The Night the Moon Refused to Rise
It began with the moon.
Or more precisely—the lack of it.
Even the elders, who had seen eclipses, floods, blood moons, could not explain this.
No cloud cover.
No storm.
No warning.
Just… absence.
A blank sky.
A hollow in the heavens.
As if the moon had turned its face away.
The First Silence
Children cried in their sleep.
Drums stopped mid-beat.
Not out of fear.
But confusion.
"Where is the rhythm tonight?" Ola asked aloud.
No one answered.
Iyagbẹ́kọ lit a small fire, but the flame wouldn't dance. It sat low, still, like a breath caught in the throat.
Echo, standing at the water's edge, whispered:
"This is not a night for seeing.
It is a night for listening."
The River Still Flowed
Though no moon lit it.
Though no wind touched it.
The river moved.
Not in waves—but pulses.
Every few heartbeats, the ground beneath their feet would tremble slightly—as if the river itself were remembering something slowly.
Ayíbíyè emerged from its surface.
Her coral crown dimmed.
She looked to the village and said:
"This is the Night of Trust.
A rhythm you do not direct.
But one that moves you… if you let it."
The Blind Procession
Iyagbẹ́kọ asked for all torches to be extinguished.
"No artificial fire," she said. "Only spirit-light will guide us."
The villagers hesitated.
But they obeyed.
Hands found hands.
Voices began to hum—not a melody. A single note. A shared tone. Breath meeting breath.
Echo took the lead.
Ola followed behind her.
Children in the center. Elders at the rear.
And together, they walked.
Not knowing where they were going.
Only that the river would lead.
Into the Forest
The path turned unexpectedly.
They walked into thick brush, brambles, places long abandoned.
Still, they walked.
And slowly—
Lights began to appear.
Not in the sky.
But in the people themselves.
The hum inside them stirred the embers beneath their skin.
And their feet began to pulse with warmth.
Each step a flicker.
Each breath a glow.
They were becoming their own constellations.
The Forgotten Shrine
They arrived at a clearing none remembered.
At its center: a collapsed statue.
Only the feet remained.
Inscribed at the base:
To She-Who-Was-Not-Believed
Gasps rose.
This was no mythic queen.
No archive saint.
Just a woman—long ago—who spoke truth the village refused to hear.
And here, beneath moonless sky, the river had brought them back to her.
The Naming
Rerẹ́ stepped forward.
She placed a drum at the foot of the statue's ruin.
And with a single strike, she declared:
"Her name is Ṣọlá.
And tonight, she is restored."
The ground shook gently.
A breeze passed through the clearing.
And somewhere deep inside every villager—a name long buried stirred.
Names of those they'd dismissed.
Forgotten.
Lied about.
Erased.
Tonight, under a sky without witness, they remembered them aloud.
One by one.
Whispers rising like prayers:
"Adéjọkẹ́…"
"Bàbá Kúnlé…"
"Mójísọlá…"
"Ẹnítàn…"
The moon may have hidden.
But the truth?
It rose.
The Return
As the villagers turned back toward Obade, their bodies still flickering with spirit-light, a single drumbeat echoed from the village square.
Then another.
And another.
By the time they reached the Flame Archive, the moon had returned.
But no one noticed.
Their own light was enough.
Final Lines
Some nights, we are not meant to see.
Some truths, we are not meant to chase.
We must stop.
Stand still.
And let them arrive.
The moon's absence was not a punishment.
It was a gift:
A chance to prove we could still move forward—
without needing to see everything first.
And Obade?
They passed the test.