Inene walked in, taking Ulumma
"I think Agumba mean no harm."
Ulumma dilated her eyes, which would rather be that of surprise. Inene didn't kept calm however, she tried persuading her to take the drink.
"Yes, besides his domineering attitude, don't forget he is a spiritualist, and that option he had given you might be real. I don't want to lose you. Please do what he says."
Ulumma shrugged. Inene was the only person in the world she could trust at the moment. She therefore took the concoction and gulped it in her belly no matter how bitter she was.
Inene shrugged to affirm that nothing happened to her, they exchanged gaze for some moment in anticipation of any effect it might have afterwards.
Sooner while they'd almost parted gaze, Ulumma began convulsing with ephemeral epilepsy.
Inene was gripped with fear and shock, as she shook her violently and screaming for help.
Ulumma soon went motionless to Inene's greatest shock. What comes in mind was death.
She rushed inside to call Agumba who was inside,
"Agumba, you have killed my friend o, you must kill me too." She held him tightly to his cloth and threw herself on the floor that the cloth was torn to shred.
Agumba moved away from her, and went to where she'd been recumbent. Inene followed him behind to make sure he didn't escape in any way.
"What happened to me?" Ulumma asked immediately they came out of the door to Agumba's inner room. Inene's mood changed instantly to a joyous one, while she rushed and hugged her.
"Ulu, you can speak!" she said excitedly. Soon she remembered Agumba, whom she'd wrongly accused of murder and had torn his cloth on the process.
"Agu, I'm very sorry." she pleaded.
"You think I will shed a blood? Not for anything." he said and left their presence.
Inene bent towards her friend and gave her a jovial smile, then to solemnity.
"Emmm, Ulumma," she called, "Why not we tell him at once about that your dream?"
"Akunyeli!"
"Is anything wrong with that? You can't allow that to swallow you up. Say it out."
"Aku, do you know your problem?" she asked rhetorically and then quickly snapped in, "you are too superstitious! I've had worse nightmares compared to this, so what is the big thing attached to this common dream? "
"Your problem too is that you are too casual. You call a dream of an apparition pursuing after you and your child, common? May Amadioha save you from your ignorance."
Just as they were speaking, Agumba barged into them and they kept mute as if nothing happened. Inene knew it was time to help her friend out here, maybe she was shy or she was feeling guilt in her whenever Agumba was around.
"Ulumma had a bad dream yesternight." he kept mute as though noone said anything. Inene seeing he didn't reply had to repeat what she had said for the second time.
Agumba turned backward, with a sardonic smile. Inene thought that she might have made a facile statement, hence she kept mute.
"When the goat is injured, let it cry for itself," this is where Ulumma always gets angry. Always making reference to goats when she is the issue. If he must use proverbs, why goats? Her poor understanding of proverbs would always make her go red when such arises.
Surprisingly, she was polite than she would have ever been.
"It bothers me," she voiced out sadly. Agumba turned backwards and stare at her for some time, and then to Inene,
"Remain here or outside while she comes with me." Inene didn't object him, but Ulumma begged for her friends company but Agumba was insistent.
Ulumma, however, went with him, leaving Inene behind, while they were exchanging glances between themselves.
Ulumma came into Agumba's enclave of deities with mixed feeling, that of anticipation and nervous feelings.
She watched him stir something in a hollow pot, full of mystery and surprises.
"You see Ulumma," he said, "there is no smoke without a flame. Look into this." he opened the small hollow pot for her to see what was found therein.
Ulumma wouldn't take any of it serious, but soon something caught her eyes.
Her mother in the picture appalled her the most. No matter how much younger her mother look in there, she could still recognize her when she saw her. Another person she saw was Nwabiala. More surprises for her, as she wondered what relationship they had between them except them being in-laws.
She saw the two with pregnancy been led to where they were giving birth.
After they'd given birth to their babies, they got a message from the midwife that the two babies died.
Depressingly, they were traumatized by the pain of loss, but Ochibiaram wasn't the type to cry over a thing for long. She met her in-law who was still weeping for the death of her child,
"Are you still mourning that child?" she asked grimly, but it seemed she had gone too emotional.
"Don't tell me you still needed that child so dearly that you are almost opting for death option. How many sons are we going to give birth to? Are our womb allergic to female issues?"
After some times, some hard looking men came with a woman, fair in complexion, but looks like she was neurotic, as seen in her behaviour.
Ochi beckoned on Nwabiala,
"Did you see that woman?"
"The mad woman? Of what use is she to us?"
"Its good you know she is mad, and her child may be of help to either of us." she said rubbing her palms gently.
"Ochi, are you in anyway saying that we should adopt a mad woman's child? That is abominable. I can't even stand the presence of a dirty mad woman, not to talk of her offspring."
While they were still speaking, the said woman screamed and then the voice of baby screaming.
"Abomination!" the nurses were shouting. The two of them rushed to the scene where the woman was giving birth.
"What happened?" they kept asking but noone was giving any answer.
Soon, a maiden was seen coming out with a basket with crying babies.
"Hey," Ochi whispered and gestured the young maiden to come closer to an isolated place,
"Where are you going with the baby?" she asked with concern.
"You won't believe this." she said, "they are twins."
"Twins?" Nwabiala exclaimed with great shock and disgust.
"Twins!" her counterpart exclaimed rather in excitement, as she opened the veil of the basket, they saw two beautiful and fair skinned babies.
"See how beautiful they are, and very innocent," she said compassionately.
"Nwabiala, don't you think our wishes are granted."
"What?" she asked perplexed.
"Please can we have a deal." Ochi said rather to the maid.
The maid paid rapt attention to what she had to say.
"We want the babies!"
"What? You mean you want to take the twins?" she asked with utmost amazement.
"Not exactly. I'm going to take one and she will take the other," she said with her hands placed on her chest, "and trust me, we will pay you handsomely, anything you want we will give to you."
"You know that will be very hard," she clapped her hands together, "what then are we going to show the elders because this story must have spread by now."
"Very simple. Tell them that the babies died when you were bringing them and we will be there to support your claims as witnesses."
"And that was how Nee Ajuka's children were adopted by the two and here you have them."
Ulumma had a look of doubt all over her face but she didn't know the best way to voice it out.
She found it hard to believe that her mother who had a high moral standard would do that.
"What if I don't believe this?"
"You will be doubting to your own detriment, because you were not born when all this happened, so you have no right to doubt."
"Is that why she killed my mother?" Ulumma asked bitterly.
"Not directly." Agumba revealed once again, how Madueke killed her parents. That was so close. She was the youngest before the little Oby, who was only a baby. Her mother was stopped her from tasting that same food that killed her father, because she had running stomach.
That was great luck, that she even begin thinking to herself.
"Why am I alive?" she thought aloud to herself.
"The exact answer to that question is why I've kept you alive. You are the true and only daughter of your father. That is why Nee Ajuka" he paused to take a rethink of what he wanted to say, he thought of hiding it but on a second thought, he thought it wise to let her know all so that he will be exonerated from any further attack on her.
"That is why Nee Ajuka wants me to kill you."
Ulumma screamed as she was been startled by what he said,
"Kill me?" she said with great fear.
"She is that wild beast you see all night coming after you and the baby. She wants to eliminate that baby because he is from the lineage of Konaso, and a threat to the kingdom she wants to establish with her twin daughters."
"You mean Uju and Akwanwa?"
"Yes. But the great gods of our land are not asleep. The tree of discord and enmity Ajuka planted in the midst of Ararume and Madueke family still lingers even amongst the twin sisters, and it gets worse day by day. Ajuka never knew this would be the outcome, having been unaware of the secret rite performed in Umudioga after birth which automatically binds the twins to the family's bloodline. Nee Ajuka is the goddess of mmiri Adaola where you saw Madueke going for charms to kill your parents."
Ulumma was dumbfounded totally. The one that baffled her the most was the story about Uju's background. The same girl she'd always known to be her sister. She don't know whether to believe or doubt Agumba. The Uju she'd always known was not a bit as dangerous as Agumba portrayed her to be, but he on the other hand, gave an accurate account of her whole life, so nothing was there to doubt about.
She had to voice out her worries about the accuracy of Uju's background. She wanted to know if she was to take Uju as her sister, or an enemy.
"I swear by the head of chiekpe that the day you shall meet either of the twins, they will slaughter and cremate you."
The fear came in great magnitude as she heard this, her voice was shaky.
"But the charm you claimed to have given me was supposed to protect me against them. What if they find me themselves?"
"You are indestructible, but you should understand that you are here to defend yourself and your child and not to be the offender. Don't trespass. When you give birth to your baby, do not leave him into the care of anybody except me."
Agumba stood to his feet, and struck his staff to pin on the ground.
"War is coming! I see war! Greater than the fiercest war that have ever been fought in the history of Umudioga and Ozalla."
"But Ifenna and Aneke don't look like people that are capable of such devastation." Ulumma said waving her hands to her side."
Agumba laughed hysterically at her naivity.
"The battle ahead is the battle of spirits and immortals, and only the fittest can stand it."
Ulumma was still wanting to know more, she wants to know where she would stand.
"On whose side would you be?"
"None. If I stay, then I will fuel the crisis but if you did not see me," she looked deeply into her eyes and concentrated on it like there was something hiding there,
"You will have to leave this place and never come back." he drew back and chanted incantations to affirm his divination.
"Why won't you be around in the first place?" she asked curiously.
"Because Ajuka will never let me go freely for revealing this secrets to you."
"Do you work for her?"
"Apparently." he paused like he was pondering on something, "but I found out that I'm been deceived, so I withdrew my services."
Now that was hard to believe. No one would ever imagine Agumba who'd been an ardent opposer of the dreaded community of the river daughters, to also be their ally. It sounded thus like an irony. Maybe he was unacquainted of what he got into. Could that be why he said Ajuka deceived him?
She didn't want to bother him with more questions, so she decided to leave him to continue his conversation with the spirits.
Coming out of the room, Inene was the first person that came in sight.
"You mean you have been eavesdropping again?"
"I wish I could have but sleep overtook me." Ulumma chuckled out holding her mouth from going into real outbursts of laughter.
Agumba might have put on another mischief.
TBC TOMORROW AT 11AM
