Mother Magic
Much like the first human man who walked upright, spoke and loved another human; the first witch who walked upright, spoke and loved another human came from Africa. The origin of all peoples of the earth.
Monifa was the eighth child of ten children and the first to survive her second year of life. When it had become certain she'd survive not only to two, but three, four, five, and six her father took her to be named her. He'd brought her to their people's shaman with a dead bird in one hand and in the other, her slim fingers.
Face painted with red and feathers hanging from his ears and arms, the shaman had taken the offering her father had given him and walked far, far away from their settlement to the cave that lay beyond the ridge to consult the spirits of their elders who'd long since passed from this plane and onto the next.
The follow evening, the aged man returned with cuts on his chest as well as his face paint smeared. Beckoning her toward him then, the shaman lifted her chin so her eyes would meet his before he spoke. "Monifa. She will be Monifa for she is lucky," he declared.
Her people clapped and hooted and soon, they began to dance with joy. Finally Monifa was no longer girl, child or her. She was named and therefore had power. A name meant something to her people and with one like hers, she would survive. Sometimes, she'd breeze by danger, other times she'd make it by the skin of her teeth; but never, ever, would she be without the luck that lead her to this day.
Shortly after her naming, her mother who'd stopped fretting about Monifa living, turned her worrying to the things she did. Many days passed where she was just like her kinsman's children; laughing, running and beautiful. But from time to time, she proved yet again be a different being. She turned sticks to snakes, walked on dead land only to have green sprout beneath her pearl-sized toes, sometimes Monifa'd make a pretty rock or yellow-toned feather come to her just by staring at it; once Monifa shifted her teeth from blunt, grazer looking things to the fangs of the wildcats her people feared.
She didn't turn them back. Couldn't, actually. And sometimes she regretted this, but other times it lent to benefits. She'd scared off more than one man looking for a wife by the time she was fourteen. And It was at fourteen her mother bore her ninth child. A sickly babe who didn't make it to his second week. Everyone cried for Monifa's family; but not she. She'd felt her brother beneath the skin of her mother's stretched belly all the way throughout her pregnancy and had known instinctively this babe would be like the seven before Monifa and would be too weak to survive long outside the safety of their mother's womb.
Monifa, of course, said nothing of this to no one as she had little interest in breaking the hearts of her parents whom she loved more dearly than the life she lived somedays. Yet this silence had repercussions as her kinsman whispered and gossiped. They said she, with her strange powers, had done it. Killed her baby brother and all the siblings before her. They dared to say she was an evil spirit who was preying on her mother. Her father.
She had not meant to, but in her fury at their ignorance, she set fire to her and her kinsman's village.
Her people terrified and full of rage chased her from the destruction with still burning sticks, spears and fists. Several men had caught her and held her down to allow the strongest to beat her so near death they thought she'd not ever wake again. Once done, all but one began the walk back to their village.
Monifa did not know who was lingering until one of her kinsman shouted back:
"Palassa! Why do you stand so close to the bad spirit? It may possess you yet!"
The kinsman who stood just a step away, Palassa, yelled right back "I cannot go! Not when she could yet use her magic to wake!"
"Palassa! Palassa! How brave you be, the shaman will name you a second time for your courage!"
And they were gone. All who remained were Palassa and Monifa. One a man still hopping with adrenaline and the other a woman so near death she could hear the calling of her ancestors from the other side. Unable to do anything, Monifa could not even create tears when her kinsman flipped her over and forced himself in her and filled her. When done, Palassa stood himself up and said:
"I cannot brag, but I am the only man to have conquered the she-devil in all forms. Surely the ancestors will reward me with many sons for it."
And with that, he left Monifa all alone in the dark to will him impotent as she waited for the creatures in the grass to eat her.
By her luck, or the ancestors doings, Monifa was saved. Several hunters found her early the next morning and carried her back to their women to be tended to.
Their wives, daughters and mothers tittered as they cleaned and treated Monifa. Their mouths always moving and eyes dewy as they preformed the task of shaking the cold touch of death off her.
"Who attacked you girl? Who hurt you child?" They demanded over and over as Monifa stayed silent and remembered the days when she had no name.
Eventually, they gave up on finding answers to what happened to her and when their husbands, sons and father returned these people asked "What your name girl? What they call you?"
"Alemayehu for I have seen the world."
The people exchanged looks and began to debate what was to be done with Monifa now Alemayehu. Several mothers wanted to bring her to their homes and call her daughter; several daughters wished her to marry their fathers so they may call her mother and several wives wanted her gone before she could be called anything.
In the end, the most elder of elders was brought to her. She was a woman of strong bones and sagging skin with a white sheen to her eyes that almost looked ghostly. Reaching forward with her life-worn hand, the elder laid her fingers upon Alemayehu's temple and declared:
"She is lucky and will be married to Gwandoya as he is without mother, sister, auntie, cousin or grandmother to cook for him."
A murmur rose up, but the elder, a woman who could be no less than older than the earth, rose up her hand and bellowed "silence!"
Quietness fell over them like rain and the elder slowly turned herself in a circle as she glared at each and every face inside the tent. "Gwandoya has met with much misery this past year and so he will be rewarded for surviving with Alemayehu for she has seen the world and can offer wise council to him in his time of grief and later, not-grief."
Seeing as she was being provided with shelter, safety and sustenance; Alemayehu touched her head to the dirt of the ground and said "Thank you. Thank you grandmother and kinsman for your kindness. I will repay every ounce with as many warriors as I can bear with my body."
The room lightened with approval and the elder called to one of the men standing by the door, "Retrieve Gwandoya. Tell him his mourning is over and it is now time to celebrate for he is to be married."
With a nod, the thin-faced man left and Alemayehu prayed to the ancestors for bountiful harvest for her new people. They were more benevolent than expected and deserved to be rewarded for it with all kinds of goodness.
Gwandoya was a short man. But handsome. Being able to look at his dashing features made preforming her wifely duties easy and pleasurable before she loved him. And when they were in love and just as happy to lay side by side on their mats, she did not mind him asking "Why do you have the teeth of a wildcat, wife?"
Comfortable on his chest, she answered with only the truth. "I willed it so when I was young. I have yet to find the same will that would make them as they were."
Nudging her off so he could stare deeply into her face, Gwandoya did not know if he could believe his young wife. But her almost black eyes were calm and unburdened as they gazed back at his. Settling back down, he lay his hand on her belly and asked Alemayehu;
"Could you will me many sons?"
Putting her hand atop his, she smiled a most earnest, cat-like smile and said "I will use all heart to do so."
Nine and a half months later, Alemayehu bore a son. But he was long of body and of jaw far too strong to originate from either Gwandoya or Alemayehu.
Staring into the face of the son she loved, but despaired for, she told her husband "It must be his."
"But he, like you, are mine now and I will care for him and ensure he grows to be a strong warrior;" Gwandoya promised his wife.
Eyes doleful, Alemayehu kissed his lips. "I could not have wished for a better man to call my husband."
"And I, a wife," he replied in kind as he took his new son to cradle in the crook of his elbow.
Four years later, with one infant son on each breast and her firstborn playing at her feet; Alemayehu felt the call of the home she burnt to the ground. When her husband returned to their camp that evening after hunting, she told Gwandoya so.
"I need to find my kinsman. My mother and my father. I need to see that they are hale just as our sons are."
A look not too far from murder curling her handsome man's features, he said "They tried to kill you."
Insistent, Alemayehu admitted to the same. "And I almost killed them by setting our home on fire."
Gwandoya blinked, his eyes tearing up as he asked "Why, wife, do you lie now of all times?"
"What has left my lips is not a lie, husband. Four years ago in youthful fury I set my village alight when they said I had killed my infant brother and elder siblings," Alemayehu explained to the man.
Not looking all that pleased, he reached down and picked up their son, Mosi. "Will Mosi's-"
Looking to the twins who were her father's image as they suckled, she replied "I do not know. I have wished him impotent, blind, shamed and dead many times since I last saw him. Who knows the strength of my will - or how far reaching it is."
Discontent, but adoring of his only wife, Gwandoya agreed. "We will find your kinsman and a party of us will visit them."
Overjoyed, Alemayehu gave a breathless laugh and went so close to her husband that their faces were touching. "You deserve another son," she told him.
"I was thinking you may like a daughter instead," her husband smiled as he used his free hand to pinch her flank. Laughing, she passed one of her infant sons to him so she could wrap an arm around his neck and kiss him squarely on the mouth.
His appreciation of her was made very clear later that evening when their children slept across their hut as they made love until the next morning's early lights.
It was when her belly began to swell for a third time that her husband came to her with a proud bounce to his regal step. "Alemayehu," he said. "My Alemayehu, we have found your first kinsman and your father recalls your teeth and your mother mourns for you as another child fills himself on her breast."
Bringing a hand to her mouth, Alemayehu implored "What of Mosi's-"
"There was no Palassa. Not a single man, boy or elder answered to the name within the whole village."
Relief causing her knees to go weak, she sat and let her husband take their sons, Wassawa and Ekene from her arms as Mosi ran over with a cry of
"Mama!"
Embracing her son as she cried happy tears, she said "All is well. And when all is well-"
"Good will be done." Her son answered and he held out his small hand only for a pebble to change to a feather right before their eyes.
Sharing a look, Alemayehu and Gwandoya considered what they had never thought possible. Her powers were passable and her - their - son wielded them with intelligence. Proud, they smiled and she praised Mosi for his gesture.
"Yes, my son. Good will be done."
Two weeks later, they came to a village foreign, but populated with faces Alemayehu could recall with names attached to them. Walking through, her, her husband and children ignored the cry of "Monifa! Monifa! Monifa!" That followed them and only turned when someone grabbed Gwandoya's arm.
It was a man. Alemayehu's once-father.
Gazing at his daughter with tears in his eyes, the man whispered "Monifa..." but she averted her eyes and took a step behind Gwandoya.
Confused, her before-father's mouth fell open as her husband said "I know no Monifa, only Alemayehu, my wife and mother to my sons, Mosi, Wassawa and Ekene."
"Three sons..." Alemayehu's past-father whispered.
Smiling then, he took her husband by his hand and said "Come. Come meet my wife and son Amadi."
Looking back to his wife, Gwandoya inquired "Shall we wife?"
"Yes, husband."
And the young family followed Monifa's father back to his home, wife and son. Upon entering the make-shift home, Alemayehu could see that it was cold. As if someone had gone and never returned (her). She felt further pain when she realized never again could she return after today. Not when she had a family and village of her own to care for.
A low squall caught their attention then and when they looked left, they saw Monifa's mother holding her very young son in a death-grip.
"Wife," Alemayehu's once father admonished. "You hold Amadi too close."
Releasing her grip, she all but threw her son at her husband before going to Alemayehu, once-Monifa.
"My daughter has returned," she whispered as she touched her cheek.
Stepping back, Alemayehu introduced her family. "This is Gwandoya, my husband and my sons, Mosi, Wassawa and Ekene."
"Monifa, my daughter-"
Pressing her fingers to her mother's lips, she willed herself out of her mother's memory and whispered "Monifa is many years now dead and now Alemayehu lives a life her own through your daughter's likeness. Nothing less, nothing more."
Eyes fading out of focus, her once-mother said nothing until suddenly she sparked to life again and turned to her husband and demanded "Give me my son."
Her past-father did as he stared at her in mild terror. Bowing to him, Alemayehu thanked his for his generosity. "Thank you for welcoming me into your home. It has settle me to see you well and perhaps, if ancestors allows, Amadi and I will meet again."
"Fare thee well," her before-father whispered as they walked out of his home and back through the strange village of familiar faces.
Alemayehu's peace lasted only for a short while before it was interrupted once again. A man, long and of strong features appeared in her family's village one morning and demanded her and her son's return.
"They visited my kinsman. I recognized her as the wife I lost several years ago. I wish her - and my son - to come back with me," he told her people's elders.
Terrified, she had Gwandoya take her youngest children and hide them among his friend's own as she was brought forth to refute or sustain his claims. Fighting a tremble that shook her very core, Alemayehu told all
"He is no husband of mine. Gwandoya is the first and only man I have ever been with."
Angry, Palassa, now Emeka pointed his finger at his son and said "He is mine! Look at how long he is! The set to his jaw! It resembles not his mother's and not his father's! He is my son!"
Running a hand down her chin, the elder inquired "If he is your son and his mother your wife, what is her name?"
"Monifa," Emeke answered.
"She is Alemayehu. Wife to Gwandoya, not you and her son is no more yours than she is. Leave stranger before you face consequence you do not know." The elder ordered in a grave, fierce voice.
Baring his teeth, Palassa, now Emeke bared his teeth. "This is not over she-devil!"
Gripping the shoulders of her son's close to her, Alemayehu showed off her cat-teeth in a way she had not in years. They were her threat. A bite with a crushing strength that could rival not only jaguar's and lion's, but tiger's as well.
Tiny face upturned, Mosi caught sight of the glint of daylight on her canines and with his own powers, willed his milk teeth just as sharp as her own to bare at the man who claimed he was his father and not Gwandoya, the man who'd held him in his arms every night since infancy.
Face showing surprise, Emeke hurried away as her kinsman tittered. Who was this stranger to claim their rightful daughter, mother and wife? Who was he to claim one of their sons?
A madman, they said.
Alemayehu feared what a man called mad would do.
In the inkiness of the night, Alemayehu heard something stir and when she opened her eyes, she saw something, or rather, someone standing over her Mosi. Emeke still fresh in her mind, she felt her heart begin to pound; but instead of screaming as any other of her woman people would do, she stood slow and careful and approached with lips parted.
Just as the soul was to lay their hand on her child's head, she willed herself all the way to a lioness and attacked with a roar.
The man turned, but it was too late and a moment later he lay dead with lion-Alemayehu atop him. Shifting back to herself, she saw her husband's lifeless staring back up at her as her youngest sons cried in the background.
Falling to her knees, she sobbed to her Gwandoya "I knew not! I knew not! I feared for my son and now my husband is dead!"
The rest of her kinsman congregating outside their camp, one daring to enter. They gasped at the sight of her bloody in the darkness above her husband's body. Looking back at them, she recognized the person as one of her husband's close friends. Giving him her open arms, she cried "I feared for my son and now my husband is dead! I feared and now he is dead!"
"You never meant to kill you husband," Gwandoya's friend whispered. Sobbing, Alemayehu could only nod as he knelt beside her and began to cry along with her.
A man they loved was dead.
The funeral was a beautiful. Stories were passed around and food eaten, her sons helped light their father's pyre on fire so he could reach peace on the other side. All the while, Alemayehu stood back and wept for her only love and counted all the things she would not get to do again with him. There would be no laughing, no sharing of dreams and tricks; never again would he kiss her goodbye or hold her after a nightmare and never again would she feel his touch in the nights when their children were sound asleep.
Putting a hand to her stomach, she prayed the child inside her would forgive her for having no father.
(They would, for they loved Alemayehu and so her only daughter would be bequeathed the name Ife for she love wholly and completely with her father's smile).
A decade and a half later, Alemayehu's son Mosi fell in love. He showed his beloved his powers and created a bird from a rock for her. Delighted, the girl so delighted clapped her hands and asked if she could be taught how.
She could not be, of course, but Mosi promised that they would have a child who would be able to preform the same tricks for her.
Pleased by this, she agreed without hesitation and bore him six daughters and sons before their seventh, a girl they called Chinasa made a flower bud bloom between her tiny fingers one day in her third year of life.
Chinasa was wed to a warrior in her seventeenth year and bore him two sons. First, Paki and then several years later just as he was beginning to show a talent for levitation, Chinasa gave her husband his last son, Sefu, and bled to death on the mats in their family's hut as her son Paki watched with his screaming, just born brother in his arms as Chinasa's sisters and mother tried to save her.
Paki was a gentle soul, but Sefu thirsted for life and adventure. Ever the big brother, Paki followed his brother as he travelled far, far away from their village and home when he grew up.
Along his travels, Paki found a wife and had four daughters all with the same gift born from their great-grandmother and settled beside the sea he once travelled with Sefu as his said brother continued to travel the world.
Sefu visited many places and had many woman, leaving behind more children than he'd ever know and several of them would have the powers he and his brother and nieces possessed and when he finally took root in a home beside his brother Paki's, he bore nine more children with a fine woman.
Of those nine, seven possessed the gift of their great-grandmother Alemayehu.
From Sefu's nine children and Paki's four, a score more children with the gift - now called magic - were born.
And that score produced a hundred more who began to call themselves shaman and witches.
The shaman and witches spread from one continent to the next and the next, birthing and making thousands, ten thousands and hundred thousand more children with time who in turn re-made themselves into witches, wizards, warlocks and enchantresses and began to build communities just for their kind - their eve, mother to them all, Alemayehu, long since forgotten and the fact wizards were born of non-wizards and not the other way around, notions of purity and love divided her descendants so greatly war was common and divided families even more so.
If only they'd knew.
If only the story of Alemayehu, once-Monifa, daughter of humans and ancestor to them all had been passed from father to son, father to daughter, mother to daughter and mother to son.
If only.
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