In the exorcist’s waiting room, Otumve interrogated his daughter.
“My child, did you kill your mother?”
Silence.
“What about Old Hani’s brown dog?”
Silence.
“How did Madibu’s second wife die? What did you put in her food that afternoon you were sent to her?”
Silence.
The girl only stared at the floor of Adinoyi’s secluded waiting room.
Otumve sighed and fell silent. One would think anger was slowly gnawing at Otumve’s heart. But no. Who gets angry with an only child? Not this man. She was his treasure. Even with the recent happenings, the witchcraft allegations that had assumed a vicious turn, not for one moment did his love for her waver.
He tried to focus his mind on something else in the semi-dark waiting room. There was nothing of much significance worthy of easing the tension he felt deep inside his heart. It was fear. Fear that this thing might consume his daughter.
The room was empty, save the stool upon which he was seated. He scratched his white beard and looked up at the ten-year-old girl crouched before him. She had grown thinner than he knew her to be. She looked precarious, like something about to shatter. An unhealthy tan. Her head had been shaved so clean that he could make out her skull. A kind of sorrow leapt into the pit of his stomach. He was still trying not to believe that this girl, as defenceless as she seemed, could have done all that she had been accused of. Could be a witch. But that was no longer in his hands. He hoped that Adinoyi could do or provoke something, heal her, even though deep down he didn’t believe she needed healing.
Twenty-six days she had spent so far in the care of Adinoyi, the exorcist, who was notorious for trashing evil out of possessed children. His charges were quite ridiculous. His work always started with a confession by the individual.
This was Otumve’s third visit, yet his daughter, Onono, accused of witchcraft, of ending the life of her mother and many other transgressions, would agree to nothing or deny any. All she had given was silence. A silence that signified nothing.
Otumve took her right hand in his, placed his left hand on it, and smoothed her cold fingers. This was usually his initial act in all of his previous visits. But today, for a motive that was too abstract for him to define, he had ignored or simply skipped this ritual of bonding and assurance.
She looked up at him instantly. She had been afraid to look directly into his eyes. Hers were bulbous, sunken, and misty. Her face was small, the size of an orange whose healthy growth was stalled by drought. Her nose was too large for her face. It didn’t fit. It was like something stolen from another place, a square peg in a round hole. Her mouth stood in stark contrast. It was small and uninteresting. It was something you could weep for. She had never been pretty, especially now that her once alluring dark hair, one of the few applaudable physical features she possessed, was gone, and the awkward lineaments of her head were harshly exposed to the eyes of the world.
Otumve didn’t care. He loved her as anyone would an only child. His love for her was unquantifiable. It was the way he had loved her mother and his mother too.
She stared at him imploringly as though begging for her own life, begging for something she thought only him could bequeath by the virtue of his position. But he looked away briefly as though beholding her gaze was like having the sun stand on his face. In the semi-darkness, she could still make out his face — how shrunken his cheekbones seemed, how his jaws were limp whenever he changed his expression or spoke, how dark and sinister that mark which rose from the side of his nose ran across his cheek and lost its way at the foot of his left ear lobe. A scar that was touted to have been stamped by a ferocious leopard on a day he was nearly mauled to death during a hunting episode in his youthful days, a hunting expedition he never really loved to reflect on.
She knew he was suffering too. His eyes, bereft of their stellar sheen, told her, and the hideousness of his face and the profundity and frequency with which he sighed and gnashed his teeth. And his words, too, which were hatched and let out with some kind of excruciating fortitude, accompanied by bitterness.
“The road to redemption begins with confession. Confess, my child. Confess to Adinoyi. Only then can you be set free. Confess, my child,” Otumve cajoled. He didn’t know what else to say or do.
There was silence again. That kind of silence that existed between two shy people who were meeting for the first time. That kind that made you itching to leave a place or to thirst for water. Then, she finally spoke. Her voice was as smallish as her mouth. It was tinier than he had known, lonely, brimming with pain.
“My father, I want to go home.”
Otumve must have lost it now. His eyes blazed. This girl doesn’t know the gravity of what’s happening, they seemed to say.
“Home? Home, you say? My child, do you know what awaits you?” He glowered, then fell silent, almost spontaneously as though he regretted losing his composure for even a second’s fraction.
His lips were tightly pursed. She was weeping now. This seemed to irritate him. He let her slip out of his hand, which he had unknowingly gripped so tightly. Then he stood up slowly, and the pain on his face showed that it took great effort. He began to walk away more tragically than he had done in each of his previous visits.
She began to wail. Her tiny frame shook, and the now completely dark room vibrated. Saliva was spewing, her nose was running.
“My father, don’t leave me here, I beg you. I’ll die! I’m dying!”
He felt her agony. Otumve felt it.
He paused as he reached the door, closed his eyes, and swallowed hard. His inside was filled with things unclear. His mind was a forest under siege by a gale — trees gyrating deliriously, birds flapping and carolling wildly into a blue sky. Perhaps a minute or so had passed when he finally opened his eyes again. It took great will to push open that door that led him into the unlit yard which smelled of lemongrass, and into the fresh and welcoming texture of the open air the night presented.
…
The streets were dark, only wrinkled by yellow lights which filtered in weakly from some households. Otumve was grateful for the cover of the night. At least, no one would notice him. No one would point fingers at him while he passed. No one would whisper to the other, giggle, or clap hands. No one would say, “Ah, there he goes, the man, the father of the little witch who killed her mother, Old Hani’s dog, and who also killed Madibu’s second wife by putting poison in her food.”
These days, going about in public was to him a great torture.
When Otumve reached home, he met his sister-in-law, Adiyetu, who had come to do the final cleansing rites for the smooth passage of her sister’s soul to the land of the dead. He was glad to see her. His aged sister, who had been living with him for a long time, now emerged from her room bearing an old lantern when she heard his voice.
“Have you come to complete the rites?” Otumve asked.
“I have brought the red incense to push death away.”
“I thank you for your selfless efforts.”
“You need not thank me. It’s my responsibility,” Adiyetu said. “How’s the girl doing? Has anything happened?”
Otumve was mute for a while, then he sighed, “Nothing. She has said nothing yet. But Adinoyi is still working.”
Adiyetu looked dismayed. “I’m surprised that you truly believe all this nonsense. That innocent girl will die there if you don’t do something about it.”
Otumve opened his mouth, but couldn’t say a word. He sighed again before he found his tongue. He wasn’t astonished. He knew that Adiyetu had always had a soft spot for her niece. She viewed the allegations as spurious, unfair, and pure evil against a defenceless girl.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“Simple! Go bring her back home.”
Otumve registered a short laugh and shook his head. He wished it were that easy. “Do you know what the people have been saying? Do you know what would have happened if I hadn’t made the quick decision to take her to Adinoyi? Do you know what would happen if I bring her back without Adinoyi finding a solution?”
These questions were clear-cut.
It was now his sister, Irekuw, chipped in. “Your sister’s daughter has committed crimes that can’t be forgiven, and all you have to say is that she should be brought back? Who even knows where she inherited the witchcraft from?”
Adiyetu was stung by this. The two women had been at loggerheads from time immemorial. No one knew the reason behind their enmity towards each other.
“Who saw her practice witchcraft? Who saw her plunge the knife into her mother’s chest? Who saw her subdue Old Hani’s dog? Who saw her put poison into the food that Madibu’s second wife ate? Who saw her? People of this world!”
Otumve stood up, entered his room, and shut the door. He had had enough. He was fatigued. His body ached. He shut his eyes, and gratefully, sleep claimed him. But it was a lazy one, dreamy and abrupt. When he opened his eyes, everywhere was silent. The women must have long moved on.
He rose from his bed, opened the door, and cold air slapped his face. It was pitch black. He felt uneasy. He bolted the door firmly and returned to bed.
…
Deep into the night, Otumve was still awake. He thought about what Adiyetu had said. Perhaps he was a bad father. A father who couldn’t stand up in defence of his daughter was certainly an awful one. Perhaps taking her to Adinoyi was a wrong move. And to abandon her in that state of suffering was inhumane.
Adinoyi, like most omahonors of that time, was renowned for employing radical methods in his work of exorcism. Otumve dreaded the urge to fathom the kind of treatment Onono was subjected to. But then, he thought about what could have been if he hadn’t made that move. Certainly, these walls of his wouldn’t be standing. The people would grow restless. They would whisper and whisper until the whispers became a storm. Every other unfortunate occurrence would be traced to his daughter. He had dreamt about these things over and over again that even while awake, he saw it play before his eyes like a bad recurring vision.
He saw how they dragged her into the streets, her tiny frame posing not much of a restraint. A sturdy crowd of young and old feet. Their mouths opened, and what came forth was fire wrapped in curses and yells. Their hands opened, and what emerged from there were stones, clubs, and rusty metals. Soon, he couldn’t recognise his daughter. Her face was shielded by a talcum of blood and bruises. He couldn’t tell her bulbous nose. He couldn’t see her steady set of bulgy eyes. Her tiny lips had completely vanished. She was just there, a sorry heap. There was nothing about her then that resembled a human.
Then a fire was built, a big one, the sort that was made during his youthful days once they had returned from a hunt with a mighty kill. They set the fire, and when it was giddy enough, at its prime, they tossed the unknown bundle, which had been his daughter, into the thick. The yellow flames roared and feasted. They leapt and danced with excitement. The crowd went berserk. They cheered. The flames surged and surged until it was touching the sky. The stars were torched. The moon grew restless from the heat. The night was so illumined that some domestic animals were fooled. A cock crowed from afar. Everything assumed the lustre of bronze. Everything was in a frenzy. Everything was alive. But Otumve just stood and watched. He didn’t move. He didn’t protest. He didn’t weep.
Otumve yawned. The night had grown cold. He heard the wind whistle outside through cracks in his window. The crickets were alive. Mosquitoes were buzzing. A dog barked. It sounded like Old Hani’s brown dog. But the beast was dead. His daughter had killed it, they said. They said they saw her. They said she seized the beast by its neck and strangled it. They said her eyes were unusually large and red like hot coal. They said her mouth quivered and her teeth bled. They said she held the beast down as though it were a useless jute sack, revealed a blunt knife, and crudely slew it. They said a ten-year-old girl suddenly became agile and preyed on a dog whose jaws were fearsome and deadly. They said a girl as light as a feather suddenly became agile. They said it happened in the dead of night.
Otumve remembered the morning after that night. He stood while his daughter, covered in the blood of her victim, was brought before him, including her object of destruction and the carcass of her unfortunate victim. He was dumbfounded. How did she leave the house in the dead of night? Where did she find the knife? How did she subdue the beast? Where did she get the energy? This case was too complicated to be dismissed as one of sleepwalking. Questions raced through his mind with a kind of scary tumult he couldn’t decipher. This was madness.
And when she finally roused from her mysterious slumber and saw the state she was in — the beast lying unmoved, the blood-stained blade, the faces that stared at her, drowned in rivers of befuddlement, astounded and frightened by it all — she began to weep. Questions were asked, but were met with torrents of tears. Was it some kind of hypnosis? People became wary. People murmured. It was after the first incident where her mother had died. Then Madibu’s second wife happened. The people no longer murmured. Whispers gained momentum and decibels. And Otumve feared. And this fear led him to seek help from Adinoyi, one who dealt mercilessly with children who were touted to harbour demons, spirits, or something strange inside them.
He remembered the day she was born. He remembered how restlessness and anxiety nearly killed him. He had wanted it to be a boy. He had waited for so long to have a child. He wished his patience and noble endurance would be rewarded with a male child. But it didn’t turn out so. The child came, a girl. There was this initial pint of disappointment he had tried so hard to mask then, which eventually and thankfully faded away.
A child is a child, he had thought. He had lifted her to the sky and said, “Oh! Ohomorihi! Father of the sky. I receive this gift you have given me with open arms and a heart filled with gratitude. May she be blessed. May she add meaning to our lives. May she add meaning to your world. May she bring forth sons and daughters who would add meaning to your world. Father of the sky, owner of night and day, you to whom the things of night and the things of the earth aren’t hidden, it’s you I give gratitude.”
Then he had broken the child’s first kola nut. Then laughter and merriment followed.
The night had grown the wrinkled limbs of an old man. Otumve shut his eyes briefly. His sister-in-law’s words kept returning to him. He stood up, yawned, and stretched. He heard his bones groan. He rubbed his tired eyes, grabbed the lantern and moved out.
The air outside was of an exotic breed. The night was dark and stiff. The leaves from the huge mango tree rustled. A bird hooted. And that dog. That dog, which some people said was the ghost of Hani’s dog, that was yet to find peace in the land of the dead, kept on barking and barking. Otumve didn’t fear. His mind was too preoccupied with other things than the mundane fear of the alleged ghost of a dog, which sounded as preposterous as the news of his daughter finding the vigour to subdue the beast, not until she was placed before him along with the evidence.
After his wife’s death, he had grown reckless. He feared nothing now. The only fear in him was the harm that could come to Onono. And this had now taken the shape of the greatest fear in his life.
Slowly, he made his way amidst sharp, stinging brushes. It was his wife’s grave he went to. It was beneath a huge tree. The last time he visited her grave was a day before he took Onono to the omahonor. He looked at the mound made moist by the early rains. He shuddered slightly as he knelt by it. He placed a hand and let it roam on the mound.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I’ve failed. I’ve failed you. If you were here, you wouldn’t let her suffer like this. You would fight for her. You would stand by her. You would fight with your life for her.”
He thought he would find peace here, but an icy feeling wrapped itself around him. He stood up and walked back to the house.
…
At dawn, he summoned his sister and revealed his new plan.
“I’m bringing my daughter back,” he said. “This is where she belongs, not in the hands of a mad exorcist.”
The woman disagreed. She tried to talk him out of it, to make him see the danger it posed, the reaction of the people.
“How will you face the people? Can you fight them? They will take her by force and burn her alive. They wouldn’t spare you either. And this house shall go down in flames. Is this what you want to happen? Is this how you want your life to end?” she asked.
Otumve wouldn’t listen. He didn’t care anymore. The people could go to hell. He had taken his daughter to Adinoyi of his own free will, and that made it all the more vital that he be the one to bring her back.
He left home that morning with renewed belief, a kind of vigour pulsing through his veins, which surprised even him.
When he got to Adinoyi’s house, the sun was already high in the sky, burning a glistening crimson. Adinoyi was out. Instead, he met the stern-faced servant who spoke only in clipped sentences, like a machine following pre-programmed instructions. His head was clean-shaven, gleaming like a mirror under the sun, and his face was dusted with white chalk. He wore a spotless white calico that somehow never seemed to gather dirt. His strides were short, sharp, and brisk.
“I’ve come to see the child,” Otumve announced.
The boy nodded and led him into the waiting room, then disappeared.
He soon emerged again, and said, “The girl can’t walk. You come.”
Otumve felt his heart stop. Questions ran wildly in his mind. Why can’t she walk? What happened? He caught up with the boy who led the way, placing a trembling hand on his shoulder.
“Why can’t she walk?”
“She’s weak.”
“Why?”
“We’ve suspended food.”
“Boy, tell me what happened.”
The boy hesitated for a brief moment. “She was given the treatment?”
“What treatment?”
“I don’t know,” replied the boy, curtly. He knew better than to divulge his master’s secrets.
They got to the room, which wasn’t a normal room. It was very small, and inside was dark and smelled of rotten food. He couldn’t see his daughter until the boy struck a match and lit a candle. There she was, lifeless, curled up in one corner. Fear gripped Otumve. He called out to her, but she didn’t stir. She was there, motionless. He called out to her again, but still, there was no response. Fear gripped him the more. His heart thumped and ached.
The boy excused himself and shut the door behind him. The candle burned spiritedly. A rat scurried past. The air grew more saturated.
Otumve could taste the smell of rotten food on his tongue. He brought the candle close to Onono. He feared she was dead. He touched her skin and watched her start. He was somewhat relieved. He watched her eyes open slowly. He felt the burning of her skin. And, on looking closely, he found that her body was covered in fresh, unkind bruises.
“What have they done to you?!” he asked, shaking her violently.
She opened her mouth, but no word came forth. Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes.
Otumve was alarmed. “Speak, my child. What have they done to you?”
And then, she spoke. He could barely hear her. “My father, I’m dying. You left me to die here. I’m dying.”
A disjointed feeling swept through him. He felt guilty. He propped her up and held her close to himself. Tears stung his eyes. He heard her wince and whimper from pain.
“Forgive me, child. Forgive me. It’s over. You’ll go home now. I’ll take you home. Don’t die. How will I face your mother’s grave? What will I tell her? How will I explain my incompetence? Pray, child, don’t die.”
Outside, Otumve met the short, stubby omahonor. He was chewing a stick, spitting it out intermittently, and smiling at him. Otumve had no time for courtesy. His heart was on fire.
“What have you done to her?” he demanded.
The man smiled broadly again. “My friend, we do what we have to do. To achieve what we want, we must leave no room for weakness. Love is weakness.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” Otumve said, refusing to be swayed by sleek talk.
“Well, it’s the treatment. The first step towards redemption. The girl is stubborn. They always are. But I tell you, very soon, she would speak,” he assured him.
“There would be no need for that anymore. I’ve come to take her home. I thank you for your efforts,” Otumve sighed.
Adinoyi stared wide-eyed. It seemed the stick he chewed had turned unbearably bitter in his mouth. He spat out furiously.
“Who quenches the fire when the meal is only half prepared? Who sieves out salt from a soup and is happy to eat it? My friend, interrupting this process is dangerous. Very dangerous,” Adinoyi cautioned.
“I’ve made up my mind. Don’t be scared for me,” Otumve replied.
“I’ll not stop you,” Adinoyi said. “But first, I need two bags of salt and ten epenyis to cleanse my house.”
“I have no problem with that. By dusk, two bags of salt and ten epenyis you shall have.”
Otumve returned home. Adinoyi’s demands were expensive, but he had no choice. He was ready to pay any price for his poor daughter’s freedom. Before dusk, he sold the yams left in his barn. He purchased the bags of salt and found an errand boy to help him convey them.
When his sister knew what he had done, she scowled. She predicted his doom. Otumve was unfazed by her words. There was no fear in him anymore. The only thing that bothered him now was time. The more time he wasted, the more he felt his daughter slipping away from him.
By the time they got to Adinoyi’s house, the remnants of daylight were an indecipherable blur in the distant sky. The man accepted the fee.
“My friend, it’s unfortunate that we’re so close to achieving success when you chose to turn away. You chose to look back. My friend, it’s dark. This darkness is a lonely road. Love is a weakness, my friend,” he said, shaking his head.
Otumve had no time for all these now. He went in and carried his daughter, who was now standing at death’s threshold.
When he got home, thankfully, he found that his sister-in-law, whom he had sent words to, had arrived and had some herbs already cooking.
“She’s dying,” he said, breathlessly.
“She won’t die. Don’t fret. The child’s too young to die. The spirit of her mother won’t allow it,” she said in a bid to embolden him.
The girl was laid down. The woman bathed and cleaned her wounds.
…
By dawn, the girl could speak, and before the end of that day, her eyes had somewhat regained their sharpness. On the third day, she could move about.
That evening, Adiyetu had expressed her fears to Otumve. “I’ve been hearing things. The people have been whispering. They are waiting for someone to just make a move. There would be no holding back afterwards. They would come when you least expect. I’m afraid.”
Otumve smiled. “I’ve heard things, too. Many things.”
“Then, what do you plan to do?” she inquired, amazed by his calmness.
“A cousin of mine lives behind the hills. He’s wealthy and influential. I have no choice but to approach him now. In his care, no harm would come to her,” he said while she nodded in consent.
By nightfall, Otumve and his daughter went to see this cousin of his. To his disappointment, the man refused him for no tangible reason, complaining about a lack of space. But Otumve knew why. No one would take the risk of sheltering a person accused of witchcraft or perpetrating evil. He knew that his cousin was more concerned about his reputation.
Otumve shrugged and left, his daughter clinging to him. They trudged on slowly, past the old cemetery, the big snail market, the cluster of huge baobab trees where the children played during the day, the spot where the girl had allegedly slew Old Hani’s brown dog, the serpentine bend that led to the river from which no one drank, then past their own house.
It was now the girl queried, alarmed, “My father, where are we going?”
“Come along, child. Come along. Don’t be afraid,” was all he said, his voice as cold as rainwater, yet not devoid of its subtle nature.
The girl turned back, one more time, to look at the house they had left behind, for a sudden premonition had suddenly crawled into her being that it might be her last. They walked on. The air grew colder and smelled damp. They trudged on. The night grew silent and sinister. Still, they trudged on. The bleeding moon stood sentinel over the night, slowly scudding past cloudy brushes. They trudged on until the path they ploughed grew narrower and creepier, until the village they had left behind now assumed a continuously receding dot in the distance. And before them was a shadowy conglomerate of rich vegetation.
They got to a tree, and Otumve stopped. His breathing had grown shallower with each step he took. It was as though his heart was about to stop.
“Your home is no longer your home. It’s foolish to stay behind. The people of this world don’t forgive or forget,” he said.
“Where do we go now, my father?” the girl asked, visibly shaken and anxious, her voice strained by agony and uncertainty.
“I can’t go further. You go alone.”
“My father, where will I go? I know no one. I’m scared.”
“You go nowhere,” he replied. “You go to wherever you find a kind hand. Don’t be afraid, my child.”
The girl sobbed.
He handed her a gourd he had carried all along. He removed a talisman that had hung around his neck since birth and hung it around her neck.
“Tell me, child. Tell me what happened that night your mother died.”
The girl spread her hands slowly, her face downcast. “I don’t know, I tell you. I don’t know. I just woke up there and saw that harm had been done.”
“The way Old Hani’s dog happened, too?”
She nodded.
He sighed.
“Go on now. You’ll reach an intersection deep in the woods. Go right. You’ll find a little stream. Drink not from it and don’t cross until dawn. Then go on from there. And don’t stop until you meet a kind hand. May the father of the sky and your mother’s spirit protect you.”
She wept harder now.
“Go on. Your journey is long.”
She lingered.
“Go on!” he groaned.
Then, she moved, turning now and then, wishing that he would call her back, wanting the ground to open up and swallow her. And the distance between father and child grew. And with each passing second, his eyes closed slowly until his daughter merged with the shadows. The night air, smelling of rotten leaves and sandalwood, whistled sweetly. ♦
Hussani Abdulrahim has a degree in Pure Chemistry from Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto. He was shortlisted for the 2024 ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award and the 2024 BWR Summer Fiction Contest. He won the 2023 Writivism Short Story Prize, the Ibua Journal’s 2023 Bold Call, the 2022 Toyin Falola Prize, and the WRR’s 2016 Green Author Prize. He has also been longlisted for the Commonwealth and Afritondo Short Story Prizes. His work has appeared in Boston Review, Wilted Pages, Brittle Paper, Evergreen Review, Solarpunk, and Ibua Journal. Hussani lives in Kano, Nigeria, with his wife and son.
