CHAPTER TWELVE: When the Walls Begin to Whisper
"A kì í gbọ́ òrò àtẹlẹsẹ̀ kí a má fọkọ sílẹ̀."
One does not hear footsteps behind them and continue walking as if alone.
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The days back home were now shadows, folding into one another. Zainab no longer knew how long she had stayed in Iléṣà. Her phone battery had died two days ago, and she hadn't bothered to charge it. Time had lost its structure. Morning and night melted together, and the house — her grandmother's house — pulsed like something alive.
She no longer tried to force her life back into shape.
Her friends had stopped calling. School deadlines passed unnoticed. The person who had once juggled classes, projects, and weekend outings was gone, replaced by a girl who sat in silent rooms reading notebooks written by the dead and listening for whispers in walls.
And the house whispered.
Not loud — never loud. Just enough to keep her straining to listen. Names, sometimes. Breaths. Songs hummed in languages she'd never learned but somehow understood. And in the center of it all: the name Ayéròyá.
One evening, just before dusk, Zainab sat cross-legged on the floor of her grandmother's old room, that faded notebook open before her. She had begun decoding its messages. Not fully — but enough. Her grandmother had written of dreams that carried truths, of names that opened doors, and of something she called Ìpinnu — the reckoning every soul must face when Orí remembers its full purpose.
That word haunted Zainab.
She whispered it aloud: "Ìpinnu."
The walls didn't reply, but the silence deepened, like something listening.
She turned the page and found a new passage she hadn't noticed before. It was in Yoruba, but older. The handwriting shaky.
> "When the Ajogun pass by a lineage, they leave behind echoes. If those echoes are not answered, they become curses. But if one is born who can name the echoes, they become doors."
Her fingers trembled. She traced the words with her thumb.
That night, sleep came like fog.
She dreamed of a room lit by fireflies. Around her, voices chanted her name—not as invocation, but as identification. They were not calling her. They were recognizing her.
And then: the mask appeared again. The one she had seen once in the museum, once in her dream, and now everywhere in her mind. Spiral eyes. Jagged mouth. Smoke rising from the top.
But this time, it spoke.
> "You are not breaking, Ayéròyá. You are shedding."
> "And not all who shed return whole."
She gasped awake.
The house groaned.
Her door creaked open slowly, even though there was no wind.
She rose, barefoot, drawn by something deeper than fear. She walked through the corridor lit only by moonlight. Dust swirled at her ankles, even though her steps were careful.
She reached the family altar room — a place sealed for decades. It had always been locked.
But now, it stood open.
Inside, the air was thick with camphor and memory. On the ground were chalk marks — recent. Circles within circles. Eyes. Spirals. And at the center, a calabash. Inside it, a mirror.
When she looked, it didn't show her face.
It showed possibilities.
Her life — as it had been. Her life — as it might still be. Her life — as it was meant to be.
But only one could remain.
Behind her, the walls whispered once more.
And this time, she answered.
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When the house you return to begins to speak in your voice, will you still call it home — or shrine?