“So?” I snapped.
“Why’d you come here?”
“You have to help me. Aro has to teach me. Can you convince him? He’s your husband.” I sneered. “Or is that a lie, like the Eleventh Rite?”
She jumped up and slapped me hard with her open hand. The side of my face burned and I tasted blood in my mouth. She stood glaring down at me for a moment. She sat back down. “Drink your tea,” she said. “It’ll wash the blood away.”
I took a sip, my hands almost dropping the cup. “I-I apologize,” I mumbled.
“How old are you now?”
“Fifteen.”
She nodded. “What did you think would happen by going to him?”
I sat there for a moment, afraid to speak. I glanced at the finished mural.
“You may speak,” she said.
“I-I didn’t think about it,” I quietly said. “I just …” How could I explain it? Instead, I asked what I had come to ask. “He’s your husband,” I said. “You must know what he knows. That’s the way between husband and wife. Please, can you teach me the Great Mystic Points?” I put on my most humble face. I must have looked half crazy.
“How did you learn about us?”
“Mwita told me.”
She nodded and sucked her teeth loudly. “That one. I should paint him into my mural. I’ll make him one of the fish men. He is strong, wise, and untrustworthy.”
“We’re very close,” I said coldly. “And those who are close share secrets.”
“Our marriage isn’t a secret,” she said. “Older folks know. They were all there.”
“Ada-m, what happened? With you and Aro?”
“Aro is far older than he looks. He’s wise and has only a handful of peers. Onyesonwu, if he wanted to, he could take your life and make everyone, including your mother, forget you existed. Be careful.” She paused. “I knew all this from the moment I met him. That’s why I hated him when we first met. No one should have that kind of power. But it seemed he kept finding me. Something connected whenever we argued.
“And as I got to know him, I realized he wasn’t about power. He was older than that. Or so I thought. We married for love. He loved me because I calmed him and made him think more clearly. I loved him because, when I got beyond his arrogance, he was good to me and … well, I wanted to learn whatever he could teach me. My mother taught me to marry a man who could not only provide but also add to my knowledge. Our marriage should have been strong. For a while it was …” She paused. “We worked together where it was necessary. The Eleventh Rite juju helps a girl protect her honor. I myself know how difficult it is.”
She paused and unconsciously looked at the front door, which was closed. “To make you feel better, Onyesonwu … I’ll tell you a secret that not even Aro knows.”
“Okay,” I said. But I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear this at all.
“When I was fifteen, I loved a boy and he used it to have intercourse with me. I didn’t really want to but he demanded it or else he’d stop speaking to me. It went like this for a month. Then he grew tired of me and stopped speaking to me anyway. I was heartbroken, but this was the least of my worries. I was pregnant. When I told my parents, my mother screamed and called me a disgrace and my father shouted and clutched at his heart. They sent me to live with my mother’s sister and her husband. It was a month’s journey by camelback. A town called Banza.
“I wasn’t allowed to go outside until I gave birth. I was a skinny child and during the pregnancy I remained so, except for my belly. My uncle thought it was funny. He said that the boy I was carrying must have been a descendant of Jwahir’s giant golden lady. If I smiled at all during this time, it was because of him.
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