📖 Chapter Four:
[Ashes that whispered]
The guesthouse was quiet. Too quiet. Amaka didn't trust silence anymore. She sat by the window, watching the rain trace lines down the glass like forgotten stories. Nkemdilim was asleep on the couch, her breath shallow, her fingers twitching like she was dreaming in code.
Ejiro paced the room,she left unease chewing gum like it owed her rent.
Ejiro:
"Nawao This place dey somehow o. I no dey feel am. The air dey smell like old secrets."
Amaka didn't respond. She was listening—to the tape recorder. Obinna's voice again. But this time, it wasn't a message. It was a memory.
🔙 Flashback: The Birth of the Archive
Obinna sat in a dusty university lab, surrounded by scrolls, maps, and a young man with wild eyes and a sharper mind—Professor Chuka. They were building something radical. Not just a database. A living archive. One that could store memory, bloodlines, prophecy.
Obinna:
"If they erase our names, we'll write them in ink that bites back."
Chuka:
"And if they burn the ink?"
Obinna:
"Then we'll tattoo it into our children."
They laughed. But the laughter didn't last.
On one of Obinna's field expeditions—tracking ancestral symbols in the caves of Nsukka—he met her. Adaeze. A linguist. A firebrand. A woman who spoke in proverbs and kissed like she was translating stars.
They fell fast. Fell deep. And one night, beneath the moon and a broken lantern, she whispered:
Adaeze:
"I'm pregnant."
Obinna froze. Joy. Fear. Legacy.
But they were like preys hunted by deadly predator, few years later, she was gone. Killed in a staged accident. Her research and life's work stolen.Her name erased.Obinna weeped bitterly he swore hell upon her killers.
Obinna buried her in silence. And hid the child—Nkemdilim—in the care of a distant aunt, far from the eyes of the Archivist's enemies.
( Back to Present: )The Storyteller
In Benin, Amaka and Nkemdilim wandered into a small café run by an old man with a limp and a memory like a library. His name was Baba Osei. He wore faded Ankara and spoke like he'd lived three lifetimes.
Baba Osei:
"You girls carry storm in your eyes. I knew your father. Obinna. And I knew Ada-eze. She was thunder wrapped in silk."they loved each other so much, they both sacrificed a lot for you two.
Amaka and Nkemdilim leaned in. He told them everything, about ada-eze and how she was erased. The archive. The betrayal. The love. The hiding.
Nkemdilim:
"So I was never meant to be found."
Baba Osei:
My child!…"No child of thunder stays hidden forever."
They thanked him. He smiled. But his eyes lingered too long on Nkemdilim's necklace—the one shaped like a veil.
☠️ The Poison
That night, Baba Osei sent food to their room. Jollof rice. Goat meat and chili soup. Plantain. Ejiro dove in first.they watched her in awe ask she devoured the food,
Ejiro:
"Una dey form ajeboh abii!?…Me I no dey reject food o. E come be This goat meat wa sweet die!"
Minutes later, she collapsed. Convulsing. Foaming.eyelids slowly sliding shut, as amaka and nkemdilim shaking her and try to revive her,
Amaka:
"Ejiro!"ejiro"! Ejiro! Oh dear!
They rushed her to the hospital. Nkemdilim held her hand the whole way, whispering apologies, prayers, curses.
Nkemdilim:
"If she dies… I swear I'll burn this city."
Ejiro survived. Barely. The doctors said it was poison—slow-acting, targeted. And she would be under intense care for a few weeks.
Amaka turned to Nkemdilim.
Amaka:
"Someone used the story to bait us. Baba Osei wasn't just a storyteller. He was a trap."
Nkemdilim:
"Then let's become the storm they fear."