After the goat died, the village changed.
People tried to act normal, but fear has a smell. It hung in the air, thick and sour. Mothers called their children inside early. Men stopped drinking late in the square. Nobody walked near the forest again, not even hunters.
Chukwuemeka noticed everything.
The tree had sharpened his eyes.
It spoke to him when he was awake now. Not loud. Never loud. It spoke like a thought that was not his own.
They fear you.
They should have listened.
One evening, Mama Uju sent him to fetch water from the stream. The path passed close to the forest, but not inside it. He carried the bucket with shaking hands. Every step felt watched.
Then he felt it.
A pull. Stronger than before.
His legs moved without his permission.
By the time he realized where he was, he was standing before the tree.
Up close, it was worse. The bark looked like skin stretched too tight. The smell was heavy—rot and rain and something sweet that made his stomach turn. The roots moved slowly, like they were breathing.
"Go back," Chukwuemeka whispered.
The tree answered.
Not with words.
A memory flooded his head—things he had never seen. Old sacrifices. Children crying. Men cutting their palms and pressing blood into the bark. The village kneeling. The tree feeding.
Then pain hit him.
He fell to the ground, screaming. One of the roots lifted, split open, and something black and wet dripped onto his chest. It burned through his skin like fire.
He passed out.
When he woke up, it was night.
He was at home.
Mama Uju was crying, shaking him.
"Where did you go?" she screamed. "You were gone for hours!"
Chukwuemeka looked down.
The mark on his chest was gone.
But something else was there.
Strength.
That night, Mama Uju fell sick.
She started coughing, deep and wet, like something was stuck in her lungs. By midnight, she was vomiting black liquid that smelled like the forest floor. She begged Chukwuemeka to pray for her.
He tried.
But the tree's voice laughed inside his head.
First gift, it said.
You take what they never gave you.
By morning, Mama Uju was dead.
No wounds. No explanation.
The villagers gathered, whispering, watching Chukwuemeka from the corners of their eyes. Someone noticed he was not crying. Someone noticed his eyes looked darker.
An elder muttered under his breath, "This is not normal."
Chukwuemeka heard him.
The tree made sure of that.
And deep inside him, something smiled for the first time.