Manifest

Sixteen

Eddie woke as the sharp tug of something leaving his body brought him back to consciousness. He was on his stomach and when he tried to turn around, someone held him down till he felt the blade pull out completely.

"Sorry," Enyong whispered to him. "Don't move yet. It'll heal in a second."

"What," Eddie began. "What happened?"

"Mma Ubon, the old woman? Apparently, she's a local healer and she thought she could help."

"She didn't take me to the hospital?" Eddie tried to sit up again, when the pain began to subside. He was in a tiny, twenty-by-twenty room on a small, spring bed that creaked with every movement. The walls were blue and had peeled from the ceiling downward, revealing stained, battered concrete.

On the wall directly behind Eddie, there was a big, brown cross. On the wall to his left, there was an old, battered picture of Jesus with a red heart at the center. The edges of the picture were folded in, but from what Eddie could see, it looked as if it had been glued to the wall, then nailed to the wall when the glue started coming apart.

The ceiling was made from cement and whatever paint had been used there was long gone. There was a hole in front of him, where he assumed, a door had been at some point in the past. There was nothing there anymore except the nobs and screws from the wheels used to hold them in place.

From where he sat, he could see the main road. The sun appeared to be setting, which was a whole other issue since they were on a time crunch to find the tusk.

Enyong handed him an opaque, brown, plastic bottle with a wooden cork holding a piece of leather over the mouth.

"She asked me to pour this on your wounds, but I thought you'd rather-" Eddie took the bottle, uncorked it and drank from the bottle. "Drink it."

He gulped two mouthfuls before he came up for air, savoring the unforgiving taste. It was hotter than he was used to. Blissful, all the same.

"Where are we?"

"I took us to the boundary of Ọyọnọ. Whatever Uduak wants to try, we should be safe now we're, technically, on someone else' soil."

"Technically?" Eddie took another gulp of the ufọfọp.

"My powers work, but barely. The further away from Ọyọnọ I go, the less control I'll have," Enyong said, spreading his hands out in front of him. "Besides, it's been four centuries, Edidiong. I don't really know the condition of inter-tribal politics and the only person who I've garnered information from doesn't know anything about anything."

"Hey," Eddie elbowed Enyong in the stomach. "I didn't offer you my brain, remember? If you meant business, you should have shown some patience and waited for a more knowledgeable somebody."

Enyong chuckled.

"Mma Ubon is going to come in here again to check on you. She rubbed some ointment on your back and was allowing it set, so she could pull the knife out."

"What?" Eddie asked, touching his back.

"I've taken the knife out."

Eddie rolled his eyes.

"I know that. I'm just not sure I want a blind woman playing with my life."

"She's not blind."

"She's not touching me, either."

"What are we going to tell her?"

"About what?" Eddie asked.

"About why you're suddenly fine and woundless?"