Chapter Three
1047 Words
Stories the Elders Bury
Kena learned quickly that there were questions children were allowed to ask, and questions that made adults uncomfortable. The first were answered easily—about planting seasons, about kinship ties, about why the moon sometimes disappeared. The second were met with silence, with coughs, with sudden instructions to fetch water or sweep yards that were already clean.
The baobab belonged to the second kind.
After the night the cry returned, closer and heavier, Kena could no longer carry her curiosity alone. It sat in her chest like a stone, pulling her thoughts toward the valley no matter where she stood. She tried to distract herself with chores, with school, with humming work songs under her breath. Nothing loosened its grip.
So she went to Grandmother Akosua.
Akosua lived at the far end of the village, in a compound shaded by kola nut trees. Her back was bent, her steps slow, but her eyes were sharp, bright with knowing. People said her wrinkles held whole libraries, each line a story folded into skin. When disputes arose, Akosua was called. When births were difficult, she was sent for. When memories grew dangerous, people pretended she did not hear them.
Kena found her stirring a pot over a low fire, the scent of herbs and palm oil thick in the air. Akosua did not look up as Kena approached.
“You are carrying a question,” she said calmly. “Put it down before it breaks you.”
Kena swallowed. “Grandmother… the baobab.”
Akosua’s hand paused for the briefest moment, then resumed its slow circle. The fire crackled softly, as if listening.
“What of it?” she asked.
“It cries,” Kena said. “I heard it.”
This time, Akosua looked up. Her gaze held no surprise, only recognition. “Yes,” she said. “It does.”
Kena’s heart quickened. “Why?”
Akosua sighed, a sound like wind moving through dry leaves. “The baobab remembers,” she said. “Trees are older than our forgetting. Long ago—before your mother’s mother learned to walk—a child was wronged beneath it.”
Kena leaned forward, breath caught. “What happened?”
“Justice slept,” Akosua replied, stirring the pot again. “And when justice sleeps, the land stays awake. The earth learned to cry because no one listened.”
Kena’s fingers curled into her skirt. “Where is the child now?”
Akosua did not answer at once. She lifted the pot from the fire, set it aside, and wiped her hands on a cloth. When she spoke again, her voice was softer, heavier.
“Everywhere,” she said. “And nowhere.”
The words settled between them, dense with meaning Kena could feel but not yet grasp. She wanted to ask more—what kind of wrong, who was responsible, why nothing had been done—but Akosua had already turned away, busying herself with bowls and spoons.
“Some stories,” she said quietly, “are buried so the village can stand. Dig too deep, and you weaken the ground beneath everyone’s feet.”
Kena left with more weight than she had arrived with.
That evening, the sky darkened early, clouds pressing low over the hills. The village moved uneasily, voices hushed, footsteps hurried. Kena ate little, her mind replaying Akosua’s words over and over. Justice slept. She wondered how something so important could ever sleep, and who had rocked it into rest.
Night fell thick and heavy.
The cry returned.
It rose from the direction of the baobab, unmistakable now—closer, fuller, threaded with urgency. It was no longer careful. It no longer feared being heard. It called out, pressing against the walls of houses, slipping through cracks and dreams.
Kena sat upright on her mat, heart pounding. She pressed her hands to her ears, but the sound was inside her now. It vibrated in her chest, echoed in her bones. Images flickered behind her eyes: a small hand grasping at dirt, voices arguing, silence chosen over truth.
She gasped, breath shuddering.
Adzo stirred beside her. “Kena?” she murmured.
“I’m fine,” Kena whispered, though her voice shook.
The cry swelled, then softened, as though satisfied to be acknowledged. Tears slid down Kena’s temples into her hair. She did not know whose grief she carried, only that it was heavy and old and refusing to be ignored.
By morning, her decision had already been made.
She returned to Akosua, finding her seated beneath the kola trees, shelling groundnuts. Kena knelt before her without being asked.
“You will go to the baobab,” Akosua said, not looking up.
Kena’s throat tightened. “Yes.”
Akosua nodded slowly. “Then listen well. Not just with your ears.”
“What happened to the child?” Kena asked again, her voice barely more than breath.
Akosua’s hands stilled. “The child trusted adults,” she said. “And adults chose peace over truth. They said silence would heal. They were wrong.”
Kena felt anger stir, sharp and unfamiliar. “Why didn’t anyone speak?”
“Because speaking has consequences,” Akosua replied. “And cowards fear consequences more than they fear ghosts.”
The words burned.
Akosua met Kena’s gaze then, eyes fierce despite their age. “The baobab cries because memory demands a witness. It has chosen you.”
“I’m just a child,” Kena said.
“So was the one who was wronged,” Akosua answered.
Silence stretched between them, thick but not empty.
“Go carefully,” Akosua said at last. “Do not promise what you cannot carry. And remember—truth does not always ask to be kind.”
That night, the cry came again, but it no longer felt lost. It felt waiting.
Kena stood at the doorway of her home, the red earth cool beneath her feet, the path toward the valley clear in her mind. She understood now that the elders had buried the story not because it was untrue, but because it was dangerous.
And buried stories, she was learning, do not stay quiet forever.
The land had chosen its listener.
And Kena could no longer pretend not to hear.
- Writer
