The Waters Remember

The journey back to Obade was quiet. Not from exhaustion but awe.

They walked as though carrying a sacred echo between them, a hum woven into their bones. It had begun the moment the wind sang her name. Since then, the world had not felt the same.

Ola carried the final verse etched in memory, the words pulsing in his chest like a second heartbeat. The ash of the broken drum no longer weighed in his pouch it was gone, given to the Cleft Rock but its presence lingered, like a blessing or a burden that refused to be buried.

Iyagbẹ́kọ walked with steadier steps now. The burden of silence had lifted, if only slightly. For years she had been the keeper of unspoken things. Now, for the first time, she walked beside others who had heard the same rhythm in the dark and responded with open hands.

Èkóyé brought up the rear, his eyes sharp, alert. He was listening not just with ears, but with spirit. There was something in the air now, thick and trembling. A vibration that had nothing to do with footsteps or speech.

When they reached the final ridge the place where the hill dipped and the full expanse of Obade could be seen spread below like a sleeping memory Èkóyé stopped.

His hand rose. His body stilled.

"Do you feel that?" he asked.

Iyagbẹ́kọ inhaled.

Ola furrowed his brow. "The air?"

"The wind," Èkóyé whispered. "It's not moving."

They listened.

No rustling leaves. No birdsong. No swaying grass.

The forest was holding its breath.

And the river oh, the river glowed. Not with sunlight. The morning light hadn't yet broken through the mist. But with something deeper… something older. A soft radiance shimmered across its surface, like memory rising from beneath.

Beneath that glow, far beneath the surface where daylight could not reach, she stirred.

Beneath the River.

In a chamber sealed by time and sealed again by silence, she stirred.

Ẹ̀nítàn.

Once crowned in coral, now cloaked in grief.

She had once been the mother of rhythms, her voice the axis upon which Obade's heart beat. But power had been stolen from her stolen, twisted, buried beneath shame. They had turned her name into myth, her face into warning, her melody into curse.

For generations, she had waited.

She had not forgotten.

Now, she sat upon a throne carved from shattered drums and the bones of broken truths. Around her, the spirits of drowned memories women who had carried too much, children whose laughter had gone unheard, elders whose warnings were dismissed circled like moths around a dying flame.

But today, the flame brightened.

Her eyes closed for generations fluttered open.

The final verse had been returned.

Not as a plea. Not as a command. But as a confession wrapped in rhythm.

She did not rise.

She did not rage.

Instead, her lips parted.

And for the first time in ages, she wept.

Each tear shimmered with ancient sound echoes of betrayal, longing, and hope. Notes that had once danced from her drums now flowed from her eyes.

The chamber trembled.

Stone cried. Water sang.

The air shifted with power too old for language.

And deep in her core beneath the ache, below the fury a single question surfaced:

"Will they listen… this time?"

Above.

Back in Obade, the people had begun to gather.

It started with the children. They were the first to notice the river moved differently. The fish had abandoned their usual erratic darting and were now swimming in perfect spirals, as if dancing to a song only they could hear.

Then the elders came, called by something they could not name. They stood on the edge of the water, clutching canes, beads, cloths symbols of old authority that had not meant much in recent years. Now, they felt heavy with memory.

Some wept quietly. Others muttered verses they hadn't recited in decades.

The river was speaking again.

But not in words.

In rhythm.

Ola stepped forward from the edge of the ridge and descended the slope. His steps were slow but unwavering.

He stopped before the crowd and spoke not as a leader, but as a witness.

"It's time," he said. "We descend. Not to chain her. But to return what was taken."

No one argued.

Èkóyé moved beside him. "Her voice. Her rhythm. Her place in the story."

Iyagbẹ́kọ approached, lifting her staff. "Then follow me. The river is ready to open."

The crowd parted like mist before them.

A ceremonial platform, half-buried beneath vines and mud, stood beside the river. Once used for offerings, initiations, weddings, and farewells, it had been ignored for decades. Time had tried to erase it.

But memory had teeth.

And now, as the three stepped onto it, something extraordinary happened.

The symbols carved into the stone long faded, long dismissed began to glow.

First blue. Then silver. Then a deep, shimmering crimson the color of memory when it is made flesh again.

Gasps rose from the villagers.

Elders clutched their chests. Mothers clung to children. Some bowed. Others dropped to their knees.

The platform vibrated.

Low. Steady. Like a drum preparing to speak.

And then, from beneath the river…

A path opened.

Not with violence. Not with crashing waves. But with intention.

The water parted like curtains pulled back by unseen hands.

Beneath it, a staircase revealed itself spiraling downward, carved from obsidian, coral, and something older than stone. Mist poured upward from its edges, humming softly, resonating with a rhythm not heard in living memory.

Iyagbẹ́kọ turned to the people. "She does not want worship. She wants remembering."

Ola looked out at the villagers faces lined with doubt, hope, guilt, and awe.

"She is not a monster," he said. "She is a mother. A witness. A queen made silence."

"And silence," Èkóyé added, "was never what she chose."

The three of them stepped toward the open path.

The river shimmered brighter.

Behind them, the village stood still not in fear, but in recognition.

History was no longer a story told at night. It was now a door.

And they were stepping through it.

Below.

The stairs led them into a realm that existed between breath and memory. There was no need for air. No cold. No drowning.

Only presence.

The deeper they descended, the more the walls began to pulse softly at first, then with more urgency. Murals appeared. Not painted, but alive. They shifted as they passed: women dancing with fire in their hair, men kneeling before rivers, drums glowing beneath full moons, a queen with eyes like obsidian and a voice that cracked the sky.

Then the walls whispered.

Not in words.

But in heartbeat.

In drumbeat.

In footsteps left behind.

At the final step, the chamber revealed itself.

Ẹ̀nítàn sat within it, tall and terrible and beautiful. Her face streaked with golden tears. Her throne adorned not in jewels but in silence undone.

She looked at them not as strangers, but as returners.

Ola knelt immediately. He did not cry. He did not speak. But the final verse pulsed through him.

Èkóyé placed the empty gourd at her feet.

Iyagbẹ́kọ struck the floor with her staff once.

And the chamber responded.

Walls lit up. Water danced upward. The broken drums surrounding her throne lifted, ash reforming briefly in the air before falling again like blessed dust.

And then, for the first time in centuries, she spoke:

"You remembered."

It was not a greeting.

It was a truth.

And it was enough.