BURIED ALIVE

CHAPTER 4: THE RETURN

Ire village had not seen a funeral like that in many years.

It was not a real funeral, because there was no body. But it was a funeral all the same.

Five days after Amara disappeared, Jalen came back to the village alone. His eyes were red. His clothes were dirty. He stood in the middle of the village square and told the elders a story.

He said Amara had left him.

He said she had been angry that he spent so much time at the palace. He said she told him she did not want to be married to a man who was never home. He said she packed her small bag in the night and said she was going to her cousin's village far away, to start a new life.

"Did you try to stop her?" the elders asked.

"I begged her," Jalen cried, and the tears were real, because guilt looks exactly like grief. "But she said her heart was tired. She left."

Some women whispered. Amara loved Jalen too much to just leave like that, they said. But what could they do? A husband said his wife left. There was no body, no fight that anyone heard. The elders told Jalen to go and bring her back, but he said he went to her cousin's village and they said she never arrived.

So the village did what villages do when a woman disappears. They mourned her as if she was dead. Her mother cried for three days. Her friends gathered at her hut and swept it clean. They placed her favorite wooden comb on her mat.

Jalen sat in that hut alone at night and did not sleep. He heard her voice every time the wind blew. He saw her face in every shadow. He had not eaten properly since that night in the forest. Baba Sule at the palace had noticed.

"Boy, you look like a ghost," Baba Sule said. "What is wrong with you?"

Jalen could not answer. He wanted to tell someone. He wanted to run back to that grave and dig with his hands until he found her. But he was a coward. He was afraid of the Princess. He was afraid of going to prison. So he said nothing and let the village believe his lie.

In the palace, Princess Zara was pleased.

"So, she is gone?" she asked Jalen when he returned to work. She was sitting in her garden, eating grapes.

Jalen knelt. "Yes, my princess. She... she left. My old life is buried."

Zara smiled. A slow, satisfied smile. "Good. I knew you were a wise man, Jalen. You have made the right choice. Now you can focus on your work. Now you can focus on... us."

She reached out to touch his hair. Jalen flinched, but he did not pull away this time. He had sold his soul. He could not afford to say no again.

Zara thought the story was finished. She thought the herb seller was gone forever, buried under sand and forgotten.

She was wrong.

---

On the fifteenth day after she was buried, Amara decided to go home.

She stood outside Kian's cabin in the early morning. Kian had made her a new wrapper from a fine deer skin he traded, and had carved her a small walking stick. Her hair, which had been full of sand, was now washed and braided again. Her face was still thin, her eyes still had dark circles, but there was something different about her.

She was not the soft, laughing herb seller who only talked about soups and market prices. That Amara had died in that grave.

This Amara stood straighter. Her eyes were harder. When she spoke, her voice did not shake.

"Kian, if I go back, they will talk. They might even try to hurt me again."

Kian leaned against his doorway, arms crossed. "I know."

"Are you... are you coming with me?"

Kian had been waiting for that question. He had lived alone for two years. He liked the quiet. He liked not having to answer to anyone. But in the last two weeks, the quiet had changed. The cabin felt less empty when Amara was there. He liked hearing her hum that village song while she pounded herbs.

"I found you in that grave," he said. "I didn't pull you out just so you could be put back in again. I will come. I will walk behind you. But this is your return, Amara. You must walk in front."

Amara nodded. Tears came to her eyes, but she wiped them quickly. She did not want to cry anymore.

They started walking as the sun was rising. It was a two-hour walk from the deep forest to Ire village. Every step Amara took, her heart beat faster.

What would her mother say? What would her friends say? What would Jalen say when he saw her?

Would he be happy she was alive? Or would he be terrified because his crime was walking back to him?

The path became familiar. The big mango tree where the children played. The stream where women fetched water. The smell of smoke from morning fires.

A woman with a pot of water on her head was the first person to see them. She was coming from the stream. She saw a thin woman walking with a hunter. She looked closer.

The pot of water fell from her head and broke.

"GHOST! GHOST! AMARA'S GHOST!" she screamed and ran.

Amara flinched. Kian put a steady hand on her shoulder.

"Continue walking," he whispered.

By the time Amara reached the edge of the village, a crowd had already gathered. People were shouting. Children were crying and hiding behind their mothers.

"Is that Amara?"

"No, it cannot be! Jalen said she left!"

"She is dead! We mourned her!"

"Look at her eyes! She came back from the dead!"

Amara kept walking. Her legs were shaking, but she kept her head up. She saw her mother's hut. Her mother, Mama Nkechi, was standing outside, hearing the noise.

Mama Nkechi looked up. She saw her daughter.

For three seconds, there was silence.

Then Mama Nkechi screamed a scream that came from her soul. "MY DAUGHTER! MY DAUGHTER!"

She ran and nearly knocked Amara down. She hugged her, she touched her face, her hair, her hands, to make sure she was real, warm, alive.

"They said you left! They said you left us! My daughter! Where have you been? What happened to you?"

Amara hugged her mother and finally, after two weeks of holding it in, she broke down and cried. Loud, painful cries.

"Mama, he tried to kill me. Jalen tried to kill me. He buried me alive in the forest."

The crowd gasped. A collective intake of breath.

"What?"

"What did she say?"

"Jalen buried her?"

At that moment, Jalen was in his hut. He heard the shouting. He heard someone shout "Amara is back!" His blood froze.

He ran out. He pushed through the crowd.

And there she was.

Amara. Alive. Standing. With sand still in her nightmares but not on her skin anymore. Next to a tall hunter with a scar and a bow.

Jalen's knees gave way. He fell to the ground.

"Amara..." he whispered. His face went white like he had seen a ghost. Which, in a way, he had.

Amara looked at him. The man she had loved since she was fourteen. The man she had cooked for, prayed for, waited for. The man who had pushed sand into her mouth.

She did not scream. She did not hit him. She just looked at him with eyes so empty and so full of pain that Jalen started to sob.

"No... no... you... you are alive... you are alive... God forgive me... Amara, forgive me... I thought... I thought you..."

"You thought I would die," Amara said, her voice clear so everyone could hear. "You dug a grave, Jalen. You told me to go for a walk. And you buried me. While I was breathing. While I was calling your name."

The elders came forward now. The oldest man, Chief Okonkwo, said, "Amara, my daughter, is this true? This is a very heavy accusation. Do you know what you are saying?"

Amara turned to him. "Chief, I swear on my mother's life and on the gods of this land. My husband, Jalen, buried me alive in the clearing near the Iroko tree because Princess Zara of the palace told him to. She wanted him to leave me. He was afraid of her, so he chose her over me."

Jalen was on the ground, hitting his own head with his hands. "It is true! It is true! I did it! I am a cursed man! The Princess told me to bury my old life! She said she would accuse me of stealing! She said I would never work again! I was afraid! I am weak! I am weak!"

The crowd erupted. Women shouted. Men shouted. Some wanted to beat Jalen right there. Mama Nkechi picked up a stick.

"You tried to kill my daughter! My only daughter!"

Kian stepped forward and stood between Amara and the angry crowd. His presence was calm but powerful. "The woman has been through enough. Let the elders decide what is just. But no one will touch her again."

Chief Okonkwo looked at Amara, at Jalen weeping in the dirt, at Kian the hunter.

"This matter is bigger than Ire village now," he said gravely. "If a princess of the Oba is involved, then the Oba himself must hear it. We will go to the palace. Today. The Oba is a just king. He will want to know what his daughter has done."

Amara's heart beat fast. Go to the palace? Stand before the King and the Princess who wanted her dead?

She looked at Kian. Kian gave her a small nod. _I am here._

"I will go," Amara said. "I was buried and I came back. I am not afraid to stand before them anymore."

---

That afternoon, a strange procession walked the road to the palace.

Chief Okonkwo and two elders in front. Amara in the middle, wearing her simple new wrapper, holding her mother's hand on one side and Kian walking on the other. Behind them, half the village, because everyone wanted to see what would happen. And in the back, being dragged by two young men so he would not run away, Jalen.

Palace guards saw the crowd coming and ran to stop them.

"No one enters the palace grounds without permission!"

Chief Okonkwo stepped forward. "We seek justice from the Oba himself. A crime has been committed by his house against a daughter of Ire. A man buried his wife alive on the order of Princess Zara. The wife lives and is here to speak."

The guard's eyes widened. He looked at Amara. He had heard gossip from the carpenters that Jalen's wife had left. Now here she was.

He ran inside.

In the throne room, the Oba was listening to reports about taxes when the guard came in whispering.

The Oba frowned. "What? Bring them in. All of them."

The large doors opened. The villagers entered the most beautiful room they had ever seen. But no one was looking at the gold carvings. They were looking at the throne.

Princess Zara was sitting beside her father, as she often did. She was laughing about something. When she saw Jalen being held, her smile disappeared. When she saw Amara, alive, standing and staring directly at her, her face turned to stone.

Jalen fell to his knees before the King.

"Your Majesty! Forgive me!"

The Oba stood up. "What is the meaning of this? Who is this woman?"

Amara stepped forward. She knelt, as was custom, but then she stood again. She was not going to tell her story on her knees.

"My King, my name is Amara of Ire village. I am the wife of your carpenter Jalen. Two weeks ago, your daughter, Princess Zara, told my husband to get rid of me. To bury his old life. Because she wanted him for herself. My husband, out of fear and weakness, took me to the forest in the night and buried me alive while I begged him. I would have died, but this hunter, Kian, heard me crying under the sand and saved me."

The hall was completely silent. You could hear a fly.

The Oba looked at Zara. "Zara? Is this true?"

Zara stood up quickly. Her voice was sharp. "Father, it is a lie! It is a lie from a jealous village girl! I never told him to kill anyone! I only told him to leave her! To divorce her! How can I control what a madman does? He is a carpenter, not a prince! Why would I want him? Look at her, Father! She is making up stories for attention!"

She looked so convincing. Tears came to her eyes. She was good at crying when she needed to.

The Oba looked confused. He knew his daughter was spoiled. But would she order a murder?

Amara knew this would happen. Princess against herb seller. Who would a king believe?

That was when Kian stepped forward. He did not kneel. Hunters from the north do not kneel to kings of the lowlands.

"My King," Kian said, his deep voice filling the hall. "I pulled this woman from the ground with my own hands. Her mouth was full of sand. Her eyes were swollen shut. She had been buried not more than an hour before I found her. Ask your carpenter if I lie. Ask him to show you his hands. He still has scars from digging that grave."

Jalen, still on the floor, cried, "It is true, Your Majesty! It is true! Princess Zara told me! She said, 'Bury your old life, bury her!' She said you would never trust me if I stayed married to a commoner! She threatened to accuse me of stealing gold! I was scared! I am guilty! I buried my own wife! But I did it because the Princess ordered me!"

The Oba's face turned red with anger. Not just anger, but shame.

"ZARA!" he shouted, his voice shaking the hall. "You threatened a man? You told him to bury his wife to prove his loyalty to this palace? Is this what I taught you? Is this how a princess behaves?"

Zara's fake tears stopped. For the first time, she looked truly afraid. Because her father had never shouted at her like that in her entire life.

"Father, I... I didn't mean..."

"You didn't mean what? You didn't mean for her to live? Or you didn't mean to get caught?"

The Oba turned to his guards. "Lock Princess Zara in her chambers. No one goes in or out until I decide what to do. And take this carpenter Jalen to the holding cells. He will be judged for attempted murder."

Then he looked at Amara. His anger softened into something else. Sadness. Respect.

"My daughter," he said to Amara, using the words a father uses. "You have suffered a great evil in my house. And you survived it. That means the gods have a purpose for you. I cannot undo what was done. But I will give you justice. Tell me, what do you want?"

Amara looked at Jalen being dragged away, crying. She looked at Zara being led away by guards, staring at Amara with pure hatred.

She thought about revenge. She had dreamed of it in the grave. But now, standing here, alive, with Kian beside her and her mother behind her, revenge felt different.

She said, "My King, I want two things. First, I want my freedom. I want a divorce from this man. He is dead to me. I buried him the night he buried me."

"Granted," the Oba said.

"Second," Amara continued, her voice stronger, "I want to work in your palace. Not as a servant. As a healer. I know herbs. I know medicine. The hunter Kian taught me more. I want to use what I learned from death to help others live."

The Oba smiled for the first time. "Granted. From today, you are the palace healer of Ire Kingdom."

Zara, hearing this from the doorway as she was being taken away, screamed, "NO! Father! She cannot! She is a commoner!"

But the Oba did not listen.

Amara had walked into the palace as a victim who was supposed to be dead.

She was leaving as a woman the King himself had honored.

But the story was not over. Because Princess Zara was not a woman who forgave. And in her locked chamber, she was already planning.