The elders did not sleep that night.
They gathered in the old shrine near the village edge, a place nobody used anymore. Cobwebs covered the carved faces. The air smelled of dust and fear. An oil lamp shook in the wind, throwing ugly shadows on the walls.
"We made a mistake," Elder Nwoke said, his voice low. "We should have finished it long ago."
No one asked what it was. They all knew.
They spoke of the old days, when the forest gave rain and strong harvests. When sickness avoided the village. When the price was blood, and nobody complained because hunger was worse.
They spoke of the tree.
"The boy is not the problem," another elder said. "He is only the door."
They decided Chukwuemeka had to be taken before sunrise. Tied. Carried into the forest. Returned to the tree. Whatever it wanted, it would take it back.
That was the plan.
But the tree had its own plans.
At midnight, the screams started.
Not one. Not two. Many.
People ran out of their houses holding lamps and cutlasses. The ground near the forest was moving. Not shaking—opening. Cracks split the earth like broken mouths. Roots pushed through, thick and wet, dragging soil and stones with them.
A man fell into one of the cracks.
The ground closed.
His screams stopped.
Women cried. Children fainted. Someone shouted that the forest was walking toward them.
And then they saw him.
Chukwuemeka stood at the edge of the village.
Barefoot. Calm.
The roots stopped moving when he raised his hand.
The silence was worse than the screams.
"You lied to it," he said.
His voice did not sound like a child's anymore. It sounded layered, like something else was speaking behind him.
"You fed it blood," he continued. "Then you stopped. You forgot. But it did not."
An elder rushed forward with a charm, shouting prayers.
The charm burst into ash before it touched Chukwuemeka.
The elder fell, coughing black liquid, the same way Mama Uju did.
Dead in seconds.
Panic exploded.
People ran. People tripped. Some did not make it far before roots wrapped around their legs and dragged them screaming into the ground. The soil swallowed blood like rainwater.
Chukwuemeka did not move.
He watched.
The tree's voice filled his head, loud now, happy.
This is remembrance.
This is payment.
By morning, six people were dead.
The village square was destroyed. Cracks ran through the paths. The forest had moved closer—everyone could see it. Trees stood where open land used to be.
The elders fell to their knees.
"We are sorry," they cried. "Tell it to stop!"
Chukwuemeka looked at them.
For a moment, the boy inside him tried to speak. Tried to beg. Tried to cry.
The tree crushed that voice.
"It is too late," he said.
Behind him, deep in the forest, Ọkụ Mmụọ groaned like something waking from a long sleep.
And the village finally understood:
They were no longer living beside the forest.
They were living inside it.