Chapter 29
"That's Osun... Osun is the bride!" Otun revealed and the other chiefs agreed.
The Chief priest who had returned to the palace, stopped and said to the king and his chiefs. "Indeed, that was Osun and she has avenged her own, Kabiyesi. That in your hands is what is left of your son after he killed Osun's heiress!"
"Haaaa!" The chiefs exclaimed in shock.
"And your evil wife who aided and abetted his crime has escaped to an unknown place... I'll advise that you choose one of your grandsons to be your next heir... The gods have spoken!" The Chief priest declared, turned and left the palace.
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Several miles away in the evil forest, the queen fell out of nowhere and landed on the ground with a painful thud that almost knocked the air out of her lungs. She was still howling in pain from the blow Osun had dealt her before her escape.
She tried to rise to her feet but could feel a heavy burden on her upper back and close to her nape. When she felt around her back with her hands, she realized much to her horror what Osun had struck her with- a hunch back.
She let out another scream of anger and grief when she remembered how Osun had killed her son, and the forest shook from her fury, sending all the animals scurrying for safety and birds flying out of trees into the sky and away from that spot.
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More than two centuries later...
Ewatomi grew up beautifully and was loved and respected by all her kind, but she had a flaw- her inability to control her rage. She constantly flew into a fit of rage and destroyed anything on her path and this made most of the other mermaids avoid her as best as they could whenever she was angry.
The only person who could stand up to her to tame her was her grandmother- Osun. Osun however discovered that Ewatomi turned out to be more powerful than any other mermaid. She was so powerful that Osun feared the destruction her grandchild could bring if she wasn't tamed.
Osun also discovered much to her dismay that despite her warnings, Ewatomi began to sneak up to the surface a few years after she clocked a hundred years old. Ewatomi had the gifted ability to switch to human legs anytime she wanted to, but that was not what really bothered Osun.
What really bothered the goddess was when she found out that Ewatomi had been tormenting and oppressing the villagers. She set things on fire or flooded their farms or a particular house of anyone she caught doing a displeasing thing. Worse, she'd kill the livestock and even went as far as seducing and murdering men and she had recruited a gang of five mermaids to assist her with her evil deeds.
During this time, missionaries had already come to the village to bring in the Christian religion and soon a church building was erected, but not all the villagers forsook their gods and took up the new religion. Some managed to serve both religions in the best way that they could while others became devout Christians.
Ewatomi knew that the weakness of men was sex so she used it against them and soon, she started hunting Reverend fathers whom she'd seduce and lure to the river where he would never be seen again. Osun found out, scolded her daughter severally and punished her accomplices.
She even had to confine her granddaughter to the river but Ewatomi always found a way of sneaking off to wreak more havoc and this made Osun slowly begin to lose her patience towards her unruly granddaughter.
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On a Sacred Day...
A woman in her early thirties walked down the bush path towards the stream. Throughout her secret journey to the stream, she met no one on her way because that day was a sacred day set aside for the spirits, and humans were forbidden to go to the stream, river, farm or market. In fact, rumor had it that those who had flouted the orders in time past, either ended up blind, mad, dead, or worse, were never seen again.
There was a story of a man who had gotten drunk and had walked the farm in his drunken state, only to be found dead the next morning in the bush path, but what had shocked the villagers the more was the fact that thousands of bees had turned his head into a hive.
Rejecting the body, the new village Chief priest, a great-grandson to the chief priest during Adewale's time, had selected a few youths and had instructed them to carry and dump the body in the evil forest. But on this very day, this woman, Ireti, had damned all consequences, and with a covered big clay bowl on her head, she made her way towards the stream because she was in great distress and was also desperate for a solution.
She would have gone to the river which contained a larger body of water, but she was worried that she might be seen and stopped by one of the villagers and she couldn't risk being sent back home and not accomplishing her mission, so on she forged.
As she neared the stream, before she neared the bend that sloped downhill towards the stream, a few spirits who had been lounging on rocks quickly dispersed, vanished or scurried into rocks or trees immediately they sensed a human coming.
When Ireti finally reached the water, she took her clay bowl from her head and set it down on the ground. Then she untied her white wrapper and hung it on the branch of a nearby tree.
Now completely naked, save for the rows of waist beads and red beads around her head, she took up her burden again and with tears flowing from her eyes, she waded into the stream until she was waist-deep. Before she spoke, she threw wary glances around to be sure that she was alone. She didn't want anyone to overhear what she was going to say.
"Queen of the river, mother of fertility! Orisa Osun o, I've come before you open and bare..." She called aloud, raising her arms outward in the air as if addressing the remaining part of the stream beyond. "Hear my voice and give me audience! I beg for mercy if I have disturbed your peace on this sacred day; please do not be quick to punish a hopeless woman like me! I've risked today to be in your presence because my heart is heavy and I'm afflicted.
Iya, I've been married for thirteen years, THIRTEEN YEARS, and yet, I don't have a single child to call my own! I have never for once conceived and neither have I had even a miscarriage to prove that my womb is not dead. Iya, it's like the gods have decided to punish me for something I have no idea about! Please, mother of the water depths, take this shame away from me! Take this pain from me so that I shall not wallow in depression and loneliness anymore!
I can't bear it anymore! I, Ireti Omoluabi, have become a laughing stock in this village! My fellow women jeer at me! People won't even let me send their children on errands! They have accused me of witchcraft and have boldly said that I have eaten all my unborn children!
They tell me that I'll never suckle a baby because my breasts will dry out soon! My husband is under pressure from his family to take a second wife but the only thing that stops him for now, is that he now believes in the white god whose book forbids him from practicing polygamy!
His relatives mock him that while other men were wise enough to choose fertile women for wives, he chose to wife a man! Queen mother of fertility, please, I'm on the verge of taking my own life if nothing is done to end my predicament soon!
I'm a poor woman and I've nothing to offer you but I implore you to please save me; save me from this mockery and bless my womb! I have heard of the so many miracles which you have done for others, and I believe that what I ask for is indeed very small! Please Iya, have mercy on me! Do not let my supplication go in vain! Do not deny me the joys of motherhood!
Please, Iya! Just bless me with any child! Even though it's an imbecile, I'm ready to accept him or her as long as I can also put my breasts to good use like every other mother who suckles her child! Even if the child is blind or crippled, I'll wholeheartedly accept it! I'm that desperate for anything that will call me mother!
I want my house to be filled with the cry of an infant! I want to see joy return to my husband's house. Anything at all and I'll receive it with a joyful heart!
Please, do not turn your ear away from me, Orisa Osun! Do not regard me as a foolish woman who has only come to disturb your peace. Heal me and bless my womb!" She placed her hands on her womb now.