Aya overflows with aché or power. When the accent is taken off it, ache describes, in English, bone-deep pain. But otherwise aché is blood... fleeing and returning... red momentum. Aché is, ache is is is, kin to fear--a frayed pause near the end of a thread where the clothe matters too much to fail. The kind of need that takes you across water on nothing but bare feet. Aché is energy, damage, it is constant, in Aya's mind all the time. She was born that way--powerful, half mad, but quiet about it.
Auteur: Helen Oyeyemi