One Way Witch (She Who Knows, #2) by Nnedi Okorafor Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: African Futurism, science fantasy, science fiction
Series: She Who Knows #2
Pages: 240
Published by DAW on April 29, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads
Set in the universe Africanfuturist luminary Nnedi Okorafor first introduced in the World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death, One Way Witch is the second in the She Who Knows trilogy
The world has forgotten Onyesonwu.
As a teen, Najeeba learned to become the beast of wind, fire and dust: the kponyungo. When that took too much from her, including the life of her father, she let it all go, and for a time, she was happy — until only a few years later, when the small, normal life she’d built was violently destroyed.
Now in her forties and years beyond the death of her second husband, Najeeba has just lost her beloved daughter. Onyesonwu saved the world. Najeeba knows this well, but the world does not. This is how the juju her daughter evoked works. One other person who remembers is Onyesonwu’s teacher Aro, a harsh and hard-headed sorcerer. Najeeba has decided to ask him to teach her the Mystic Points, the powerful heart of sorcery. There is something awful Najeeba needs to kill and the Mystic Points are the only way. Najeeba is truly her daughter’s mother.
When Aro agrees to help, Najeeba is at last ready to forge her future. But first, she must confront her past — for certain memories cannot lie in unmarked graves.
My Review:
Najeeba’s name means “She Who Knows” and she is the One Way Witch of this novella trilogy. Which is both a prequel and a sequel to Who Fears Death, as is totally utterly fitting because Onyesonwu, the “who fears death” protagonist of that novel, is her daughter.
Was her daughter.
Past and present tenses get knocked a bit off-kilter in the second book of Najeeba’s story, as Who Fears Death happened between the first book of the trilogy, She Who Knows, and this second one.
But Onyesonwu didn’t merely die at the end of her story, she sacrificed herself in order to change the world, to kick the universe – or at least Earth’s little corner of it – onto an entirely different track. She literally changed the world and everyone in it, wiping out their history, their actions, even their memories, healing a whole lot that was toxic and wrong and erasing her own existence.
Najeeba remembers everything, both the ‘Before’ that only other sorcerers remember, and the ‘Now’ that everyone else believes has always been.
One Way Witch is the story of Najeeba’s reconciliation between the dark and painful past that already was – at least for her – with the ‘Now’ that moves forward into the future. The only way out is through, and it’s a ‘one way’ trip that demands that she move into the future with it – otherwise her powers will destroy not merely herself but everyone around her as well as a peace that is more fragile than she first imagined.
Escape Rating A-: As a reader who has not yet managed to get back and read Who Fears Death (so many books, so little time, so many shiny new adventures on the horizon), this second novella in the trilogy worked better for me because it is about Najeeba’s world as it now is. The story is moving forward, even though of course Najeeba looks back at the daughter she misses.
At the same time, the plot device that powers the story is a familiar one, both from SF and fantasy but also from fanfiction that deals with those genres. One Way Witch is a story about reconciliation, not so much between people or even countries as it is between the past one remembers and the crimes that were committed in it, and the new future that one has sacrificed so much to bring about.
Najeeba is surrounded by people who bullied and mistreated her daughter in the past that has been literally wiped away. She remembers how truly awful some of them were, but the people they are now aren’t actually guilty of anything. At the same time, the circumstances that created some of her deepest adult friendships also didn’t happen, so she’s forced to let those friendships go because they never were.
Every silver lining has a cloud, after all.
Just because people don’t remember the world her daughter wiped away, that doesn’t mean that the trauma that they suffered in that alternate history doesn’t linger in their subconscious. Or their collective memory. Or their souls. The world is reshaping itself as people who were slaves in the old past can’t bear to stay where they were shackled – even if they no longer remember any of it.
The world – or at least the people in it, are on the move, trying to find the places that their hearts call home – even if they don’t know why. The new peace is fragile because people are fragile, and it’s breaking.
(Something that I expect to be part of the final book in the trilogy.)
Unlike so many middle books in trilogies, One Way Witch is not a descent into deep darkness and despair – and it’s lovely to see a story break that pattern. Instead, this story feels like it’s a restart of Najeeba’s story. Not in the sense that she can’t remember the past, but rather that her past and THE past were defined by her trauma, and that this story is about reconciling with her own past and finding her own ‘one way’ into the future.
This reader is looking forward to a future where the final book in the trilogy will be available. Najeeba has plenty of journey and adventure yet to come, and I can’t wait to read it.
