I went back to the hospital to see how Esther was fairing. As soon as I walked into the room, I heard Dorothy’s sobs. She ran to me when she saw me, and she hugged me.My heart fell into my stomach. The thought that Esther had died ran over my mind and I felt my legs buckling under me.“What happened?” I asked in a trembling voice. “Is she okay?”Her mom was sitting beside the bed, while her father was standing by the bed holding Esther’s hand.They all had tears in their eyes.I was too late: Esther had died!“She went into a coma,” Dorothy said. “The doctors said she is going to die.”“So, she is not dead?” I asked.“No,” Dorothy said. “But the doctors have given up hope. She said she is not going to make it.”I gently pushed Dorothy away and walked to the bed. Esther’s eyes were closed, and her breathing came in long gasps.I stared at her and felt my heart melting, my body shaking.I turned around and walked toward the door.“Where are you going to?” Dorothy asked.I turned around
He looked at me the way a man will look at a child who wants to jump down from a tall building.“No one comes out of Pan Tumut Mountain alive,” he said.“But you came out alive,” I said.He laughed. It was the laugh of a mad man. It had no pace and no rhythm. And there was no goodness in that laugh, only an eerie and evil sound came out as the laughter.“I sold my soul before I came out,” he said. “Are you ready to do that? Do you want to remain soulless? If you are ready, then you can go into Pan Tumut. If you are not ready, remain where you are.”I stared at him and he stared back at me with eyes that were wide and reddish. The sides of his beard were folded inward, like the mane of an old lion.“Are you ready to do that?” he asked in another loud voice.“I will go,” I said, surprised that my voice was calm and that I had the courage to say that.He laughed the evil laugh again.“Well,” he said, and his voice was low this time. It was as if he wanted to calm me down and reason thing
I went back to the hospital and found Esther’s condition the same. Her father wasn’t there, but the mother was beside her.Deborah was also missing.“How is she doing?” I asked, moving close to the bed. Esther’s chest rose and fell, but her eyes were closed, shut in deep sleep.“She is the same,” her mom said.She looked older, with the lines on the face now prominent. And her hair was scattered, giving her the look of a woman who had not had her bath for two days.“I think a spell has been casted on her,” I said.“A spell?” her mom asked, looking at me with disbelieving eyes. “What kind of spell are you talking about?”“A wicked spell,” I said. “There are bad people in the world. Such people invoke spells on others just to punish them and the people related to them.”“Are you talking about witches and wizards and stuff like that?”“Yes; there are bad people who cast spells on others and will make them sick or even kill them.”She lowered her head on her palm.“Are you okay, ma?”She
I woke up with a headache and a back pain. I scratched away wild weeds from my face and tried to stand up. Everywhere was as dark as the inside of a tunnel at night.The pain in my back grew worse as I tried to get up, and I fell back to the ground and grimaced.The sound of crickets cried all around me, and then one nasty one was at the right-hand side of my right ear, croaking like a frog.I looked toward the east, and I could see that it wasn’t completely dark. The sun had not gone to sleep for a long time.I looked around me, seeing nothing but rocks edges looking strangely back at me. I felt the bag still on my back and noticed that I was part of the weight making my back to ache. I stretched my hand and found the zipper by the side. I pulled it gently downward, and then I pulled a torchlight from inside the bag.I turned it on and saw that the strange figures of the rocks weren’t so strange after all. I saw the root of a plant hanging freely from the side of a rock and I held i
My feet fell on a hard surface, and I kept walking. The ground was flat, like the surface of a football pitch, and I kept walking without any interruption. I walked for about ten minutes before I heard the sound.It was loud, and croaky. The sound of a crocodile, or an animal I had never known before. It came from behind me, closing in fast, about to snap its jaws on me. I was as frightening as sitting on an atomic bomb.I wanted to open my eyes. Just to see what was going on, and to scream out my lungs.That would be the wrong thing to do, I thought. That would be the end of me. I was sure the moment I opened my eyes, the thing with the horrible sound behind me will become real and devour me.I kept walking and the sounds kept following me like my footsteps. I heard the howling of hyenas after that sound, and then the hissing of snakes all over me after the hyenas.Then I heard the gunshots—loud and deafening—and close to my ears.I shivered in fear, but I refused to open my eyes.I
I got to my G-Wagon and saw half of the villagers standing there. They were looking at me as I approached, as if I was some alien from a planet far way.The medicine man was there too, and he was so surprised at seeing me that his mouth was left hanging opened.I walked to the car and unlocked it, hearing their whispers and the amazements in their voices.“That’s impossible,” said the medicine man. “It’s impossible for you to come back this soon.”I nodded. “You are right,” I said. “You only need to know what to do and then the impossible becomes possible.”“What did you do?” he asked.I thought about the baby I saw in the rivers.Should I tell them what the secret was? I thought. Would it help more people or harm them if they knew the secret?I turned and look at all the people looking anxiously at me, waiting to hear what I did to overcome Pan Tumut.“You have to go there to discover the secret,” I said.The medicine man frowned at me.“You don’t want to tell us the secret?” he aske
I went to see Talatu the next day.I went in the Rav 4 I had bought for her and with the two-million-naira cash.She came to the door as soon as I parked the car.I walked to the door and stood in front of her. She did not make a way or invited me to come inside.“What do you want?” she said.“I came to see you,” I said. “Can we talk in the car?”“I am not going to take your bribe; don’t waste your time.”“I am not here to bribe you. But I want us to make peace. We have come a long way and there is no need for us to become enemies.”She looked at me the way a rat would look at a cat.“So, what are you proposing?”I smiled. What is it with women anyway? That you can’t stay with them without hearing the word proposal?“I want us to make peace,” I said. “Let’s forget the past and start afresh. No need for us to be enemies anymore.”“And so that you can go back to your white girlfriend, right?” she asked.“Well, on that there is nothing I can do about it. She is the only one I can ever ha
I asked Isaac, my bodyguard, to get a travelling agent to take care of my travelling details and schedules. This was two weeks after Esther left the hospital. She was fully on her feet now, haven’t recovered completely.She now looked taller, probably because she shaded some weight. I liked her new looks, and she looked as beautiful as a Vogue cover girl.Talatu had not gotten in touch with me, and I was as happy as a kite flying on a gentle wind.Isaac came back after an hour.“Found a travelling agency in Joseph Gom House. I think they are very good.” He looked at me. “Are you travelling?”I nodded.“Where, boss?” he asked.I turned to him, curious at his questions.“Why do you ask?”He looked away.“What?” I asked, bemused at his uneasiness.He looked at the floor and then he looked into my eyes.“All my life, I have never left the shores of this country,” he said.I looked at him again, really, really bemused now.“So?” I asked.“What do you mean, ‘so?’ I have never been out of th