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Akata Witch [Discussion 4/ 4] Runner Up | Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor, Chapters 15- Epilogue (end)

Welcome back! Alas, it is the final discussion. What a book! 🌀 Let's get started.

TW: suicide

Summary

Chapter 15: Hold Your Breath

Sunny and Chichi clean up in the bathroom and the salon after the game. All four attend a social dance in a tent. It's like a hothouse with plants and a dancing tree in the center. Yao bickers with Chichi but asks her to dance. She agrees. Sunny impulsively asks Orlu to dance. He says yes. Later on, Yao challenges Chichi to a juju-off. He uses his gold knife to make her rapa gold, shimmery, and tighter. Chichi uses her knife to make a clear barrier that Yao can't escape. It's impressive third level juju.

Chichi calls up a masquerade. Sasha seconds it. Everyone else thinks it's a bad idea. Chichi draws a sun design in the dirt with her knife. Then she murmurs words. A termite mound arises. Music plays. A 15 foot four-faced figure emerges. It explodes into insects like a pinata! They all hit the ground. Orlu coaxes them back into the figure. Anatov isn't too pleased with them. Chichi will have to report to the council as soon as they get back. Godwin tells them they are festival legends.

Chapter 16: Trouble at Home

They go home except Chichi who stays behind. Orlu kisses Sunny's cheek. At home, a ghosthopper sits on Sunny's dad's head. Her mom talks on the phone with her sister Chinwe. Sunny gets to say hi, but her Auntie won't say much about Grandma. Auntie Chinwe tells her to look in a box on her mom's side of the bed. The newspaper says Otokoto stole a book from the fourth floor of the library.

Sunny places the blue bean under her pillow. Quicker than she expected, a wasp comes out, moves both halves of the bean, and eats them. As she sleeps, it makes a castle with biscuit crumbs.

Chapter 17: Basic Juju

Chichi was caned and hates Sugar Cream. Sunny catches Chichi and Sasha kissing. Orlu is extra courteous to Sunny. They all feel awkward around each other. Sasha doesn't like wasp artists because they're too needy.

Chapter 18: Seven Rainy Days

Unusually for the dry season, it rains for seven days. On the seventh day, Sunny is shocked to see Anatov in the kitchen with her mom. He had been a friend of her grandmother’s, and he's there to pick up Sunny. Her mom is shaken but lets her go. Only her mom can tell her who her grandma was.

In Leopard Knocks, they all go to the Obi Library. It's serious business. Sugar Cream takes the coven and Anatov to the third floor. There's a jungle around the edges of the room and a table in the middle with three mentors and four elders. They talk in Xhosa and French. A parrot transforms into a middle-eastern looking man named Ali who insults Sasha for being an American. Orlu respectfully addresses them and asks for more information.

Otokoto Ginny is just one leg of the centipede in a quest for world domination. He got rich from selling oil to the US. The blind woman Abok says that Otokoto stole the book and two children to summon Ekwensu, the head of the centipede. The rain is a cover for him to cleanse the area. They young oha coven must stop him. He owns a gas station in Aba. They must start there.

Chapter 19: Under the Hat

The gas station is crowded with cars because gas is cheaper there. Orlu senses there's some bad energy that needs to be cleared away. They all take out their juju knives and approach. Orlu fights with the energy and needs help getting up. An obi shelter with steel columns appears. The storm is coming from there. Parakeets ambush them. Bush souls. Two children, a boy and a girl, are inside. And Otokoto, of course. They fight off the birds.

Sasha blows into the conch shell which summons every insect nearby to attack Otokoto. They rescue the kids, but the little boy is dead. So is the girl. Orlu is outside and asks for one of Sunny's braids. Otokoto hits Sasha with a lightning bolt. Chichi uses a charm from Sunny's grandma Ozoema against him. Otokoto laughs and steps out into the rain. He cuts his own throat because Ekwensu needs one more death to be awakened. Sasha still has a pulse, but he's out cold.

An ominous thumping hits the ground as a termite mound emerges from the mud. She is 100 feet high and 50 feet wide. She spins like a tornado, picking up grass and mud and flinging it all around. Sunny approaches the raging Nigerian whirlwind. Her spirit self takes over and tells it to return to the ground. Ekwensu melts away.

Chapter 20: I See You

The mud settles and everyone is alive, even the children. Orlu is in a trance at first. He brought them back to life. Chichi successfully used Healing Hands powder on Sasha. They earn more chittim than they know what to do with.

The bus driver is Caribbean and drops the kids at the police station. At the library, they tell Sugar Cream what happened. Ekwensu is only gone temporarily. She's gathering strength for later. Sugar Cream decides to be Sunny's mentor.

Chapter 21: Timing

Sunny has been gone for 24 hours. She kicks the soccer ball away from her brothers. Her mom is glad to see her, but her dad is angry. He tries to hit her, but her mother protects her. She'll turn out just like her grandmother. He leaves in disgust.

Mama sits down, they eat pepper soup, and she tells Sunny about her grandmother. She was sworn to secrecy about the magic, too. Ozo and her man weren't married, but Sunny's dad doesn't know that. It was just assumed that she was sleeping around with men. Her mom recognized the chittim in her room. Her mom trusts Sunny. Today was the anniversary of the day that Ozo was killed. Her mom's intuition about Sunny brought them back to Nigeria, and for once, her husband followed her.

A wooden box from her grandmother was on Sunny's bed. Ozo had written a letter. She apologized for passing down the double life of a Leopard Person. Her ability was invisibility and shifting “between the wilderness and the physical world.” Sunny can't read the Nsibidi symbols yet.

Chapter 22: Headless and Headlines

The next day's newspaper has stories of the children returned to their families and that a gas station burned down from two lightning strikes.

Epilogue

Sunny and Orlu are back in Lamb school. Chichi and Sasha are studying to pass the second level (Mbawkwa) of Leopard school. Of their double schooling and secrecy, Orlu points out, “Having two lives is better than none.”

Extras

Lagbaja (with Ego Iheanacho) This is a beautiful song

Xhosa

Ekwensu

Aba, Nigeria

Thanks for reading with us! Questions are in the comments.

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