Chapter1: Adana
Deep in the thick, choking forest behind an abandoned Secondary School on the outskirts of Ifo, where the iroko trees grew so dense their branches formed a roof that blocked even moonlight, little Adana hid among the massive roots.
She was only ten, her school uniform torn and caked with red laterite mud, her eyes wide with exhaustion and terror.
Every night since she had fled her school grounds, the creatures came. First the Egbere, ugly gnome-like spirits with dripping noses, twisted faces, and tattered mats clutched tight to their chests.
They sat in a hungry circle around her, weeping endlessly like abandoned babies, their high-pitched cries piercing the dark. Other shadows lurked behind them: things that smelled of wet earth, old blood, and forgotten graves.
Adana knew the deadly game. If she told them a true and terrifying tale from her people's lore, they would grant her one more day of life. If the story failed to chill their cold hearts, small clammy hands would drag her screaming into the deeper bush, never to be seen again.
That night, under a sliver of moon, Adana hugged her knees tighter, swallowed her fear, and began in a small but steady voice:
"Listen, my weeping friends of the dark. This is a true tale from not far away. The tale of the Bleeding Iroko of St. Agnes…"
In the sprawling compound of St. Agnes Secondary School, right where the forest pressed against the rusty fence, stood an old iroko tree at the edge of the playing field.
Its bark was thick and scarred from many seasons. Students avoided it after sunset, whispering that it housed angry ancestors and sometimes wept red sap like fresh blood when the harmattan blew strong.
Bukola was a quiet SS2 girl, small and shy, who always carried the cheap silver keychain her late father had given her , a tiny bell that tinkled softly with every step. The seniors mocked her relentlessly. "Thief! Bush rat!" they called her, because her uniform was faded and her school fees came late.
One hot afternoon during break, Senior Shade snatched the keychain from the loop at Bukola's waist and flung it high into the branches of the iroko. "Climb and fetch your dead father's noisy toy, thief!" she laughed, as the others joined in.
Tears running down her face, Bukola climbed. The rough bark felt strangely warm, almost alive under her scraped hands. She reached the keychain at last… and with a sharp crack like breaking bone, the branch snapped.
She fell hard onto the roots below. Her neck twisted at an unnatural angle. Her eyes stayed wide open, staring up into the leaves as the little bell gave one final, faint tinkle.
The seniors scattered in panic. Teachers arrived and quickly called it an "accident." No one mentioned the children's actions . No one wanted trouble.
That same evening, Bukola's grandmother, old Mama Iyabo, a respected herbalist from the nearby village, rushed to the school in white mourning cloth. When she saw her only granddaughter's broken body at the foot of the iroko, rage and grief twisted her face into something ancient.
She knelt, drew a razor from her wrapper, and sliced deep into her own palm. Blood poured onto the exposed roots as she spoke powerful words in Yoruba:
"This child was innocent. Tree of this land, hear my blood covenant. Let every soul that laughed and mocked her drink deep of her pain. Blood calls to blood. Tears call to tears. Until the guilty are washed away in sorrow."
Then, before anyone could stop her, Mama Iyabo drew the razor across her own throat and collapsed beside her granddaughter.
Her blood soaked deep into the earth and the tree's roots.
They buried grandmother and granddaughter together the next day in silence. No police report. Just the red earth hiding another school tragedy.
That night, the iroko began to moan.
It started soft, Bukola's cracked, pleading voice carried on the wind: "My key… where is my key?" Students in the dorms woke up sweating, gripping their own keychains.
By the third night, thick crimson sap, warm, sticky blood smelling strongly of iron, palm oil, and bitter regret, oozed from cracks in the bark. It pooled at the roots and would not soak away.
Senior Shade woke to find her mattress soaked through with the same warm liquid. The smell was exactly like the moment Bukola hit the ground. Dark bruises appeared around her neck that no cream could fade.
The other bullies suffered more. One heard Bukola's voice whispering from the toilet shadows at midnight: "You laughed while I fell." Another discovered her missing keychain had been replaced by a small branch dripping fresh, red sap.
They tried to cut the tree down with machetes. The blades bounced off as if striking iron. The boy who swung the hardest woke the next morning with deep gashes across his palms that bled for seven days straight.
On the seventh night, heavy rains poured. The iroko wailed loud enough to rattle windows. The bleeding became a flood, rivers of warm blood mixed with rainwater rising fast across the compound. It felt alive, body-warm and clinging, pulling at ankles like guilty hands reaching up.
The iron gates jammed as thick new roots burst through the concrete overnight.
Those who had flung the keychain and laughed drowned first.
They thrashed and choked in the rising flood, visions of Bukola's open eyes and the tinkling bell flashing before them as the blood filled their mouths with the sour taste of their own laughter.
Senior Shade was the last, she sank screaming Bukola's name as the warm blood flooded her lungs.
A few terrified survivors climbed the fence and fled into the forest. They later spoke of the final horror they saw: Bukola's face slowly forming in the bloody bark of the iroko, eyes still wide open, a faint silver bell hanging from a low branch that no one dared to touch.
Adana's voice trailed off in the dark forest.
The circle of Egbere had gone quieter, their constant baby-like weeping slowed as their wet, gleaming eyes stared at her hungrily.
One of the ugliest Egbere tilted its gnome-like head, tears still streaming from its nose. Its voice came out as a high, broken wail:
"Dose the tree still hunger… More. Tell us another, small one, or we take you into the deeper bush tonight."
Adana's heart pounded against her ribs. She felt tiny cold fingers brushing her ankles in the dark. Forcing a brave little smile, she whispered, "Then tomorrow night… I will tell you Another…"
The creatures settled back, satisfied for now.
But Remi knew her stock of stories was not endless. And every night the forest, and the bleeding trees not far away, listened closer, waiting.