Chapter 1

I HELD NO ILLUSIONS about my bravery. But this whimpering, groveling image of a girl that I watched from behind a deeper, obscure part of my mind could not be me, definitely not.

My people used to say that when a child sees a thing of fear then that child must surely get scared, and in my sixteen years I have seen things that would have terrified an average adult into becoming a total mental wreck, but it was until this very moment that I truly understood what that saying meant—that I understood what true fear was—staring death in the eyes as I was.

And there was no doubting that these four girls were death!

“Please, don’t kill me…” I begged, tears and mucus running down my face and nose in tiny rivers as heavy pressure from their magic coiled around me, tight, like a boa constrictor slowly squeezing the life out of its prey before dooming it to its belly.

“You stole my kill and you have to pay the price for doing that, a price of blood,” Ebiye who seemed to be the leader of the four girls replied sweetly, the pressure increasing a notch and making my bones seem like they would begin to pop any minute.

“It wasn’t me, I swear it wasn’t me. I…” I hissed, groaning, and then broke down into a sobbing wreck all over again.

The three other girls burst into laughter, Aisha, Sharon, and Tolu, the sound of it sending spikes of terror through my veins. A moment ago as they cornered me I had tried first to bluff my way out, and then later on I tried to run, but the classroom door and windows had suddenly slammed shut unassisted, and an unnatural gale pulled me back, slamming me on the floor right before them.

 “I think we should strike at her where it hurts the most,” Tola said, drawing the attention of the other three. “How about we take the life of one of her family members as punishment?”

“Yea, and we can even get her to pick which one of them she wants to die,” Sharon added, cackling wickedly by the side.

 “No. No…” I croaked, uncaring about sullying my skirt as I dragged forward on the classroom floor and held my hands together like a supplicant, the tears which was streaming down my face increasing its torrent. “Don’t touch my family, just take me instead,” I begged. I couldn’t imagine life without any one of my family members; my father Alexander Ilori, my stepmom Felicia, and my siblings Yemi and the twins; Taiwo and Kenny. I would rather die than bring trouble upon them.

The pressure eased a little as the four girls burst into another round of wild laughter.

“Why should I do that little witch? Enh?” Ebiye said after a moment, a wicked smile splitting her beautiful fair face which stood in sharp contrast to my dark ebony skin—and all the four girls were fair, spotlessly so, their bodies glistening like over-ripe pawpaw fruits.

I cringed as Ebiye bent low to look me in the eye, bringing her hand to my face to caress my cheek, my nose, and lips. I couldn’t move as her hand roved my face, fixed in place more from shock than their magic.

  Ebiye then took a drop of tears from my cheek with her finger, taking it to her mouth. “Delicious,” Ebiye muttered, closing her eyes like one savoring the taste of fine wine.

“Ittt- I didn’t disrupt your plans, really it- it wasn’t me.” I forced after a moment, hoping they would truly believe the lie and let me go. I had truly not interrupted their plans knowingly, it had happened by mistake.

“Liar, we traced it to you,” Aisha retorted sharply.

I shifted my gaze to her, hoping she would help me even though she had brought me here. “I didn’t stop any arrow, it was only the owl that—”

“Keep quiet!” Tola barked, shutting me up.

Ebiye sighed after a moment, shaking her head. “Okay, I won’t kill you or any one in your family,” she announced, rising to her feet. “But I might take a hand here, a leg there, and then maybe one eye or two.”

“Just take me instead.” I scrambled unto my knees very fast.

“Oh?” Ebiye raised an eyebrow.

“That’s enough!” A hard steely voice resounded in the classroom and the door burst open, hitting against the wall with a bang.

My heart skipped a beat, hearing the sound. Salvation was at hand!

I turned my head to see two people enter the classroom, my best friend Lara and a teacher, Mrs. Ugo.

“And the witches come to the rescue…” Ebiye flourished her hands dramatically, chuckling softly.   

Lara ignored them, the wicked scowl on her face softening as she turned her brown milky eyes to me, studying my state. Her next action stopped whatever thought I had of running towards her for safety, as she pointed at me muttering a word under her breath, and the stiffening pressure I felt from the oppressing magic disappeared.

My eyes widened as the enormity of her actions dawned on me in those seconds.

Lara, my best friend of over five years, was a witch too!

*

I have learnt that trouble comes in multiples, one leads to two, two to four, and then like a domino the whole chain collapses on you, seeking to drag you into oblivion. Recently it was the watcher, the unseen eyes watching me at home every night and making my sleep fitful, and way before that it was a series of other things which I alone could see or hear; the mighty oak tree which had a door leading to God knows where, the goats with human heads, the whispering mosquitoes whose voices I heard clearly, and many other stranger things, chief of which was the owls—death angels, I called them.

And this trouble started with the owls.

It was six days back, on a Friday morning. I was thinking of the owls—pitch black owls, the color of a moonless, starless night, their bodies sleek and shining like it had been carefully oiled with gel, and their eyes also a dark shade of black with a tiny round ash at the outer edges.

Once, a long time ago, I looked into the eye of one of these black owls. One second I was staring at its eyes captivated by the twinkling light glowing within them, the next, I found myself lost in the dark dreary depths, severe pain lancing through me as I felt something wrenching out of my body painfully slow—I was so sure it was my soul leaving me.

I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe, nothing. And then the feeling stopped just as suddenly.

 I never looked into their eyes ever again.

 “Omotoke Ilori!” a voice called my name. It sounded distant but had the same intensity as thunder; sharp, insistent—piercing through the fog that had submerged me.

“Omotoke Ilori!” Mr Oni, my physics teacher's voice jolted me back to reality, making me raise my head sharply to meet his gaze. Going by the look on his face I knew I was in trouble, big trouble. I’ve been caught daydreaming in class. Again.

Mr Oni glared hard at me through his spectacles, his thick brows forming fat rolls on his face as he furrowed them in unconcealed anger. He looked like an Owl himself; with his spectacles which was just too big for his tiny face, his fat-short neck so close to his plump body that there was no differentiating where the first ended and the other began, and the big spotted oversized suit he was so used to wearing.

“I had to call you over three times to get a reaction,” Mr Oni announced. “Tell me what you were thinking about so hard you that you were lost while I was teaching. Was it your husband or the children you left at home?”

The whole class burst into a fit of giggles, making me shift my gaze from Mr Oni down to my desk where I hid a frown of irritation. What husband or children?

 “Miss Toke Ilori, do you care to share with the class what you were dreaming or thinking about? We would all love to hear it.”

And I am sure he would really truly love to hear since he loved gossips, telling them, listening to them, he was all for it. But how was I to tell him that Ms. Smith who taught English and was one of my favorite teachers in the school was to die any time from now? From where do I even start explaning?

I’ve always had this ability, or curse, of knowing if someone will die hours or sometimes days before the person’s actual death. There would be one of those black owls perched on the person, signifying what was to come.

There had been an owl on Ms. Smith’s shoulder as the whole school took devotion that morning in the school yard, and the thought of losing such a caring teacher to the cold hands of death is what had me wondering how I could stop her death—if I could.

I sighed, shaking my head. “Nothing sir, I wasn't dreaming or thinking anything.”

“Stand up when I’m talking to you,” Mr. Oni barked, my easy attitude doing nothing to calm his ire.

I felt myself wilt, my shoulders drooping low as I felt so open, so bare, with the eyes of everyone in class focusing on me as I stood up.

“Here am I teaching and preparing you for your forthcoming secondary school leaving exams, and there you are busy doing whatever it is you were doing? WAEC is just a few months away and now when you fail the school would hold me responsible.”

“Sorry sir.”

The whole class giggled at my lackluster reply.

What did they find funny? I frowned.  Maybe they would laugh better if they knew what was going to befall Ms. Smith since many amongst them also liked her or at least enjoyed her classes compared to most of the other teachers.

“Come outside and solve this problem on resistivity,” Mr Oni commanded, stopping my thoughts from wandering again.

Resistivity? What was that? I jerked my head up towards the whiteboard up front, looking up at the scrawls that filled two sides leaving the third empty. A headache blossomed within my head immediately, looking at the jargons.

Mathematics, equations, I hated them with passion. They were my nemesis.

“I don’t have all day,” Mr. Oni growled, holding a blue colored pen towards my direction.

I trudged forward slowly, trying to make sense of the equations as I walked to the board. I couldn’t.

“Question four,” Mr Oni declared as I took the pen from him.

My right hand which held the pen shivered uncontrollably as I stood fixated on the question, lost. The combination of Mr Oni and my classmate’s hard biting glare on my back only increased my panic. In seconds, tiny tremors began to rock my knee-joints, and then my legs. The class was dead silent, every one watching.

“Give me the pen and stop wasting my time,” Mr Oni finally said after two long minutes, seeing my lack of action.

I turned from the board to give him back the pen and stopped. My breath hitched, my heart nearly jumping out of my chest when I saw the long switch which had suddenly materialized in Mr Oni’s right hand. The switch was brown, fat, and very long, looking more like a club than a cane.

“Stretch your palm.”

“Sir—” I began in a quivering tiny pleading voice.

“I said stretch your palm!” Mr. Oni’s voice brooked no argument, his face fixed in a merciless glare. I raised my hand mechanically, stretching the palm wide, as wasting Mr Oni’s time would only bring more troubles upon me.

After four strokes of cane on my palm tears flowed uninhibitedly down my face as I struggled not to give voice to the pain, boxing it within me. My hatred for Mr Oni rose to its peak at that moment, looking at him through the stream of tears which refused to stop their journey down my eyes. I wished he was the one the owl came for and not Ms Smith who would never resort to flogging a student. It was better he died than Ms Smith.

“What did you say?” Mr Oni asked, as I turned for my seat.

“Nothing sir, nothing.”

Mr Oni eyed me irritably for a second and waved me away, making me release a breath of relief at the close call. I couldn’t believe I had inadvertently murmured my wicked thought out loud, but thankfully Mr Oni did not catch my words. Not that he would understand what I meant about the owls.

*

That single wish had become my unbecoming.

It was because of it the four girls, Aisha and three junior students, Ebiye, Sharon and Tola now had me cornered five days later in an empty classroom during lunch break, and from their conversation I learnt that what I had seen as an owl was infact an arrow of death they sent to Ms. Smith because of a perceived wrong she did to them, and I had somehow transferred it to Mr Oni who died that same evening and Ms. Smith survived.

“Leave her alone,” my best friend Lara growled at the girls as I stared at her openmouthed.

 “And if I don’t what can you do?” Ebiye retorted.

 “Just let her go. I will personally make compensation to you for whatever wrong she did you.”

Ebiye shook her head. “What can a smalltime witch like you possibly give me? Only your so called matrons would have anything that would interest me.”

Lara was a witch! My best friend was a witch! Such were my thoughts as I watched them converse, trying to think back if there had been signs over the years that I had ignored. I came up with nothing.

 “What is going on here,” a fresh voice interrupted as a group of five girls and two boys entered the classroom.

“More witches?” Tola blurted distastefully.

“This is getting more interesting,” Ebiye commented, passing me a look.

Sounds of footsteps resounded as more people joined, and slowly the entrance to the class became clustered with about forty students and two more teachers.

Ebiye simply looked at the new arrivals with her same easy carefree air. “So you all are here to fight me enh?” she asked.

“No,” Lara replied stepping forward. “We are only here for her.” She pointed at me.

“She meddled in my business and you know what we do to witches who do that.”

Lara sighed. “I don’t know what happened, but I only know we cannot allow you to harm her.”

“If you know what’s good for you, you will all get out of this classroom and go back to minding your business,” Sharon stepped up beside Ebiye and growled at them, the air rising unnaturally within the classroom.

“Tsk…” someone from within the other group scoffed and the rising air stopped just as suddenly as it started. Sharon took a step back, her brows furrowing slightly in pain. “You guys are not as hard to kill as you think,” a girlish voice commented.

“But do you dare kill us?” Ebiye replied, turning her glance to the direction where the voice came from. “We have been around since before your great grandparents and will still be after your grandchildren dies. It is a simple thing if we die to be reborn again to destroy everything you hold dear.”

“For her we would dare fight.” The teacher, Mrs Ugo responded this time.

“You are serious? You would dare?” Ebiye’s eyes widened at the unexpected reply.

“We would,” Lara added.

“Let’s just—” Tola made to move forward again.

“Enough!” Ebiye raised a hand, stopping her. She shifted a gaze to me as I watched the whole scene develop, my mind faint with terror. “She doesn’t even seem to know what she is and here you are to protect her?” Ebiye shook her head, turning to look at the crowd before her questioningly. “This is interesting; reds, whites, blacks, and even the little hawks banding together to protect one person? There is definitely something to this,” she muttered.

“I’ll let her go this one time, but I don’t know about all of you who came to stand against me today. You all know we hold grudges a long time,” Ebiye added, frowning. “Let’s go.” She went out of the classroom followed by her three henchmen who glared at the whole group as they passed through.

“Toke are you alright?” Lara asked, running to me.

I flinched as her hand touched me, wary of this stranger I had thought was my best friend. “I’m Okay,” I hissed quietly, moving away from her fussy hand which dusted the dirt on my cloth as I stood to my feet.

“I’m sorry, but we came as soon as you called,” one of the girls in group stepped forward and expressed, staring intently at me.

I turned her an incredulous look, and then at the others who all gazed back at me with a kind of fervency.

“All of you can go now,” Lara said, dismissing them.

They all began to leave the classroom one after the other, but not before looking me over once again before they did. Tense silence descended as I was left with Lara who went to stand by the window, facing outside.

My mind was in disarray, my knowledge of the world toppled in mere minutes. “What is Ebiye? What are you people?” I could not stop myself asking curiously after a moment, holding my breath. Could they be two different groups of witches? Because from what I saw Ebiye had to definitely be a witch, and so was Lara who had been keeping things from me, and then those other students and teachers.

“You called us,” Lara replied, turning back to face me. “We sensed your fear and came running.”

I gasped. “I called you? How?”

She shook her head. “I’m not in the best place to tell you these things, infact I can’t. But I believe you would get all your answers very soon. And don’t go asking any of those you saw here today questions, you would only embarrass them.”

“But you know what Ebiye is?” I pressed.

Lara sighed as the bell sounded, signaling the end of lunch break. She began to walk out of the class, pausing at the door. “Ebiye won’t bother you again as she promised. They usually stand by their words,” she announced before she stepped out.

Half running, I trailed behind Lara out of the classroom, scared I might have another strange encounter if I stayed alone. I eased up only when other students filled the corridor, heading for their classes.

The first thing I did when I got back to our classroom—to the desk I shared with Lara—was to relocate to an obscure unoccupied desk at the back corner of the classroom, as far away as I could get from Lara, and she said nothing, merely looking at me with hurt, sad eyes.

For the rest of the day I found myself easily shaken by the smallest noise, my chest heavy, and my breath coming in gasps as the walls of the school building seemingly closed up on me. I was like this till school closed and I ran out of the class as soon as the bell sounded to my ride at the parking lot where Joseph our driver was waiting behind the wheels of the highlander, reining in my troubled emotions as my step siblings, Yemi, and the twins joined me in the car.

“Home sweet home,” Taiwo muttered as we arrived before the two storey mansion that was our house.

Never ever have I been so happy to arrive home, running to my room as soon as I stepped down from the car to lock myself in my room for the rest of the day and totally skip lunch and dinner even when they came up to call me.

And the watcher came again that night.