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Chapter 18
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Akata Witch, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Belonging
The Individual vs. the Collective
Friendship and Teamwork
Education, Power, and Corruption
Summary
Analysis
“Trouble is never hard to find,” so Sunny, Sasha, Orlu, and Chichi just have to follow a line of cars waiting to get gas. They all huddle under Sunny’s umbrella to protect themselves from the rain and wonder if Black Hat wants to have so many people around. Suddenly, Orlu tells everyone to cross the street. On the other side, he explains that he feels things. Sasha asks if Orlu can undo whatever he’s sensing—but Orlu just says he’s afraid. He adds that when he starts undoing things, the showdown will start. Sasha looks almost hysterical as he pulls out his knife. The four touch their juju knives together, and it feels for a moment like they’re one being. Then, Sunny sticks her closed umbrella in the mud and follows her friends.
Sunny and her friends are familiar enough with Black Hat’s way of thinking to realize that he probably enjoys terrorizing people—part of why he murders kids so brutally is, perhaps, the spectacle of it. As Orlu admits he's afraid, it’s a turning point for the friends. Orlu is generally so level-headed and doesn’t show his fear, so this is an indicator that whatever is happening is going to be frightening. As Sunny leaves her umbrella in the mud, she symbolically leaves behind her old life, the one where she was powerless to stand up for herself when she was bullied. Now she’s powerful—and is about to try to save the world.
Themes
The people in cars watch as four kids holding knives walk to the gas station—and some see the kids’ faces look like ceremonial masks. People drive away, terrified, and others just sink down in their seats. Orlu stops when he’s yards from the gas station and starts fighting with something invisible. As Orlu fights, Sunny feels something shift. People in the cars shout and more people flee as they feel it too, and then Orlu falls. Sunny and Sasha pull him up, and he points to an obi (a thatched building) that has just appeared in the empty lot. It has unusual steel pillars—and inside, they can see a man and two small children.
It seems likely that Orlu, Sunny, Sasha, and Chichi are so focused on their task that they have no choice but to call on their spirit faces—the parts of their identities that help them feel confident. In this situation, the scholars won’t punish them for revealing themselves, showing that Leopard society does allow exceptions to its rules. The obi that Orlu’s fighting reveals presumably contains Black Hat and the kidnapped children, and that it so easily emerges suggests that the juju protecting it is perhaps not as involved as Black Hat would like to think.
Themes
Lightning and thunder crash above, and Orlu says the storm is right above them. Just then, a flock of parakeets flies for them from the obi. Chichi waves her knife at the birds, ignores a few men who ask what the kids are doing, and they all run for the obi. Something hits Sunny in the head and Chichi and Sasha continue to fight the bush souls hidden in the parakeet flock. Finally, Sunny and Orlu enter the obi, and Sunny looks into Black Hat Otokoto’s eyes. He laughs at the “last effort,” turns away, and begins to draw around the toddlers’ lifeless forms with chalk. He tells Sunny and Orlu to go away so they don’t die, and then he tells the bush souls to leave Sasha and Chichi alone.
Remember that Sunny and her friends are the first pre-level Oha coven—that is, they’re the youngest people sent to fight Black Hat yet. But despite their youth, they’ve prepared well for this: they’ve already fought bush souls in Night Runner Forest, so they know what to do. Black Hat, as expected, thinks nothing of seeing kids show up to thwart him—he underestimates their power and ability to work together. He also implies that he expects them to be selfish, like him, when he calmly tells Sunny and Orlu to essentially save themselves and give up on the toddlers.
Themes
As soon as the bush souls leave, Chichi and Sasha race into the obi. Sasha pulls out the conch, blows into it, and thousands of insects fly into the obi to attack Black Hat. He screams in fear and surprise, so Sunny and Orlu seize the opportunity to take the toddlers out of the obi. The toddlers are clearly dead. Black Hat turns the insects to dust and begins to battle with Sasha, and Sunny starts to panic. Orlu gets a faraway look in his eyes as he kneels in the mud next to the toddlers. He says he’s not sure what he’s doing, but he has to do it alone. He asks for one of Sunny’s braids—the “hair of one who walks between”—and sends her back to the obi.
By working together, Sunny and her friends manage to surprise Black Hat and get the toddlers to safety—and given Orlu’s odd behavior, it seems like it’s perhaps not too late to bring them back to life. This passage also confirms why Anatov allowed Sasha to purchase this conch at Junk Man’s stall: he knew Sasha would use it for a noble purpose, not just to cause mayhem. Sunny, though, is totally lost. She doesn’t know enough juju to feel like much help, and with Orlu busy, she lacks guidance.
Themes
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Sunny has no idea what to do. The toddlers are dead, Sasha is dying, and Chichi is missing. When Black Hat throws Sasha back with juju, Chichi suddenly appears, screams that she’s a princess of Nimm, and slashes with her knife. She tells Black Hat that Ozoemena gave this charm to Chichi’s mother, and now it’s coming back to Black Hat. Hot streaks of color blast past Sunny and whirl around him as Chichi says that “past sins” will always return to haunt. Black Hat shrieks and tries to evade the colors, but then he laughs. He says that the kids can kill him, but they’re too late. Calling for Ekwensu, he slits his own throat with his juju knife—he’s the final sacrifice.
As Sasha collapses and as Black Hat commits suicide to bring Ekwensu through, it looks as though Sunny and her friends have been unsuccessful in thwarting the ritual killer. But Sunny still has Chichi alive and ready to fight, which offers hope that the girls will be able to come up with some way to do away with the dangerous masquerade. The charm Chichi uses, however, speaks to how generations in Leopard society help each other—even from beyond the grave.
Themes
Sunny and Chichi lock eyes as the biggest, scariest drum starts to beat. The girls drag Sasha’s body into the obi as a termite mound rises in the mud outside. The masquerade starts to emerge when the mound is six feet high; it looks like dead, tightly packed palm leaves. Chichi says Black Hat was successful as Ekwensu comes through. She’s more than 100 feet tall and 50 feet wide, and she smells like car exhaust. Chichi says all they can do is pray. Ekwensu falls over and the drumbeats and the thunder stop—but then a haunting flute tune begins to play. Ekwensu begins to rotate, pulling up mud and plants as she does. Mud fills the air and Ekwensu shrieks a warning to everyone on earth.
Chichi, for her part, speaks as though all is lost: once Ekwensu is through, she suggested earlier, the end of the world is inevitable. They can call on a higher power through prayer, but Chichi’s tone suggests even that’s a lost cause. Ekwensu’s car exhaust smell highlights her connection to the corrupt Leopard Person who brought her here. Black Hat made a fortune in the oil industry—which creates fuel for cars, which create exhaust. Her existence on earth, in other words, is a byproduct of his corruption.
Themes
Sunny feels a vibration and a tug in her chest. She stands up, feeling strong—she doesn’t want to die in hiding. Slowly, Sunny approaches Ekwensu. The masquerade doesn’t notice Sunny until Sunny is very close and has called her spirit face to move forward. Sunny suddenly knows everything she needs to know, and she’s not afraid. The world will end someday, Sunny will die someday, and Sunny’s family will go on if she dies now.
Where Chichi’s confidence fails, Sunny’s jumps into overdrive. As Sunny stands in front of Ekwensu, true evil, she suddenly accepts who she is—and the Leopard world she’s a part of. Noting that her family will go on if she dies now isn’t Sunny wanting to die. Rather, it’s Sunny finally accepting that as Anatov has said time and again, the world is—fortunately—bigger than she is and will keep turning without her.
Themes
Sunny also realizes that she knows and hates Ekwensu, and she can tell that Ekwensu is looking at her. Allowing Anyanwu, her spirit, to guide her, Sunny lifts her juju knife. Things seem “more,” and it seems like Sunny is somewhere else at the same time as she’s at the gas station. As Ekwensu starts to spin again, Sunny says “Return” in a language she doesn’t even recognize. Ekwensu sinks back into the mud.
Sunny isn’t just battling true evil—this is an almost spiritual experience for her as her perception changes and she accesses language she doesn’t know anything about. All of this shows clearly that Sunny is more than she knows she is—and continuing to get to know Anyanwu, her spirit identity, will help her learn more about who she is as a whole.
Themes
