Gone
(c) Lorelei Williams
On our birthday, Onike greeted the world laughing. Like she was sharing a private joke with God. Me, they had to coax out with luba prayer and song so I would not return to the spirit realm and bring my people bad luck. I was wrapped in our cord, curled under my mother’s rib. Half my sister’s size. Two shades darker. Limbo lining between orun and aiye. Until the kidnapping, we had always been this way. One sun. One shadow. Juju was my second-place solace. If you are born a girl and thought slow, you find your own ways to thrive. On the last day I saw my sister, none of our gifts did us any good: her nerve or my second sight.
That day, Onike was already three coconut palms beyond me, almost to the banks of the Obogani River where our mother sent us for cooking water. As she ran, the whites of Onike’s feet flashed red with river dust. She made the bellbirds scatter like seeds thrown to wind. Breathlessly singing, the tornado girl taunted me:
Little sister
Turtle drummer
You can’t catch me
So why you try?
Dina shadow
Binda killer
You only catch me
If you fly.
It only made me run harder, which of course was her purpose. The clay pot was half my size and nearly as heavy. We both knew what would happen if I broke the pot or if we returned home with no water. But Onike didn’t care. A river of sweat snaked between my shoulders, cooled only by the breeze I made running. I held the pot with both hands, numbed my soles to the coconut shards underfoot and pushed with my last strength to close the gap between us. Onike’s gold-beaded braids flashed like tiny mirrors catching the morning sun. As always, she was just out of reach. A gazelle to my ibis. I fixed my eyes on my twin’s fleeting back and willed myself to fly.
In the air, I heard the rhythmic splash of waterdrums and chanted song. Women were washing in the river, beating their clothes against the rocks, cooing babies bound to their backs. I remembered the song from when I was one of them, still knit to my mother’s spine. It was a praise song for Oshun, the sweet water spirit who kept women fertile, men sated and life joyful. I leaned into their music and let it carry me higher. Up there, I could not feel my tired legs. My sweat-drenched back. The heavy pot. The coconut husk cuts on my feet. I knew I could beat Onike to the river now. Only a little more of the women’s song would carry me there. But suddenly their sung prayers scatted into screaming. I felt myself hurtling back to earth. Strange men were shouting in a language I did not know. My feet were bleeding. My pot was broken. And my sister was gone.
On our birthday, Onike greeted the world laughing. Like she was sharing a private joke with God. Me, they had to coax out with luba prayer and song so I would not return to the spirit realm and bring my people bad luck. I was wrapped in our cord, curled under my mother’s rib. Half my sister’s size. Two shades darker. Limbo lining between orun and aiye. Until the kidnapping, we had always been this way. One sun. One shadow. Juju was my second-place solace. If you are born a girl and thought slow, you find your own ways to thrive. On the last day I saw my sister, none of our gifts did us any good: her nerve or my second sight.
That day, Onike was already three coconut palms beyond me, almost to the banks of the Obogani River where our mother sent us for cooking water. As she ran, the whites of Onike’s feet flashed red with river dust. She made the bellbirds scatter like seeds thrown to wind. Breathlessly singing, the tornado girl taunted me:
Little sister
Turtle drummer
You can’t catch me
So why you try?
Dina shadow
Binda killer
You only catch me
If you fly.
It only made me run harder, which of course was her purpose. The clay pot was half my size and nearly as heavy. We both knew what would happen if I broke the pot or if we returned home with no water. But Onike didn’t care. A river of sweat snaked between my shoulders, cooled only by the breeze I made running. I held the pot with both hands, numbed my soles to the coconut shards underfoot and pushed with my last strength to close the gap between us. Onike’s gold-beaded braids flashed like tiny mirrors catching the morning sun. As always, she was just out of reach. A gazelle to my ibis. I fixed my eyes on my twin’s fleeting back and willed myself to fly.
In the air, I heard the rhythmic splash of waterdrums and chanted song. Women were washing in the river, beating their clothes against the rocks, cooing babies bound to their backs. I remembered the song from when I was one of them, still knit to my mother’s spine. It was a praise song for Oshun, the sweet water spirit who kept women fertile, men sated and life joyful. I leaned into their music and let it carry me higher. Up there, I could not feel my tired legs. My sweat-drenched back. The heavy pot. The coconut husk cuts on my feet. I knew I could beat Onike to the river now. Only a little more of the women’s song would carry me there. But suddenly their sung prayers scatted into screaming. I felt myself hurtling back to earth. Strange men were shouting in a language I did not know. My feet were bleeding. My pot was broken. And my sister was gone.
