Loanna sees herself from a disembodied viewpoint, sees her past, future, and eternal self. She takes stock of all her bodily features - all there except her head, where instead sits her ori, a shimmering ball of light with wisdom and instructions from her ancestors. She has come from the heavenly city bearing an apron of cowrie shells and a pouch of leather to choose her head from the headmaker, Ajala. Ajala is drunk and in debt to the king, miserable because all his heads will be lost to him by sunup. But he agrees to trade Loanna's fine apron for a head from the F hut, the lowest rank.

When Loanna puts on the head darkness begins to descend, so she whips it off. Ajala looms over her menacingly and she reaches into her pouch and throws salt into his eyes in defense. It's been too long since he cried, Ajala sighs, and he agrees to trade the rest of her salt for a head from the C hut. But the C head still muddies and filters her perception. She decides to madden Ajala by pretending this lower-rank head is in fact an A head, insulting his craft and threatening to carry her insult to earth. Furious, he whips her over to the A hut, where the heads are made of jewels. She has nothing left to trade - but then she realizes she can lead Ajala to the source of her gifts. She parts her skirt and brings him to the source, which he reveres. When he backs away, a pearl falls from his lips.

Loanna must go. Ajala advises her to wear both heads - sometimes you need to be less than you are capable of being, he says. And so, Iya concludes, Loanna came into the world with two heads, and she better use them well.