Chapter 1
" THE KNIVES SHE DROPPED"
Sweat was cutting lines down my back.
The afternoon sun was too much. My cutlass was dull. I had been working since morning, and it was not cutting anything well anymore. My stomach was empty.
"Just one more scoop," I told myself. Just one more scoop, and I would go home. That was what I kept telling myself as I dug.
That was when I saw her shadow. It fell over me. It was too big. Still, I didn't need to look up to know who it was.
The mad woman.
She didn't knock. She never did. She just walked into my compound like she owned it, barefoot, her wrapper too tight, and holding a cutlass. Not the farm type, but the sharp type. The type that ends arguments.
My chest went cold. "Abeg, ma..." I started. I wanted to beg her to leave me alone.
She pushed me hard before I could finish my words. My tools scattered against the stones, and my cutlass clanged against them. The sound was loud in my quiet compound.
For one second, we just stared at each other. Her face was twisted—not with anger, but with something worse, as if she knew a secret that would break me. She looked at me like she knew something about me that I didn't know myself.
Then she reached into the fold of her wrapper and pulled out a knife. Small and plain, but the blade caught the sun and flashed. The light entered my eyes. It was not a normal village knife. It was clean and sharp.
She dropped it at my feet.
Clang.
Before I could speak, she brought out another one. Bigger and older. There were stains on the handle that I didn't want to name. I didn't want to think about what those stains were.
Clang.
The second knife landed near the first one.
She looked at me one last time. No smile, no frown. Just that twisted face that knew a secret.
She turned and walked out without a word or explanation. I heard her bare feet—kpa kpa kpa—on the dry ground until the gate creaked shut.
I sat there for a long time, mud on my hands and two knives at my feet. My heart was beating like I'd just run from the police. I was alone in my compound with two strange knives.
But the second knife was still warm. I touched it. It was warm, as if someone had just held it or it had just come from a fire. It felt warm in my cold hands.
And somehow, I knew this was only the beginning. This was not the end. Something had started.
Who's she?
