The Witness of Usehjiki

Kuwin had hoped that surviving a curse was enough to strengthen his faith in God. He’d been so wrong about that. Everywhere he turned, his heart raced with uncertainty and the thought that this… or that… would be the thing that got to him.

Yes, he was a miracle.

The Usop numbered in the thousands around Usehjiki. So many branches of a clan that shared a name and common ancestry, but nothing else. Kuwin’s immediate family was very different from the rest. Because, while other members of the Usop clan lived comfortable lives, his own was laden with a curse that killed them before they turned forty.

Everyone except Kuwin.

He’d made the connection between the key and the premature deaths ever since he was a boy. His family had groomed him to take up the mantle after his brother. His initiation had included a celibacy pact, a cleaning, and a full study on the lives of every Usop who had ever borne the key.

There were families in the Usop clan who’d never even heard of the key, much less the part it played in the clan’s prosperity. But this was a responsibility that they held dear to their heart. Even Kuwin, even after he gave his life to Christ. It wasn’t a triviality, and he wasn’t one to bash fellow Christians who held onto ancient family values.

A part of him had hoped he would survive because he was a child of God. He’d known the unity of the clans kept him safe, but God had to have a hand in that, right? His ancestors couldn’t have prevailed if God Almighty didn’t make it so. His Christian faith solidified his ancestral faith and his ancestral faith only served as evidence that God had always had Kuwin’s family in mind.

Kuwin believed this. He had to.

Every newspaper in Usehjiki was talking about the Man of God who defied ancient altars and broke the bargain his ancestors had struck with the devil. He was a hero who prayed his way out of the grave. He was Kuwin Usop. The most faithful.

He couldn’t understand the need to vilify the ancestors, especially when Kuwin wasn’t so sure anymore who was protecting him.

Because he’d prayed to God to protect him. And yet a woman had shown up and taken the key.

The key was why he was alive. His broken vow was why he was alive. He’d engaged in sexual intercourse and unbound the key. He’d sinned against God Almighty and survived.

What did that say about him? What did that say about his faith? Was he a fraud for fearing? Or was he human for wondering? Did he deserve to still be in a constant state of panic? Or should God have soothed that pain away? Did he deserve to be soothed at all?

His relationship with God was on shaky ground and Kuwin was two seconds from breaking down and going crazy because he needed God to talk to him. But there was nothing. God was eerily silent and Kuwin had never felt so alone.

The bell rang, just as he was in the kitchen, putting away the leftovers from dinner. He washed and wiped his hands on the way to the door. Out of habit, he prepared himself for a counseling session. The building was full of church members, and they liked to visit at the oddest of hours. Even though he felt empty and far away from God, Kuwin couldn’t turn away his parishioners. If they needed a listening ear, Kuwin was going to give it to them.

When he opened the door, Kuwin frowned at the two men standing there. One was a small, frail man with skin as black as shadow and a pair of oversized glasses on his face, while the other was Kuwin’s height, light-skinned, and much taller and fatter than the other. The tiny man was dressed in casual clothes while the other was wearing a long, grey caftan with a pair of slippers. Behind them, the staircase leading up to Kuwin’s apartment was filled with bodyguards in suits and earpieces.

“Can I help you?” Kuwin asked.

“Good evening,” the man in the caftan said, offering Kuwin a handshake. “I’m Ahimad Elheji and this is Enechi Izeh. We’d like to discuss a mutual friend we might have.”

Elheji? Izeh?

Kuwin wasn’t a politician. There was no reason for people from other clans to visit him. He also wasn’t interested in getting involved in whatever dummy crusade the other three families were trying to rope him into. He’d grown up seeing them throw fancy parties in the name of charity while they turned around to control the country with the iron fist that generations of power had given them.

It was no secret what Kuwin thought of the government. He’d spoken against a lot of legislation and actions of the Jiki elite for decades. He even refused to go to his own cousin’s inauguration into office when he became the Prime Minister, years ago. Kuwin had said it before and he’d be damned if no one understood that he wasn’t a part of murky Jiki politics.

“Mutual friend?” Kuwin asked, barring them from entering the house.

“Yeah, she might have borrowed a key from you without permission?”

A memory of Osa above him, looking down at Kuwin with love and dedication flashed through his mind. He flinched away from it, pushing it to the nooks of his mind. He didn’t want to think about her and she didn’t want to talk about her.

“Can we talk in private?” Ahimad asked, pushing past Kuwin into his home as Enechi followed behind with his hands in his pocket, quiet as a mouse.

Unable to stop them, Kuwin let them in. However, when the bodyguards reached the door, about to enter, Kuwin blocked him.

“I’m sorry,” Kuwin said, praying that this didn’t end in his death. “Are you armed? I’m sorry. I’m very sorry but there are no weapons allowed in my house. If you’re armed, you can’t come into my home.”

“It’s okay,” Ahimad said, behind Kuwin as the bodyguard stopped on the threshold. Kuwin wasn’t surprised that they were moving with so many armed men. Ahimad was an Elheji, which meant that he was a younger cousin of the woman who was currently occupying the Prime Minister’s office. If anything, he was surprised that the guards had relented so easily.

Kuwin closed the door and turned back to his visitors. While Ahimad had made himself at home, sitting at the center of a couch with his legs spread out and his hands on the backrest, Enechi remained standing, as he searched for something in his phone.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“Is this the woman who took your key?” Enechi asked, offering Kuwin his phone where there was a picture of a young woman. She was asleep and most of her body was covered beneath a duvet, but he could see her face.

A sharp pain stabbed through Kuwin’s heart as he recognized the face. Osa. And from the looks of it, she was naked underneath that duvet. Naked in another man’s bed. She’d lured another man, the same way she’d lured Kuwin into her bed.

He didn’t want to dwell, but the fact that she’d done it to two other men was too painful to ignore. Kuwin had meant nothing. His faith had meant nothing to her. Even his vow of celibacy that she must have known about meant nothing to her.

“Yes,” he said, clearing his throat. “Her name is Osa.”

Enechi frowned at him.

“She told me her name was Toso.”

“Who cares what her name was?” Ahimad asked.

“She said she was doing me a favor,” Kuwin said.

“She was,” Enechi agreed. “If you’d had that key, you would have died before the clock struck twelve in Usehjiki.”

Kuwin snorted. Then he laughed.

“It’s not funny,” Ahimad said. “That key was the source of all our good fortune, but it would have also been your death. It’s what killed your uncle and your brother.”

“God saved me,” he said, his voice lilting at the end, betraying what little lack of confidence he’d gained over the last few days.

“I understand that you’re a man of god-” Enechi began.

“There’s nothing to understand. If you want the key back, you’re welcome to pursue her to get it. But please leave me out of it.”

“To believe in God is to believe in everything supernatural,” Enechi said, pushing his glasses up his face. “If you spend all your time casting and binding demons, then surely you must believe those demons exist.”

“I didn’t say I don’t believe in it. I just don’t want anything to do with any of it anymore.”

Standing on the fence about his Christian faith and his traditional upbringing was what led him to this moment. If he’d stayed steadfast then maybe God wouldn’t have abandoned him. Restoring that relationship would require staying away from funny business such as keys that burrowed into your skin like parasites.

“So you believe,” Enechi said. “You just don’t want to acknowledge it because it might affect that fallacy of a church that you own.”

“We came here because we need to combine our forces,” Ahimad said. “Oseki has taken all our keys and I’d very much like to get mine back.”

Kuwin scratched his head. Why was nothing ever easy?

“You’re saying my key would kill me, but you think I’m going to help you get it back?” He looked at Enechi. “If I follow your logic, I should be rejoicing that the key is far away.”

“You might die the moment your skin touches the key again, but at least your entire clan, including your family, will be safe.”

“My family.” Kuwin moved closer to him. “What does my family have to do with it?”

“You never wondered what separated us from commoners? Pastor, without those keys, our clans lose their influential edge in Usehjiki. Without it, what are we? When the people start to forget why we are in charge, Usehjiki will be in real trouble.”

“If we have to resort to such diabolical means to be in power then maybe we don’t deserve it.”

“What?” both Ahimad and Enechi asked.

“We’ve had our run. If God says it’s time for us to give up power, then it’s time.”

“And when they start killing us, what then?”

“Who will kill us?”

“Kuwin, are you so naive? When commoners start seeing us as equals, they’ll ask for equal treatment. Then we’ll have a revolution on our hands. I’m sorry, but I’m yet to see a revolution without bloodshed.”

“But... they can’t... no one can kill us. We’re clans-blood,” Kuwin said.

“Without the keys, we’re not. Without the keys, the people will rise. Without the keys, the four clans will fall.”

Of course, because nothing was ever that easy.