[Hear the story in the author’s voice—audio reading included]

The girls watched as their grandmother fanned out the cash and examined the bills, searching for counterfeits, counting and recounting. Her bangles chattered like teeth on her arms.

It ends with a jaded god. Ogbunabali. The god who kills at night. They say he grants a request in exchange for five souls. It is called the ritual of exchange. It is well known. But, like every tale, there are four parts to it. The part you tell. The part I tell. The part we agree not to tell. The part Wiwe tells.

The waiter at the counter watches them. Short-lived glances driven by questions. Questions about these two men, none older than twenty-eight, who walk into a near-empty restaurant on a quiet evening.

Many years after the beginning of time, Ajja, after years of childlessness and ridicule, had gone to the gods of the forest to ask for a child to brighten up her old age.

One afternoon, I found a note under my door. Scribbled in pencil on torn paper. No name. Just the words: You cannot lie to a city that knows your footsteps.

My name is Ego. And I have buried love thrice.

What she felt was well deserved guilt, guilt for the years she treated her sister like a burden, guilt from the fact that her sister was always having a faceoff with death while she was living her best life.

I went to my Grandma Mamie’s every summer, sometimes even during the year, but this was the first time Roosevelt had visited me.

Bottles of beer to their mouths, they all anxiously wait for him to at least say something, acknowledging that it is best to let a man crawl out of his shell on his own.

The burden of loving this baby weighed him down like the chains that had shackled his forebears. And hers.

Are you a bot?

It is one of those mornings when you wake up with your troubles staring you in the eye.

Dear Levi,

Four weeks ago, I buried my bracelet, my ring, and my baby.

The sun shone brightly as if the ancestors themselves smiled upon the day.

When the Black man ruled this land, things were very different. You see, me, I’m the brother of the wind; I am the altered destiny.’

As soon as the smoke dispersed, a gorgeous woman with glowing dark skin was standing there.

She sighed. “Everything grows here,” she said, pulling out more weeds. “If it’s strong, it lives. If not, then it dies.”

Last night, she came into the world of my dreams and rocked it upside down. She was all of splendour and beauty.

You hum the words of the poem again and again to the boy, smoothing his hair over and over as you do so. Already, you know that there is no more sleep tonight. You know this is where you will lie till the sun shines through those dancing curtains.

The first time I saw the devil, I was four and didn’t quite make sense of what I saw. The second time I saw him, I was a year older and more articulate, but it was only for a fleeting second.