The moon was low and orange, resting like a quiet witness over Obade.
But in the deep hours of night, a single lantern flickered far from the village.
It was Ifeoma.
Wrapped in a dark shawl, her hands trembling but steady, she stepped beyond the path of the ancestors carrying only a leather-bound book, the jawbone amulet, and a whispered map passed down through centuries.
She was searching for the Last Drum.
The Forbidden Place
She traveled east of the river, where no one dared go.
It was a deadland.
Black soil.
No birds.
No water.
Even the wind refused to speak there.
They called it Okú Agbára The Place Where Power Was Buried.
Legend said it was where Ìyá Mú's body had been dismembered after her spirit was sealed.
Where the first drummaker, Adekunle, had hidden the true heart of the drum one never played, one never completed.
One meant only for the end of all things.
Visions on the Path
As Ifeoma walked, she saw them
The girls.
They didn't speak.
Just watched.
Some with necks bent at impossible angles.
Some still clutching the offerings they'd never had time to give.
And when she stepped into the center of the wasteland,
they disappeared.
All but one.
A girl no older than seven. Hair braided with shells. Eyes like still water.
She walked forward and placed her hand on Ifeoma's chest.
Then whispered:
"He buried it inside a lie."
Unearthing the Lie
Ifeoma dropped to her knees.
The book trembled in her satchel. The pages fluttered open on their own.
There, etched between fading lines and prayers, was something hidden an ink that only blood could reveal. A map. A phrase.
"Under the chapel, where silence was preached."
Her breath caught.
Not Okú Agbára.
Not the wasteland.
The church.
Back in Obade.
Where Pastor Eli had once stood, every Sunday, preaching over a stone floor worn smooth by decades of deception.
The drum wasn't buried in some forgotten place.
It had been beneath their feet all along.
Return to Obade
By dawn, she was back.
Ola met her at the chapel steps.
"You found it?" he asked, reading her expression.
"I found where he hid it," she said. "We were looking too far away."
They broke through the chapel floor together, past stone and old foundations
Until they found a sealed chamber.
And in it:
A drum, untouched by rot or time.
Larger than the others.
Carved with the names of every girl sacrificed.
And on its surface burned deep into the wood was a single word in ancient script:
"Ẹ̀SẸ̀."
Meaning: Guilt.
The Decision
The elders gathered. The people watched in stunned silence.
"We shouldn't play it," one of them warned. "It could awaken something else."
But Ifeoma looked at Ola.
"She didn't ask for silence anymore," she said. "She asked for remembrance."
Ola touched the drum. "Then we let it speak."
He struck it once soft, reverent.
The sound echoed not through the air but through blood.
Everyone heard something different:
A name.
A scream.
A lullaby.
A promise.
And then
Stillness.
The ground didn't shake.
The river didn't rise.
But a fog lifted.
And for the first time, the land felt clean.
Later that night…
Amaka asked Ifeoma, "Do you think it's over?"
She shook her head slowly.
"No. But the drums are no longer tools of silence."
She turned to the river.
"They're witnesses now.