Zahrah the Windseeker (9 page)

"And who made that path?" Dari asked. "I mean, if no one goes into the jungle, who made it! And why haven't the plants and trees grown over it by now?"

I only shrugged. Who could explain the ways of the forbidden jungle?

"It's as if the jungle wants people to go into it," Dari said.

There were no guards stationed on the road. For what purpose? No one in his or her right mind would go in. This was the road Dari and I would walk down.

Going into the jungle was Dari's idea.

"I've been reading a lot in the field guide. The jungle's 'forbidden' only because we don't understand it. It's all politics really," Dari had said the night before as we talked on our computers. It was the first time we'd talked through the net since getting caught in the Dark Market. Our parents said we had only fifteen minutes a night for a week. "Nsibidi said you should practice. What better place to practice?"

Though Kirki was a pleasant town, it also, like any other town, had a bush radio. "Bush radio" is Ooni slang for "gossip." News travels fast in Kirki because it's such a small town. The bush radio would have been hard at work if I had gone with Dari to my backyard to practice.

Mama Ogbuji, my neighbor, would have peeked over the fence while she was gardening and seen me floating in the air. She'd exclaim, "Great Joukoujou!" in that annoying way she does when she sees something that would make good gossip. Then she'd immediately run to her net-phone and call her best friend, Ama, and say, "You won't
believe
what I saw the Tsamis' daughter doing! She was zooming about the yard like a witch!"

Ama would call his friends—let's say they were named Ngozi and Bola—and tell them, "You know that dada girl, Zahrah? A friend of mine just told me she saw her turn into a bat and fly around her backyard! And that boy she likes to hang around with, well he was growing hair like a bush beast!"

Bola would then call her sister and say, "I hear there is a witch in town! Keep your eyes open when you go to the market! She probably does her business in the Dark Market." And so the bush radio would continue growing and dropping seeds of nonsense from person to person. Dari was right to seek out such a quiet, unused place.

Nevertheless, I also suspected that Dari just wanted to go into the jungle to see it for himself. He'd been reading that field guide a lot, absorbing its every detail. All our lives we'd been told not to set foot in the forbidden jungle. Few children ever asked why, and the ones who did were told, "It's just not the right thing to do. It's a place of madness." And we accepted this.

"Zahrah, this book is
amazing,
" Dari had said the night before. We went offline after agreeing to meet after school. Then Dari sneaked a quick call back a half-hour later, utterly energized by the field guide.

"Did you know that there's a tree that changes the color and shape of its leaves every year? The Forbidden Greeny Jungle is the rest of the world! We live in isolation with our eyes closed!"

I rolled my eyes and said, "Sure, Dari," and quickly got offline. The Forbidden Greeny Jungle was insanity. Its outskirts, as the librarian had said, were the only useful place. Once one went a few miles in, everything grew ragingly wild. And anyone who ventured in was not likely to come out.

But the book had charmed Dari since the day he'd borrowed it from the library. He'd even started wearing green, as the writers of the book had, and pumping his fist in the air and chanting the Great Explorer's slogan "Down with ignorance!" He also lectured his friends at school about how they lived in an isolated world because they were afraid to explore the places just outside their home. People listened as always because it was Dari talking and he could make anything sound wonderful. Still, no one was so moved that they started to believe him.

"This book tells you everything," Dari said as we passed a path to the palm tree farm.

"Hey?" someone shouted behind us. "Where are you kids goin'?"

We both whirled around and then froze. We'd been caught!

"Dari," I hissed with panic. "I thought you said we wouldn't meet any—"

"I thought we'd have heard someone coming," he said, looking frantic.

Oh, we were in trouble. There was no point in running. If we ran, they would catch us. And even if they didn't, they'd certainly report us.
Oh my goodness,
I thought,
our parents are going to go crazy.

"Stay fresh," Dari whispered.

But I didn't feel fresh at all. I felt trapped and terrified. We were caught, and all we had in the future was punishment. A minute ago we'd been OK; then things had suddenly changed. We didn't move as the three men approached us.

They were obviously workers from the farms. They wore the light but tough tan jump suits made of palm fibers that protected them from tree branches and the heat. We'd learned about the farmers in school. Though they wore plain and often dirty clothing, we saw them as courageous heroes. They worked right next to the jungle, risking their lives daily. And so, as Dari and I stood there and they approached us, we were also struck by a sense of awe.

Their faces were dark like the midnight sky. My mother is very dark and so am I. But these men spent all their time in the very top of the oil-palm trees being baked by the sun as they watered and preened delicate oil sprouts. They were black like shadows. And not surprisingly, their skin glistened and their jump suits were damp with tree oil. They each carried around their shoulders a sling made from hundreds of enriched palm fibers that they used for climbing trees. And a machete hung from their waists. They also had tags with their names and work numbers sewn on their jump suits.

"We're ... just walking, " Dari said.

The men laughed, looking both of us up and down. How silly we must have seemed to them. Silly and childish and disobedient.

"You know where you are? You lost your mind? Eh?!" the tallest one, named Tabansi, said with narrowed eyes.

"Methinks they have, yes," said the one named Kwenu.
He carried a large lunch pod. He addressed us directly. "Tabansi, let's just report 'em and be on our ways,
o.
" He rubbed his oily meaty arms with his hands and swatted at a fly. "We don't have much time for our break!"

Tabansi reached into his jump-suit pocket and pulled out a net phone. The one named Iwene looked at us both as he brought a chewing stick out of his pocket.

"Never seen such stupid children," he grumbled, putting the stick between his teeth.

"Now wait a second," Dari said quickly. "OK, we know where we are."

I stared at him, but he didn't look at me. He just kept talking. Really fast.

"We're just curious. We've heard so much about the Greeny Jungle and we wanted to see for ourselves. Is that so wrong? I mean, really? We don't plan to go that far. We just want to see it. How many people do you see here? None, right? Other than you farmers who know this place like the back of your hands. So why report two kids who are curious? We won't be long. We just want to see for ourselves. Surely you must understand. I mean, you get to see the jungle every day. At least from close up in the farms. Please don't report us. If you like, we'll turn around and leave right now."

The three men just stared at Dari. In confusion, with humor, or impatience—I don't know. But something sparked their attention.

"Tell me your name," Iwene asked, his chewing stick hanging from the side of his mouth. He brought it out, looked at its chewed frayed end, and then rubbed his teeth with it as if it were a toothbrush.

Dari hesitated. I could feel his indecisiveness.

Iwene snapped his fingers. "Ah, ah, come on. We don't have all day. Speak up."

"D-Dari," he said finally.

Iwene looked at Dari for a moment longer, then he smiled and nodded.

"You, dada girl?"

"Zahrah," I said, following Dari's choice to tell the truth. I figured since he gave his real name, I might as well, too. We would both get in trouble.

"A mile from here is your death, you know," Iwene said.

"Iwene!" Tabansi said. "Don't—"

"Don' scare 'em?" Iwene asked. "And why not? Might as well know what they getting into."

"True, true," Kwenu said. "If they not scared now, they going to be once they get in there."

Iwene stepped up to us and cocked his head. Dari only flared his nostrils, maintaining eye contact with the man.

"We can tell you stories that will keep you awake at night. And these aren't made-up stories. No, no. These really happen. Look at me. I been working in the oil-palm farms since seventeen. Over twenty years of being right next to them green, green crazy trees and such. We seen things, children. And trust us, you don' want to go in there. You won't come out."

"What have you seen?" Dari asked. His eyes were wide in the way they get when something has 100 percent of his attention.

Iwene squatted down in front of us and rubbed his oily chin with his oily hands. His skin was black and smooth, like polished onyx. He turned to his friends.

"Should I tell him 'bout Yabu?" he asked.

They both nodded. He threw his chewing stick into the bushes.

"Yabu worked in the palm kernel farms. Palm kernel trees are the closest to the cursed forest. They run right next to the forest. None of us knew him in body, but we know a friend who knew his best friend. All us farmers know 'bout Yabu. His story reminds us to be careful, that we work in a place that can eat us alive, leave not a trace of us behind. You listenin'?"

We both nodded. I didn't want to hear anymore. This was all I needed to hear to turn back. I didn't want to listen to the rest of the story at all.

"Yabu was a hard-workin' man, but he was like you two—his eye was always wandering. To the sky, the dirt, and to that cursed jungle."

"And he was always asking questions," said Kwenu.

Iwene nodded.

"He was curious. And one day, curiosity changed his life forever," Iwene continued.

"No," corrected Kwenu. "Curiosity ended his life."

"It was the day that it rained," said Iwene. "And as Yabu leaned back on his sling, machete in hand, chopping at the palm kernel cluster, red palm oil on his face and hands, something must a caught his eye. The first thing that one who works this close to the jungle is told to never do is look directly into the jungle. Even if you see a glimmer with your side vision, hear a noise that sounds like a crying baby, a smell that reminds you of your mother's tastiest dish.

"Never ever look into the jungle. You too close. You too vulnerable. Just focus on your tree and your job. But this day, something caught his eye. Must have caught and held it because he climbed down from his tree and walked right up to the forest border.

"I tell you, his fellow farmers all yelled at him to look away! 'What are you doing, Yabu,' they shouted. Some of them started to climb down from their trees, but it was like Yabu couldn't hear them. Like he was in a trance!

"When a bunch of farmers made it down, they could see what caught his eye. And that's why none of them was able to stop him. No one would go near him. No one wanted to get infected by the jungle. We all got families, husbands, wives to love, children to feed, responsibilities.

"You want to know what it was that he saw, eh? You want to know what caused this man to do the insane and stand right on the border of the forbidden cursed jungle and stare into its innards? You all know what masquerades are, no? See them dancing during festivals. People dressed up in layers and layers of colorful clothes and raffia and grass. Some got heads with three or four faces, all with different expressions. Some stand ten feet tall. Supposed to be the spirits of the dead who come up from the anthills to frolic with humans during celebrations.

"Well, this was like no masquerade anyone had ever seen, and the other farmers quickly moved as far from the forest as they could, without a look back.

"But poor Yabu ... was it curiosity or fascination, or was it the glam of the jungle? Coulda been all three. But he just stood there staring at that thing. Folks described what they had glimpsed as being over twenty feet in height! That it had a great big head made of smooth wood with at least seven angry faces. The ones facing Yabu all looked at him.

"Its body was wider than two cars and made of layers of hanging green vines and dried grass and ribbons of blue cloth. And something else was dripping off of it. Something green and smokelike. Could have been any substance!

"Anyway, something did something to Yabu. Made him lose his mind. Who knows what went through his head in those last moments. His sanity was sapped away.
Just that fast. Gone. Because he started walking. He crossed that border, the place where the dry grassy ground turned to tangled vines, gnarled tree roots, and Joukoujou knows what else.

"And he kept walking. He walked right up to that horrible monster. And as he walked, it was like something was pullin' him in a direction that he didn't want to be pulled. He moved stiffly and jerkily, as if he was fightin' whatever had a hold on him. He walk right up to that horrible monster and
phhoooippp!
Green thick vines shot out from the masquerade! So many vines,
o!
Wrapped him up like a yam fest present. You could hear him scream as it happened. And those vines must have had barbs in them because some people who saw it happen from their trees said they saw blood ooze from between the vines.

"The screams stopped and he fell. Without a glance in the farmer's direction, the monster dragged Yabu between the trees and was gone. Just ... like ... that.

"Yabu was never seen again," Iwene said.

Oh, I felt so sick. I could see that horrible masquerade. An evil ghost just waiting for its chance. And when it had it, it would have no mercy. You could scream and thrash, but it would never let go. It would suck the life from you and then return to where it came from, having fed on your blood and spirit. I wanted to flee from that road that was so close to where this beast probably lived. We were heading into certain death, I was sure. Our schoolbooks had not lied. Why would they lie? They were just looking out for us, teaching us to look out for ourselves.