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In the shower, every drop of water that touched her skin tickled. And not in a playful way. Sunny’s body felt alert, like she was full of excitable bees.
When she returned to her room, the front page of the newspaper was on her bed. The headline was circled: BLACK HAT OTOKOTO KILLS AGAIN. She locked her door and sat on her bed to read it. A five-year-old child had been found dead in the bush yesterday with no eyes or nose. A black hat had been drawn on his arm in permanent marker. She shivered. No wonder Mama was going crazy, she thought.
She considered going to her mother and trying to explain that she wasn’t stupid, and that she knew how to stay away from trouble, but it wouldn’t do any good. That wasn’t the only thing not worth discussing with her parents.
She could never tell them about being a Leopard Person. Her mother was a devout Catholic. She’d have screamed and accused Sunny of running about with “heathens.” She’d never let Sunny see Chichi or Orlu again. And who knew what her bull of a father would do-something bad, for sure. She didn’t even consider telling her brothers. On top of it all, she’d made a trust knot, and couldn’t even talk about it if she tried.
She would have to deal with whatever was going to happen alone.
When Sunny tried to sleep, her head buzzed. Her hands shook and itched. She sweated through her sheets. When she closed her eyes, she saw crumbly brown dirt. She could taste and smell it, too. She felt as if she was sinking into and through her bed, her body trying to return to the earth. So she kept her eyes open.
By three A.M., Sunny was weeping. She didn’t know what to do or how to stop it, and there was no one to turn to for help. Around four, her body started shifting. Her face would become her spirit face and then it would go back to normal, then it would become her spirit face again.
Once, when her spirit face came forward, she got up and looked at herself in the mirror. She nearly screamed. Then she just stared. It was her, but it felt as if it had its own separate identity, too. Her spirit face was the sun, all shiny gold and glowing with pointy rays. It was hard to the touch, but she could feel her touch. She knocked on it and it made a hollow sound.
Her spirit face was smiling. Still, somehow she knew it could be angry if it had to be. Her eyes were carved slits, yet she could see perfectly. The nose was shaped like her nose. As she stood there, she watched herself change back, her human face sucking her spirit face in.
She was scared, but she was excited, too. Her spirit face was beautiful. And it was utterly crazy-looking. And it was hers.
All through the night, she battled herself. Or battled to know herself. She fell apart and then put herself back together and then she fell apart again and put herself back together, over and over.
Finally, she opened her window. She needed fresh cool air. Her room was on the second floor of the house, so the mosquitoes weren’t so bad. At least that’s what she told herself. She’d have told herself anything-the fresh air felt that good. She eventually fell asleep right there, beside her window.
Red. A river at sunrise. She was swimming in it, and through the water she could see the wavy red sky above. A new day. She laughed and did a somersault. Then she looked down and met the two large eyes of the river beast deep below her, just close enough to catch the glint of red sunshine from above.
When Sunny awoke, the sun was shining directly on her face. She’d been sleeping in it for hours. She gasped and quickly moved out of the raw bright sunshine. Her face was almost certainly badly burned.
She tentatively touched her cheek. She froze. She touched her cheek again. Then she got up and ran to her mirror. Her face looked fine! She grinned. Then she laughed out loud, and rushed to stand in the sunshine again. She closed her eyes and soaked in the warm light. She didn’t need to stand in there for an hour to know-she knew deep in her skin. The sunshine felt like a warm friend, not an angry enemy. She didn’t need her umbrella anymore.
“Oh my goodness,” she whispered. “I can play soccer!”
Realizing what she was was the beginning of something, all right… but it was also the end of something else.
What Is aFree Agent?
A free agent is one who isn’t privileged with even one pure Leopard spiritline from the survivors of the Great Attempt. She or he is a random of nature, a result of mixed-up and confused spiritual genetics. Free agents are the hardest to understand, predict, or explain. Learning will not come easy to you. You are a Leopard Person only by the will of the Supreme Creator, and as we all know, She isn’t very concerned with Her own creations.
After your initiation, make sure that someone is there to help you, for you will not be able to help yourself, so new the world will be to you and so fragile your ego. You’re like an infant. You will be dumbfounded and disoriented. What’s most important is-