back in our
house. She was still as keen on knowing
my name as
the day before yesterday. My aunt’s
instruction didn’t
strike my opaque head. I was going to
demonstrate it
to her once and for all.
An inner voice came. At first I was
shocked when I
heard it and thought I could now hear
with my ears, but
when Toyosi turned around to answer her
son, I knew I
was still deaf because I didn’t still hear
her voice. The
inner voice had just asked me not to do
it.
“Please demonstrate your name,” she
asked again. As
though she had enchanted me, I rose up
and made
some gestures with my hands. She was
glad. She
signaled that I should do it over and over
again and I
concurred. She also began to do it until I
told her she
had done a perfect job.
Toyosi left the home after presenting
some goodies to
me. It was soon dark. The day had gone
to bed but my
eyes were just clear. I wasn’t feeling
sleepy at all.
Mother came to my room and saw me
turning around
under the quilt after switching on the
light of my room.
My pillow was clutched to my chest.
“Rose, aren’t you sleeping?” she asked.
“I don’t feel like…sleeping,” I yawned. She
came to sit
beside me on the bed.
“What’s the matter Rose?”
“I don’t just know,” I said.
“Maybe you want me to rock you to
sleep, Rose,” she
said. “And I wouldn’t mind doing that.”
“I’m no more a small girl mum,” I replied.
“By
September I would be getting to JSS 1.”
“And then?” she said. She looked into my
gray eyes and
frowned. I didn’t know what she spotted
in them.
“Rose, are you nervous?”
“A bit,” I said. I was feeling nervous
indeed. My heart
was tapping faster than normal. My
blood was burning
within me. It was as though
something bad would happen.
“Don’t be nervous Rose,” she said. “Or
would you come
and sleep in my room?”
“I wouldn’t mind doing that,” I said.
Mother bundled me
up the way I saw father bundle Toyosi up
those few
times she was playing love with my
father in our
presence. She dumped me playfully on
her bed. I
ricocheted like that round thing my
brother called ‘high
land’. Mother’s bed was as fat as a
thousand sliced
bread packed together. Sure no one
would have a bad
dream on such, I thought.
As soon as my back made intimate
contact with the
mattress, my eyes began to close. My
breath poured
easily. I fell into unconsciousness. A
dream began to
form on my face.
Vividly in my dream I saw a woman
sitting on a mat
beside an old man whose teeth was like
a rotten
banana. The ambiance of the room was
familiar to me.
The woman was the one I saw calling
some
statements into a basin of water having
my image
some weeks back. This time around, she
wasn’t
speaking with her mouth, instead, she
was
gesticulating.
“Bode, the son of John, I am calling your
name right
now. Answer me to death right now,
Bode!” she said in
sign language. “Answer me to death right
now!”
It was like a film show to me. An image
had formed
inside the water. She was shocked when
she saw the
image in it. It wasn’t mine, but that of
Bode. I could read
disappointment and shock on her face
when she saw
the image.
I thumped up. So it was a dream, I
thought. I tapped my
mother to life.
“Mother, I have a dream.”
“A dream?”
“Yes mother, a bad dream,” I said,
breathing like a cow.
“About what?” my mother yawned and
beamed at the
wall clock. It was just 2 am.
“Something like that one I had in Aunty
Rachael’s house
three weeks back,” I said.
“Do you mean the dream about someone
gawking at
your image in a basin of water?” my
mother asked in a
fearful manner.
“Yes mother,” I said. In fact, this time
around the
woman was speaking in sign language.
“Ah! Calling your name in sign
language?” Mother said
and deflated my two cheeks in between
her palms.
“Not my name this time around,” I said.
“She was
calling Bode’s name.”
“In sign language?”
“Exactly, yes,” I said, sweating.
Mother was glad I didn’t respond to the
call since it
wasn’t my name that was called by the
strange woman
in the dream. However, she felt
concerned for Bode.
“Who’s this strange woman of darkness
calling us at
night? Why can’t she present herself in
the day? She
must be a coward.” Her heart thumped.
She was scared.
“Now that you said that the woman is
communicating in
sign language, are you safe at all? What
is the
probability that she won’t pounce on you
in the next
dream?” My mother faced the ceiling and
began to
weep.
“Mum,” I said and tapped her. She looked
at me. “I think
I know who she is.”
“Who?” she asked in an intriguing
manner and I
answered pointblank, “Toyosi!”
“How do you know?”
“She asked for my name yesterday, but I
demonstrated
her son’s name, Bode to her.”
“Ah!” my mother held me tight. “A witch
cried
yesterday, a child died today, who don’t
know that it is
the witch who killed the child?” she spoke
in proverbs.
“Mother, let’s go and check Bode in his
room first,” I
said out of concern. Mother and I began
to head for his
room. He wasn’t in.
“What?” we both screamed in sign
language.
To be continued
