Swahili and Somali legends come to life in this tale of secrets, betrayal and a household pet or two with a desire for human flesh.
In the Malifedha family, the secrets that don't break them make their bond stronger; which is just as well because th...
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Akiba pressed her ear to the door. It was like they'd opened a dog-house out there. Baba growled, the intruder growled, and their grating voices made her want to growl too.
'Who is it?' Mama hissed, stuffing pieces of skin into a jar. Akiba shook her head. The voices drifted up two flights of stairs. She couldn't identify them from that far away. What did she have? Echolocation?
Footsteps pattered towards the second-floor landing. Akiba took that as her cue to start working. Mama had already started sorting out the other stuff. The scaly, pearly skins (how did it get so much?) the sharp teeth and the occasional eye that she plucked from its socket like a grape and dropped into a jar. Nervous murmurs spilt from her lips. 'We don't have time,' she muttered. 'We don't have time.'
Akiba wetted a piece of cloth. 'Don't worry, Mama,' she said in a bright voice. 'Only a little bit and this place will be looking cute and innocent. Like me.'
She wasn't wrong. Golden sunlight filtered from the dome-like windows, giving the grey, high walls a coat of yellow. Two shelves sunk into the wall opposite the door, jars of medicine waving from their grinning depths. If you ignored the work table you'd see nothing but a cheerful research lab.
But you couldn't ignore the work table. It sat in the middle of the room. While the coral walls danced with sunlight, its coral surface leered with dried blood, large pieces of scaly skin, an assortment of fangs and white eyeballs rolling around.
The shouting outside grew louder. Akiba wiped off the dried blood, forcing herself to stay calm. She didn't need to panic. If she'd already handled one gullible geezer, she'd handled all of them.
'Ala! Kwani you can't wait, a little?' Baba's exasperated voice rang with uncharacteristic sharpness. 'How do you burst into women's labs like that! What if you find them with their lesos off, you lecher? And what the hell are you doing here?'
Akiba lined the floor with pebbles, giving the smooth surface a jagged quality. She couldn't be too careful, after all.
'Bwana Malifedha, this is a huge pain in the neck for me too, you know,' sighed the inspector. 'So, just cooperate, will you?' she almost dropped the bucket of stones. She knew that voice. Oh no. Oh, no, no, no.
Mama finished stuffing everything on the work table into labelled jars. The shouts outside had turned into insults. She arranged them into a hole gaping on the furthest wall in the room.
Akiba threw the bloodied mop into the hole as well and rushed to the growth hormone cabinet. Mama started to pull up a grey board, similar to the surrounding wall over their collection. 'What hormones do we have?' Akiba asked her.
'Uh, for animals, plants-'
'Even animal skin, sio?'
'Yes. Now, stop asking ten thousand questions and come and help me.'
