THE MOONSTONE OF IKỌYI
Lagos was never silent—not even at night.
When the city slept, it only changed its voice. The shouting softened into murmurs, the horns into distant sighs, the lagoon into a restless breathing thing that lapped against the edges of the land as if testing how much it was allowed to take back. Spirits moved more freely then, slipping between headlights and shadows, walking the old paths that had existed long before bridges and high-rises dared to cross the water.
Sophia Balogun often felt watched at night.
Not in a fearful way. In the way one feels the gaze of elders—measured, patient, expectant.
Her bedroom window faced the lagoon, and from her bed she could see the reflection of the moon ripple across the water like a broken mirror. Around her neck, resting against her collarbone, hung the Moonstone. Even in darkness, it held a faint, living glow, milky and soft, like moonlight trapped in breath.
The stone had been in her family longer than anyone could remember.
They called it Irawo-Ọjọ—the Star that Walks in Daylight.
Sophia's grandmother, Iya Morẹnikẹ, said it had fallen from the sky generations ago, striking the earth somewhere between the lagoon and the forest that used to stand where Ikoyi now rose in glass and concrete. Others whispered it was not a star at all, but a gift—or a warning—from the Òrìṣà, left behind after a bargain no one spoke about anymore.
What everyone agreed on was this:
The Moonstone did not belong to just anyone.
It chose.
And it punished.
Sophia reached up now, her fingers brushing the smooth surface of the stone. It was warm tonight. Warmer than usual. That alone unsettled her. The Moonstone was meant to remain cool, steady, obedient to the moon's distant pull. Warmth meant awareness. Movement. Change.
She sat up in bed, suddenly alert.
Somewhere beyond the gate of the Balogun compound, a dog howled—and then stopped abruptly, as if its voice had been cut short.
Sophia swallowed.
"Grandma?" she called softly.
No answer.
The house, large and old despite its renovations, creaked in response. Wooden beams shifted. Walls sighed. The Balogun house remembered things. It had been built on land that once held shrines, and though the shrines were gone, memory was stubborn.
Sophia lay back down and closed her eyes, willing sleep to come.
It did not.
---
Across the lagoon, on the Mainland, Emma Adebayo ran.
She ran because it was faster than taking the bus. She ran because speed had always been her one true gift. She ran because when she moved fast enough, the weight of the world—bills, expectations, hunger, envy—could not quite catch her.
Her sandals slapped against the pavement as she weaved through alleys and shortcuts only children of the Mainland knew. The night air smelled of fried plantain, diesel, and rain that had not yet fallen. Above her, the moon hung low and swollen, watching Lagos with an eye that never blinked.
Emma felt its gaze like pressure between her shoulders.
She slowed near a row of closed shops and leaned against a wall, chest heaving. Sweat trickled down her spine. As she bent over, hands on her knees, she saw it again—just as she had for weeks now.
A flash of pale light.
It appeared whenever she thought of Sophia.
Emma straightened slowly, her heart beating too hard for the run she had just completed. The light lingered in her vision, forming the shape of a stone. A necklace. Silver.
The Moonstone.
She had first seen it properly months ago, on a visit to Ikoyi that still felt unreal to her. Sophia had worn it openly then, the stone catching sunlight in a way that made conversation pause, eyes turn, breath hitch. It was not loud beauty. It was gravity.
Emma had felt it pull at something inside her. Something tight and aching.
Since then, the Moonstone had appeared in her dreams.
Sometimes it rested in her palm, cold and obedient. Other times it burned her skin, leaving marks that lingered even after she woke. Once, she dreamed Lagos flooded entirely, and the only thing keeping the water at bay was the stone glowing in Sophia's hands while Emma watched from the other side, drowning.
Emma pushed herself away from the wall.
"Stupid," she muttered, though she did not know whether she meant the dream or the thought that followed it.
Sophia had everything. Space. Safety. Time. A lineage that wrapped around her like armor. Emma had fought for every inch of her life, sprinting just to remain in place. Was it so wrong to want something beautiful? Something powerful?
Something that might finally tilt the world in her favor?
Above her, the moon slipped behind a cloud.
For a moment, the city went dim.
And somewhere in Ikoyi, the Moonstone pulsed once, hard and bright, as if answering a call it did not want to hear.