Inyanga's Star and Other Constellations

If Inyanga Gets In - Flash Back in Time

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Kyuma remembered. She remembered the same shame.

Walking the halls, just two decades ago, to her final homeroom, she remembered holding a schoolbook to her chest and wanting to hold it in front of her face.

Not that it could hide all of her. The hands that were the ash gray shade of a burnt tree's bark. A band of ankle peeping between her socks and the beginning of her navy slacks. The decolletage above the top button of her collared shirt, which for days to come she would wish buttoned to her chin.

As she took a seat at her desk, in the front row but not center, she kept her face to the front. Tucking into the far corner, she tugged her sleeve down as far as it would go. About three times a minute she found herself tugging at it, trying to hide within the fabric that wasn't designed to cover so much.

Others had lost their color too, living in skin of various grays from overcast sky to wet rock to blackest carbon. Many had not. They tittered when exam papers were handed back. A disappointed head shake from the teacher, which indicated a low grade on Kyuma's paper, once provoked a passed letter to her: "A grayscale pauper AND stupid."

But Amandla had promised her daughter, "For a just a small while we can do without color. We will save this year. Just for one year. When we could pay to link across the city, we will walk. To school, to work. . . and we won't eat out or spend money out. We won't see films. We won't eat conjured treats. Only the inexpensive nutrition from production centers. Already we pay them too much for immortality itself, but those payments we must make."

She might have said something about how there was no shame, but Kyuma stopped listening and would never remember.

They went without. Many of the things that made eternal life worth living were beyond their means.

Late nights were spent in Kyuma's room, piles of books tumbling over and off the bed, Amandla helping her daughter to study, both of them gaining fuel from tasteless nutrition, a bland sustenance in bite-sized pods; at least the pods didn't drop crumbs or drip oils on the fingers that would leave fingertip traces on the pages of books — and they did fill the belly. But the sustenance lacked flavor and soul just as Amandla and Kyuma felt their appearances did.

And for Kyuma, study was a struggle. It didn't come easy, not like it would for her daughter Inyanga. Pre-magic at primary required a master of mathematics and the sciences, particularly astrophysics and neuroscience. After all nighters reading textbooks, the information leaked out of her brain until she felt empty and wanted to quit.

Another bare pass on a test brought her whimpering to Amandla over the kitchen table. "This isn't what I want, Umama. You've given up so much for me. I'm not good enough."

"Back to the books," said Amandla, shoving a bowl of nameless nutrition over the counter with a scrape. "You are good enough, and smart enough. It will click one day."

The shame of the absence of color weighed on her. Before her final exams, she told Amandla — bold now, no tears — "One year, we said. One year without a subscription to the spell — but if we spend all we have on tuition, I'll never have my color back. As long as I'm in school, we'll live like paupers. It's not what I want, Umama."

"What do you want, Ngodogazi?"

"Umama, I want to have a daughter. One day I want to be a parens like you."

"School first. Then you get a magician's job. Then you will earn enough to afford the immortal animus of your child — and the fees, to sustain your eternal youth. And to pay for color."

Kyuma didn't think she would make it, but her parens wasn't listening. "I want to start a family. Let's save for that instead. I won't get any scholarships. We won't have enough to get by. If I don't make it to graduation, the solidae will be wasted."

Amandla wasn't hearing it.

On the day of her first exam, Kyuma had walked to her desk in the corner, far from the door, and facing front, except to pass back a stack of exam questions, she took out a pen.

When time came to begin, she wrote her name at the top of the page. Kyuma Ama Numbia. And then she didn't write a single other word.

A/N Thank you for reading Inyanga's Star in Constellations. Please leave a 🌟 for me if you enjoyed it. The power of the stars fuels the magic in this universe and my power to write.

Flash Back In Time Continues. . .400 years earlier