Image Source: Wattpad

Ogbanje

Tega would go the ends of the earth to keep her rocky secret a secret. The Iyi-uwa, it might very well look like a tired talus, an appendage that she had to drag with her alongside her heavy cast of bones and flesh. But still, it served as her only chance back Home, back to the freeing she craved for. If the Iyi-uwa was crushed, she would be caught between nowhere and everywhere.

So, as she journeyed, for the fifth time, through the Road leading up to her mother's womb, her spirit mates tugged at her. They feared that like the rest of them, she would be incised and branded on the chest, till her only escape was to betray out the Iyi-uwa.

But, Tega knew where to keep her secret safe. Rather than hide it under trees, she would grind her iyi-uwa into powder, sift it into the bottle of alcohol her soon-to-be father would drink till he gulped down every bit of it. So that to find her, they would, first, have to kill him.

She was an Ogbanje, after all, and with that, came the power to unfurl a secret and stash it into a bottle.