire children if you don't give that man children soon he will take you right back and will said she and afia had not been friends when they lived in the village but here they saw each other as often as possible each happy to be near someone who understood her to hear the comforting sounds of her Regional tongue eduowa had already had two children since leaving the village her husband Todd Phillips had only gotten fatter since Sophia had last seen him sweaty and red in a dweller's Old Hunt I tell you oh Todd has kept me flat on my back since I arrived in this place I'm probably expecting right now as we speak if he has shuddered but his stomach is so big she said and I dweller laughed until she choked on the ground that she was eating but the stomach is not the part you used to make the baby she said I will give you some roots from the woods you put them under the bed when you lie with him tonight you must be like an animal when he comes into the room a lioness she mates with her lion and he thinks the moment is about him when it is really about her her children her posterity her trick is to make him think that he is King of the Bush but what does a king matter really she is king and queen and everything in between tonight we will make you live up to your title Beauty and so adoa came back with roots they were no ordinary Roots they were large and swirled and when you pulled back one strand another would appear to take its place afia put them under the bed and they only seemed to multiply spilling leg after leg out until it seemed the root would pick the bed up on its back and walk away a strange new spider your husband should not be able to see any of it as well as said and they work to push back the strands of the route that insisted on peeking out pushing and pulling until finally it was contained then as well I helped afia prepared for James she played it and smoothed her hair and spread oil on her skin and red clay on the apples of her cheeks and the curve of her lips afia made sure that when James came in that night the room smelled earthy and Lush like something there could bear fruit what's all this James asked he was still in his uniform and afia could tell that he'd had a long day by the way his lapel droops she helped him pull off his coat and shirt and she pressed her body against his as eduowa had taught her before he could register his surprise she grabbed his arms and pushed him to the bed not since their first night together had he been this timid afraid of her unfamiliar body the full-figured flesh so different from how he had described his wife excited now he pushed into her and she squeezed her eyes as tightly as she could her tongue circling her lips he pushed harder his breathing heavy and labored she scratched his back and he cried out she bit his ear and pulled his hair he pushed against her as though he were trying to move through her and when she opened her eyes so look at him she saw something like pain written across his face and the ugliness of the app the sweat and blood and wetness they produced became illuminated and she knew that if that if she was an animal tonight then he was too once they had finished I feel lay with her head on James shoulder what is that James asked turning his head they had moved the bed so that now three strands of the root were exposed nothing ifhea said James jumped up and peered underneath the bed what is it effia he asked again his voice more forceful than she had ever heard it before it's nothing a root that a dweller gave me for fertility his lips formed a thin line now Athea I don't want any Voodoo or black magic in this place my men can't hear that I let my wench play Strange Roots under the bed it's not Christian and Thea had heard him say this before Christian that was why they had been married in the chapel by the stern Man in Black who shook his head every time he looked at her he'd spoken before too of the voodoo he thought all Africans participated in she could not tell him the fables of a Nancy the spider or stories that the old people from her Village used to tell her without his growing weary since moving to the castle she discovered that the only white that only the white men talk of black magic as though magic had a color efia had seen a traveling witch who carried a snake around her neck and shoulders this woman had had a son she'd sung lullabies to him at night and held his hands and kept him fed same as anyone else there was nothing dark about her the need to call this thing good and this thing bad this thing white and this thing black was an Impulse that afia did not understand in her Village everything was everything everything bore the weight of everything else the next day afia told adoa that James had seen the root that is not good Edward said did he call it evil if he had nodded and as well clicked her tongue three times Todd would have said the same thing these men could not tell good from Evil if they were nyame himself I don't think it'll work now the FIA I'm sorry but I feel wasn't sorry if she was Barren so be it soon even James was too busy to worry about children the castle was expecting a visit from Dutch officers and everything needed to run as smoothly as possible James would wake up well before a Fiat to help the men with the imported store items and to see to the ships spent more and more time wandering around the Villages surrounding the castle roaming the forests and chatting with a dweller the afternoon of the Dutch arrival efia met adoa and some of the other wenches just outside the castle they stopped beneath the shade of a patch of trees in order to eat yams with palm oil stew there was a dweller then Sarah the half-cast Lynch of sand York there was also the new witch at KOA she was tall and slender and she walked as though her limbs were made of thin twinks as though wind could snap and collapse her this day akoa was lying in the slim shade of a palm tree effia had helped her coil her hair the day before and in the sun it looked like a million tiny snakes rising from her head my husband cannot pronounce my name well he wants to call me Emily echoa said if he wants to call you Emily let him call you Emily as well as said out of the four of them she had been a wench the longest and she always spoke her opinions loudly and freely everyone knew that her husband practically worshiped at her feet better that than to listen and butcher your mother tongue over and over Sarah dug her elbows into the Dust my father was a soldier too when he died Mama moved us back to our village I came to marry Sam but he did not have to worry about my name do you know he knew my father they were soldiers together in the castle when I was just a small girl afia shook her head she was lying on her belly she loved days like this one where she could speak fonte as fast as she wanted no one asking her to slow down no one telling her to speak English my husband comes up from the dungeon stinking like a dying animal akoa said softly they all looked away no one ever mentioned the dungeons he comes to me smelling like feces and rot and looking at me like he has seen a million ghosts and he cannot tell if I am one of them or not I tell him he must wash before he touches me and sometimes he does but sometimes he pushes me to the floor and pushes into me like he has been possessed if he has sat up and rested a hand against her stomach James had received another letter from his wife the day after he found the root underneath their bed they had not slept together since the wind picked up the snakes in akoa's hair snapped this way and that her tweak arms lifted there are people down there you know she said there are women down there who look like us and our husbands must learn to tell the difference they all fell silent akoa leaned back against the tree and afia watched as a line of ants passed over a strand of her hair the shape of it seeming to them to be just another part of the natural world after that first day in the castle James never spoke to Athea about the slaves they kept in the dungeon but he spoke to her often about beasts that was what the Asante is trafficked most here beasts monkeys and chimpanzees even a few leopards birds like the king crowns and parrots that she and Fifi used to try to catch when they were children roaming the forests in search of the one odd bird the bird that had feathers so beautiful it seemed to be set apart from the rest it would spend hours on end looking for just one such bird and most days they would find nothing she wondered what such a bird would be worth because in the castle all beasts were ascribed worth she had seen James look at a king crown brought in by one of their Asante Traders and declare that it was worth four pounds what about the human beasts how much was he worth y had known of course that there were people in dungeons people who spoke a different dialect than her people who had been captured in Tribal wars even people who had been stoned she had never thought of where they went from there she had never thought of what James must think every time he saw them if you went into the Dungeons and saw women who reminded him of her who looked like her and smelled like her if he came back to her haunted by what he saw if he soon realized that she was pregnant it was spring and the mango trees outside the castle had started to drop down mangoes her stomach jutted out soft and fleshy its own kind of fruit James was so happy when she told him that he picked her up and danced her around their quarters she slapped his back and told him to set her down unless they shake the baby to pieces and he had complied before bending and planting a kiss on her barely bulged stomach but their Joy was soon tempered by news from her Village Cabe had fallen ill so ill that it was unclear whether or not he would still be alive by the time Athea made the journey back to see him she was not sure who had sent the letter from her Village for it was addressed to her husband and written in broken English she had been gone two years and she had not heard from anyone in her family since then she knew that this was Baba's doing and indeed she was surprised that anyone had even thought to notify her of her father's illness the Journey Back to the Village took about three days James did not want her to make the trip alone in her condition but he could not accompany her so he sent along a household when they arrived everything in the village looked different the colors of the treetop canopy seem to have dulled their vibrant Browns and greens now muted The Sounds seem different too everything that once rustled now Stood Still a beaku had made the village into one so prosperous that they would forever be known as one of the leading slave markets in all of the Gold Coast he had no time to see a fear but he sent along Gifts of sweet Palm wine and gold to meet her when she arrived at her father's comeback Baba stood in the entrance way she looked to have aged a hundred years and the two that ifia had been gone her scowl was held in place by the hundreds of tiny wrinkles that pulled at her skin and her nails had grown so long that they curls like talents she didn't speak a word only led afia to the room where her father Lay Dying no one knew what sickness had struck cobby apothecaries Witch Doctors even the Christian minister from the castle had been called upon to give their opinions and pray over the man and yet no measure of healing thoughts or medicines could spit him out of the lips of death Fifi Stood Beside him wiping the sweat off his forehead carefully suddenly I feel was crying and shaking she reached out her hand to her father's and began to stroke style of skin there he cannot speak Fifi whispered glancing quickly at her bulging belly he is too weak she nodded and continued to cry Fifi dropped the drenched cloth and took afia's hand big sister I am the one who wrote you the letter Mama did not want you to come but I thought you should get to see our father before he enters asamando tabe closed his eyes and a low murmur escaped his lips so that afia could see that the land of the spirits was indeed calling him thank you she said to Fifi and he nodded he began walking out of the room but before he reached the Hut's door he turned she is not your mother you know Baba our father had you by a house girl who ran away into the fire the night you were born she is the one who left you that stone you wear around your neck Thief he stepped outside and soon khabe died atheist still holding his hand the villagers would say that kabe had been waiting for afia to come home before he could die but afia knew that it was more complex than that his unrest had kept him alive and now that unrest belonged to Athea it would feed her life and the life of her child after she had wiped her tears Athea walked out of the compound and into the sun Baba sat on the stump of a felt tree her shoulders squared as she held hands with FiFi who stood beside her now as quiet as a field mouse if you wanted to say something to Baba to apologize perhaps for the burden her father had made Baba carry all of those years before she could speak Baba hacked from her throat spit on the ground before atheist feet and said you are nothing from nowhere no mother and now no father she looked at afia's stomach and smiled what can grow from nothing that was chapter one of homegoing by Young Jessie