Chapter 34: Soul

Deep in the rugged mountain slopes of Mount Bashenga, the tallest of the Mountains of the Moon, the group of travelers came upon the small homestead of the mganga they were sent to find. Zuri stopped the muddy Land Cruiser in front of a battered wooden fence and called out from his window.

"Mzee, habari yako?" Zuri asked, greeting the wizened old woman hunched over her cane. She stood near the gate and carried a calabash of herbs. Chickens pecked around her feet and a white cat rubbed itself against her ankles.

The woman peered at them through glassy, white eyes, thick with cataracts. She gave them a nearly toothless grin and opened the gate for them.

"Mzuri sana. Habari zenu?"

"Mzuri."

"Karibuni," she said. W'Kabi, Okoye, Mama W'Kabi, Shuri, and Bella emerged from the car and gathered around the woman to shake her hands and introduce themselves. She took them across the compound to the central hut, square instead of round in this region, with a roof of cascading layers of grass fringe.

"Opio, tuna wageni," she announced and ushered them through the doorway. The sudden darkness covered their eyes and they were momentarily blinded until their eyes adjusted.

In the center of the hut sat an old man in a long, white Arab robe. His white beard was stained red with henna and his gnarled fingers were stained green with the reeds he carefully worked between his fingers where he sat.

"Mnataka nini? What do you want?" he asked sharply.

"Tunataka utusaidie. Baba Opio, we need your help," Mama W'Kabi replied.

"Ahhh! Mama, nimefurahi kukuona. It has been long!" the old man said and rose to warmly shake her hands. They inquired after each other's families and other shared friends before Mama W'Kabi introduced the rest of the company.

"I know why Mama W'Kabi would pay me a visit, though she has been lost for too long. The rest of you, why have you come? I am a small man. Why do I host the high priest and the princess in my humble home?"

Mama W'Kabi let out a booming laugh and slapped her hand on her knee. "Aye, bwana, stop cheating us. You know why we have come. You are the eldest of the waganga, the most powerful of all in Wakanda. You pretend to be a small man, but you choose to stay small because you do not like politics or being told what to do."

Opio's wrinkled cheeks broke into a grin and his eyes sparkled his assent.

"We would be very grateful for your knowledge and skill," Zuri said, bowing his head in a show of respect.

"Aya. Mama, kuleta chakula. Sit down and tell me," he said. Opio's wife brought out some banana fiber mats and laid them in the shade of a yellow wood tree. She bade them all to sit and then vanished behind the homestead where her cooking fire burned under a sufiria. She gave a harsh call and two teenaged girls materialized from the garden and began to help her prepare food.

"The news from the borders and from Birnin Zana has not been good," Opio said.

"You have heard?" Zuri asked.

"Ndiyo," he replied. "Why do you come to me? I do not have the means to defeat huyu mchawi any more than you do, bwana."

"We have heard of ways we may be able to defeat her, but we need more help. Unfortunately, the mchawi attacked and has stolen away some of the warriors we need."

"Go on," Opio said.

"We need the spirit of a man placed into the body of a zimwi. Nyelu has stolen the soul of a zimwi and the mchawi has frozen the body of a man in stone. We need at least one of them free for our coming mission."

Opio clicked his tongue. "Eeeee! This is a very difficult task you bring me," he said as he chewed on a stalk of grass between his browned teeth.

"In all of Wakanda, you have the deepest knowledge of removing spirits," Mama W'Kabi said. "Tafadhali."

Opio sighed. "I will try. I will need to gather supplies. You sit. Relax. Mama will bring you food." He rose and disappeared into the forest behind his home.

ooooooooooooooo

"Tuko tayari," Opio said. He had covered his white kanzu with a plaid red shuka, but his reddened hair remained covered by a white hat kofia. He threw some herbs onto the bonfire and a plume of fragrant smoke swirled into the air. He inhaled deeply and began to chant in a language no one present recognized.

A teenage boy, also clothed in a shuka, took up a djembe behind them and pounded out a fast drum beat. Opio swayed from side-to-side in time with the beat and continued to chant.

The shakers tied to Opio's ankles and wrists shook and rattled, pulling back the curtain between the world of flesh and the world of spirit, and creating a gateway in-between.

As the beat increased in speed and volume, his movements also grew faster. Then he bolted upright and looked at them through bloodshot eyes and began to grind herbs together in a mortar and pestle.

Under the balsam tree, the mganga sliced Edward's flesh on his calf with a vibranium knife and placed a deep red compound of herbs and berries, some red earth, and pieces of Bucky's hair into the slash. He placed Bucky in the path of Edward's shadow and tied a bundle of herbs around Edward's neck. Opio drenched a heated oil over the statue and continued to chant. He danced around the bodies late into the night, attempting to draw out Bucky's spirit.

The mganga worked till dawn. As the sun dawned the world into a hazy grey and the bonfire simmered into glowing embers, the mganga stopped. His hazy, weathered eyes stared deep into Bucky's lifeless, motionless face. Then he pulled the shuka off himself and collapsed onto a stool. He took off his kofia and revealed a shiny, bald spot surrounded by white and red down.

"Poleni sana," he said, his voice rough from the long night's exertion. "Siwezi."

Oooooooooooooo

The company gathered around the newly fed fire, steaming cups of chai in hand, and stared into the flames with disheartened spirits.

"We can find another way," Shuri said. "Maybe another mganga?"

Mama W'Kabi shook her head. "Bwana Opio is the father of the waganga in Wakanda. Ikiwa hawezi, basi hakuna mtu anayeweza."

Bella sank onto her knees on the mat and stared listlessly straight ahead. "There must be another way," she said. "What if…could we bring the statue to a water body near the borderlands? If we bait Nyelu there, we could see if Nyelu could pull out Bucky."

The mganga looked at her, shock and horror dawning on his face. "But then Nyelu would bury your husband in his calabashes and he would be lost forever."

"No….no…I mean, we let Nyelu disconnect his shadow and then I use my shield to prevent him from keeping it. Maybe if I shielded Bucky's body, I could channel him into Edward's body," she said, leaping up, her eyes glistening in excitement at the idea.

"Dada, how are we to find Nyelu and force him to do our bidding?" W'Kabi said, sadly. "We spent three days searching and never found a trace of him. It is too dangerous outside of Wakanda, even for you, to spend more time than is necessary."

"I don't know," she said, burying her eyes in her arms. "I have to do something, though."

The mganga stared at her again, as if trying to read her thoughts through her skin. "This is not the only zimwi," he said in a tone which was a statement and not a question.

"No," Bella whispered, failing to meet his gaze.

"What do you mean by your shield?"

"Nyelu cannot harm her or any around her she chooses to shield," Okoye said. "He tried and failed. She has the ability to protect herself and those around her from supernatural and mental attacks."

The mganga's mouth dropped open. "Wewe, why did you fail to mention this earlier? You have the solution to your problem already, and yet you fail to see it and you rob an old man from his sleep."

"What do you mean?" Bella asked, biting on her lower lip and meeting his gaze again.

"Is a shield used for defense or offense?" he said, rhetorically. "It all depends on how the bearer uses it. It can protect the warrior from blows or it can inflict blows on attackers. If your shield can keep a soul within a body then it can be used to remove a soul from a body. Use your shield to push the man out of himself."

"Is that possible?" asked Zuri.

"I've never tried to do anything like that. I've never used it as a weapon or through a person," Bella replied.

"Try, but you must be careful," the mganga said. "A spirit does not like to be without a home and will quickly hide in the first empty home it can find, like a hermit crab. We do not want his spirit to become lodged within a tree or rock or move to join the Living Dead. Do you think you can create a channel between the two bodies so the spirit only has one open door in front of it?"

"I can try," Bella said. She turned to face the two bodies. Edward's lay strewn on the grassy clearing next to Bucky's solid feet. Both stared lifelessly into the air, not minding the condensing dew nor the wet grass.

Bella focused on both. She visualized the thick, pliable band that surrounded her and began to use her mental fingers to push it outward. She pushed and pushed until she felt it covering the firm granite of the statue. She enveloped the statue and moved on to envelope Edward as well. Now that she felt both of their masses within, she began to push her shield away from herself and towards Bucky.

It snapped back and she groaned. She tried again. And again. For three hours, she pushed with all her mental energy, silently pushing, her eyebrows furrowed and her jaw clenched.

"It's not working," she said, blowing her hair out of her face in exasperation.

"You must enter inside and not focus on the outer frame," Opio said. "Remember, you are not protecting his home, you are breaking down the door."

She nodded. She closed her eyes and used her shield to feel through the edges of the statue, tapping away, looking for ways to open and enter in, like gentle fingers feeling for a crack in a porcelain cup.

"I do not know how to get in."

"A river can soak into even the mightiest rock. Keep trying," Opio said.

She changed the vision in her mind from that of a band of elastic that enveloped to that of a river that engulfed, following the currents of her mind. She envisioned soaking into Bucky's body, filling the invisible pores and crevices, fluidly entering his physical form with her relentless power.

Like a pool of water soaking into sand, suddenly she found herself within a cavern of sorts-a dark, thick, dense mass. Within, she felt a glowing, pulsating life force.

"I'm in!" she said, eyebrows pursed in concentration, teeth grinding together.

"Good! Get him out!"

She gently pushed onto the vivid life force. It pushed back, like a tree in the wind returning to its former position. She leaned in again, with her own hurricane force wind, and enveloped that force. She leaned and blew with all her mental might, inching it nearer and nearer to where she could feel the edge.

She nearly fell forward as she felt both her shield and the life force break through the statue and out into the open air.

Quickly she sealed their exit and corralled the spirit, shrinking her shield around and around till the only avenues available were Edward's body. The spirit hovered. She could not see it with her eyes, but she could still feel it pulsing and vibrating within her shield. She gently pushed on it again and it sank, entering into the empty vessel laying on the earth.

She left her shield covering Edward's body and they all waited, unsure what would follow.

Till Edward opened his eyes.

ooooooooooooooo

Author's Notes:

Thanks for reading and reviewing! I greatly appreciate your thoughts and input into this story. We are getting closer to the end. My outline shows this story should be around 50 chapters, give or take.

Mount Bashenga is not real. It's a fabrication from the MCU. Mountains of the Moon (Rwenzori mountains) are a real thing. Since I'm trying to situate a fictional country within real-world geography and history, I've stuck it here.

This encounter with the mganga I patterned after the descriptions found in Beatrice Nicolini's 2014 article entitled Power, Slavery, and Spirit Possession in East Africa: A Few Reflections.

Translations:

Mzee, habari yako?: Elder, how are you?

Mzuri sana. Habari zenu?: Very good! How are you all?

Mzuri.: Good

Karibuni: You are all welcome.

tuna wageni: We have visitors.

nimefurahi kukuona: I am happy to see you.

Mganga/waganga: singular/plural. practitioner of good sorcery.

Mchawi: practitioner of bad sorcery.

kuleta chakula: bring food

tafadhali: please

zimwi: vampire

wewe: you

djembe: drum

bwana: sir/master-term of respect

tuko tayari: we are ready

poleni sana, siwezi: I am very sorry, I am not able.

Ikiwa hawezi, basi hakuna mtu anayeweza: If he is not able, then no one will be able.