CHAPTER NINE: The Road That Remembers
"Tí ọ̀nà bá ti gbà èèyàn, ó gbọdọ̀ rántí ẹni tó kọ́kọ́ rìn ín."
When a path has carried someone, it never forgets the first feet that walked it.
Zainab stood before the rusting gate of her childhood home, her backpack slung over one shoulder, the other weighed down by questions that had grown too loud to ignore. The bus ride from campus had been long and filled with silence, a silence she no longer trusted. It was always in silence that the whispers found her.
Ayéròyá, they still called.
The old streets of Iléṣà looked smaller now, almost shrunken by time, but not unfamiliar. She hadn't been home in over a year. The air still smelled of burnt wood and dry earth. Children played with worn tires, women yelled over market stalls, and old men sat under trees debating history like they'd lived it. Life moved here, but she had changed.
The dust on the ground stirred like memory.
Her mother opened the door with mild surprise. "Zainab? You didn't tell us you were coming."
Zainab managed a tired smile. "I need to ask some questions. About our family. About... names."
Her mother paused, her face hard to read. "Your grandmother would have known more. But you can ask."
That night, the house seemed both too full and too empty. Her father was away, as usual. Her mother spoke little. Dinner tasted of old memories, but Zainab barely noticed. When she finally lay on the thin mattress in her old room, she stared at the ceiling, waiting for dreams to claim her.
But the house had its own voice.
Old wood creaked in patterns too deliberate. Her room smelled faintly of incense—though no one had burned anything. In the far corner of the room, a small chest she had never noticed before caught her eye. Ornate, carved with swirling lines and eyes.
The same spiral again.
She opened it slowly. Inside, there were folded wrappers, beads, a broken comb made of bone, and a faded notebook filled with Yoruba script. Her grandmother's writing, though she had died when Zainab was barely seven.
She couldn't read all of it, but one line stood out, bold in its loneliness:
> "Ayéròyá is not a name. It is a door."
She touched the paper, and something inside her shifted.
That night, she dreamed again.
But this time it was not a dream.
She stood in the old family compound—except it was older, wilder. The walls were overgrown with vines that shimmered like gold. She heard singing, not with ears, but deep in her chest. Names being sung. Her name.
Ayéròyá.
She turned and saw her grandmother standing beneath a tree whose roots glowed with fire. Her eyes were deep like wells, her mouth moved—but no sound came.
Then Zainab woke.
Her pillow was damp with tears she hadn't noticed. Her hands were pressed together like in prayer, even though she hadn't meant to. The notebook lay beside her, but it now smelled faintly of charcoal and rain.
She had come home to ask questions.
But it seemed the house had already begun answering.
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When your path begins to remember you, do you still have a choice to forget?