Alacrimia | √

Chapter Nine

05:00 am, September 14
Kogi State, Nigeria.

It was a very early Saturday morning when the unfortunate incident happened. It was in the wee hours of the morning when the sky was inky blue and the orangish-pink tip of the sun could barely be seen struggling to peek out from behind the mountains.

The village was empty at this time of the day save for the watchguards retiring from their overnight posts and one or two religious fanatics jingling bells loudly and forecasting doom.

It was at this exact time that the beginning of what would spell her doom arrived with it's family of trouble.

Soon, as was tradition, pageboys were sent around to circulate the sepulchral news.

Taiwo had just risen and was sweeping the house when a loud series of knocks came on the front door.

He hissed and dropped the broom wondering who the dumb as a post idiot could be, that couldn't respect people's privacy. What if he was still asleep? Would the idiot break the door down?

'Ta nì yẹn, who's that?' he wanted to know on getting to the door.

'Àlááfìa fún onílé o, peace. Ẹ káàárọ́ o.'

'Ẹ káàárọ́,' Taiwo answered back still annoyed. 'What has brought you here so early in the day? The roosters have barely crowed.'

'We've come from Baba Agbanila, the renowned village doctor. To announce that Bewaji has kicked the bucket.'

Taiwo instantly pulled the door opened. 'What?!'

'Mrs Bewaji, the first daughter of the Baáálẹ̀*, has gone to meet her maker,' repeated the young man dressed somberly in all black. He sighed sagely. 'The death of someone never fails to remind one of our mortality. I have to get on to the next house.' He turned back and stepped down the porch.

Taiwo kept staring ahead, in shock. Fear gripped his heart in it's tight leathery fist, hindering his normal breathing. And it wasn't the death of the woman that brought him to his knees in front of fear, it was the repercussion that was sure to come.

                      ♟️🍒♟️🍒♟️🍒

It was now early morning, the sun had made it and dissipated the gloominess of the sky and now brightened the earth, already making it's slow journey to the western cradle.  The streets of the village had resumed it's normal lively bustle: okadas moving up and down and a few occasional lorries and commercial cars, dirty naked children crying and laughing, household members sweeping their compound, and the likes.

But the day had a cloud of suspicion hanging precariously in the air, threatening to fall down by the slightest provocation and galvanize into action. Men and women unusually hung about in loose clusters, apparently finding something in common to talk about.

A particular group garnered the most crowd. Roughly in the center was an emaciated tall woman. Iya Idowu she was called and Ẹlẹ́nu résò at her back, a name brought about by her sharp mouth and intense ability to insult, gossip and curse. The moniker gave her less justice than she deserved, for with her sharp tongue, she could easily raise the dead from it's grave. Many had wondered where the Idowu** was or the twins that must have come before him or her.

'I said it!' she kept on shouting, her hand on the edge of her wrapper to hold it from falling of.

'I told you people. Eh, did I not say it? I know evil when I see one. That day she opened that evil-infested mouth of hers and insulted me was when I knew that devil resided in her!'