I gasped with horror. I couldn’t take my hand from Papa’s arm. It was fused to him. My sand-colored skin flowed into to his gray-brown skin from my palm. A mound of mingled flesh.

I started screaming.

It caught in my throat and I coughed. Then I stared. Papa’s chest was slowly moving up and down, up and down… he was breathing! I was both repulsed and desperately hopeful. I took a deep breath and cried, “Live, Papa! Live!”

A pair of hands settled on my wrists. I knew exactly whose they were. One of his fingers was broken and bandaged. If he didn’t get his hands off me, I’d hurt him far worse than I had five days prior.

“Onyesonwu,” Aro said into my ear, quickly taking his hands from my wrists. Oh, how I hated him. But I listened. “He’s gone,” he said. “Let go, so we can all be free of it.”

Somehow… I did. I let go of Papa.

Everything went dead silent again.

As if the world, for a moment, were submerged in water.

Then the power that had built up inside of me burst. My veil was blown off my head and my freed braids whipped back. Everyone and everything was thrown back-Aro, my mother, family, friends, acquaintances, strangers, the table of food, the fifty yams, the thirteen large monkeybread fruits, the five cows, the ten goats, the thirty hens, and much sand. Back in town the power went off for thirty seconds; houses would need to be swept of sand and computers would be taken in for dust damage.

That underwater-like silence, again.

I looked down at my hand. When I tried to remove it from my Papa’s cold, still, dead arm, there was the sound of peeling, like weak glue flaking off. My hand left a silhouette of dried mucus on Papa’s arm. I rubbed my fingers together. More of the stuff crackled and peeled from between them. I took one more look at Papa. Then I fell over on my side and passed out.

That was four years ago. Now see me. People here know that I caused it all. They want to see my blood, they want to make me suffer, and then they want to kill me. Whatever happens after this… let me stop.