"She vanished again, help me, somebody help me! Adaeze has vanished again!" Mama Ada's voice rang out through the morning, wailing.
Dr. Nneka Okoye sighed as she came out from her office and approached the crowd that had gathered around the wailing woman. She had seen panic dressed as superstition before, but this village was something else.
Umuozala was one of those sleepy little villages that thrived on gossip and superstition. This Adaeze's supposed act of "disappearing" only fueled their superstitious beliefs further.
Adaeze was the nine-year-old child of Mama Ada.
"Mama Ada, breathe. Where exactly did she vanish?” Nneka asked.
"She was there, eating boiled yam and palm oil. I turned to fetch salt, when I looked back, the bench was empty.” Mama Ada continued to weep as she pointed to the bench where she left Adaeze.
The first time it happened, they'd all thought that she was just being a child.
Adaeze was a quiet, and dreamy girl who would often wander off without a word to anyone. The first time she "disappeared," Mama Ada nearly lost her mind. The entire village scoured the bushes, the barns and the shallow streams, only to find her hours later, sitting on a rock at the bank of the great Ozala River. She was softly humming a lullaby.
They laughed it off as a child's prank as they gushed in relief.
"False alarm," they said. "Children do so many odd things."
Mama Ada clung tightly to her child as her voice rose in gratitude to the gods of Umuozala for returning Adaeze to her unharmed. She was an only child who came after twelve years of waiting. She was labeled a witch, a man and all sorts of cruel titles were hurled at her, by her husband and her in-laws, but Adaeze's arrival was one of the greatest miracles that shattered her sorrows.
Since then, she watched over her like a mother hen would watch over her chick, and fretted over even the tiniest scratch on her skin.
She calls her, "Ofu mkpuru anya m'ji afu uzo." ( The apple of my eye).
But, then it happened again.
And again.
This was the fourth time it was happening, the villagers no longer found it funny. Mama Ada was completely heartbroken as she lay on the ground. Nneka knelt beside her and spoke slowly;
"Mama, stop making much out of these. Her ‘disappearances’ are just her slipping away quietly. When you panic, your fear creates situations that are non-existent. I'm sure she'd be found and returned safely to you."
Murmurs of doubt rippled through the crowd.
This time, they searched for her at the riverbanks but she wasn't there. At sunset, a hunter found her near the shrine stone, cold, silent, eyes open but unseeing.
The day had begun like every other day. Adaeze sat beside Dr. Nneka Okoye with innocence in her gaze, little brown fingers clutching her piece of biscuit while she played with its wrapper. After the last incident, she had began observing Adaeze. She didn't believe her sudden disappearances were supernatural events. She was just a curious, quiet girl who liked silence and being all by herself.
She held Adaeze's little hands as she now took the position opposite her.
"You gave everyone quite the scare the other day.” She spoke softly.
" I only went to look for snails." She said not looking up.
"Without telling anyone? Again? That's not right.”
"No one listens to me." Adaeze shrugged.
"Do you have something to say? You can trust me."
Adaeze peered into her face briefly, then continued;
When I was born, there was a bright light… and water. Then cold. Then voices. But they weren’t new.”
Nneka’s breath caught.
“Adaeze, how do you know that?”
"Because I’ve done it before.”
Nneka froze.
Emotional detachment, possibly trauma. The words blazed across her mind.
Then her phone rang and she went outside to take the call, for barely thirty seconds.
When she returned, she found Adaeze's chair empty.
There was no sound, no footsteps, just a half-eaten piece of biscuit left behind.
There was pandemonium.
They found her again, after several hours, drenched to her bone, lying on the steps of the abandoned shrine. Her eyes wide open, unblinking, as if something else had taken over. Her lips moved slowly.
“I told them I didn’t want to come back, and yet, they won't let me stay."
The villagers gathered around her, the news had spread as fast as a wildfire during the harmattan season.
She is an Ogbanje
Mama Ada was quiet as memories of the unusual circumstances surrounding her birth flooded her mind, the moments of silence when she did not cry, and the warning from the midwife who delivered her;
“This one walks between worlds.”
Before today, Dr. Nneka, a woman of science who had been posted to Umuozala for her NYSC, did not believe in what they believed, she was constantly repeating that she had fought more superstitions than illnesses, malaria mistaken for spiritual attacks, epilepsy termed a curse from the gods, and now this quiet girl being labeled an ogbanje.
She had written down all sorts of clinical terms in her notebook, she told herself it was trauma, it must be a kind of dissociation. She had asked for Adaeze to be brought to her, for close observation.
She desperately wanted to prove to all of them that Adaeze was not an Ogbanje but a gifted child
But now she began to feel a crack in her certainty.
The doctor could not fathom how the girl made it out of her office in under thirty seconds, while she had been standing by the door, talking on the phone. The window had iron bars with just little spaces between the slats. Where did she pass through?
Ogbanje
The word reverberated in her mind. Was it possible that there was a truth in what the villagers believed?
They saw the Ogbanje as children bound in the spirit world, who returned to life and were born again and again, only to die young, causing endless grief to those connected to them. Spirits that could not be bound to the land of the living.
Chief Uchenna, Mama Ada's oldest brother, called for Dibia Onuora, the old seer. He came with an air of dignity and grandness of one who sees far beyond mere mortals. He took a look at Adaeze and thrust down his divination tusk on the ground, muttering:
“She has walked this road too many times.”
Nneka was not going to back down. She monitored Adaeze vigilantly, hovering over her, watching her sleep, documenting her drawings, her signs and sacred markings.
One night, Nneka heard whispering.
Silently, she opened the clinic door and walked in to find Adaeze standing by the window, her back turned to her, humming a lullaby. Her small voice carried clearly in the quiet:
“They said this was the last round, so they won't let me stay.”
“Adaeze" Nneka called out calmly.
Adaeze turned slowly. The girl's eyes filled with sadness that was far beyond a nine-year-old.
"Who’s they?” Nneka asked, her voice barely audible.
“The water. The wind
Nneka reached out for her, her heart racing. But Adaeze's flesh felt icy. Moist.
"I want to stay but they won't let me." Adaeze breathed.
Then she collapsed against Nneka's frame.
Before dawn, in the silence of the dark night, Adaeze was gone.
No hinges creaked. No window broken. Just her wrapper, folded neatly on the bed. Wet.
And her small footprints, wet and shining, disappearing into the night.
The clinic remained shut for three days. Nneka couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. Adaeze's disappearance happened in her watch and she felt so sad about it. She replayed every moment, every word, every drawing. The rational part of her screamed that there had to be an explanation, but deep inside, another voice whispered:
What if it wasn’t a false alarm?
Weeks passed. This time Adaeze was never found.The village mourned, then returned to silence. Mama Uzo aged with grief.
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