I stared into the large, vertical wooden mirror, shifting my weight occasionally to ascertain the honesty of Nkoli’s verdict on my arms and belly.
“Your belly is protruding and your arms are expanding,” she admitted in mock humor as we walked home from the salon where I had escorted her to braid her hair. I lifted my red shirt and slightly adjusted my skirt lower down my abdomen and scrutinized myself. My belly had a slight bulge but she had exaggerated. I continued with the combing of my kinky hair. I parted it into four sections and applied ori generously on the scalp, certain that Mama would raise hell on my extravagant usage of her ointment. Then I combed the hair to cover the scalp.
There was a knock and the door opened slightly; Chinasa my friend sneaked in like a thief in the night. She sat at the edge of the bed like she was constipated and gazed at the talisman that hung on the wall, then she looked nonchalantly into my eyes. She was still unable to stomach the information I had given her the day before, that like most young girls, I was not ordinary. I had told her that I had reincarnated and lived in two worlds before I settled in my mother’s womb to be birthed. She miscarried continually till Akunaesiobi Ike, the dibia, performed some rites to appease me at the baobab tree at the backyard of our compound in the village. That was where my umbilical cord was buried, underneath the roots of the baobab tree. The hanging talisman was a direct connection to my other life.
Chinasa stared at me with a new realization of the influx of why I would sometimes coil into my shell of loneliness like I was oblivious of the activities around me and kept everyone at arm length and how often I would be the parrot in the room, chattering away time and the sobriety of it all. The spirit child who happened to be her friend.
Then she spat the word, “Ogbanje, and I acknowledged with a nod.
“You won’t tell anyone, right?” I demanded.
“Yes, I promise,” she replied and made a cross on her chest. She looked at me sternly like one initiated into a ritual and horizontal lines creased on her forehead. What I didn’t tell her was that the talisman connected me to my other sisters in the baobab tree. I glanced at her and stared back into the mirror, finally immersed my hair in coconut oil and wrapped it in a bun.
“You must be the good one,” she mumbled. I understood what she meant.
“I don’t know about being the good one but I know don’t have the innate urge to be more than I ought to be. ” I replied almost in a whisper.
My parents named me ‘Mgbeorie’. A name conceived from one of the four market days because not only had I reincarnated Papa’s grandmother, I was born on Orie day. Unlike my siblings he never hit me because I knew he was afraid they might lose me.
I traveled with Papa to the village for the New Yam festival. Palm fronds were used to decorate every compound. Tied squarely at the edge of every gate that led to the entrance of the compound. Papa parked in front of the compound and I got down from the car and headed to my grandfather’s obi. He sat on his earthen chair and poured libations to the family gods.
“Good afternoon, grandfather,” I saluted. He acknowledged with a nod and pointed to the kolanut on the ground which he had already broken and shared among the four market days. I bent in the direction of his fingers and took the kolanut meant for Orie, put it in my mouth and munched slowly. He poured dry gin in a glass and handed it to me and I gulped it at once.
“Daalu, nne,” he said and I left him and went to the backyard and greeted my aunts who were peeling and washing yams and they rose in excitement and engulfed me in a warm embrace. Then I strode to the stream.
The water was calling.
Written by Nneamaka Onochie