The Witness of Usehjiki

Osa pushed open the flap at the back of the truck and jumped out, into a wide clearing at the center of a large forest with thick-trunked trees and bushy branches.

The clearing she was standing in was the only spot in the Imatong forest where sunlight touched the ground. Her truck was parked beside a grey truck with an uncovered back, filled with camo-colored boxes.

She walked around the truck to the front, noting that the hole that was dug into the ground was twice the size it had been before she traveled to Izecha. It was deeper and the contraptions that had been built to keep the floor from caving in extended further in, too.

Osa took her bag out of the truck but opted to leave her jacket in there. Imatong was hot, this time of the year and she was sure the tunnel was going to prove even hotter.

“I’ll call you,” Osa said to the driver as the man nodded and began reversing into the clearing.

As she stepped into the tunnel, sand drifted down on her. She placed her hand over her eyes and kept going, allowing the downward slope of the ground to pull her faster.

“About time,” another woman said, as soon as Osa walked into a large, round room that was brighter than the tunnel.

The room was held up by pillars that supported a big tarp, which kept the sand from falling. Bulbs hung from the ceiling, along with wires. There were three chairs scattered around the room. Two had clothes in them while one was empty. At the center of the room was a lone, wooden table with papers and books.

Standing by the table, a grey-haired woman smiled at Osa. Her mother, her confidant, her mana. The woman was freckled with age and a pair of glasses balanced on her nose. She stood a few inches shorter than Osa as she opened her arms wide.

Osa hugged her, breathing in the presence of the woman as she rocked them both from side to side.

“O te nu Mana,” I missed you, my mother.

“O te nuoh,” Mana said, running her fingers through Osa’s unruly hair. “Not taking care of yourself?”

“Mana, you’ve been sleeping in a cave. You can’t judge me.”

“Where is it?” Mana asked.

Osa smiled and dropped her bag on the table. When she took out the key and handed it over, Mana patted her on the back in pride. Since the creation of the keys, every generation of the Oseki had borne theirs with a certain amount of reluctance that Osa had somehow inherited. It was wrong for them to have the keys in the first place, but there was nothing they could do about it but complain to each other.

It wasn’t until Osa’s father met her mother. He’d spent months looking for a tota, a witch who studied and created totems using blood ties, spells, and Jiki artifacts. She’d been the missing link to their clan’s uneasiness. She’d studied the key embedded in their uncle’s back. She’d researched it, broke through every barrier, and tracked down the particular families in the other clans that had key bearers.

This moment, their family’s success, was all down to their mother’s ingenuity.

“The prodigal daughter arrives,” another woman walked into the room, carrying a heavy carton. She would have been a replica of Osa, if it weren’t for her broader shoulders and scanty ponytail. She had on a blue sweater and a pair of sweatpants that didn’t match.

“Oh my god, Ifiso,” Osa exclaimed, running to hug her. “How long has it been?”

“Too long,” Ifiso gave Osa a loud, exaggerated kiss on the cheek. “Did you get it?”

“Is grass green?”

“Sometimes, it’s not,” Ifiso replied, eying the key in her mother’s hand as she nodded at it. “Nearly lost your chance there. The pastor turned forty, two days ago.”

“He was taking too long. I had to go to him.”

“You know how key bearers are about their celibacy,” Mana said, examining the new key under a bright table light.

“How did you get yours?” Osa asked.

“I wasn’t exactly his type,” Ifiso replied, wagging her eyebrows.

Osa laughed.

“Fada lawd!” she exclaimed in bewilderment.

“Had to hire someone.”

“Please don’t tell me you watched,” Osa said, already cringing, already knowing what her creepy sister would say.

“I paid for a service.”

“OH MY GOD!” Osa got up. “You know what? Compared to you, everything I did was saintly in comparison.”

“You broke the heart of a man of God,” Toso said, entering the room. She, too, looked exactly like Osa. But, just like their mother, Toso’s hair was low cut. It had short, black curls with purple highlights at the tips. “I’m pretty sure God is going to take that personally.”

“Toso!” she squealed as they met halfway between them in another big hug as Osa spun her sister around in a circle.

“How was it?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Toso said, her upper lip rising in distaste.

Osa understood how she felt. They’d had to do it, but that didn’t mean any of them were comfortable with using their bodies in that way. Especially someone like Toso who was sentimental about every single thing. She’d been the hardest convince when the plan had first been set in motion.

Even when they managed to get past the idea of using their bodies in such vulgar ways, there was also the part about fooling three innocent men into falling for their traps and giving up their celibacy so that Osa and her sisters could steal their keys. It was a horrid idea. But it had to be done. If it wasn’t by them then someone else would take the burden.

Toso had taken it the hardest, and it turned out that she was still holding on to the indignity of it all. If Ifiso felt the same way, she wasn’t letting on. Ifiso had always had the thickest skin of all of them, so it made sense that she’d coat her discomfort in creepy humor, but that didn’t change the fact that some discomfort still existed.

None of them had clean hands. They’d done all kinds of things for the country and their families. But this had been, probably, the most hideous.

“Stop crying about it,” Ifiso said.

“Who’s crying?” Toso asked back, hitting Ifiso on the head.

Ifiso spun around, quickly and smacked her right back. Immediately, Toso raised her hand to return fire.

“Habo tene!” Mana hissed. Girls, stop it.

Behind their mother, Ifiso stuck her tongue out at Toso.

Mana took the case with the keys and went to the wooden door. She inserted the first key.

“Nu paba,” your father, “would have been so proud to be here. Your uncle, your elder sisters, bless their spirits.” She put in the second key. “After so many years... so many generations of guilt,” third key. “Can you imagine the relief when Seneseba is freed and grants us forgiveness?”

Seneseba, which meant “to see and to tell,” was the witness of Usehjiki. She was said to have existed since the beginning of time, serving as a remembrance of Jiki tradition. She held a connection to Jiki soil that no other person in Jiki history could trace. It was incredibly unfortunate that she’d ended up in an Osekoni tunnel, but at the time, the chiefs of Usehjiki had thought it pertinent.

After decades of talking about it, they were finally doing it. It was here. They were right at the door of freedom and forgiveness.

Osa moved closer to get a better look as Mana placed the last key in its hole.

“Stand up and come closer, girls. Show some respect.”

Toso and Ifiso rushed to Osa’s side as Mana turned the keys, one after the other. The door clicked and then burst open by an inch as a gust of wind gushed out of the room within. Toso squeezed Osa’s hand, so Osa squeezed Ifiso’s hand in anticipation.

Mana picked a torchlight from the floor and pushed the door open. It creaked and squeaked, pouring some more sand on top of Mana. When the door opened, it revealed a tiny, wooden cubicle with effigies drawn on the wall. On the floor, directly opposite the door, lay the remains and bones of what must have been a person, at some point in history.

Osa frowned.

“Is that... Mana, is that her?” Osa asked.

“Is she supposed to be like that?” Ifiso asked.

Before Mana could reply, she was pulled into the room. The women screamed but Osa held her sisters back as they watched their mother’s body begin to twist and turn and tear apart while their mother wailed in pain.

Toso cried and held on to Osa till their mother was torn to shreds and her flesh began to arrange itself, melding with the bones and remains that had been on the floor.

As everything around them settled, a young, naked woman stood before them, her body was covered in dust and specks of dried blood and her hair was a disheveled mess of kinks.

“Nu midi o muha,” the woman said in a scratchy voice. I recognize your blood. “Oseki o gbo midi.” The blood of my enemy, Oseki.

Osa moved her sisters further away from Seneseba as the woman’s eyes tracked their movements. Their mother was gone. It was Osa’s job to keep them safe. Out of every possible outcome, Osa hadn’t seen this coming. All the other families betrayed the witness. They put her in a tomb. But Oseki freed her. She was supposed to be an ally. How could she just kill Mana without thought?

“O dung gbo,” Osa said, covering her sisters from the woman. We are not your enemy.

“Egong mana?” Ifiso asked. Where is our mother? Ifiso picked up the can of kerosene by the table.

The woman eyed the can of kerosene. Almost as if she knew what it was. She approached Ifiso with vengeance, and Osa blocked her path. With one slap, the woman sent Osa flying across the tunnel and into the wall.

“Toso, get the matches!” Ifiso said in English and the woman stopped, confused by Ifiso’s words.

Toso grabbed the box of matches on the small stool, just as Ifiso opened the can and poured the kerosene. Toso lit a stick and tossed it at the woman who screamed as her skin lit on fire.

Screaming in agony, she trashed around the room, spreading the fire to Mana’s books and scrolls as the place began to burn up.

Toso and Ifiso, each, grabbed an arm of Osa as they carried her out of the tunnel.

“What the hell was that?” Toso cried, placing Osa at the back of Ifiso’s truck as Ifiso got into the driver’s seat and reversed out of the clearing.

“I’m...” Osa began. “I’m all right.” Osa sat up. Toso shifted back from her. Osa checked her back pocket for her phone but the screen was cracked. It had broken when she fell. “Do any of you have Dr. Mowung’s number?”

“What for?” Ifiso asked, looking back at them in the rear-view mirror.

“Mana said we should find him if something goes wrong.”

“Something has... everything has gone wrong,” Toso said, still crying. “She killed Mana. After everything we went through to release her from that place, she just...”

Osa held her sister in her arms as Toso sobbed. Osa watched Ifiso in the mirror, noting the anger in her sister’s eyes. The frustration and the struggle not to break down and cry like Toso was doing. Toso was the youngest. She could afford that luxury.

But not Osa.

And not Ifiso.