Chapter: 13
The grove was quieter now, but silence didn't mean peace. It was a waiting silence — heavy, pregnant, full of something ancient that stirred beneath the roots and rocks. Amira stood barefoot at the shrine again, her eyes fixed on the fractured mirror lying on the altar like a relic lost in time.
She had not come to run. Not anymore. She came for answers.
The name had echoed through her dreams for nights on end now — Asanma. Always whispered. Always mournful.
This time, Amira came prepared. She had the letter from her grandmother, now fully deciphered through intuition more than language. She had wrapped the broken mirror in white cloth, laced with palm oil and hibiscus petals, just as the instructions said. She had fasted for three days, spoken no lies, shed no blood.
Tonight was the night the veil would lift.
She placed the mirror on the earth. Her fingers, though trembling, moved with purpose as she drew symbols around the stone with chalk and ground charcoal. At the center, she placed a single lock of her hair, cut and tied with a red thread.
"Spirit of the first mother," she whispered, voice tight with awe and fear. "I seek you. I carry your name in blood. Come if you still wander."
The wind shuddered. Leaves rustled. The flame of her lantern hissed and nearly died.
And then — it happened.
From the mirror, a vapor rose — gray, swirling, shaped like breath on a winter morning. Slowly, the fog coalesced into a woman's form. She was tall and regal, wrapped in ancient ceremonial cloth. Her face was a haunting echo of Amira's own — same high cheekbones, same sharp chin, same fire behind the eyes — but sorrow clung to her like dust to a forgotten book.
"I am Asanma," the spirit said, her voice rippling like water disturbed. "And you are my return."
Amira's knees gave way. She fell into a seated position, heart racing, head bowed.
Asanma stepped forward, or rather, her image glided just above the earth. "You bear what I could not finish. You carry the voice I was denied."
"I don't understand," Amira whispered. "Why me?"
"Because you are the unwritten verse. The one who must end the silence."
Asanma began to speak, her words forming visions in the air around them. Amira saw flickers of an ancient time — women dressed in flowing wrappers performing rituals under full moons, calling upon the spirits of air and river and bone. In their midst stood Asanma, a priestess of great power and gentleness.
She had been betrayed. One of her fellow seers — a man named Orika — had desired her power for himself. When she refused to sacrifice her unborn child to a twisted ritual he devised to merge the spiritual and physical realms, he cursed her. Bound her soul between worlds. Her child — Amira's ancestor — was taken and hidden away.
"I never crossed over," Asanma whispered. "My soul lingers in stone and wind, in salt and grief. And through your blood, I've remained."
Amira felt tears pool in her eyes. "What do you want from me?"
"I want to be heard," Asanma said. "To have my story told in truth. Not in whispers. Not in fear. I want to be named again under the sun. To be honored."
Amira reached out, her hand hovering just above the shimmering spirit. "How?"
"There is a rite," Asanma replied. "A restoration. It must be done over three nights, in silence. You must invite me into the waking world — not through possession, but through remembering."
Amira's breath caught. She had never felt so small, and yet so chosen.
"You are the one I waited for," the spirit said. "I called for you in the tide. In the bones of the cliffs. In the dreams of those who've forgotten."
The air shimmered. Asanma began to fade.
"You must begin tomorrow," she said. "When the first star rises. I will come again. And then — we will finish what was stolen."
And like a sigh into the night, she vanished.
🌒 Later That Night
Amira returned to the house she once shared with her grandmother. Everything felt heavier now — the floors, the walls, her own skin. She stood in front of the mirror in the bedroom, gazing not at herself, but through herself.
Elias arrived at the door a few minutes later, breathless, carrying a carved wooden staff.
"I saw it," he said. "I saw her. She came to me in a dream."
Amira nodded slowly, her voice quiet. "She's real. Her name is Asanma."
Elias stepped forward, hands trembling. "And what does she want?"
Amira turned to him. "To come home."