In the beginning, there were two rivers.
But only one was remembered.
The other?
They buried it beneath stone and shame.
And gave it a name they never spoke:
Ẹgbẹ́rẹ́ — She who carries what no one else dares.
The Scroll Unfurls
The red scroll Rerẹ́ carried did not stay small.
By nightfall, it had lengthened—unrolling itself across the floor of the House of Listening, revealing glyphs no living elder could decipher, but which the youngest children read without instruction.
"She was the first queen," whispered Rerẹ́.
"Before the river chose a face, it had a voice. And it was hers."
Iyagbẹ́kọ stared at the glyphs with trembling reverence.
Èkóyé spoke the name aloud. Once.
The walls flinched.
Even the drums held their breath.
"Ẹ̀nítàn was silence returned to rhythm," said Iyagbẹ́kọ softly.
"But Ẹgbẹ́rẹ́… is rhythm turned to fire."
The Signs Multiply
That night, the river shifted its course.
Not miles.
But inches.
Enough to submerge a forgotten shrine, one that had stood dry for generations.
Frogs gathered in spirals.
The wind reversed for one full minute.
And the fish swam backward.
Children across Obade woke from the same dream:
A woman made of smoke and soot, walking barefoot through flame.
She carried not a crown.
She carried a sack.
The Sack and the Shadow
In the folktales, Ẹgbẹ́rẹ́ was always the cursed one.
She wandered at night with her sack of sorrows, they said—cursed to collect pain, tears, memories too sharp for the living to keep.
"Don't follow her," the grandmothers warned.
"She will leave you hollow."
But now, the truth was rising.
She had not collected sorrow to feed on it.
She had carried it.
When the Archive burned stories, she caught their ashes.
When queens were drowned, she kept their names.
When mothers wept in secret, she bottled their salt.
She was not horror.
She was harbor.
Her Arrival
At midnight, the village fire blew sideways.
The drums cracked.
And from the forest's edge, a sound like dragging chains emerged.
No feet.
No hands.
Just presence.
The trees leaned away as she came.
And then they saw her.
Not clearly.
Not with eyes.
But with something deeper.
A woman shaped from soot and mourning cloth, her face obscured by the folds of her wrap.
On her back?
A bulging sack.
Ola stepped forward, mouth dry.
"Are you…?"
The woman did not speak.
She wept.
And each tear turned to charcoal before it hit the ground.
Rerẹ́ stepped beside him, holding the scroll.
"We remembered you."
"We never forgot."
The woman lifted her head just enough to reveal lips the color of burnt sugar.
And then, a voice—low and unhurried—unfurled:
"No child is born cursed."
"But some are taught to carry what breaks others."
She opened the sack.
From it rose
Not bones.
Not curses.
But names.
Thousands.
Each one glowing.
Each one lost.
Each one once silenced.
And the sack, impossibly, floated.
Until it emptied itself into the air
And the air wept.
The Blessing Reversed
She turned to Rerẹ́.
From her charred fingers, she drew a line of soot down the girl's forehead.
Then whispered:
"You are not my heir.
You are my voice."
To the elders, she said:
"Tell your children the truth.
I was never here to curse them."
"I was here to remember them when no one else would."
And with that
Ẹgbẹ́rẹ́ stepped into the fire.
And vanished.
The Morning After
Where she'd stood, only ash remained.
But within it?
Seeds.
Not of trees.
But of drums.
Tiny, glinting seeds that pulsed with rhythm waiting to be planted.
Rerẹ́ held them in her palm.
They beat like heartbeats.
Ola whispered, "The old myths are no longer sleeping."
Iyagbẹ́kọ answered:
"No, child.
They've woken.
And they're hungry for the truth."
Final Lines
In the capital, the Archive's primary servers glitched.
Entire records disappeared.
Whole dates unraveled.
One word repeated across every blanked page:
Ẹgbẹ́rẹ́
And in the quietest part of Obade, children gathered in a circle…
…and began to sing her name.
Not with fear.
But with gratitude.