The bell tolled again.
Low. Hollow. Eternal.
The sound didn't just ring through the village square — it sank into the bones of Obade, like something awakening beneath the earth. The note vibrated in the air, trembling against wooden doors, skin, and stone, as if it were not just sound but the heartbeat of something long buried and restless.
Ola stood before the elders' meeting hall, feet planted in the dirt, her hands clasped in front of her to keep them from shaking. The sky above had darkened slightly, clouds gathering as if even the heavens sensed the shift. The air was thick — not just with heat, but with something heavier. Expectation. Judgment. The weight of too many secrets pressing in.
Behind her, Echo stood silent, arms folded, her gaze never wavering from the elders seated at the front of the hall. She was Ola's shadow, her mirror, and her anchor. Her presence, as always, felt like steady stone beside rushing water.
Iyagbẹ́kọ stood nearby as well, not behind, not in front, but beside Ola — a gesture that meant more than words ever could.
The elders were seated like statues, five of them arranged in a crescent on the raised platform. Their robes were ceremonial, woven with patterns older than memory. Their expressions, however, were not regal. They were wary. Each face was carved by time, but the eyes held something more immediate — fear. But not the kind born of superstition or childish tales.
This was the fear of men and women who had kept something hidden for too long.
The bell rang again.
No one moved. Even the wind had fallen still.
Ola closed her eyes briefly and breathed in the memory of Iyagbẹ́kọ's voice from the night before — a whisper wrapped in warning.
"Some silences rot from the inside. They eat away at courage until only fear remains."
But today, the silence didn't rot. It cracked. And Ola stood inside the breaking.
The Watcher's mark pulsed beneath her skin. Not burning this time — just steady. Like a drumbeat in her chest, syncing with the rhythm of the river's distant call. Not a burden, not a curse, but a reminder. A tether.
She opened her eyes and stepped forward.
The elders' meeting hall was nothing more than thick mud walls and a thatched roof, but it had always carried a gravity in the village. It was where decisions were made, punishments passed, futures shaped. And for too long, it had been where stories were buried.
But not today.
A breeze finally stirred — subtle at first — curling through the slats in the wall and lifting the scent of river reeds and distant rain. The sky hinted at a storm not yet born.
Iyagbẹ́kọ's staff tapped once, twice, three times on the wooden floor.
The sound was deliberate, unhurried, like the toll of justice itself.
Her voice followed, rough but clear.
"The river speaks," she said. "And it demands a reckoning. No longer will silence protect the guilty."
A murmur stirred the gathered crowd. Not loud, but restless. Tension swelled like the tide.
Ola stepped to the center of the room, lifting her chin. "The river is not a curse to fear. It is memory, pain, and truth flowing together. It is our mirror. Our reminder. We carry it not to be broken," she said, her voice stronger than she expected, "but to be made whole."
She met the eyes of each elder, refusing to look away. Some returned her gaze with hollow pride. Others with shame. One or two with the ghost of something like regret.
Behind the elders, a seat remained empty. No one acknowledged it. The woman from the night before — the one who had dared to speak, to name her grief — was gone.
No one had to say it aloud. Her absence spoke louder than any accusation. Whether she had been sent away or silenced was irrelevant. Her name was already a crack in their fragile order.
A younger voice rose from the back.
It trembled but carried weight. A girl — barely more than a teenager — stepped forward, her hands clenched at her sides. "We have buried our voices with the river's silence," she said. "But the river remembers. And now, so must we."
There was a pause.
And then it began.
One by one, more voices joined. Not loud, not screaming — but steady, certain, like stones dropping into water.
An old man stepped forward. His back was bent, his hands scarred from years of fishing, but his voice was sharp. "My brother disappeared after the last flood. They said the river took him. But I saw the bruises on his body before they buried him without prayer."
A woman stood next. Her eyes were swollen with grief that never healed. "My daughter. She was taken. We were told she ran. But I found her beads in Chief Morayo's compound. No one listened."
The dam had broken.
And the voices rushed through.
Accusations. Confessions. Regrets. Screams. Cries for mercy. Cries for justice.
One elder stood, trembling. "Enough!" he bellowed. But his voice was lost in the rising tide of truth.
Another voice answered, full of rage. "No, not enough. Never enough. You let this happen. You knew."
A young man threw a bundle to the ground — cloth wrapped around something. When it hit the floor, the cloth spilled open to reveal bones. Small. Fragile.
A collective gasp filled the hall.
"They told me to bury my own son in the forest," he said through clenched teeth. "To forget him. To stay quiet."
The elders sat stunned. Their control was crumbling like clay in the rain.
Ola stepped forward again, drawing from the mark in her chest, her voice unwavering.
"This is not vengeance," she said. "This is truth. And truth will not be quiet anymore."
Iyagbẹ́kọ raised her staff again. "The time of silencing is over. If the river remembers, then so must we. No more hiding. No more lies masked as protection."
The village square roared with emotion. Not just anger — though it was there in abundance — but grief, too. Grief long denied a place to breathe. It surged through the people like a second wind, lifting the weight from their backs, even as it threatened to crush them with sorrow.
And yet… through the storm of voices, something else emerged.
Resolution.
Even the elders could see it — in the eyes of the young, in the trembling hands of the old, in the names spoken for the first time in years. The power they had wielded through fear and silence was fading.
Another elder, Bàbá Odu, slowly stood. He looked tired. Not from the noise, but from the burden he had helped carry — or perhaps helped create.
"I remember…" he said, voice low, "when this village bled and we chose to stitch it closed rather than clean the wound. We were wrong." He swallowed hard. "I was wrong."
The words fell heavy, but they were real. And more importantly, they were heard.
Echo stepped forward at last, her voice soft but commanding. "The curse was never the river. It was the silence we wrapped around ourselves. The fear. The lies."
She turned, facing the villagers. "Now we choose differently."
Ola nodded. "We speak. We listen. We remember."
No more rituals in secret.
No more children going missing without questions.
No more names erased to protect power.
The river was no longer a threat.
It was a summons.
And finally, finally, the village began to listen.
That evening, as the sun dipped low and the bell fell silent, the river's edge saw something new.
A gathering.
Candles floated on the water — one for every name spoken, one for every truth brought to light.
No speeches. No rituals. Just faces illuminated by flame, hands joined, and tears freely shed.
Ola stood at the water's edge, the mark on her chest now still. Not fading, but at peace. She didn't need to speak. She had done what she came to do.
Beside her, Iyagbẹ́kọ whispered, "The last toll has rung. And now, the healing begins."
Echo nodded, her eyes reflecting the light of the river. "This was never about ending. It was always about beginning again."
And in the silence that followed, no one was afraid.
Not of the river.
Not of the past.
Not of the truth.