It was the hum of Lagos that got to her first. Not the thrumming of a thousand generators on a Thursday night, nor the incessant, angry horn of the yellow danfo buses. It was the hum that had nothing to do with engines or traffic. It was the low, persistent vibration that she alone could hear—the echoes. A low frequency that felt less like a sound and more like a permanent presence, a ghost in the machine of her everyday life. It had always been there, a soft, buzzing noise in the background of her consciousness, but today it was louder. The city was speaking to her.
Ifeyinwa Eze was halfway up the spiraling staircase of the new ECOWAS headquarters, her heels clicking a precise rhythm on the polished marble, when the echoes flared. The building was her triumph, a steel-and-glass monument to her future, but the past was clinging to it like dust. A whisper from the first man who'd laid a foundation stone, his voice a gravelly prayer for his son. A high-pitched, girlish giggle from a woman who had sold roasted corn to the construction workers. Ifeyinwa gripped the chrome railing, her knuckles white, and squeezed her eyes shut. She tried to filter it out, to focus on the smooth, cool feel of the steel beneath her palm, on the weight of her briefcase, on anything but the ghosts.
Let it go, Ifeyinwa. Let it go.
She had spent her life trying to let it go. Her mother, Adaora, had called it a legacy, a gift passed from the first daughter to the first daughter. Ifeyinwa called it a headache. It was the reason she had left Enugu, the reason she had buried herself in her work, in the sterile order of architectural drawings and the hard lines of a cityscape she could shape with her own two hands. A city that, unlike her family, had no secrets and no pasts to whisper at her.
The echoes subsided as she reached the tenth floor, a familiar silence greeting her in the air-conditioned hallway. Her office was a sanctuary, all minimalist white and panoramic windows. The view of Lagos spread out before her, a sprawling, chaotic quilt of rusted roofs and green trees, with the sparkling waters of the Lagoon glinting in the distance. This was her Lagos, the one she had built. The other one, the one that hummed with a history she didn't want to carry, felt a world away.
"Morning, Ifeyinwa," her colleague, a lanky man named Femi, said as he passed her door. "The new renderings for the Lekki project are looking sharp."
"Thanks," she replied, her voice still a little tight. She placed her briefcase on her desk and walked to the window, watching the city breathe. Femi's compliment was a welcome distraction. The Lekki project was a personal mission, a chance to build something beautiful and necessary. It was a tangible thing. The echoes were not. The echoes were a ghost she could not escape. And as she stared out at the city, a voice—a new one, sharp and clear—cut through the usual hum, sending a jolt of ice down her spine. A voice from a past she had worked so hard to bury.
The voice was a whisper, but it was not from a ghost. It was the familiar, living voice of a man she hadn't heard in five years, the kind of voice that had once felt like home.
"Ifeyinwa. Is that you?"
She turned from the window. The office door was ajar, and a man stood in the doorway, framed against the bright Lagos light. It was Nonso. His face was a map of the years that had passed—a little more tired, a new scar just above his left eyebrow—but his eyes held the same warmth she remembered, the same easy confidence. The hum of the echoes momentarily disappeared, replaced by a different kind of noise in her head: a frantic scramble of memory.
"Nonso?" she said, the name feeling foreign on her tongue. "What are you doing here?"
He took a step inside, his gaze sweeping over her immaculate office. "I'm a consultant on the new Lekki project," he said, the words carefully chosen. "I've been working with your firm for a few weeks, but I didn't realize until today that you were the lead." He smiled, a flash of white that could still make her stomach flutter. "You've done well for yourself, Ifeyinwa."
The compliment was a dagger, wrapped in flattery. He had always known how to get to her. She remembered the last time they had spoken, a late-night phone call filled with a rage that had felt so alien. He had accused her of deceit, of lying to his family, of something so nonsensical she had hung up and never answered his calls again. It was a wound she had believed was long-healed. But seeing him now, in her space, the old pain flared.
"I have," she said, her voice a cold and steady line. "I built this."
Nonso's smile faded. "I know. It's beautiful. But some things can't be built over, Ifeyinwa. They just... are. Like the truth." His eyes met hers, and for a moment, she saw the boy she had once loved, haunted by a shadow she couldn't understand. "My mother is sick," he said, his voice dropping low. "She talks about you. About a secret you knew."
A cold dread washed over her. He wasn't talking about their breakup. He was talking about something else entirely, something related to the very thing she had tried to run from. It was an old lie, one her family had insisted she tell to protect everyone involved. A lie that had nothing to do with her, or so she had always been told. But hearing it from Nonso, here and now, made the echoes of the city suddenly feel less like a curse and more like a warning. The past was not just humming in the walls; it was standing right in front of her.
Her mind spun back five years, a frantic reel of images. The hospital room in Enugu, sterile and smelling of disinfectant. Her mother, Adaora, her face tight with worry. Nonso's mother, seated beside a bed, her body trembling with grief. And the boy in the bed, Nonso's younger brother, Chidi, pale and still, a victim of a terrible accident. The whispers had told Ifeyinwa what had truly happened. Not a simple accident, but a reckless choice made by someone else. A choice a powerful family had paid to keep hidden. Ifeyinwa's family had been a part of the cover-up, coerced into silence by a debt. And her mother, wanting to protect Ifeyinwa from being a part of it, had asked her to lie to Nonso.
"Tell him his brother was alone," Adaora had whispered, her hands gripping Ifeyinwa's. "Tell him you saw nothing."
Ifeyinwa had told the lie. A single, simple lie that had fractured her relationship with Nonso and created a chasm between her and her own family. She had told herself it was necessary, a small sacrifice for a greater peace. But now, seeing Nonso's face, she knew the cost was far greater than she had ever imagined.
"My mother keeps asking for you," Nonso said, breaking into her thoughts. "She keeps saying you're the only one who can make it right. Something about 'the river and the first daughter'." He shook his head, looking bewildered. "I don't know what it means."
The river. The echoes. The voices she heard. Ifeyinwa's heart hammered against her ribs. The "river" was a specific echo, a memory of a girl who had drowned in a local river centuries ago. The first daughter had heard the girl's cry for help. Her lineage had been cursed and blessed with the ability to hear those echoes, but they had always kept it a secret from outsiders. A secret to be passed down.
"I...I don't know what you're talking about," she said, the lie feeling weak and transparent now.
"Then what is this?" Nonso pulled out a folded, yellowed newspaper clipping from his pocket, his hand trembling slightly. "My mother gave this to me before she got too sick. 'Tragedy at Olumo River. Witnesses say a young boy was pushed...'" He pointed to the date. "That was the day before Chidi's accident. I never saw it until last week."
The article was a ghost, a solid, tangible piece of a past she had tried to build over. Ifeyinwa felt the hum of the echoes return, stronger now. Not from the building, but from the paper itself, a low, urgent thrum. She took a step back, bumping into her desk.
Nonso looked at her, his expression a mixture of hurt and accusation. "Whatever it is you and your family know, Ifeyinwa, you need to tell me. My mother is dying, and she won't be at peace until she knows the truth."
He didn't wait for a response. He simply placed the clipping on her desk and turned to leave. At the door, he paused. "If you ever were the person I thought you were," he said, his voice flat, "you'll find me."
The door clicked shut behind him, leaving Ifeyinwa alone in her silent, perfect office. She stood there for a long time, the echoes of the past screaming at her from the yellowed newspaper clipping. She had built a fortress around her life, a beautiful, sterile building of steel and glass. But Nonso's visit, and the paper he left behind, had just blown a gaping hole in its foundation. Her career, her carefully constructed peace, her whole life—it was all at risk. But the lie, and the truth it hid, was now a living thing, a force that had returned to claim her. She picked up the clipping, the thin paper feeling heavy in her hands. The echoes were no longer a curse. They were a guide. And she knew, with a certainty that both terrified and energized her, that she had to follow them.