Excerpt from Dazzling by Chikodili Emelumadu, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

There is a gate, pure white, big, with Jesus on one side, and on the other side, a woman I am thinking is Mary, but there is no veil on her head and her hair is long, plaited and tight all over her head, carrying one big snake on her neck. As the gate is big, I can see the top of one white house inside, bigger than the gate. Bigger than our house sef. Mummy is no longer talking, and Driver is opening all his teeth as if he is landlord.

"You see all the cars? He is very important, very good." Driver uses handkerchief to clean his face, his head.

"Why didn't you park inside?" asks Mummy.

"Madam, there is no space inside! People are waiting!" Driver is happy like somebody gave him food and beer. "That's your number that I gave you, ma. You are number fifty-two."

"I can't wait here that long. Treasure, go and see if anybody will exchange numbers with us."

Me and Driver knock on the big gate, and when they open it, we go inside. In the compound is one canopy with plenty chairs under, but I am counting and only eight people are there, me I don' know how our number is fifty-two. Is like Driver is seeing my face because he says, "Some people are by the water." There are people like church wardens, wearing white. One of them, a man, comes to ask for our ticket. I give him and he marks it in a book and tells us to sit down, or we can walk around small if we want. I say I will walk because Driver is like a dog that somebody gave meat. He is pointing here and there, showing me all the moulded statues everywhere. Plenty Jesus, big cross, then the woman with snake, then crocodile, then hippopotamus. "If he calls you to the water, be careful. There are plenty crocodiles in there and they are not afraid of people because he feeds them all the time."

I don' know which god they are worshipping here, because there are plenty moulded statues, Jesus and Abraham, all of them. One is looking like Indian statue sef like I see in film with six hands.

"Where is the water?" I ask Driver.

"You didn't see it when we were coming in? Great Agulu Lake! The whole of the backyard is open to the water, but you have to climb down."

The sun is beating me, so I sit under the canopy, but every- body sitting there is removing eye as if they don' want to look me or for me to look them too. We sit and sit, until my bum-bum is hot, so I stand up again and go to the car. Mummy is sleeping because the car is inside the shade so me I jus' leave her. The church warden man comes and shares water, shares Beck's biscuit. Am asking him, how long will it take before it reaches us, and he is saying small time, that I should have patience, that I should go and tell Mummy to come inside, but me I don' go. Driver has carried his legs to somewhere me I don' know. I keep waiting and waiting. After, Driver comes and give me Coke and Scotch egg and meat pie inside Den's Cook bag and am thinking, did him and Mummy drive to Den's Cook and jus' leave me here like that? And my mind is turning inside me because after all, is not me that dibia said I should come.

When they call our number, Driver runs outside the compound and brings the goat inside with rope, and Mummy is following. Her face, even as she slept and ate, is vexing very well. Only that the man is dibia that Mummy did not say let us go home. Only that he is dibia is why she is not insulting him. Her face is swollen like hot garri. The church warden leads us, circles the house to the back. Plenty trees and there is cool breeze, but it is smelling fish-fish. And then I see the dibia man, standing in white shirt and white trouser that he rolled on his leg. He says, "Ah, she is Thanksgiving, not sacrifice, why didn't you tell me since?" Mummy's face is as if she want to slap somebody.

The dibia man says Mummy should off her shoe and come down the step that will bring her to the water so he can wash her and remove all the eyes of evil on her.

"You daughter too."

Excerpted from Dazzling by Chikodili Emelumadu. Copyright © 2023 by Chikodili Emelumadu. Excerpted by permission of The Overlook Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.