(~1800 Words, Fairy Tale Retelling, Lore, Angolan Oral Legend)
When the stranger emerged from the forest, carrying with her only a sack on her back, the entire village took notice. The stranger was beautiful, with long ropes of thick lustrous braids piled high at the back of her head. The stranger’s teeth looked very strong and white, of polished pearl when she smiled. Her name was Diata, she said, and she was not to return home to her father in the forest until she had found a husband. She had been provided a very generous bride price. She was very hungry.
Makalo, Kanoni’s brother, swooned. Kanoni, who lived with her brother in a small hut at the edge of the village, was not impressed. “She travels alone through the forest with just a pack of cloth on her back. Of course she is hungry. And where is this father? Surely, he should accompany her.”
“Oh, Little Bird.” Makalo sighed. “You never want me to have nice things.” He sat down on the charred remains of a stump.
Kanoni held her tongue and went back to tending the yams and cassavas in the clearing behind their house. The garden required constant vigilance. The season had been wet and the jungle craved to reclaim the patch of land, reaching out tendrils like a child’s greedy fingers. The yams were large that year, so large Kanoni sometimes struggled to lift them. Kanoni’s parents had named her well; she was tiny indeed.
Makalo continued. “Her father must be a wealthy man, to offer such a price.”
Or, thought Kanoni, she is a shrew, a terror that cannot sew, and the sons of her people are wiser than those of ours. But Kanoni knew her brother well and saw where this was going. “Help with these peppers,” she said instead. “Or take our nets to the water for fish. I will make a stew. We will invite her to dine with us and we can hear her tale.”
So, her brother did.
The stranger arrived at the door to the little hut silently, moving like a whisper. Makalo called up the name of their ancestors and gods, giving thanks, and they dined.
Diata’s manner was impeccable. “This stew is delicious,” she said. Her actions belied her words however gracious; she ate only small nibbles and even then, only of the fish.
“I caught these fish,” Makalo’s brother said at once.
“You would provide well, should you choose to take a wife.” Diata’s smile flashed white.
“So,” said Kanoni. “You seek a husband?”
“My father lives alone with his daughters and their children. There are no sons in our family. Instead, I have five sisters. There is no village nearby.”
“The combs in your hair are lovely,” said Kanoni. When the stranger had turned her head, Kanoni had caught flashes of ivory at the back of her head, beneath the piled braids.
“Your eyes are sharp, Little Bird.” Diata and Makalo shared a smile. “They were a gift from my father.” Diata reached behind her head and moved several braids to cover the slivers of white.
“The style of your hair is so artful,” Kanomi said. “I would like to see these combs, if I may.”
“Oh, Little Bird. The braids are carefully arranged, and I can see that you have little interest in combs.” Kanomi’s own hair was cropped short; it was easier to manage in the fields and the forest. Diata’s eyes were tawny yellow.
“I would like to meet your father,” Makalo said.
“It is but one night’s journey,” said Diata. “There is a village at which we can camp.”
Kanoni gave her brother more stew. “I thought there was no village nearby.”
“Those who lived there have left. But there are many strong huts still. We will be very safe.”
Kanomi thought of heavy yams and bulky nets and life for a girl in the village alone. And the slivers of ivory she had glimpsed beneath the stranger’s braids. She sighed and said, “I will accompany you.”
Diata smiled again. “But who will tend your lovely garden?”
“Yes,” Makalo added quickly. “The monkeys and the birds will eat your melons.”
Kanomi was not to be dissuaded. “Tante and her sons will do this for us. The journey will be quick.”
“Tonight. I will sleep in the forest,” Diata said, after the meal was finished. “Perhaps someone could walk me there.”
Makalo opened his mouth to agree, but Kanomi, as always, thought more quickly than he. “I must pack if we are to leave on even a short journey. Food and water. A pot with a nice long handle.” And, she thought, a good sharp knife.”Makalo will help me.”
When Diata had left, Makalo turned to his sister. “You always talk of work. Am I never to have any fun? And why must you come?”
“Our mother would wish it so.” And with this, not even Makalo could argue.
They left when the first rays of light crept across the land, Diata leading them down a winding path through the forest shade. Diata kept close to Makalo, touching him in little ways as they walked, the arm, the shoulder. She smiled often and said little. Makalo bragged of his exploits, his prowess with a bow, his proficiency with nets, his strong arms. Diata had wrapped her head in a beautiful woven cloth and Kanomi caught no more glimpses of ivory beneath her braids.
When night was ready to descend upon them, they entered a deserted village. “I know this village,” Kanomi said. “Where are all the people?”
Diata shrugged. “They left to find a better place, perhaps. They were gone when my father brought us here.”
Kanomi saw pots that had been left over cold cooking fires with piles of wood near at hand. Gardens that still held millet and sorghum, not yet overcome by thorns. “When did your family arrive here?”
“Not long ago. We left our last place.” Diata removed the sack from her back and stretched luxuriously in the warm sun.
“There is more to that story,” said Kanomi.
“Too many elephants,” Diata answered. “I will go and fetch some fruit from the forest for our meal.” She eyed Makalo. “Perhaps you will come and catch us some more delicious fish.”
He hastened to do so, but Kanomi intervened. “Brother, build me a fire as strong as your arms and I shall begin to cook our meal.”
Diata scowled and looked at the girl but said nothing. She stalked off into the forest. Once the fire was built strong and high, Kanomi pulled a pot with a long handle from her sack and filled it with water from her gourd. To her brother, she said “Go and gather up those thorns. As many as you can. They are good to keep us safe and Diata will be impressed.”
Makalo did so cheerfully and soon the pile of thorns was high, and the water was boiling. “Will you put nothing in the pot?”
“We will see first what your Diata returns with. More thorns, please.” Kanomi began to lay a ring of thorns in wide planes around themselves and the fire. They made a vicious circle. When Makalo asked, she explained “This will keep out beasts. They make noise when they are hurt, and we will hear them come. More wood please.”
Darkness crept across the silent village. Makalo sat drawing circles in the dirt with a stick looked up. “When will Diata return?”
Let us hope she does not, Kanomi thought to herself.
Her brother scowled. “Perhaps I should go and find her. Perhaps she is lost.”
“I don’t think so,” Kanomi said. She handed her brother sticky rice wrapped in a plantain leaf.
“You wish me to die alone,” he said sullenly. “And there is no beer.”
More time passed and Kanomi peered anxiously into the dark forest. There was a rustle in the trees. “Something comes.” It was a lion, stalking toward them. An unusual lion with a main of thick dark braids and glowing yellow eyes.
Makalo started in fear. “It has eaten Diata. It will eat us.”
“I don’t think so.” Kanomi calmly pulled a burning branch from the flames with one hand and took the handle of her pot, which she wrapped in a thick cloth, in the other. The lion trod on the sharp thorns and woofed in pain. Limping on its injured paw, the lion paced the wide circle of thorns as if preparing to jump. Kanomi dashed the lion in the face with scalding water. It retreated once again with a low huh. When it approached again, she and her brother held it away with flaming branches. Soon the strange lion walked back to the darkness of the forest. Throughout the night, yellow eyes at peered at them.
Kanomi and her brother huddled together in the circle of thorns and kept the fire well fed. “That lion is a female and yet it has a mane; it is an usual lion,” was all her brother said. After a long time, dawn returned and with it, Diata, lovely and lithe, from the forest.
“You are safe!” Makalo started to run to her in joy, but Kanomi stopped him.
To Diata, she said, “You have burned your face.”
“There was a lion in the forest last night. I climbed a tree to escape. The tree was covered with a sticky vine. It is a rash, nothing more.”
“You have injured your hand,” Kanomi said next. Diata’s hand was bound in a strip of cloth torn from her head scarf; the cloth was stained with blood.
“I stayed in the tree until dawn, and when I jumped down, eyes weary with lack of sleep, I did not notice there was a thorn. I have pulled it out. It will heal.”
“Perhaps that is why these villagers left. Too many thorns.”
“Perhaps.” Diata drew toward Makalo, smiling with long white teeth.
Kanomi stepped in front of her breath and waited for Diata to draw near. When the strange woman was an arm’s length from her, Kanomi drew the knife from behind her back and plunged it into the stranger’s breast. From Diata came the sound of a roar, but her mouth did not move. Lying on the ground, Diata looked up said, “Clever Little Bird.” And then, she died.
Makalo wailed. “You have killed my bride!”
“Here,” said Kanomi. “Look at your bride.” Kanomi rolled the beautiful woman onto her stomach and parted the long, luxurious braids at the back of her head. Beneath the hair was another face; that of a lion with staring open yellow eyes and curved white teeth.
“Perhaps,” said Makalo after a moment, “I am still too young to wed.”
Kanomi began to wash the blood from her hands with more water from the gourds. “Yes; I think so.”
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