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Chapter Thirteen: What the Night Carried
THE FORBIDDEN TWINS
Chapter Thirteen: What the Night Carried
The first quarrel began over a basket of yams.
One of Nkechimka’s younger daughters had taken the largest yam from a basket meant for the evening meal, insisting she had not known it was reserved. Her sister accused her of lying, and before long, both girls were shouting across the compound.
“Must every small thing become a battle in this house?” Nkechimka demanded.
The girls fell silent.
“Return the yam. There is enough work waiting for hands that have nothing better to do than quarrel.”
The younger girl obeyed, muttering beneath her breath. Nkechimka heard her but let it pass. She had spent the better part of the day thinking about matters she could neither prove nor understand. She had no patience left for a childish argument.
Across the compound, Adanna sat with her daughters, separating the good kernels from a bowl of damaged ones. She had been quieter than usual, but Nkechimka had learnt that pressing a person for answers did not always produce the truth.
Besides, Adanna had done nothing to deserve suspicion.
It was the visitors who troubled her.
Nkechimka had not seen the first woman herself. She knew only that a stranger had come and gone, leaving Adanna thoughtful for the rest of that day. Three days later, another visitor had arrived, speaking of Olamma’s priestess and entrusting Adanna with a folded piece of cloth.
Nkechimka had seen that woman.
She remembered how the visitor had stood at their entrance, calm and unhurried, as though she had travelled neither a long road nor a difficult one. She remembered, too, how Adanna had listened without argument.
Perhaps there was nothing unusual about any of it.
Yet an old saying had returned to Nkechimka’s mind, one she had heard from her great-grandmother when she was still a girl.
*When the elders leave a warning behind, do not wait for trouble before asking why.*
Her great-grandmother had told many stories about children born under strange circumstances. Some brought honour to their families; others became the centre of disputes that outlived them. In certain tales, the children were blamed for disasters that might have come regardless of their births.
Nkechimka had never known which parts were true.
She only remembered how the old woman's voice changed whenever she spoke of such things.
“Why are you staring at that bowl?” Adanna asked.
Nkechimka realised she had been holding the same handful of kernels for too long.
“I was thinking.”
“About what?”
“Nothing worth disturbing the evening over.”
Adanna accepted the answer and returned to her work.
Nkechimka almost asked whether the cloth had been collected. Instead, she swallowed the question. She would not make herself look foolish by chasing shadows, nor would she allow fear to turn her against a woman who had shared her household's burdens.
If something was wrong, time would reveal it.
That evening, Okuwa returned from meeting several men whose farms lay along the older boundary of Umuezuna. They had disagreed over a narrow strip of land, and the matter had been left for the elders to settle.
“The same boundary has caused trouble since my father's time,” he told the women as he washed his hands.
“Then perhaps the elders should settle it properly,” Nkechimka replied.
“They will.”
“And if the men refuse to accept their judgement?”
“Then they will answer for their stubbornness.”
Nkechimka gave a quiet snort. “Men are quick to speak of stubbornness when another man disagrees with them.”
Okuwa laughed, and even Adanna smiled.
For a little while, the compound returned to its ordinary warmth. Food was shared, the children were sent to wash, and the women cleared the cooking place.
Nothing happened that evening to confirm Nkechimka’s fears.
That should have comforted her.
Instead, she found herself wondering why the old stories had returned to her now, after so many years of forgetting them.
***
Beyond the settled paths of Umuezuna, Agu’s priest stood at the edge of the sacred grove.
He had come to inspect the place where offerings were laid, but his attention had been drawn to a patch of earth near the old stones. The ground there had been disturbed.
He crouched and touched the soil.
There were footprints, though the recent dryness had made their edges difficult to read. One set led towards the grove. Another disappeared among the trees.
He rose slowly.
Someone had entered a place where visitors were not expected.
The priest did not call out. He examined the ground once more, then gathered the offerings he had brought and returned to the village.
He would not spread an alarm before he knew what had happened. The grove had stood long before his own birth, and he would not allow careless talk to turn a discovery into a village-wide panic.
That night, he prepared to seek Agu’s guidance.
He had questions about the disturbed earth, about the death of the priest who had served before him, and about the unease that had settled over the land.
But when he bowed before the sacred place, only one instruction came.
“Watch Okuwa’s household.”
The priest lifted his head.
He waited for more.
None came.
He did not ask again.
***
In Okuwa’s compound, the last fire had dimmed by the time Nkechimka lay down.
Her youngest daughter had fallen asleep beside her, one small hand curled against her mother’s arm. Nkechimka adjusted the child’s covering and stared into the darkness.
She had no proof that the visitors, the old stories and the priest’s unseen concerns had anything to do with one another.
She would not pretend otherwise.
But she would watch.
Not Adanna alone. Not the children alone. The whole household.
Whatever came through their gates, she would meet it with her eyes open.