Chapter 1: The Kitchen Window
1674 Words
The air in our living room was so thick with tension you could have carved it with a dull kitchen knife. My mother stood in the center of the rug, her wrapper tied tight around her waist—a sure sign that she was ready for a long-distance shouting match. My father sat in his armchair, hidden behind a newspaper, though I knew he wasn't reading a single word. He was just waiting for the storm to pass.
"You are a very stubborn, lazy, and ungrateful child!" My mother’s voice hit a high pitch that made the glass cabinets rattle. "After everything we have done? After the private tutors, the school fees, the clothes on your back? This is how you repay us? By behaving like a loose child who doesn't want to touch her books?"
I rolled my eyes, a habit I knew would only fan the flames. "Mom, it’s not that I don’t want to study. I just don’t want to study Medicine. Why is that so hard to understand? I want to act. I want to be on screen. Nollywood is a billion-dollar industry and—"
"Nollywood!" she spat the word out like it was poison. "Acting is for people who don't have a future. We suggested a medical course so you could have discipline, a title, a life! But no, you want to be dancing under trees and crying for the camera. You are acting this way because you have parents who care and love you. If you had none, if you were out on the streets of Lagos with no one to call, you would understand what this world is truly like!"
Her words felt like physical blows. I didn't wait for her to finish. I turned on my heel and bolted toward the back of the house. I couldn't breathe in there. I slammed the kitchen door behind me and pressed my forehead against the cool glass of the window.
Outside, it was a windy night. The palm fronds were whipping against each other, sounding like distant applause or maybe a warning. I looked at my reflection—a girl who felt like she was trapped in a script she hadn't written. Ungrateful? Was it ungrateful to want a life that felt like mine?
I watched the shadows dance in the yard. The wind began to howl, a low, moaning sound that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards.
“Harriet...”
I stiffened. It was a whisper, but it was clear.
“Harriet... Harriet... Harriet...”
Six times. The name felt heavy, like it was pulling at my soul. Suddenly, the kitchen door creaked open. I expected my mother with a cane, but instead, a small girl, maybe eight years old, stepped in. She was wearing a tattered shift dress and her hair was threaded in neat, tight rows.
"Harriet," the girl said, her voice urgent. "Haven't you heard? Mum has been calling you. It’s long past bedtime. Do you want her to lash out on you again? Come, let’s go to bed."
I stared at her, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Who are you? And why did you call me Harriet? My name is Emily. And I thought you said my mum called?"
The girl moved closer, her eyes darting to the door. "That was just an excuse to get you out of the kitchen before she loses her temper completely. You know how she gets when the moon is like this. Stop being weird and come on."
I felt a strange dizziness wash over me. The kitchen smelled different—less like my mother’s jollof rice and more like woodsmoke and dried fish. I found myself following the girl, my feet feeling heavier with every step. We walked into a room that was small, dark, and smelled of earth. Two other girls, roughly my age, were tucking thin sheets into mats on the floor.
"Anika, Polle Allen, she’s finally here," the little girl whispered.
The two girls looked up. Their faces were weary, older than they should have been. I crossed my arms over my chest, my "sassy" defense mechanism kicking in. "I don’t know what kind of prank this is, or where my room went, but I’m not staying here."
Anika sighed, not even looking at me. "Just get in bed, Harriet. Before the lamp goes out."
I didn't answer. I climbed onto the furthest mat, my mind spinning. This had to be a dream. A very vivid, very dusty dream. I closed my eyes, praying that when I opened them, I’d hear my mother’s voice again—even if she was scolding me.I was dreaming of home. In my dream, the air conditioner in my bedroom was humming its familiar, mechanical tune, and I was wrapped in my heavy duvet, the one with the floral patterns I’d picked out for my sixteenth birthday. I could smell my mom’s cooking—the spicy, rich aroma of party jollof rice wafting from the kitchen. I could almost hear the distant sound of the generator and the muffled voices of our neighbors in Lagos. It was peaceful. It was safe. It was a world where my biggest problem was a chemistry test or a disagreement over my career choices.Then, the world shattered.
It wasn't a gradual waking. It was a violent, freezing shock that felt like a thousand needles piercing my skin at once. A massive weight of liquid slammed into my face, filling my nose and mouth, cutting off my breath. I choked, my body convulsing in a blind, instinctive panic. I lunged upward, my hands flailing against the wet sheets—no, not sheets. They were coarse, damp mats that smelled of mold and old grass.
"Get up!" a voice roared. It wasn't the voice of my mother. My mother’s voice, even when she was screaming at me for being lazy, had a foundation of love. This voice was like the sound of grinding stones. "Get up, you useless, sluggish girl! The sun is already eyeing the horizon and you lie here like a queen?"
I coughed, spitting out water that tasted of salt and silt. My vision was blurry, my hair plastered to my face in wet, tangled clumps. I wiped my eyes aggressively, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. As my sight cleared, I saw her.
She was a tall woman, silhouetted against the dim morning light filtering through the thatched roof. She looked like a statue carved from dark mahogany, but her eyes were alive with a terrifying, cold fire. In her right hand, she gripped a thick, knotted cane—a cain, as they seemed to call it here—and in her left, she held the empty wooden bucket.
"Who do you think you are?" I screamed. The "sassy" Emily, the girl who never backed down from a fight in the school hallway, surged to the surface. I didn't care where I was or how I got there; I was furious. I scrambled to my feet, my chest heaving. "What is wrong with you? You don't just throw water on people! Do you know who my father is? This is assault! I will literally have you arrested!"
I stepped toward her, my hand raised in a reflexive gesture of self-defense, ready to push her back, ready to demand an explanation for this insanity.
Slap.
The sound was like a gunshot in the small, cramped room. My head snapped to the side with such force that I heard a dull thud in my ears. For a few seconds, the world went completely white. A searing, throbbing heat radiated from my cheek, and I felt the metallic taste of blood where my teeth had grazed the inside of my lip. I stumbled back, my legs hitting the edge of the sleeping mat, and I collapsed onto the floor.
"You dare?" the woman hissed. She leaned over me, her shadow swallowing me whole. "You dare raise a hand to Nzinga? You are Harriet, a child of this house, and you will learn the weight of my hand until your spirit is as flat as the dust you sleep on."
I looked up at her, my eyes watering from the pain, but also from a deep, soul-crushing confusion. "My name... my name is Emily," I whispered, though my voice lacked its previous fire. "I live in a house with a gate. I have a phone. I have a life. You are not my mother."
Nzinga laughed. It wasn't a sound of joy; it was a dry, rattling sound that made my skin crawl. "Emily? You cling to these fever dreams like a drowning person clings to sea foam. You are Harriet. And today, Harriet will learn how to grind the corn. If the flour is not fine enough to pass through a silk cloth, you will eat the cane for dinner instead of yam."
She turned her gaze to the other side of the room. I followed her look and saw Anika and Polle Allen. They were already standing, their heads bowed so low their chins almost touched their chests. They were perfectly still, their bodies trembling in a rhythmic, practiced way that told me they had seen this scene play out a hundred times before. Even little Sarafina was there, clutching a tattered rag, her eyes wide with a mixture of pity and terror as she looked at me.
"Anika! Polle!" Nzinga barked. "Take this stubborn goat to the grinding stones. If she stops to rest, call me. I have much to discuss with the ancestors today, and I do not wish to be disturbed by her whining."
Nzinga swept out of the hut, her heavy footsteps echoing on the hard-packed earth outside. The silence she left behind was heavy and suffocating.
- Writer
