The Legend Of Dayo is on…

AARON ANSAH-AGYEMAN

THE LEGEND OF DAYO

SEASON 1: THE EMERGENCE

CHAPTER 5

A Miracle And A Nightmare

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous and so melodramatic,” Grace Opurum said. “Surely, that can’t be the case, Neji!”

Her husband looked at her soberly, and then he sighed.

“I’ve tried to push that notion aside, and not even think about it, my love,” he said quietly and touched her hand. “But it just cannot be coincidence. This week has been abnormal, abnormal indeed. And, incredibly, everybody that owed me goods they bought on credit and have flatly refused to pay for, paid up this week. Every single one of them!”

“Ei!” Grace muttered. “Even Baba Ikechukwu?”

Baba Ikechukwu, one of the sub-chiefs of the town, had been taking goods from the shop on credit for a long time, and had blatantly refused to pay for them. His costs had dated as far back as a year, but no amount of subtle probing could make him pay up.

“He was the first to pay, my love,” said Olusegun Osuolale.

“Chai!” Uche Joseph said and giggled.

“Chineke!” Grace whispered, stunned.

“Mommy is suffering, Baba,” Neji said softly. “Please, just to be sure, take her down to meet him. It wouldn’t change anything, but if it does, then we would know for certain.”

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Grace Opurum tried to resist, but Olusegun Osuolale sighed and picked her up, and then Uche held the door open as his father carried his mother out of the room.

Neji Helen remained seated, and her heart was beating rather hard as she waited with bated breath.

***

When Olusegun Osuolale carried his wife into the storeroom they found the blind hunchback sitting up on the little mattress.

Grace Opurum had never been this close to him, and she saw just how grotesque he really looked for the very first time. However, she was amazed to realize that the room didn’t have any odour as she had feared.

Instead, it had a rather warm, pleasant smell that she found both refreshing and strangely homely.

The lantern was on a peg against the wall, and its flow revealed the gnarled and ghastly features of this strange young man.

“This room smells…nice,” she said softly to her husband, and he looked at her with a strained expression on his face.

“I just use water and our soap to clean him up once a day, my love,” he said gently. “But, always, the air around him smells nice. It is quite unsettling somehow.”

Because Grace had terrible pains in both her hands and feet, she could barely stand, and so Osuolale had to sit down and support her with his frame in front of the strange boy.

“Hello, my friend,” Osualale said gently, although he knew the boy could not hear him. “I don’t believe you’ve properly met my wife, Grace.”

Olusegun touched the boy’s hand gently, and then he drew it forward so that he put the boy’s hand on Grace’s fingers.

And that was when Grace Opurum’s eyes went wide with rude shock.

Normally, a hand falling that heavily on hers, in her present situation, would have brought her incredible bouts of pain, but she just felt a dull ache as the boy suddenly turned his face toward her.

She could see that his expression was suddenly grave, as he scowled slightly, as if with pity, and suddenly he reached upward and ran his hands gently on the right side of Grace’s face, and then slowly down the side of her neck and her arm.

He repeated the same strange process with his other hand on the left side of her face, neck and arm.

Finally, the physically-challenged young man sat back, turned round, and slowly fell on his bed, turning his back to them.

“I think he wants to rest,” Grace said softly, and smiled. “He’s such a dear, isn’t he?”

“He is, indeed,” Osuolale said. “Suffering so much in the world. Come, darling, let me take you back to bed.”

Carefully, he lifted his wife again, and she giggled and linked her hands around his neck.

“I love it when you carry me, love,” she whispered with a mischievous little smile and put her head on his chest. “I daresay you’re still thinking about the nice bad things you used to do each time it rained. Ah, my sweet, sweet tree…suddenly I want to climb my tree!”

She giggled huskily.

He said nothing, and she looked up at him suddenly, and was shocked to see a look that almost bordered on fear in his eyes.

“What is it, dim?” she asked with concern. “You look as if a ghost walked across your grave.”

“You’re not aware, nwunyem, I gather, that your hands have been linked around my neck since we left the boy’s room,” he said gently.

Grace Opurum gasped then as it hit her!

She had been so preoccupied with the strange peace she had experienced in that little room that she had not been aware that her hands, indeed, her hands were linked around her husband’s neck, and that her fingers were indeed laced!

That action would have given her indescribable bouts of pain just a few minutes before she entered that room.

But, dear or dear, Chineke Lord of the heavens…she felt absolutely no pain!

They had reached the staircase now; Neji and Uche were on top of the staircase, looking on with eyes that bulged with shock, when Olusegun slowly put his wife down.

Grace tested her weight gingerly on her feet, but she didn’t feel much pain, just a little tingle like pinpricks, and then she settled her weight fully, and stood still. With tears in her eyes she looked at her hands, and lifted them slowly.

Her hands, which had been terribly-swollen, with joints that looked hideously knobbed and unsightly twisted by the arthritis, now looked slender and lovely and as fresh as they had never been before.

“Oh!” she whispered, with both a mixture of shock and fear. “Oh!”

Uche came down the stairs slowly, his face excited as he looked at his mother.

“You can walk, nne?” he asked tremulously.

And, without bothering to reply, Grace took the stairs two at a time to meet her son, and she embraced him warmly as tears fell from her eyes. The relief from the pain was so resounding that she felt she could burst with happiness.

Over their heads, Neji Helen’s eyes met her father’s, and with one accord both of them looked in the direction of the corridor toward that storeroom.

There was only one thought in their minds.

Who was this strange boy in their house?

Who really was he?

And Neji Helen shuddered as she continued to stare.

Of course, she was happy her mother’s pain was gone, yes. But she knew they lived in a world where everything had a price, and not many things were free.

She wondered, she really wondered, what kind of price they were going to pay for this incredible period that their feeling is experiencing.

***

Two weeks passed after her mother’s miraculous recovery.

And, one night, Neji Helen had a most horrible dream!

Neji came awake with a muted scream!

She lay in bed panting for breath, and with her face covered with sweat. Her heart was pounding, and for a moment she felt oddly disoriented. Her face was screwed with concentration as she tried to focus the train of her thoughts.

Yes, she had had a very bad dream, almost a nightmare!

In her dream she had seen the strange man lying on the mattress on the floor, and there had been a strange faceless man in a long black robe standing over the boy!

The terrible-looking man had been holding a long staff, something like a pole that had a very bright bulb-shaped light at its end, and he was tracing lines on the back of the hunchback with the light!

Neji, who had opened the boy’s door, stopped and looked at the black-clad figure with fear, and as she turned to flee down the dark corridor, the thing had come after her with his horrible glowing staff, and anywhere that Neji passed, the faceless man in black had been right behind her.

Just when the man caught up with her and reached out to touch her, Neji screamed and came awake.

Neji scowled in the darkness as she looked at her door!

“What is going on?” she asked quietly in the darkness. “My goodness…what kind of dream was that?”

She turned on her side and tried to sleep again, but she felt absolutely restless. Her thoughts were worried, as usual. Ever since her mother’s miraculous healing a couple of weeks ago, she had become progressively worried.

Everything was going on so well, and she knew she should be happy, but she wasn’t. She knew their neighbours were beginning to notice the changes in the family.

Some had visited them, before her mother went to see the boy. They had seen how terribly-swollen her mother’s hands and feet had been. The following morning, after her mother’s healing, Neji had been in the store serving customers when her mother came in, smiling, and holding a tray laden with fresh bread she had baked.

There had been two neighbours in the store who had seen her with swollen hands when they visited her.

And now they saw her happy, without pains, and even holding a tray of bread, and her hands were smooth and beautiful!

Neji had noticed their shocked looks; of course they all knew that it took weeks before Grace’s pains subsided whenever they got that bad! Now she was without pain, and worse, her hands were as smooth as a baby’s.

Too late, Grace Opurum had realized her folly, and known she shouldn’t have put in an appearance inside the store.

But there was nothing she could do about it except say that the gods had favoured her. The women had smiled and pretended to be happy for her, but as they left there had been looks of mischief and shock still in their eyes.

Neji Helen had known that the news would spread in the village.

News of the miraculous healing her mother had received.

And Neji knew the villagers; they would never accept a miracle, no. They would only link it to dark forces, and that was very dangerous indeed in their village…

Neji shuddered in the darkness of her room as she tried to sleep again.

What was the meaning of that nightmare?

Were dark clouds gathering?

Neji was very worried.

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