p@rt 33
” I LOVE YOU, BUT…”
Freeman heard the email notification beep on his phone. He took his phone. It was the email address of the person who asked to meet him weeks back. The investor he was meant to meet when he met Winter instead.
He opened the mail and it re-ad…
” She is no more interested in you, Move on.. The attached video says it all.
Ps: It would do you good to watch the video alone.
W”
” W?” Freeman wondered
” Winter?” Freeman couldn’t believe he had been pla-yed from the start. He suddenly realized Winter was the one who invited him for the meeting and yet pretended to be just another guest.
” Witch! God punish you!” Freeman cursed …
Freeman decided to see what was in the video. He was expecting a video where Pamilerin was going to tell him, she was no more interested, but what he never expected to see in his life stared him in the face…
From when Pamilerin was behaving like a str!pper and k!ss!ngrandom men to when two different men were whoring her b©dy.
Freeman got down from his car gr-abbing his che-st ti-ght. It felt like a rope had been used to tie his heart. He wished he could re-move his heart and throw it away. He felt like dying. How could any man…no…. two men l@ytheir hands on his wife. Since they got married, he was the first and only man in Pamilerin’s life.
He paced around the street like a mad man and he started screaming. He couldn’t hold back his tears and scream.
Ajoke rushed towards him, Neighbors started opening their curtains wondering what was happening…
Ajoke wondered what had gone wrong. She looked into the car and saw Freeman’s phone. She noticed a paused video.
Ajoke pla-yed the video and she could only watch 30 seconds of the video before she broke down in tears….
******
Freeman knew he wasn’t the one driving the car back home.
The community security had showed up about Five minutes after he started screaming. The Neighbors had put a call throu-gh to the chairman of the street, who called in the necessary officers.
They had insisted Freeman and Ajoke leave the vicinity before they called in the police…
Ajoke regained herself quic-kly unlike Freeman who had become dumb struck. Ajoke knew what was happening to her daughter was more than what met the ordinary eye.
” Freeman, let us leave.” Ajoke had said to Freeman.
Ajoke had pushed Freeman into the car. Freeman sat in like a zombie.
” Freeman, be a man and start the car!” Ajoke said
Freeman’s hands shook as he managed to turn the ignition.
” We will settle this score…” Ajoke kept saying out loud as Freeman drove away from Winter’s house.
” If the woman thinks she is a witch, I will let her know I am a greater witch and no witch can eat the child of a s£nior witch.” Ajoke boasted in the car as Freeman drove off the slowest he had ever driven since he got his driver’s license…
******
Venita woke up. She saw her sisters slee-ping by her side. She knew the last she remembered was waiting for her Dad and Grandma to bring back her mother. She had been waiting in the living room with Remi.
She ran off to the living room. Remi la-id on the chair with her eyes wi-de open…
” You carried me in?” Venita asked
” You sle-pt off.” Remi replied
” Dozed off…Aunty Remi, I dozed off…They are not back?”
” Not yet!”
” Will Mummy come with them?”
” Not sure…”
” Aunty Remi, can we pray for mummy… The thing you said about bewitchment, can we pray. I remember this memory verse…
” There shall be no bewitchment against Jacob , neither any enchantment against Isreal” I can’t really remember it well… Let’s pray that God should st©p any bewitchment or enchantment Mrs Winter has put on Mummy…:” Venita said
” Ok…” Remi agreed…
*******
” Drop me off here!” Ajoke said suddenly
” What?” Freeman managed to say
” There is no point going home with you. I have serious business to carry out in the village…”
” But this is 3:22am, no bus will move at this time…”
” I want to catch the first bus. The first bus will move by 5am.”
” This place will be too dangerous for you to stay alone…”
” Freeman, don’t worry I will be fine. Go home, your children will be worried…Don’t worry, I promise you, your wife is coming back to you…The witch has put a spell on her, I have people who will take the spell away.”
Freeman nodded. He wasn’t sure he wanted Pamilerin back. Not only had a woman sle-pt with her, two men had also made a mess of her b©dy. The images flashed throu-gh his mind. He had never rou-gh handled Pamilerin the way the men did. They treated her like a who-re…
” Ok ma…” Freeman said as he pu-ll-ed up.
” You should see me In few days from now. I may nee-d to carry some sacrifices… Don’t worry, Pamilerin is a big bone that dog can not swallow.” Ajoke boasted once more.
********
Lara started gro-an ing in pain…Beauty had sle-pt off, but Lara’s painful gr-unts woke her up…
” Lara, are you okay?” Beauty asked searching for her hand in the dark…
” My stomach feels as ha-rd as a rock…and the pain I am feeling is unusual…I can’t even get up…Can you help call Chigozie? Her room is the third room on the left from our room.”
Beauty stood up, she found the wall, she followed the path of the wall to the entrance. She opened the door and got out of the room quietly. She didn’t want Baba Shagba to take the delivery.
Carefully, she got to the room Lara had told her Chigozie was…
” Aunty Chigozie!!!” Beauty said with caution. As she had learnt while living with her grandmother that most people you meet in a territory demand a certain level of respect from every newcomer even if they were younger than you.
Beauty knocked softly on the door…
” Aunty Chigozie, plea-se Lara nee-ds your attention ” Beauty said quietly…
The door opened and a familiar offensive smell oozed at her.
Baba Shagba!
p@rt 34
” I LOVE YOU, BUT…”
” What is it?” He roared
It was obvious Beauty had interrupted whatever he was doing inside…
” La…Lara.. nee-ds Aunty Chigozie ” Beauty stuterred in fear.
” Why?” Baba Shagba roared again
” I think the baby…she said her stomach feels ha-rd ..”
” Contractions…” Chigozie said from inside…
Chigozie rushed out of the room. Beauty felt someone run past her. She also noticed Baba Shagba’s smell was moving far away from her. Beauty could tell they were going to her room in haste.
Beauty found the wall and traced her way back to the room…
” You are not useful here…Stay outside” Chigozie said, afterwhich she barked out the names of the other two wives.
Beauty heard their approaching footsteps…
She tried to move away from the pas-sage so they wouldn’t collide into her…
” Come Sit here ma!” Beauty felt the teenage hand of one of the girls in the house. She took Beauty by the hand and guided her to a large stone…
” Is she about to have her baby?” Beauty asked the teenage girl
” I think so!”
” Ok…What’s your name?”
” Yewande…I am the daughter of the second wife”
” Oh!”
” Can you stay with me here and be my eyes?” Beauty asked
” Ok ma” Yewande sat beside her on the stone…
” She is really young and Beautiful, I wonder what made her stoop so low to marrying my father!” Yewande said
” I don’t know…you should have the answer to that!” Beauty replied forcing a friendly smile
“My mother told me she was charmed…and funny enough I think my mother doesnt know who really has been charmed…If anyone has been charmed in this house, it is my mother, how can you study abroad and you c@m£ to Nigeria on a research and somehow during the course of that research you met my father who you said you suddenly fell in love with…Arrhggg…” Yewande said
Beauty could hear bitterness, anger, disappointment in the voice of the young girl…
” Imagine her entire family lives in Winconsin and we are living in this dirty place. ”
” People do crazy things for love…I am a living witness to that…” Beauty said
Yewande looked at Beauty very bewildered. What her mother had told her was that she was blind and her father was trying to cure her blindness..
” You also fell In love with my father?” Yewande asked
” Nooooo….Never…my story is quite complicated but long and short is; I stupidly fell in love with a married man and out of revenge, his wife made me blind or so I thought, because now I don’t really know what the truth is, because I think my best friend set me up with your dad…” Beauty decided to pause on the giving too much information…
” Hmmm…well it’s really complicated..people do crazy things for love…Well, maybe my mother was not charmed after all, she was just unfortunate as to where Love took her to….Well then I hope love takes me to a big castle and a better life…” Yewande said laughing
” Amen!”
” You are a Christian?”
” Well…kind of…I used to go to church in my early days with my grandmother, but after I left her, I kind of left God, but now, my challenge is pushing me back to Him.”
” Hmmm….I like you…”
” Really? Thank you…I like you too”
” I attend my Christian fellowsh!pin school, but my father and mother doesn’t know. Only my younger brother knows. But it’s our little secret. I keep his secret, he keeps mine. He has two girlfriends. ” Yewande said laughing…
” Wow, that’s a big secret to keep ” Beauty said laughing. It felt so good having a conversation with a teenager.
” I will pray for you on Wednesday, when I attend the school fellowsh!p”
” Aww…thank you so much…” Beauty’s eyes dropped a few tears…
” My mother oooo!” The duo heard the loud cry of Lara …
” Open your leg and push…the baby’s head is just here” Beauty strained her ear and heard Chigozie say loudly…
” Push!Push!”
Beauty could feel her hand trembling…
” God plea-se help her pu-ll throu-gh!” Beauty prayed silently.
Yewande held her hand and wove her f!ngerswith hers.
” She will be fine!” Yewande as-sured her
*******
The sound of the baby’s cry was a beautiful one. Beauty had mixed emotions. She was happy the baby had been born successfully, but she hated the fact the baby was born into that family.
Beauty heard the cry of the baby becoming louder. She could tell someone was drawing closer to her.
” You, what are you doing there, go back to be-d.” Baba Shagba said to Yewande.
Yewande ran off…
Beauty was using her s-en-ses to determine what was happening…
She heard the quiet sob of Lara. Simultaneously, the baby was crying… Beauty strained her ear…
” It’s a boy!” Chigozie said
” I thank my stars” Baba Shagba said…
” Three of you, you can leave” Baba Shagba said
Beauty wondered who were the three…
She s-en-sed the people pas-sed by her. The Smell was familiar…
” The boy will be killed” One of the women said in what sounded like a whisper…
” He is such a handsome baby” the other person answered
Beauty felt her heart pounding…
” Was Lara really serious about them pounding her baby? ”
” No…they can’t do that!” Beauty thought.
Beauty stood up trying to follow the sound of the baby’s cry. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but she had to st©p the death of the newborn…
” This is cool money. Call Chief that the container has landed…” Beauty heard Chigozie say
“Right away” Baba Shagba said.
Baba Shagba got out of the room colliding into Beauty..
” Can’t you find somewhere to sit..” Baba Shagba said angrily without st©pping. He had something more important to deal with than Beauty.
Beauty moved towards where Baba Shagba had come out.
” Aunty Chigozie…!” Beauty said
” En …What is it? You shouldn’t be here. When we are throu-gh with her, and the children have cleaned up this place, I will s£nd for you..”
” plea-se, Is it true, you are going to kill the Baby?” Beauty said with Shakyl-ips..
Beauty heard silence as a reply and like a fast b!owing breeze, Chigozie rushed towards her…
” I believe you don’t want to end up blind and dumb. Keep your mouth shut about the things you hear here or you will have double calamity to deal with…”
Beauty swallowed her saliva as her mouth felt dry all of sudden…
” How much are they willing to pay for the child’s life, i am re-ady to pay for it. plea-se don’t kill the baby.”
Chigozie is interested..Chigizie was not one to joke with money…
” How much can you pay for the child?” Chigozie asked
” How much is the person willing to pay,” Beauty asked
” N500k” Chigozie lied as the actual money was 200k.
” Tell Baba Shagba, I will pay him double of that if he can re-lease the baby.”
” And where do you plan on getting this money?”
” I have it in my bank account…My phone is with Baba Shagba. If I can access it, I will transfer the money”
Chigozie loved the new angle to things. Chigozie pu-ll-ed Beauty aside.
” Here Is the thing, this has to stay between us, I will find a way to convince Baba Shagba not to kill the Baby, but he must not know about you buying the life of the baby.” Chigozie said
Beauty could s-en-se something deceitful in Chigozie’s words, but life was risk and she was willing to risk her money to save the boy’s life…
To be continued…