Chi cha-ra-ra ... mgba! Chi cha-ra-ra ... mgba! Kuya mgba,
Kuya mgba, Anam ata aku nkpi nkpi? Anam ata ukwa nkpi nkpi?
Abum Okezie Oguejiofo! Okezie na ata aku nkpi nkpi,
Okezie na ata ukwa nkpi nkpi, Otakata ofanye n'uko, Mgbe oji guya oje!
Adaobi and Uchechi stood at the centre of a raucous ring of children, fully immersed in the beloved game of chicharamgba. Their hands clapped, dodged, and twisted in rhythm with the chant. The game was both memory and motion, and each child in the circle followed with eager eyes, hoping to take a turn.
Adaobi faulted. Her hand misaligned with the beat, and Uchechi broke into delighted laughter.
"My turn!" Nene chirped, pushing her way into the circle. Like the others, she was in the six-to-seven age group, belly protruding with childhood boldness.
"You?" Adaobi sneered. "With that round belly?"
"Yours looks like a frog swallowed a pot!" Nene snapped, jabbing Adaobi's side.
"Do frogs swallow pots in your house?" Adaobi shot back, with a mocking click of her tongue.
"Girls! Enough!" came the sharp voice of Mama Ugo, entering the courtyard with palm fronds bundled over her shoulder. The goats bleated their chorus, sensing food.
The children scurried out to regroup under the cashew tree by the fence, already scheming the next game.
Inside, Mama Ugo set about preparing a meal for her son. She reached into the hanging basket above the hearth for some dried fish and utazi leaves when the voice came from behind.
"He says he'd like a bath."
It was Mazi Agbu.
"You mean he's awake?" she asked, shocked.
"His voice returned. We must watch closely…"
"Mama, is there water for my bath?" came Ugochukwu's soft voice from behind the screen of raffia.
His parents exchanged startled glances. Only hours earlier, he had lain on the floor in a strange stupor, body drenched in sweat, mouth clamped shut.
Earlier that morning, a piercing cry had woken the household.
"Help! Papa, help! The thread is squeezing me to death!"
Mazi Agbu had grabbed his dane gun, rushed into the room and found Ugochukwu curled on the floor in his pyjamas. The lantern flame flickered across a body covered in welts and bruises.
He searched every corner. No snake. No thief. No trace of intrusion. When Mama Ugo joined him, both stood over the boy, sponging his forehead and whispering prayers.
Now, miraculously, the welts were fading.
"This isn't ordinary," Mama Ugo muttered. "Yesterday it was the sun's disappearance. Today it is this. We must consult someone."
"Let's first observe the outcome of today's igba ndu," Mazi Agbu replied. "The whole town is involved."
"It affects us directly!"
"If the whole of Ndikelionwu pledges peace today, who remains to harm us?"
"What if it's someone from his school?"
"Let's begin here."
Ugochukwu emerged, steam still rising from his skin, smiling faintly.
"Mama, the lumps are gone. I feel stronger."
Before the couple could respond, a knock broke the silence.
"Who is there?" Mazi Agbu barked.
"It is Emebo."
"Emebo? What brings you?"
"I've seen something, Mazi."
He declined a seat and spoke urgently.
"You remember how we fled two days ago, leaving the yam mounds and tools? I sent Obi this morning to retrieve our hoes. He came back shaking. I followed him. Mazi, I saw a battle. Twenty yam mounds flattened. A python fought a leopard—"
"What?" Mazi Agbu rose.
"The python killed it. We followed the blood trail to the raffia grove—there we found the leopard. Dead. Headless."
"That's Mazi Oke's doing!" Mazi Agbu spat. "He's sent his leopard again. First he stole my goats. Now he sends fear. But not this time. The gods sent the python."
After Emebo left, the argument in the compound exploded.
"My son will not step outside this compound without seeing Dibia Ozo," Mama Ugo declared.
"We agreed on the igba ndu," Mazi Agbu said.
"You decided!" she fired back.
"I carried him in my womb for nine moons," she continued. "This leopard attack can't be ordinary. Let the dibia speak."
In truth, Mazi Agbu was deeply disturbed. The connection between the leopard and Ugochukwu's nightmare was too strong. He wanted his son far from danger, at Government College, while he faced Mazi Oke.
Still, he withheld his true thoughts. Instead, he anchored his decision on the town's igba ndu and the hope that Government College, with its learned teachers, would shield his son.
Ugochukwu had listened to everything, quietly. He remembered nothing of the night's agony. His father's report—that he had cried about being squeezed by a thread—sounded bizarre. Yet the bruises were real.
And now this tale of a python versus a leopard. The story haunted him. Could they be linked?
Would his peers understand if they heard he had visited a dibia?
He had to trust the school. Trust the science. Trust the teachers.
But if that failed—
Then maybe… just maybe… the dibia.