Ava hadn't dreamt in years—at least not dreams she could remember. But lately, she woke up
soaked in sweat, her ears echoing with the rush of water, like someone had poured a river into her
skull and left it there to whisper.
She tried not to think about it.
Ifedawapo had no room for softness. The generator outside her apartment roared like a wounded
beast, her neighbor's radio played gospel from 5 a.m., and the okada men yelled curses like
morning prayers. Every day was a grind. Every hour cost something.
Ava was good at surviving. She was a designer—fabric, fashion, anything that made people stare.
Her hands moved faster than her mind most days. And that was how she liked it. No time to think
too deeply. No time to listen to rivers that didn't exist.
But the dreams were getting louder.
She started to notice patterns. Rain falling only when she was sad. Honey sticking to her fingertips
without cause. Her mirrors fogging up without steam. One evening, she found a single cowrie shell
tucked in the hem of a fabric she hadn't touched in months.
She thought she was losing it.
"You're tired," her friend Lara said, sipping zobo like it was medicine. "You work too hard. Maybe
you need a retreat or something. Go to a waterfall. Do yoga. I don't know."
Abeni laughed, but it was hollow. She didn't tell Lara that every time she touched water lately—
whether it was bath water, rain, or tea—it felt like someone was watching her through it.
Not in a creepy way. In a longing way. Like someone who had been waiting for her for a long time.
One night, the dreams stopped being just dreams.
She found herself on the banks of a golden river, the sky soft with twilight. A woman sat in the
water, waist-deep, wearing beads of coral and gold, her hair like flowing ink. She looked at Ava and
smiled with a love so ancient, it burned.
"You came late," the woman said, not accusingly. "But not too late."
Ava tried to speak, but her mouth was full of honey.
The woman reached out a hand. "Your blood remembers me. Even if your mind does not. Will you
return?"
Ava woke up gasping, her hands dripping wet. But her bed was dry. And in her palm lay a small,
round shell.
The next morning, Ava sat cross-legged on the floor of her studio, the shell still in her hand.
It was smooth, perfect. No cracks. No markings. Just a plain cowrie, the kind she'd seen on old
shrine necklaces or sewn into ritual skirts her grandmother used to hide at the back of her closet.
She hadn't thought about those skirts in years.
"Google," she muttered. "Why am I dreaming of water and holding cowrie shells in my sleep?"
The search results were underwhelming—tourist pages on waterfalls, Yoruba mythology blogs, one
article titled 'Signs You're Being Called by an Orisha' that felt too dramatic to take seriously.
She closed the browser and stared at the shell again.
Her grandmother used to say cowries had mouths. "They talk if you listen," she would whisper, bent
over black soap and hot palm oil. "But city children don't listen anymore."
Ava had stopped listening a long time ago.
Until now.
The shell was warm in her hand.
She didn't know why she did it, but she found herself walking down to the lagoon after work. It
wasn't the cleanest place—smelled of fish and diesel—but it was the only body of water near her
that didn't come with hotel fees or security guards.
The sky was heavy, the clouds bloated with the kind of rain that made power lines hum.
She knelt by the edge, heart thudding in her throat.
"I don't know who you are," she whispered. "I don't know if you're real. I'm not a priestess. I'm not
holy. But you came to me. So… here I am."
She dropped the cowrie into the water.
Nothing happened.
She waited. Embarrassed.
But then the air shifted. Just slightly. A warm breeze curled around her neck like a kiss.
The water rippled—once, twice. Then stilled.
She turned to leave, trying to convince herself she was imagining things.
As she walked away, the cowrie floated back to the shore.