“The devil lives among us but we refuse to acknowledge this reality because we are naturally ignorant people.”

-Ezinnewrites

We had travelled to my village, Okpala in Imo state, for my grandmother’s burial. I was a bright eleven year old girl who loved playing hide & seek and listening to the birds sing in the morning. My mother was beautiful and very hardworking. She loved my brother and I with all her heart. My father was greatly respected in the community. Women and their children stared at us in awe whenever we strolled to the river with our cousins to fetch water or to the bush for firewood which, of course, we never carried ourselves. My brother and I were treated like royalty.

Illiteracy was rampant in my village, like malaria. Children and teenagers trooped into my father’s house to watch me read and write. Sometimes I felt like a princess. Sometimes all I felt was pity. Many of them did not speak or understand English.

“Are there no schools in the whole village?” I asked my mom one quiet evening as she prepared the firewood to make dinner.

“They are more useful to their parents selling ugwu and crayfish in the market. There is no money.” She answered me with a straight face.

The next day, my cousin Chidinma and I strolled to Eziama, a neighbouring village to deliver a letter from my dad to his sister’s husband. On our way back, we met Osita my uncle seated with his wife by his door entrance eating paw paw. Chidinma greeted them but I didn’t. I hated Osita with all my heart. Immediately, Osita’s wife yelled my name.

“Come here this spoilt brat! Your father didn’t teach you how to greet e”

Osita hissed, “Don’t mind her. She lacks home training. Negodu nwata kiri. No sign of respect.”

All I could do was stare. After molesting me four years ago when he lived in our house in Lagos, he still had the guts to request a greeting from me. If only his wife knew what he was capable of. But would it matter? Swallowing my anger, I walked out on them.

“Amaka come back here! Stupid girl.. ”

They hauled insults at me as we walked away. That was the only thing they could do, afterall they couldn’t touch me. They dared not. They feared my father too much to try any nonsense. I never told my parents how Osita defiled me under their own roof while they were away at work and my brother was fast asleep in his room. It’s difficult to explain how a seven year old child would be so overcome with guilt that she decided to keep it a secret from everyone and cry in the dark then play hide & seek the next day with the other kids like nothing ever happened. Who gave her that kind of strength? Where did this child come from?

The day my grandmother was put to rest six feet down the ground, I saw my dad cry for the first time. Before then, I always viewed him a person filled with strength and no traces of weakness whatsoever. But that fateful day he proved me wrong. I didn’t know how to handle this sort of heartbreaking discovery. I held my mother’s hand, my eyes never departing from his face. After five minutes, he wiped off his tears with his handkerchief. I simply stared. As we walked home in silence, I wished it was Osita in the coffin and not my father’s mother. He wouldn’t have to cry because I would have told him everything Osita did to me.

After eating akpu and oha soup for dinner, my brother and I sat in a circle with some of my cousins and other kids in the village. Nnenna, My mother’s youngest sister, sat in the middle telling moonlight stories. Chidinma said she was going to bed. They laughed and clapped their hands in delight as Nnenna spoke in high and low tones, describing every scenario with great detail. I simply stared. I watched her lips move but paid no attention to the words that came out. After a short while, my bladder became full. I walked into the house to ease myself. After I flushed the toilet, I thought i heard a female voice coming from outside the window. I listened for a while but heard nothing. So I turned around and began walking towards the door. Then I heard it again and this time it sounded like a conversation between a man and a woman. I gently opened the window to have a look and I was right. A man and a woman stood by the wall that faced the road that led to the river. It was dark so I looked closely, straining my eyes. Lo and behold! The man was Osita.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was kissing the girl. I frowned. Who is she? I leaned closer to the window to get a better look. A shiver ran through my spine when I recognised my 15-year-old cousin Chidinma. I thought she said she was going to bed. Why was she with him? Just then, he slid his right hand into her skirt. I felt a deep buried anger arising quickly. My heart was racing. I couldn’t keep staring. In a flash, I ran out of the house and headed towards them. As I got close, I sighted a big stone and lifted it with all my strength.

“Aaaaaah!” Chidinma screamed. The next second, Osita was on the ground, blood flowing from the side of his head. I stood there transfixed, my heart threatening to burst out of my chest. It wasn’t until I felt hot tears roll down my cheeks that I knew I had been crying. I couldn’t keep staring. I couldn’t watch as he made her become like me.