They gathered at Ìyá Mú's tree
a towering baobab near the river's mouth, where legends said she first touched the earth.
Ifeoma stood in the center.
Her hands wrapped in red cloth.
Around her neck, a charm made of rusted metal and dried roots.
Ola, Kareem, Amaka, and a few elders stood around her.
"I told you I was the blood of the drummaker," she said. "But that was only part of it."
The wind stirred. The river listened.
A Story Forgotten
"My ancestor Adekunle was not just a drummaker," she said.
"He was the first betrayer."
Gasps. Murmurs. Amaka's jaw tightened.
But Ifeoma's voice held steady.
"He was chosen by Ìyá Mú herself. A maker of sacred instruments. A voice-binder. He carved the first drum from a tree that only grew once every thousand years. And for a time, he was faithful."
She looked up at the baobab tree.
"But then the colonists came. They saw how the people feared Ìyá Mú, how the river shaped law and power. And they made him an offer: silence her... and they would make him king."
The elders bowed their heads.
"It was Adekunle who crafted the Binding Drum," Ifeoma continued.
"The one that split her voice. The one that turned pain into music."
"And Abeni?" Ola asked quietly.
Ifeoma's voice faltered for the first time.
"She was his niece. He offered her up. Said her blood would be enough to awaken the drum fully."
The sky rumbled.
"She was the first sacrifice. And after her, more followed. Every year, every generation. Girls, women, mothers, daughters... all fed to the river not to worship Ìyá Mú… but to keep her buried."
Amaka's fists clenched. "Why didn't he pay for it?"
"Oh, he did," Ifeoma said. "After the fifth sacrifice, the goddess cursed him. His body rotted from the inside. His name was erased from every record. His descendants scattered marked, watched, and hunted."
"Then how are you still alive?" Kareem asked.
Ifeoma unwrapped her red cloth.
Her palms were marked with burn scars but not from fire.
From sound.
"I was born during an eclipse. They said my cry made glass shatter. My mother knew the blood was active again… and hid me."
She looked at Ola.
"But the curse didn't end with me. My blood still holds the key."
A New Truth
The elders looked at one another. "If the drum is healed… what happens now?"
Ifeoma turned to the tree.
And knelt.
"We return what was stolen," she said.
From her satchel, she pulled a stone bowl.
Inside ash, bone powder, and threads of hair.
"The remains of every sacrificed girl I could find," she said softly. "Collected in secret. Hidden across generations. Carried through fire and shadow."
She poured the ashes at the base of the tree.
And the earth hummed.
The river rose.
The sky opened.
And the baobab tree wept not with water, but with light.
A new symbol bloomed across its trunk:
A drum. Whole. Surrounded by open mouths.
The curse was not just broken.
It had been answered.
That night…
Kareem sat by the water, sketching the new mark into his notebook.
"This feels like the real beginning," he said.
"It is," Ola replied. "But it won't be easy."
Amaka smiled faintly. "Healing never is."
And in the water's reflection…
They saw her:
Ìyá Mú.
Not as fire. Not as rage.
But as peace.
Her face held no anger now.
Only a single, whispered word:
"Remember."