Odeluwa

The Decision

The baby would not stop screaming. At first, the mother had tried bouncing him against her chest, whispering into his hair, and pressing his cheek against the damp hollow of her neck. But nothing worked, he just wouldn't stop. His mother was desperate to get him outside, craving for even a breath of cool air, but she remained standing in a hall full of raging crowds. Above them, a dusty fan spun and spun, moving nothing but hot air.

The baby's cries rose above the shouting, thin and scared arguments, until they became part of the noise in the hall.

“They are coming!”

“And we should fight guns with cutlasses, abi?”

“My children will not die because of land!”

“It is not just land! This is our home!”

Voices crashed into one another like metal spoons thrown into an empty basin, each person fighting to be heard above the next.

An elderly woman was sitting at the ending of a bench, her swollen eyes pouring into her wrapper. Somewhere outside, thunder rolled behind Neku’s hills. Once, Neku had feared storms that made even fierce men startle. Tonight, the storm was the least frightening thing beyond those hills.

First, it was Ohaku, then Obinaka, then the smaller villages between them. One was so close their smoke could be seen from Neku’s western hills.

The villages surrounding Neku was falling one after another, until people stopped speaking of the attacks as something happening “over there” and started wondering how many communities were left between them and the men with guns. More than five villages had been torn apart in three years, homes burned, farms abandoned, and families scattered.

It no longer felt random. It was patient, deliberate, as though someone had been clearing a road toward Neku for years. At first, they counted the dead. Then they counted the villages. Now, they counted the kilometres.

The villages were mostly farmers and couldn't defend themselves against heavily armed blood-drunk Fulanis. The government wasn’t even bothered to lift a finger to salvage the situation and punish the criminals.

To make matters worse, they're painting it in the media that there's a clash between farmers and herdsmen. Meanwhile, what the nation was witnessing could be called a war-time massacre. The conflict was too strategic and targeted to be called a mere clash.

In the midst of all that noise, Mazi Ezenwa stood, the oldest man in Neku. He hadn't spoken at a meeting in years. So, when he cleared his throat, silence swallowed the hall like nighttime. Even the crying baby went still.

Mazi Ezenwa looked at their frightened faces.

“There’s only one way.”

Father Obinna tightened his grip on his rosary.

“Don’t.”

The old man spoke anyway.

“Bring back Odeluwa.”

The Posting

Sophia read the posting letter twice, then a third time, as though Neku might disappear if she stared hard enough. After everything she had done! She was livid!

The friendships she strategically cultivated, the palms she had greased with crisps naira notes, and the calls made to people who knew people who knew people. She had smiled until her cheeks hurt and spent money she didn't have, all for one simple thing: a decent posting.

Yet there it was, printed boldly on the paper as though mocking her.

COMMUNITY SECONDARY SCHOOL, NEKU.

“Where the h£ll is Neku?”

She dialled her plug again.

Not available.

“Jesus Christ.”

She called again, pressing the phone harder against her ear as though that could somehow force the call through.

Not available.

Sophia didn't even know when the tears started. Out of faith, she had already bought her flight ticket to Lagos. Her bag was packed. In her head, camp was over. She was supposed to collect her posting letter, laugh with Amaka, take pictures, and leave.

Not this.

COMMUNITY SECONDARY SCHOOL, NEKU.

“Neku?” Amaka leaned over her shoulder. “Where is that?” Then she saw Sophia's face. “Wait. Babe, are you crying?”

“My plug isn't picking!” Sophia wiped her cheek angrily. “My flight will soon move. They're sending me to teach in one school, and what the f*ck is Neku?”

“Oh, baby.” Amaka pulled her close. “Shhhhhh. Come. Let's go and see our platoon officer first. We'll sort it out.”

“After everything I begged that man.” Sophia sniffed, a thick, catarrh-heavy sniff and that made Amaka pull back despite herself. “This man still get mind send me school for Neku. Which kain name be Neku sef?”

Amaka tried not to laugh and Sophia saw her.

“You dey laugh?”

“I'm not laughing.”

“Amaka.”

“I'm sorry.”

Sophia looked down at the letter again.

Neku.

She scowled, disgusted by how it might look like.

When they finally got to the platoon officer, he barely looked up. He was sitting behind his small office desk, scribbling on a piece of white paper.

“Report first. You can sort it out later.”

“But sir…”

“Amaka, please.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “I have somewhere important to be.”

Amaka held her ground. “Okay, sir, but where is Neku?”

“Ne-what?”

Sophia stopped sniffing and she handed her posting letter to him.

“Neku, sir.”

His face folded into a frown, lines between his brows deepened and his eyes darkened. Sophia watched the ugly man somehow become a little uglier.

“Never heard of it.”

The irritation on Sophia's face disappeared. “Sir?”

He finally took the posting letter from her.

“Community Secondary School, Neku,” he read aloud, turning the paper over as though someone might have printed directions on the back.

“You don't know it?” Sophia asked.

“I said I've never heard of it.” He handed the letter back. “Go to the motor park and ask around. Somebody there should know. I'll look into it later.”

Sophia glared at him. What did he mean by that? A few minutes ago, Neku had merely sounded like the unfortunate village her useless plug had condemned her to. Now, for the first time, it sounded strange.

By evening, Sophia was tired, sweaty and dragging her box towards the gate, her flight to Lagos now nothing but wasted money and a painful reminder of how differently she had imagined the day ending.

A dusty cab rolled past her, then slowed. It reversed. The driver wound down his window, his eyes falling briefly on the posting letter crumpled in her hand.

“Neku?”

Sophia stopped. Her brows rose. “You know it?” The man smiled. “Of course.” his open teeth glinted against the dimming sun.

Relief loosened the knot in her chest and she developed a new plan. Report there, go home, then start disturbing the platoon officer for a change.

He leaned across the passenger seat and pushed the door open.

“Enter, Corper.” Sophia did. She got in, not noticing that he never asked to see the address on her letter.

Arrival in Neku

The road narrowed the farther they drove.

Concrete gave way to red earth, then opened suddenly between two hills. Sophia sat up and pinched herself. Nothing could've prepared her for what she saw. Neku spread below them like something hidden on purpose.

Green ridges overlapped into the distance. A silver stream curved through farms heavy with cassava and maize. Palm trees crowded the slopes, and dark rock broke through the earth in places like old bones.

“Wow,” she whispered.

The driver smiled. “Beautiful, abi?”

Sophia lowered the window and cool air rushed in, carrying wet leaves, woodsmoke and something sweet she couldn't name.

“How has nobody heard of this place?”

The driver's smile faded just slightly. “People have heard of Neku.” Then, he looked ahead, his face grim.

“Now, they're trying to take it from us.”

The Name

The sun was already sinking at the horizon by the time they reached Neku. Sophia turned her face towards the window. The sky looked like someone had taken a wet brush to it, sweeping burnt orange across the horizon and bleeding it slowly into violet.

The last of the sunlight rested on her face, warm and golden, while the hills below darkened into deep green shadows. For a moment, she forgot about her posting letter, her missed flight and even the ridiculous name she had complained about all afternoon. She simply gazed.

“Beautiful,” she mouthed as the cab pulled to a stop in front of a small block you can call a school.

The school had already closed for the day, but the principal was waiting for her. He welcomed Sophia with the enthusiasm of a man receiving more than a new teacher. Sophia cringed, realising that there's something like feeling too welcomed.

He introduced her to the few staff members still around and personally took her to the small teachers' quarters behind the school.

It wasn't Lagos, but it was clean. There was running water, a bed, and a window overlooking the hills. For one year, she decided she could survive this.

That night, Sophia slept better than she expected. The following morning, church bells woke her. It was time for morning mass.

By six, Neku was already alive. Smoke curled from kitchen fires, children swept their compounds with long palm fronds, and somewhere nearby a radio competed with the ringing bells.

Sophia dressed, pulling her big-aunty bubu gown over her shoulders. She sprayed her perfume, put on her new stilettos, and followed the sound to the only Catholic church in Neku.

After Mass, Father Obinna found her outside.

“You must be our corper.”

“Yes, Father. Sophia.”

He smiled, holding out his hand and Sophia took it. His palm was warm like the sun. She felt it and thought of a warm cup of chocolate milk.

Then his thumb brushed the birthmark on her wrist. And like a reflex, his fingers closed on it, hard. Not too hard to hurt, but hard enough to notice.

Sophia looked down.

“Father?”

He didn't answer, his eyes were stuck on the mark. He turned her wrist towards the light and stared at the mark as though it had moved beneath her skin. His thumb passed over it once, then again. But this time, much slower.

Sophia tried to pull her hand back, but he didn't let go. Her smile faltered, then fell off her face.

“Father.”

His breathing had changed. It became shorter. More shallow like he was hyperventilating. A pulse jumped rapidly at the side of his neck, then in that moment, his lips parted and spilled.

“Odeluwa.”

Sophia stopped pulling.

“What?”

His eyes snapped to hers. The fear on his face vanished so quickly she almost thought she had imagined it.

He released her and laughed nervously. Someone from afar would look at them and think that the priest must've been laughing at one of his numerous jokes, just that Sophia wasn't getting it.

Sophia now has her hand back and was rubbing her wrist where his fingers had been.

“What did you call me?”

“Nothing.” He shrugged.

“You said Odeluwa.”

“I did not.” His reply made Sophia glare at him. The priest’s hand moved towards the rosary hanging from his neck, but stopped halfway.

“You did.” She maintained.

Father Obinna looked at her birthmark again and Sophia covered it instinctively. His eyes followed the movement.

“Who gave you that name?”

A chill moved slowly down her back. “What name?”

His jaw tightened. “Odeluwa.” This time he whispered it, as though saying it any louder might make something hear.

“Nobody.”

“Think.”

“I don’t have to think. Nobody has ever called me that.”

His eyes searched her face.

“Your mother? Amara?”

Sophia’s stomach dropped. How did he know?

“How do you know my mother?”

Father Obinna went completely still. Even his breathing seemed to stop. Sophia stepped closer, her heart pounding in her mouth.

“How do you know my mother?”

He swallowed. The sound was small, but she heard it anyway.

“Did she ever bring you back to Neku?”

“Back to Neku?”

His shoulders loosened for half a second, then tightened again. Sophia remained standing although weak in the knees, witnessing such tension.

“Father.”

He looked away.

“What is happening?”

“Why did you call me that?”

“Did you know my mother?”

Sophia reached for his sleeve, but he flinched from her touch almost as if she burned him. She froze.

The priest looked at her hand, then at her face. And Sophia finally understood what had been wrong from the moment he saw her wrist. Father Obinna was afraid… Not for her… but of her.

The Second Night

Her mother was plaiting her hair. Sophia sat between Mama’s knees, eight years old again, while warm fingers parted her hair with the blunt end of a comb.

The room smelled of shea butter, coconut oil and the faint camphor Mama kept in the wardrobe.

Sophia closed her eyes as she felt the scrape of Mama’s nails against her scalp and the soft tug when she met a knot.

“Keep your head one place, biko.” Her mother made an impatient little click of her tongue.

“Mama?”

“Hmm?”

Sophia turned. Her mother was exactly as she remembered her.

She had a little mole beside her nose and freckles around her cheeks. Her hair was light brown in afro glory. But her wrapper looked faded with yellow flowers.

For a second, Sophia could not breathe, then she threw herself into her arms. Mama smelled like home.

Sophia buried her face against her chest and began to cry. “I miss you.”

Her mother held her… a little too tightly.

Sophia’s smile faded as she pull away to look into her mother's face. “Mama?”

Mama’s arms around Sophia tightened again not as an embrace, but as a restraint. Sofia watched as Mama moved closer to her as if someone had hit the slow-mo button on the remote.

Then Mama whispered against her ear. “Odeluwa.”

Sophia went still. The room changed. It was wobbling with cold.

Slowly, she pulled away. “What did you call me?”

Mama stared at her as if to say, ‘you already know…’

Her pupils had widened until her eyes looked almost black. “Who called you that?”

Sophia swallowed. “The priest.”

Mama’s fingers dug into her shoulders.

“Where?”

“Neku.”

For one heartbeat, her mother’s face emptied, then terror rushed into it.

She looked past Sophia and past the kittle sizzling behind her. Her eyes were pinned on something… as if that something was hiding in the darkest shadows in the corner of the room.

“Mama?”

Mama's lips began to tremble.

“Leave.”

“What?”

“Leave Neku.”

“Mama, you’re hurting me.” Mama’s hand dug deeper into her shoulders.

“Tonight.”

Sophia tried to turn and see what her mother was staring at. Mama jerked her back so violently her teeth clicked together.

“Don’t look.” Sophia froze.

“Mama…”

A sound came from behind her. It sounded like a soft scrape… Like fingernails dragged slowly across wood. Sophia’s skin tightened.

“What's that?”

Mama’s grip became even more painful.

“Don’t answer if it calls you.”

Sophia’s heart began to pound.

“If what calls me?”

“Don't trust anyone!”

“Mama, you're hurting me!”

Sofia was trying to pull Mama’s fingers out of her shoulders. A cold liquid ran down from her sides. The metallic smell told her she was bleeding.

Something breathed behind Sophia. As the warm air touched the back of her neck, Sophia screamed.

She woke up sitting upright, waving her hands in the darkness. Her chest heaved, each breath taking in more than she should. Slowly, she was awakened to the realisation that it was all a dream. Outside, rain tapped violently against the roof and her window panes.

Despite the darkness, she looked around her room, wiping her face with shaking hands. Then she heard it. Crunch. It was the sound of someone stepping on dry leaves beneath her window.

Sofia held her breath as if she couldn't risk the trespasser to hear her.

Crunch.

This time it was slower, more deliberate.

Sophia's heart pounded against her ribcage the way a prisoner would, begging to be let out. Her eyes were on the curtain, but it hung perfectly still.

She slowly, in an almost mechanical way, reached for her phone beside her. The screen lit up. 2:17 a.m. Then something scratched the wall outside in three long drags.

Sophia’s hand froze around the phone, her eyes welling up. ‘Is this how I'm going to die?’ she thought.

Scrape.

Pause.

Scrape.

Pause.

Scrape.

Her throat clenched as she heard a soft voice. Soft enough that she almost convinced herself she imagined the rain would talk.

“Odeluwa.”

Goosebumps washed over her as her blood went cold. The voice came again, this time it was much closer.

“Odeluwa.”

She recognised the voice. It was her mother’s voice. Exactly as she remembered it. It was the same softness that used to rock her to sleep as a child. A tear rolled down, escaping from her welled up eye. She had buried her mother years ago. 

Sophia pressed one hand over her mouth, stopping herself from screaming. In a rush movement, her curtain shifted inward. This wasn't the wind. Her windows were tightly closed.

Outside, she could make out a feminine figure standing on the other side. Sophia was shaking now because there's nowhere someone could be that tall for her to see them from the second floor she lived on.

“Open the window, baby.”

Sophia began to cry, a wet helpless cry.

“Open the f*cking window!” The voice shouted in a voice of a unified crowd.

Sophia's skin burned with a slight fever as her whole body vibrated desperately.

“You won't let your mother in?” The voice kept talking, “Okay… I'll let myself in.”

Gba!

The door flew open. Her perfume bottle on top of her wardrobe fell crashing on the floor. The floral scent filled the air, but couldn't overcome the stench of blood and death coming in from the door.

Sophia let out a scream, piercing the night air. “Jesus!”

“Jesus!”

“Jesus!”

She finally found her voice as she hurriedly searched for her bible and chaplet. She knocked down her tablet, plugged my her bedside table. Her electric lamp fell too. Down fell her water bottle as well. Yet, she couldn't find her bible that she was sure she kept on that same table.

She never found it and nobody came through her open door. But she knew right there and then that she had to leave Neku.

The Next Morning

Sophia did not sleep again. How could she? Her eyes were wide open, never blinking. She had stayed that way, waiting for dawn to come. And when it did, the room looked harmless as if all that happened were all in her head.

Sunlight rested on the curtains, but was pouring through the only window that was open. A rooster crowed somewhere behind the house. Someone nearby was pounding yam, the steady thud carrying through the morning air.

The brightness the morning brought made her almost laugh at herself. Was it all a dream? She was beginning to doubt it. But she never slept or woke again. So, it couldn't be a dream.

Then she stepped outside, there was mud on her veranda.

There were bare footprints as if the owner couldn't care about some slippers. Then, she noticed something even more strange.

The footprints were small at first, then grew larger leading up to her door. Sophia stared at them, her breath rough like she was struggling to breathe the free air surrounding her.

Behind her, a voice said, “You look like you saw a ghost.” She turned sharply, startled by it.

He was a young man, fair like she was with a clean haircut. He wore a pair of brown trousers and a patterned shirt. He was holding two exercise books and a bag. He had a smile on his face and it competed with the sun in brightness.

If Sophia wasn't so traumatised, she would've questioned his fashion sense and then fall in love with him.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m Chinedu. I teach at the school.”

Sophia couldn't care less about anything else, so she looked back at the footprints, and by then, he had stopped smiling too.

Something is Wrong

By the Fifth day, Sophia was losing her mind. Four time had she tried to leave Neku, but all to no avail.

She'd pack up, drag her things to where she'll get bike, get on a bike and ride out to the bus park. Once she boards a bus, she'd sleep off to a horrid nightmare, then wake up in her bed at the teacher's quarters. Her things unpacked as if she never left.

Sometimes, she'd wake up with red earth beneath her fingernails and different pairs of dirty slippers beside the bed. If the dates on her calendar weren't progressing, she'd have thought it was all a dream.

Despite all the darkness that surrounds her, the people of Neku showed her so much kindness. They always visited her with food and foodstuff.

Children trampled her place with brooms to sweep, buckets to fetch water and soap to do her laundry. Sophia always turn them down and try to send them out, but they always insist.

Yet, nothing they did made her comfortable. And what broke her heart the most was that Her phone was out of service and nobody believed her.

The priest looked at her with so much pity and told that it's stress while the principal assured her that she was only adjusting to the new environment. Her head swirling and her skin itched so much, she stayed indoors all through, depriving herself of sunlight.

One day, a knock on her door. Suspiciously, she opened to the door to find Chinedu standing before her.

“We barely see you.”

Sophia's mouth went dry. “I was sleeping?”

“You sleep everyday and every night?”

“I said I was sleeping!” Her tone came out harsh. Chinedu studied her face, then seemed to decide not to argue.

“Okay.”

She left him and walked to her bed. Chinedu followed her, he sat on the only chair in the room and lowered his voice.

“People here can be strange. If something is happening, don’t go looking into it alone.”

Sophia stared at him. “You believe me?”

He gave a small smile.

“It’s not the weather. It's not because you're in a new environment. Whatever you're experiencing must be real to you. My only suggestion is that you don't stay locked up in your room.”

For the first time since arriving in Neku, Sophia felt something loosen inside her. Finally, she meets someone who treats her like she's not crazy. Then Chinedu looked past her, toward the hills and the smile disappeared.

The Cave

Sophia left the church before Father Obinna said the closing prayers. Outside, the morning sun felt too bright… too normal.

Children were playing beside the road. A woman laughed somewhere behind a fence. Palm fronds moved lazily in the wind.

A sight so beautiful, an artist would whip out their brush and start painting. But Sophia hated all of it.

She and Chinedu have doing a lot digging lately, and they only managed to uncover more questions than answers.

Last night, they managed to break into the school records. They found nothing worthy until she accidentally knocked down a mug and the empty, dusty shelf at the back of the office moved, revealing a hidden passage.

They whizzed their way through the narrow passage and into a small office with a small dying bulb hanging on a wire.

Sophia hit the butt of her torch and it shone bright. She could see papers scattered about desks, the floor and the only plastic chair in the cave. She bent to pick something that caught her eyes. It was a posting letter like the one she had except that the name on the paper wasn't hers.

The principal had told her she was first Corper to ever step foot in Neku. But in her hand, she was holding posting letter of a lady named Sofie Adara. She picked up another paper and before she could look into it, Chinedu nudged, “look!”

She lifted her hand and then stood up to see where Chinedu was pointing his light to. It was a board with 10 pictures of different ladies including her own. There were also strings connecting pieces of paper tagged the board. Those papers had birthdates, LGA, home address and other personal information.

We walked closer for a better look and saw that all the other pictures had a big red X mark on them while her own had a green text on it. As she got closer, she could read, “Odeluwa. Found.”

Now, she's standing outside the church with a file bag containing some of the posting letters she got from there. Whatever Odeluwa was, it had something to do with her, she wanted to know and she wanted to hear it from Father Obinna.

Except that Father Obinna never made it outside that day.

She got into ask about him. She was told he left, but how could he when the church had only one exit.

The Sacrifice

The first explosion shook dust from the ceiling. Sophia jumped from her bed, there were screaming all around her. She first thought it was one of her numerous spiritual attacks, but people were running past the house, calling names, and dragging children by the wrist. Somewhere beyond the hills, gunfire cracked through the evening.

Chinedu bursted into her room, his grip tightening on the rope in his hands.

Sophia stared at him, her eyes almost bulging out.

“What’s going on?”

His jaw trembled.

“I’m sorry, Sophia.” He dropped his head. Sophia's shoulder slumped, her eyes filled with defeat. “What's going on?” It was the same question for a different direction.

He closed his eyes as if the question was a sword piercing through him.

“What's going on?” This time, she was pleasing.

“If I don't do this, they'll kill everybody.” He said as young men burst through the door, filling the room with desperation and sweat.

They took a hold of Sophia and began dragging her. Sophia’s voice broke. “Chinedu! So, you knew! You knew!”

“I'm sorry.” He said weakly as Sophia was dragged outside the room.

The Hero Returns

Chinedu couldn't look at her as she was bounded to pole and was lighted like a torch.

A painful memory came into her head. Two nights before, they had wrestled their way up the hill. At the top of the hill, they both sat under a sky full of stars. They talked for hours and hours and hours that she didn't know when she slept off… in his arms. And for the first time since she came to Neku, she had a lovely dream.

The crackling fire was begining to burn her and it was futile to look for Chinedu. She could barely keep her eyes open. So, she shouted,

“Look at me.”

“Chinedu!”

Nobody answered, but she could hear a chief priest she had never met, shouting incantations while moving round her.

“You knew this whole time.”

“You brought me here to die!”

Her laugh broke halfway out, painful like slow death. Gunfire still went off somewhere beyond the hills. The militias were coming. Children screamed, women cried and men flinched.

“God damnit! Answer me!!!”

“My family is here,” she heard his voice from the crowd. “My mother. My sisters. Everybody I have ever known.”

“And I am what?”

His mouth trembled. “Sophia…”

“What am I?” He said nothing.

“One person? So, I'm one person?”

Chinedu closed his eyes as if the fire was burning him too

“I hope they are worth it.”

“Sophia, please.”

Her voice softened. “I hope every single one of them is worth what you are doing to me. I hope…” the chief priest threw something in the fire and it exploded. Odeluwa awoke, but she woke angry.

Odeluwa

Then Odeluwa stepped out of the fire that had made her. The flames had eaten most of Sophia’s clothes, leaving blackened pieces clinging to her body. Her skin should have been charred, but Chinedu watched angry red flesh close beneath trails of smoke as though her body was remembering what it used to be.

He stumbled backwards. “Sophia…”

She walked past him.

A bullet tore into the earth beside her foot, spitting red soil against her ankle. Another struck the wall behind her, sending pieces of mud brick flying. People screamed and threw themselves down, but Odeluwa merely stared at the small hole beside her foot.

Gunfire erupted from different directions, sometimes three or four shots together, sometimes nothing but a terrible silence that tempted people to raise their heads before another volley sent them crawling back into the dirt. Chinedu flattened himself against the ground, his arms over his head, while engines growled somewhere beyond the cloud of dust.

Motorcycles appeared first, weaving down the eastern road. Behind them came battered vehicles packed with armed men, their tyres chewing through Neku’s red earth. Men jumped down before the vehicles had completely stopped, rifles in their hands and ammunition strapped across their chests. They shouted to one another. Someone fired into the air and a child screamed for her mother.

Odeluwa lifted her head and the wind changed.

Chinedu felt it against his cheek first, strangely cold against the evening heat. Then the palm trees bent, their fronds turning in one direction as though something enormous and invisible had pushed its way through Neku.

Odeluwa raised one hand, and the earth answered.

The road trembled beneath them. A thin split travelled through the soil, then another, and roots burst from the ground, thick and wet with earth, twisting around tyres and ankles. One motorcycle tipped sideways. Its rider struck the road shoulder-first and screamed.

Then the wind came harder.

Red dust rose around them until Neku disappeared inside it. One of them shouted orders and someone fired blindly into the dust, but Odeluwa was ancient.

A man behind her jerked backwards. For one strange moment, he remained standing, staring down at the blood spreading across his shirt as though he could not understand how it had gotten there. Then his knees gave way.

His wife screamed his name.

“Chika!”

She turned towards the villagers crouching behind walls, trees and overturned tables, hiding behind anything that might stand between flesh and metal.

“What are you waiting for?”

Another bullet punched into the wall beside her.

“Fight?”

“But we have no guns!” someone shouted.

Odeluwa pointed towards the hills. “You have Neku.”

Still, nobody moved.

“You were born here. You buried your fathers here. You know where the river becomes shallow and where the earth gives way beneath your feet. You know which paths disappear during the rains and which caves swallow sound.” She looked from one frightened face to another. “They have guns, but they cannot have your home. Die with honour or you'll be slaughtered like a mere fowl."

Hands still trembled. A young man beside Chinedu bent over and vomited into the grass, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then picked his cutlass up again. Chinedu followed.

Then, Neku moved. Hunters disappeared into the bush, taking narrow paths their fathers had shown them as boys. Farmers led people through cassava fields and gullies hidden beneath elephant grass. Women carried the wounded into compounds, tore wrappers into bandages, fetched water and shouted warnings from one end of the village to the other.

Gunfire swallowed the village. Odeluwa dragged wind through the streets, flinging bodies against walls as roots burst beneath boots and overturned motorcycles. Then a bullet punched through her stomach. Another entered her chest. Her breath left in a wet gasp. Still, she staggered forward. The third shot dropped her. The wind collapsed. Roots went limp. Odeluwa clawed at Neku’s red earth, blood bubbling between her lips, then stopped moving.

The militia surged forward when she fell, their boots pounding the earth and their victory cries rising above the gunfire. But something remarkable happened. Hunters emerged from the bush. Farmers attacked from hidden gullies. Women dragged the wounded to safety while stones, machetes and old rifles met modern weapons. Chinedu fought with blood in his eyes. They were terrified, outgunned and dying, but for the first time, they fought for themselves.

After Odeluwa fell.

The wind died with her. The roots that had torn through the road sagged into the dirt, and for one terrible moment, Chinedu could hear nothing except the fighting continuing around them.

He crawled to her.

“Sophia.”

Blood covered her mouth, black and charred.

“Sophia, please.”

He lifted her head onto his lap, his hands shaking so badly he could barely hold her. “Please. Please, I'm sorry.”

Her eyes opened. He recognised the eyes. They weren't Odeluwa's, they belonged to Sophia. Chinedu broke down.

“I didn't have a choice.”

Her lips moved. He bent until his ear almost touched them.

“You did.”

He squeezed his eyes shut.

“They would have killed everyone.”

“And so you killed me.”

“Sophia…”

“I trusted you.”

There was no anger in her voice anymore. Somehow, that hurt worse.

“I was afraid, Chinedu.” Her breath caught painfully. “When they tied me, I kept looking at you because I thought you would save me.” Tears dropped from his face onto hers.

“I know.”

“No.” Sophia looked at him. “You know now.”

A shout rose somewhere behind them. The militia were retreating towards the hills, chased by the people they had expected to find helpless.

Chinedu looked towards them, then back at her.

“They're leaving.”

Sophia's eyes followed the retreating men.

“They'll come back.”

Fear passed through him.

“What will we do?”

A faint smile touched her bloody mouth.

“Fight.”

“Without you?”

Sophia looked past him at the people of Neku. At the farmers carrying their wounded. At women tearing wrappers to bind wounds. At young men who had spent years praying for Odeluwa and had finally discovered they could fight.

“You fought today.”

“Because you were here.”

“No.” Her voice weakened. “Because you finally understood I couldn't do it for you. You didn't need to kill anyone to save yourselves.”

Her eyes began to close as if she was falling asleep. Chinedu tightened his arms around her.

“Sophia.”

Then, her body softened in his arms.

By nightfall, Neku smelled of smoke, blood and wet earth. They gathered their dead beneath the same hills they had fought to keep, while somewhere in the distance, thunder clapped, but nobody flinched.