Page 2 of Tangled at the Root
This eshé feels like air trapped underneath a glass bowl—seemingly innocuous through the clear container, but every other moment, a whiff of it escapes, bringing with it the faint smell of rot.
I take my glasses off and use the heel of my hand to mop the sweat from my temples and brow. It’s going to rain soon, the promising weight of it sinking heavily into the already humid air.
I activate the charm as I replace my lenses, just in case. It’s shoddy work because of the metal—my fault for getting the frames for the aesthetic. When the idea of charming them had come to me, it had felt like a waste to replace them with a better material just for one silly enchantment. I’d also taken it as a challenge—one I’d, admittedly, only marginally passed.
It takes a few tries before the charm activates, but nothing that could’ve been hidden—or hiding—reveals itself.
Built into the fence to my right, the gateman’s house looks just as forgotten as the rest of the compound. Its broken window lies uselessly open, the cracked panels covered in a thick layer of dust.
A hundred-metre-long driveway leads straight to and encircles the main house, a two-storey thing with once-white walls as washed as the fence, maroon trim, and a pitched, dark red roof. It’s a typical Nigerian abode, but seems to loom in the distance, like it’s watching me.
The curtains of the first-floor window on the right flutter. An elderly, dark-skinned woman stands there, her form so eerily still I think she must be a cardboard cutout. At the same time, I’m hit with a stronger gust of that terrible rot—damp and must and the eye-watering stench of a decomposing animal.
I recoil, instinctively holding my breath. I’d barely blinked, but the woman is gone. Reactivating the charm on my lenses shows me nothing. Inhaling tentatively, and then more deeply reveals nothing either, as though, for that one single moment, I’d imagined the strength of that awful smell.
I give it some time; perhaps the woman is my mysterious client on her way down to meet me.
Two minutes pass. I don’t get even a hint of the smell of decay, no matter how deeply I breathe. If it hadn’t been so strong just then—the subtle, earlier whiffs of it so obvious—I’d have thought it hadn’t existed at all.
I wait a minute more before fumbling in my handbag for my phone. There’s shockingly some service in this desolate place, thank God, even if it’s only a single measly bar.
“The phone number you have dialled does not exist in our database. Please check the number and try again.”
Scowling at the screen, I’m about to do exactly as the automated voice instructed when there’s a subtle shift in the house’s eshé. My gaze flies up, an incantation for protection and the spell to activate my glasses leaving my lips on reflex.
The eshé contracts sharply, suctioning the air around me like a hoover.
As suddenly as it comes, the pressure is gone.
Then I hear her.
“What do you evenwant?” The question is spat with frustrated exhaustion, and I’m moving without entirely meaning to.
My legs—my body—have gotten a mind of their own, leading me stumbling down the driveway until I’m standing at the base of the steps leading up to the veranda.
She appears from the left side of the house, switching from cursing in English to cursing in Ibiiom.
I lay eyes on her, and ten years coalesce into a single heartbeat. It feels like, only a moment ago, she’d told me we needed space. It could’ve been a moment ago when I’d watched her leave. When I’dlether, even as every fibre of my being had known her request had been her subtle way of telling me goodbye.
My tongue glues itself to the roof of my mouth. The Delta heat, already sweltering, seems even more so, my skin blistering hot. On the outside, I’m a statue. On the inside, I’m trembling like a newborn calf. My chest is expanding and contracting, yet I don’t seem to be taking in any air.
When she notices me,recognisesme, she stops in her tracks, her pretty eyes growing wide, full, unpainted lips parting.
“Rosemary.” She breathes my name—still—likeit’s something beloved.
“Genevieve.” Her name falls from my mouth with everything I’d fooled myself into thinking I’d forgotten.
Her thirtieth birthday had been a few days ago. I’d spent it trying so hard not to think about her she’d beenallI could think about—buried in work, perfecting new herbal remedies for my clients, while memories of her hovered like a stubborn ghost over my shoulder.
Every year, I swear I’ve moved on. And every year, once certain dates come around, there visions of her come, too, like catching the faint whiff of a familiar perfume in the oddest places and atthe oddest times, one I can’t avoid nor get rid of no matter how hard I try.
At first, I see it in her dark eyes—all the things we’d once pretended didn’t exist. All the things we hadn’t let ourselvesadmitexisted.
Ten years; a single heartbeat. So much time has passed, yet it feels like no time has passed at all.
I blink rapidly when my eyes begin to sting, my hands gripping the strap of my handbag so tightly it hurts. I’d once let myself dream of a million impossible reunions, back when I’d still been in denial—all the things I’d say, the things I’d do, the way I’d react.
None of them had been this—me, just standing here, speechless and trying not to splinter apart.
