The wooden door to the main house creaked on its hinges, a sound that usually meant a late-night trip to the kitchen or a neighbor coming to borrow a cup of sugar. Tonight, it sounded like a funeral bell.
Femi led the way, his fingers white-knuckled around the terracotta cup. Behind him, Lola's presence was a cold, sharp pressure. The hallway was dark, save for a single sliver of light bleeding from beneath the door of Iya Lola's room.
The air inside the house had changed. It no longer smelled of egusi soup or the faint scent of lavender soap. It smelled of wet earth and something metallic—like blood, or perhaps, rusted iron.
"Ma?" Lola's voice was a mere thread, trembling in the stagnant air.
There was no answer. Only the low, rhythmic hum of a voice speaking in a tongue that sounded like the grinding of tectonic plates.
Femi reached the door first. He didn't kick it open; he pushed it slowly, his heart hammering against his ribs.
The room was bathed in the warm, flickering glow of a kerosene lamp, but the light was being swallowed by a shadow sitting in the center of the floor.
Iya Femi and Iya Lola were there. They weren't tied up or bruised. They were sitting perfectly upright in their plastic chairs, their eyes wide and glassy, staring at nothing. Between them sat a man Femi didn't recognize—a man with skin the color of parched clay and hair like dried raffia.
He was drinking tea from one of their mismatched ceramic mugs.
"Ah," the man said, his voice a dry rasp. "The architect and the accident. You took your time with the salt-man outside."
Lola let out a choked sound, her hands rising instinctively. A sharp gust of wind rattled the louvers of the window, but the man didn't even blink. He simply waved a hand, and the wind died instantly, the air turning thick and heavy as lead.
Don't," the man warned, his eyes—pale as milk—fixing on Lola. "I am Obaluaye's breath. If I sneeze, the air in this room becomes a poison that will melt the lungs of these two beautiful women before you can blink."
Femi stepped forward, his body shielding Lola. "What do you want?"
"To see if the stories were true," the man said, standing up. He was shorter than the man in the trench coat, but his presence filled the room with a suffocating, sickly heat. He walked toward Femi, sniffing the air. "Obatala's favorite. The one who could mold a soul from a handful of dirt. You look... small. You look like a boy who worries about his math grades."
The man reached out, his finger grazing the rim of the terracotta cup Femi held.
Femi flinched, but he didn't pull away. He felt a wave of nausea roll over him—the man's touch felt like a fever.
"You think you are protecting them," the man chuckled, glancing at the two mothers. "But do you even know who they are, Obu?"
"They are our mothers," Lola spat, her eyes flashing with a violet spark she couldn't quite suppress.
The man laughed, a sound like dry bones rattling in a jar. He turned back to the women. "Iya Femi. Iya Lola. Best friends. Neighbors. Born in the same village, shared the same dreams. A perfect story, isn't it? A bit too perfect for the chaos of Lagos."
He leaned down, whispering into Iya Femi's ear. She didn't move. A single tear tracked down her cheek, but her expression remained frozen.
"Obatala is a craftsman," the man whispered, looking back at Femi. "He doesn't just exile his children. He builds cages for them. Did you never wonder why you were born on the same night? Why your mothers are so inseparable? Why you were placed in a compound where you would never be apart, yet forever forbidden to be together?"
Femi's blood turned to ice. "What are you saying?"
"These women aren't your mothers, little god," the man sneered, his smile revealing teeth of jagged flint. "They are the Wardens. They were chosen by the Council. Their memories are as fake as your humanity. Every prayer they said over you, every bowl of rice they served—it was a spell to keep your ase dormant. To keep you small. To keep you human."
"Liar!" Lola screamed. She lunged forward, but the air around her suddenly solidified into invisible chains, slamming her back against the doorframe
Femi stared at his mother. At the woman who had wiped his forehead when he had malaria. The woman who had saved every kobo to buy him his chemistry textbooks.
"Look at her shadow, Obu," the man prompted, pointing at the wall behind Iya Femi.
Femi raised his flashlight, his hand shaking. In the harsh white beam, Iya Femi's shadow didn't match her sitting form. The shadow on the wall was tall, slender, and held a long, curved staff. Its head was not that of a woman, but a majestic, long-necked bird—an egret, the symbol of Obatala's purity.
"The Council doesn't trust the earth to hold you," the man said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial hiss. "They sent their own spirits to watch you. They have lived a lie for seventeen years just to ensure you never woke up. And now that you have..."
The man's milk-pale eyes grew cold. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, black stone.
"Now that you have, the Wardens are no longer needed. And the Hunter... well, he prefers his prey without a cage."
He dropped the stone into the tea mug. The ceramic shattered instantly, and a thick, oily black smoke began to pour out, coiling around the feet of the two frozen women.
"Choose, Obu," the man whispered, backing toward the window. "Save the puppets who were sent to imprison you, or embrace the storm and follow me to the one who actually knows what you are."
The man vanished into the night, leaving the room filling with a smoke that smelled of the grave.
Femi looked at Lola. She was staring at her 'mother,' her face a mask of agony and betrayal.
Femi," she whispered, her voice breaking. "Is it true? Is everything... a lie?"
Femi didn't answer. He didn't have time. The black smoke was rising, and as it touched his mother's skin, she began to fade at the edges, her physical body turning into white, ethereal feathers.
He had to choose. The mother he loved, or the god he was becoming.