Even now, years after the fire in the backyard consumed every last charm and root, the dream comes.It always begins the same way.I am kneeling again on the cracked concrete floor of our small room. The kerosene lamp flickers low, throwing long shadows that twist like spirits mocking me. My wife—my Ada—lies on the thin mat, her chest rising and falling too fast, too shallow. Her skin is hot as coals under my palm, yet she shivers. The sickness has carved hollows under her eyes, stolen the fullness from her cheeks. Still she is beautiful. Still she is mine."Deji is sleeping," she whispers, voice frayed like old thread. "Don't wake him… promise me."I nod, but the lie burns my throat. How can I promise anything when nothing I have done has worked?In the dream I see myself as I was then—arrogant, desperate, clinging to the old powers like a drowning man to driftwood. I had called the dibia again, the one with the milky eye and the voice like dry leaves. He came at midnight with his bag of bones and black powder. We locked the door against the world. I beat the talking drum myself, low and frantic, while he chanted names older than time. I poured libations of palm wine mixed with my own blood onto the floor. I begged. I commanded. I offered everything short of my soul.And nothing answered.Ada's screams rose—sharp, animal, tearing through me like machete strokes. Then they weakened into whimpers, then silence. Terrible silence.In the dream I always reach that moment slower, as though time itself is punishing me. I crawl to her. Her hand is limp in mine. No pulse. No breath. Just the lamp guttering out and darkness rushing in like floodwater.I scream her name—Ada! Ada!—but the sound comes out broken, childish. I shake her. I beg the ancestors. I curse them. Nothing.Then the rage comes. Hot. Blind. I turn on the dibia. "You lied! All of you lied!" My fist connects with his jaw; he falls without resistance, old and frail. But it changes nothing. She is gone.I collapse over her body, forehead pressed to her cooling chest, and the weeping begins—deep, wrenching sobs that feel like they will split my ribs. In the dream I taste salt and ash. I feel every tear carve tracks down my face.And then… the voice.Not the ancestors. Not the dibia. Something else. Quiet. Steady. Like cool water on fevered skin.Let her go, son. Let Me take her.I freeze. The room is still dark, but I feel light—impossible light—pressing against my eyelids even though they are closed.You have carried this burden long enough. The old ways cannot heal what only I can restore.I lift my head. No one is there. Yet the presence is everywhere—gentle, terrible, undeniable.I renounce them, I whisper in the dream, the words ripping out of me like confession. Every charm. Every spirit I fed. Every night I chose power over mercy. I reject them. If You are real… if You hear me… take my pride instead. Take my anger. Take everything. Just… give her peace. And spare my boy from this darkness.Silence again. Longer this time.Then warmth. Not the fever heat of sickness, but something softer. It wraps around my shoulders like arms I have not felt since I was a child. Ada's hand—impossibly—twitches once in mine. A final squeeze. A goodbye. And release.I wake gasping, always in the same position: sitting up in bed, Bible clutched to my chest like a shield, tears already wet on the pillow. The room is quiet now. The estate sleeps under streetlights. Deji is grown, sleeping in the next room, unaware that his father still dreams of the night he lost everything… and found the only thing that matters.In the dream I always whisper the same thing before the vision fades:"Thank You… for taking her home. And for not taking me with her."Because some nights I still wish He had.But most nights I am grateful He didn't.Because now I stand in the pulpit every Sunday and tell the truth: the old gods take. They demand. They devour.The real God… gives back.Even when all you have left is ashes.