"We need to talk," Ruby whispers quietly and pushes me towards a small living room, closing the door before I can even complain.
"What's wrong?" I ask scared. I can hear my sisters' voices, also Lester and Mahsati chatting lively in the corridor while they head to the spot where we'll meet the Council. Luckily, most of the members were able to come here in only two days and we took advantage of the free time to rest, walk around the gorgeous plantation and eat delicious traditional dishes Angelie made for us.
"Don't worry, it's nothing bad. I just wanted to tell you something but didn't want to do it in front of them..." My girl tilts her head and smiles. "It's about Azara, the President of the Council, a very powerful witch."
"All right..." I answer confused.
"The point is that she's blind, but she can see... somehow, so it's better that you know. It's not the first time that a young and stupid sorcerer tries to make fun of her thinking she wouldn't noticed it because she's blind but she always catches them... She has a bad temper when she gets angry."
"I'm not sure I understand you..."
"It's complicated... Azara is blind, there's no doubt, but she has a good hearing, good sense of smell, great intuition and she also senses energy and auras... I don't really know how she does it, but she always seems to know where we are and what we're doing although, theoretically, she can't see us with her eyes..."
"But she can see you with other senses and the help of magic." Ruby stares at the ceiling, lost in her thought for a few seconds, till nodding slowly.
"That's the only reasonable explanation."
"I have no intention of making fun of her, Ruby, she's an old lady that deserves respect, she's also the President of the Council and a very brave woman. Savannah told me that yesterday but didn't explain why, only that she moved from Ghana to the States some years ago to live closer to her niece."
"Well, I guess it's pretty obvious why she is brave, strong and a survivor, then," my girl answers firmly and I look at her bewildered. "Iselen, do you know what the situation of women accused of witchcraft in Ghana is? And in some other African countries."
"No, but judging for your face, I'd say it's not good," I answer flopping down on a couch and the tattoo artist nods, sitting down next to me.
"It's bad, the worst kind of situation, in fact. A woman accused of witchcraft is judged by her neighbours immediately, insulted, beaten up and lynched in the streets... if she's unable to escape before." I open my eyes wide in shock, horrified, and Ruby sighs sadly. "If they manage to run away, they can only go to the camps in the north of the country where these women live badly eating whatever humanitarian aid organizations can send them, they sleep in crowded huts and there's barely any drinking water, some of them aren't that old and bring their children with them but there aren't enough schools... They die of grief, diseases and hunger... The problem is that any woman can be accused of being a witch at any time..."
"But Azara is a real witch," my girl nods.
"Yes, and she survived thanks to the support of Mother Nature, but others are not. Most of them are accused of being witches by their own families and neighbours that want to get rid of them, sometimes they're the local midwives or they have a paranoid neighbour who accuses them of anything bad that happened in their lives and they have to run away. Azara is the eldest of five children and her parents left her most of their possessions, as is the tradition there, and when her nephew died of peritonitis, her brother said it was her fault, the neighbours beat her up, she left her home and ran to one of those camps where she developed an infection that left her blind... And her brothers have the house and business that belonged to Azara now."
