Chapter 6: A Theory of Magic

Mansa stands before a dormitory building, a long house divided into five apartments and a shared veranda. Her eyes are shut tight, her lips curved into a deep frown of concentration. Sunsum drips in slow, luminous droplets off the surface of her skin; not downwards but into the sky, like inverted rain.

As the sunsum fades away, she opens her eyes and unclenches her fists, her fingers quivering with the tension of spatial beyie. Waves of nausea radiate from her gut. Swearing, she drops into a squat and buries her head between her knees to clear her head.

Spatial beyie is not her affinity.

When Mansa tries her hardest, she can almost feel the barriers of the cloaking pattern she lifted, humming against the air around her and the dormitory. Or at least, she thinks she can feel it. She might be imagining it. This is her problem with cloaking patterns—she can never tell how well they’re working until another witch on the outside puts them to the test. And the only kind of barrier she knows how to raise is designed to fall when the weaver steps beyond its boundaries. There’s no winning here, she decides. She will have to trust that she’s done a decent job.

She rises carefully back to her feet and shuffles towards the apartments. The only door open is the apartment in the middle.

Inside, she tries the light switch. The fluorescent tube in the ceiling flickers and settles into a dim glow, washing the room in bleak, off-white light.

It is a small room, cramped with two student mattress beds, twin bedside cabinets, and a study table by the window. There is another door at the end of the room, half-open to expose bathroom tiling.

Mansa sets upon the cabinets, rummaging their contents for anything she can use on her bloody nose. She tosses out scraps of paper, polythene bags, an empty plastic bottle. Holding the bottle up to the light, an idea forms in her head. She heads to the bathroom.

The builders tried to fit a toilet, sink and standing shower into twenty-five square feet of space with only partial success. The door smacks the side of the toilet when Mansa tries to enter, and it takes some squeezing to get inside. She fills the plastic bottle with water and then throws open the tiny cabinet above the bathroom mirror. Empty toothpaste boxes, razor packets, and rolls of toilet paper rain down to her feet.

“Aha,” she breathes, when she finally finds a first aid kit.

There’s a creak from the bedroom. “Hello?” a soft voice says.

“Coming,” Mansa calls, squeezing her way back out.

Chichi is standing in the door, clutching her arms and surveying the bedroom with salient uncertainty. “This place is creepy.”

“It’s just the lighting.”

“Maybe,” says Chichi. “It sure makes you look a lot worse.”

“Eh?”

Chichi taps her own nose.

“Oh.” Mansa touches the swollen lump that is now her nose and winces. “Yeah, I saw in the mirror.”

“Can I help?” Chichi says, her eyes falling on the rusty box in Mansa’s hands.

“You’re sweet. Thank you.”

They sit next to each other on one of the bare beds, and Mansa hands Chichi the box. “Have you ever done this?”

Chichi shakes her head. “I’ve always been the patient, not the nurse.”

“First we need ice for the swelling,” Mansa says.

“Um.” Chichi looks around. “We don’t have any. Maybe there’s an open shop around here or—”

“No, no, don’t worry.” Mansa lifts the bottle of water up to her lips, and her brown eyes glow as she blows into it.

The water crackles as it solidifies into a hazy block of grey. Water vapor swirls around the plastic.

Chichi’s eyes widen in awe. “That’s amazing!”

Mansa chuckles as she presses the bottle against her face. “Oh, it’s a parlor trick at best. Where I train, beyie is pointless if it cannot serve on some grander scale.”

“And this can’t?”

“To keep drinks cold at a party maybe,” Mansa says. “My coven keeper can turn a sunny field into a tundra if she wanted. That’s real elemental beyie. Speaking of beyie, where’s your sister?”

Chichi looks away and shrugs. “I don’t know. Hanging outside somewhere? I don’t really care right now.”

“Oh no,” Mansa says, deflated. “Did you guys have a fight? Do you want to talk about it?”

Chichi shakes her head. “I’d rather talk about anything else, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m open to whatever.”

Chichi looks at the frozen bottle in her hand. “So…elemental beyie. Like: fire, water, wind and stuff?”

“For starters…” Mansa says, and then hesitates.

“No, please. Go on,” says Chichi.

“It’s a little technical. I don’t want to bore you.”

“It’s magic,” Chichi says, looking both amused and incredulous. “In what universe is that boring? Also…” Her mood sours again. “Ama has been lying to me for so long. Some truth would be nice.”

Mansa nods and takes a deep breath. “Okay. So…magic is divided into disciplines and practiced based on theoretical frameworks. ‘Theoretical frameworks’, in this case, is just a fancy way of saying that various cultures study and understand magic differently. Here in West Africa, and especially in Ghana, we practice based on Natural-Affinity theory. That means unlike, say the European Fellowships, we believe it’s just as important to master your affinity as it is to train in other disciplines of beyie that may not be your affinity. Are you following so far?”

Chichi smiles. “Is it too late to take back what I said?”

Mansa laughs. “I told you!”

“Keep going, keep going, don’t mind me!”

“So—elemental beyie. That’s just one sub-discipline of kinetic beyie, which is also just one of five main disciplines—Astral, Transformation, Mind, Kinetic, and Life beyie. There are like, special Akan names for each discipline, and even special titles for the classes that practice them. But I won’t get into that tonight. It’s…a lot.”

“Can anyone learn mag—I mean, beyie?” Chichi asks, her eyes lighting up with hope.

“No, sorry. You have to have what’s called a multi-resonant sunsum, which is what we beyifo have. Everything in the universe vibrates at its own frequency, and being a witch means being able to vibrate our sunsum—that is our spirits—at different frequencies to match and manipulate the world around us.”  

“Why does it sound so much like school work?” Chichi says in surprise. “Leave it to school to ruin magic.”

They laugh and Mansa is relieved to see some of Chichi’s anxiety lifted.

“To be fair, there are plenty of beyifo who use beyie, and use it well, without knowing a lick of theory. Beyie is always more interesting in action.”

“I guess I just never thought it would be so…complicated,” says Chichi.

“I think when most people hear ‘beyie’, they think of curses, and blood sacrifices, and unwanted abilities inherited from old women,” Mansa says. “But it’s more layered than that, and what beyie means often depends on context. It can be used in a general sense to mean ‘magic’ or ‘a pattern’. But it can also be used more specifically to refer to an original technique no one else can copy, or a unique magic talent that no one else has.”

“Do you have any talents like that?” Chichi asks.

“I wish,” Mansa says, looking sheepish all of a sudden. “At best, I have an original beyie I’ve been working on. But it’s far from finished. Don’t even ask about it. It’s too embarrassing.”

“Really?” Chichi rolls her eyes and gives her a tired look. “You can’t say that and then not show me.”

Mansa hesitates, and then says, “Okay, but you can’t laugh.”

“Ma’am, I didn’t even know magic existed like a minute ago. You could pull a rabbit out of a hat and I’d be blown away.”

“Okay, okay.” Mansa takes a deep breath and shakes herself loose.

“You’re so dramatic…”

Mansa forces a laugh and, holding her hands out in front of her, curves her palms together into a bowl. 

Chichi stares at the empty space over Mansa’s hands for a stretch of silence. “What are we looking at?” she whispers.

“Give it a minute,” says Mansa. “I…don’t want to lose control.”

Right then, three pinpoints of golden light appear between her palms, expanding into butterflies. The trio of butterflies flitter and bob about in a circle.

Chichi’s eyes widen, glinting with the tungsten light. “Woah.”

The butterflies vanish, leaving faint tendrils of smoke behind.

“I haven’t quite decided what I want it to be yet,” says Mansa. “But I’m hoping to turn it into something special. A beyie with a name.”

“That’s really beautiful, Mansa,” Chichi says, before going quiet for a moment.

“What?”

“I guess I asked about talents because I thought maybe you were a seer or something?”

“That’s definitely not my field. If it was, I’d be making much better life decisions,” Mansa says, forcing another laugh. This time Chichi does not laugh along. Mansa coughs and swallows hard. “Um, why uh…why would you think that?”

“If I ask,” Chichi says softly. “You can’t lie to me, okay?”

Mansa squirms under Chichi’s hard gaze. She cannot fathom how a child this frail can make her feel so small. “I’m listening.”

“Why are you here?”

Mansa’s smile wavers. “I…I don’t understand.”

“I’m not being mean,” Chichi says. “I’m just trying to understand how you knew to show up? How did you know we were in trouble?”

Mansa hesitates, racking her brain for an answer that will not betray her mandate.

“Did somebody send you?” Chichi asks.

This seems like an easy lifeline at first and Mansa nods, only for Chichi to follow it up with, “Was it Mama Wu?”

Of all the potential follow-ups, this was Mansa’s least expected. She did not think the little girl would guess correctly so easily. “No,” Mansa stammers, trying to hold Chichi’s gaze.

“Who then?”

“My…coven keeper,” says Mansa.

Chichi doesn’t react to this information. Mansa isn’t sure she believes her.

“And do you know why she sent you?” Chichi asks. “Why there are witches trying to kill me?”

Mansa shakes her head hard, meaning it this time. “I don’t Chichi. I wasn’t told that. I swear.”

Chichi’s expression is a blank slate. “You said you wouldn’t lie to me.”

“Well, no, I never said that,” Mansa murmurs, unable to meet Chichi’s eyes anymore. “Not technically.”

Chichi’s face falls, although her disappointment doesn’t appear to be in the lack of answers. Her disappointment is in Mansa, and Mansa can tell.

Chichi hands back the first aid box and moves to the other bed.

“Do you eh, have more question about beyie?” Mansa asks, shame burning through her insides like wildfire.

“No,” Chichi says softly. “I’m tired now.” She turns away and curls up into a ball.

OOO

Mansa finds Ama outside of the room, seated on the tiled veranda with her back against a column. She is picking crushed glass and gravel out of the soles of her bare feet. With every shard she pulls, Mansa watches her flesh bleed and seal without so much as a scab. The healing process takes seconds. It is mesmerizing to watch.

Mansa drops down to sit opposite her, resting her back on the door. Her cousin doesn’t look up.

“So,” Mansa says, “you have healing beyie.”

Ama pulls an especially long sliver of glass from the ball of her right foot.  “I can’t fix your nose for you, if that’s what you’re asking.” She drops the sliver and it tinkles against the tiles. “It’s purely regenerative. And it’s passive. I have no control over it.”

Mansa nods. “I didn’t think you did. I’m going to assume then that the rest of your powers are the usual beyisafo affair?”

“Strong. Fast. Heightened senses. Enhanced reflexes. And I have a witch-arm,” Ama says. “You?”

“Kinetics. I’m koafo class.”

“So mostly elemental and spatial beyie?” Ama asks.

“More elemental than spatial, but yeah. I have a decent handle on some astral stuff too…oh, and I can weave impact absorption in a heartbeat. That’s where my body transformation skills end though. I can’t weave transformation beyie for shit.”

Ama shrugs. “That’s more than enough to handle yourself in a fight. Don’t beat yourself up about the transformation stuff. That class of beyie is hard. Or that’s what Selasi tells me anyway.”

“Selasi?”

“Boyfriend.”

“Ah.”

Ama finally looks up, and for the first time since their reunion, Mansa can study her cousin’s face—the narrow upturned eyes, button nose and full lips, framed by a sharp angular jawline and haloed by wild kinky hair.

“You look so different from how I remember,” Mansa says. “It’s crazy how much can change in three years.”

“Really?” says Ama. “You look the same to me. Just taller. But if you’re more surprised by how I look than what I can do, I’m going to assume you already knew I was beyisafo?”

“Yeah,” Mansa said. “I’ve known for a while actually. Nana told me. Although I could’ve sworn she said you were beyifo not…”

“Nana? Really?”

Mansa nodded. “She told me like a week after I moved in with her.”

Now Ama is sitting up straight. “Hold on. Why did you have to move in with her?”

“My parents eh…kicked me out,” Mansa mumbles.

Ama’s eyes go wide. “Uncle Yaw and Auntie Linda kicked you out? What the hell?”

“I mean, they took me to Nana’s place themselves but it was essentially the same thing because I don’t think I’m allowed back home.”

“How did I not know about this? When did this happen?”

Mansa wrings her hands and looks away. “Not long after the last time we saw each other. After…that day….and what happened with Chichi….everything went to shit. I started manifesting. Floating objects. Shattered windows. Setting a bathtub of water on fire was the last straw. They brought in a deliverance minister. Forty-eight hours. That’s how long he tried to exorcise me. I can still taste blood in the back of my throat when I think about it. I almost died of dehydration. When that failed, they moved me to Nana’s, and only because they thought she was a staunch Christian who was going to put me back on the straight and narrow.”

Ama curses in disbelief. “I didn’t know any of this. Wait, did my mother know about this?”

“I don’t think anyone did, other than my parents and the pastor,” Mansa says. “I would have told someone, but I was scared and well…ten. Who would believe me?”

“Mansa, that’s horrible,” Ama says. “I-I don’t know what to say.”

Mansa shrugs. “It’s not like you’ve had it any easier. I overheard you telling Chichi how you became beyisafo. Not a fun story.”

“Yeah but at least I didn’t get kicked out. Although, I guess I don’t know how Ma would react if she did learn what I’ve become,” Ama says with a sigh.

They go quiet and their silence is filled with the distant chirps of crickets.

“This is all my fault,” Mansa murmurs.

Ama gives her a sharp look. “Don’t.”

“It is.”

“We were both supposed to be looking after her,” Ama says. “Anyway, I’m the one who suggested it.”

“I’m the one who brought the book,” Mansa says. “And I’m the one who turned out to be beyifo.”

“I’m older than you,” says Ama.

“By a year.”

“I should’ve known better.”

“Still I—”

“She’s my sister,” Ama snaps.

Mansa purses her lips.

“I should’ve looked out for her,” Ama says, balling her fists, fighting back the sting in her eyes. “We did it because I wanted us to do it. And it happened because I wanted it to happen more than anything else. And now, I’m paying for it.”

Mansa stretches out her foot to touch one of Ama’s. “We’re both paying for it,” she says.

“But…” Ama mumbles, angrily wiping a tear away. “No one more than Chichi. I can’t believe I trusted her.”

Mansa senses they’re talking about someone else now. “Trusted who?”

“Mama Wu.” Ama speaks the name like she’s spewing venom.

The energy between them is changing, turning cold, and Mansa can feel an icy sweat forming down her back. 

“That backstabbing bitch,” Ama snarls. “She was supposed to find Chichi a cure. That was the deal. That was the only reason I agreed to let her turn me into…into this thing! And now she’s got lackeys and goat demons chasing us down? What the hell?”

“D-do we know for sure that Mama Wu sent them though?” Mansa stammers. “Maybe there’s some explanation?”

Ama fixes her hard eyes on Mansa. Mansa pulls her foot back from hers.

“So Mama Wu did send you,” Ama says.

Mansa shrinks beneath her glare. “You heard me talking to Chichi…”

“I’m beyisafo and there’s no one around for at least a mile,” says Ama. “I could’ve heard you from halfway across the campus if I wanted. I’m only going to ask you this question once. Why did Mama Wu send you?”

Mansa searches Ama’s eyes and realizes there’s no room here for a lie. In this moment, she is more worried about her cousin than the centuries-old arch witch, and she didn’t think that was possible. “She asked me to bring Chichi to her.” A pause. “Without letting you know.”

Ama takes a deep breath and with her exhale, she asks, “Why?”

“That, I don’t know,” Mansa says, quickly adding, “It was a prerecorded message. I couldn’t have asked any questions even if I wanted to.”

Ama’s stare is softening now but Mansa can no longer look at her.

“Mansa.”

“Yeah?”

“You are family. And so I love you.”

Mansa waits a beat. “I…love you too.”

“But if, at any point at all from this moment on, you choose to take my sister back to that woman behind my back,” Ama says slowly, darkly. “We are going to have a problem. Understood?”

Mansa nods. “Understood.”

“Good,” Ama says, with a sigh of relief. “Because I need you on my side on this.”

“I am on your side, Ama. Of course I am. Just tell me the plan and I’m on board.”

“The plan is to keep everyone’s hands off Chi until Mama Wu is forced to come to us herself. Then we can finally get some answers. Although—” Ama says, giving Mansa a meaningful look. “I’m open to other ideas.”

Mansa offers a weak smile in return. “I’ll let you know if…” The rest of her words wilt on their way out.

Ama has gone still as well, like a deer caught in headlights. “Do you feel that?” she whispers.

Mansa does. The aura of an unfamiliar sunsum is radiating from somewhere at the edge of the campus, not far from the entrance they themselves used. This one doesn’t feel like the goat man’s, but that doesn’t make her feel any better. The aura isn’t coming any closer. It isn’t passing by either. It’s just…there. Loitering. Somehow that only unsettles Mansa more.

“They can’t feel us right?” Ama says, jumping to her feet.

As Mansa does the same, she realizes her cousin is referring to the cloaking barrier she put up. “They shouldn’t be able to. I could try to strengthen the barrier, but honestly I’m afraid I’ll screw something up and unravel it by accident.”

Ama is anxious and deep in thought, while Mansa tries to recall every barrier lesson she’s taken in her Spatial classes.

“I should go check on what it is,” Ama finally says.

Mansa looks at her like she’s lost her mind. “If they’re not coming any closer, you should stay here. If my barrier is working—”

Ama whips her head at Mansa. “If?”

“Let me rephrase that. Because my barrier is working, whoever owns that aura can’t feel you yet. The second you step beyond the barrier, that’s over.”

“I don’t like the way they’re lingering. I think they know something is here. What if they can dissolve the barrier? Or sense us through it? We’re sitting ducks. But I can hide my aura before stepping out. That should work long enough for me to get close. Then I could draw them away, or maybe even try a surprise attack.”

Mansa doesn’t look convinced. “I don’t know...”

“If I have to fight again, I don’t want Chichi caught in the middle.” Ama grips Mansa by her shoulders. “Stay and watch her. I can be back in under thirty seconds if I need to be.”

“O-okay,” Mansa says, trying to appear more confident than she feels.

“I trust you.”

Mansa nods more determinedly this time. “She’ll be safe with me. I swear.”

Ama wipes her sweaty palms off her ragged dress. She has the face of a first-time skydiver trying to be brave about it. “See you soon.”

Mansa’s guts twist into a thousand knots as she watches Ama walk away. When she disappears around a bend in the road, Mansa closes her eyes to feel for the barrier one more time.

She detects the pulsing walls—faint, invisible, but certainly there, and that provides some minor comfort. At least she didn’t screw that up.

While doing this, something else tickles her senses. Mansa’s eyes flash open. Someone else is nearby.

It isn’t the same aura Ama is pursuing. This one is muted, suppressed. But powerful. And it fluctuates with the telltale waver of a beyie user who never bothered to master the art of hiding their presence. Probably because they never had to.

Mansa staggers off the veranda, as she casts her sights left, right, left, trying to pinpoint the source. The aura grows in intensity. Gradually. Until she can feel it crackling in the air like a brewing thunderstorm. Finally, the source stops trying to hide itself and Mansa looks up.

The goat-man is floating above the campus.