![]() Like Koffi, Sahel had been a beastkeeper indentured to the Night Zoo, which meant he’d had little money in life and likely had even less in death. A soul with no money to pay for passage was doomed to walk the earth as a lost spirit for all eternity. Each soul then had to pay Fedu before being carried on to paradise in the godlands. It was said that, to pass into the next life, one of the gods’ animal familiars-represented by the figurines before them-carried each soul to the god of death, Fedu. “Mind your tongue when you speak of the dead, lest you bring them misfortune.” “Hush.” Mama’s head snapped up, and she swatted the words away like tsetse flies. “Some of the others were talking,” Koffi went on before her mother could stop her. Their heads were still bowed when Koffi asked the question in a murmur. “Carry him to his ancestors in the godlands.” Together they let their fingers brush each of the figurines before folding their hands. At a sharp glance from Mama, however, she moved to kneel with her. She’d agreed to come here and offer parting rites for Sahel, as Gede custom called for, but the thought of getting any closer to the corpse unnerved her. The oil lamp to her right bathed one side of her face in lambent light the other was cast in shadow. On it were six crudely carved wooden figurines of animals-a heron, a crocodile, a jackal, a serpent, a dove, and a hippo-one familiar for each god. If the rumors she’d heard earlier were true, Sahel’s manner of death had been neither a quick nor a painless affair.Īcross the stuffy hut, Mama was on her knees beside Sahel’s body, staring at the tattered blanket before it. ![]() She envisioned a grotesque creature stalking forward in the moonlight, tongue darting between serrated teeth as it eyed easy prey.Ī violent shudder racked her body then, despite the muggy heat. She imagined Sahel stumbling through a jungle, clumsy, oblivious to what waited for him among the vines. From the darkest corners of her mind, a chilling image grew vivid. She couldn’t see them, but she knew they were there-the scratches, the bite marks. As was Gede practice, most of his body was shrouded, but dried blood still stained the white linen in places, hints of the gruesome wounds beneath. In life, he’d had a crooked smile, an obnoxious braying laugh not unlike that of a donkey. Koffi hadn’t worked with him in the Night Zoo long, but she recognized his bare face, mahogany brown like her own, framed by tight black curls. Her eyes were fixed on what lay mere feet from her across the worn dirt f loor-the victim. But it was no matter she kept still as stone. Every so often, her stomach twisted, threatening revolt. A quarter hour had passed since she’d last moved her legs were stiff, her mouth dry. It was a nauseating smell, both fetid and sickly sweet, thick in the dusk as it filled Koffi’s lungs. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |