Chapter Nine: Between Two Worlds
1277 Words
Mallam Musa’s compound was cloaked in the heavy silence of twilight, the kind that settled not in peace but in waiting.
The scent of fried yams lingered in the air, mixing with the earthy smell of dry harmattan dust. But for Amina, the world had narrowed to the pounding of her own heart, each beat a desperate echo of the silence growing between her and her father.
Since Ishak’s sudden departure from Galan City, a strange weight had settled in their home. Conversations became shorter. Eyes avoided each other. And when they met, they were filled with suspicion and sorrow. Her mother had buried herself in the market hustle, and her cousin sister, Fatima, filled the quiet with soft humming as she cooked.
Only Mallam Musa remained unchanged in posture—always beneath the mango tree with his prayer beads—but even his silence had shifted. His fingers moved faster over each bead now, as though he could somehow pray the truth out of the shadows.
And then, just as the sun bled into the horizon, he called her name.
“Amina. Sit.”
His voice was calm, too calm. Amina obeyed, wrapping her shawl tighter as she moved across the yard to sit opposite him on a woven mat. The earth felt cold beneath her. She looked at him—his weathered face, his stern eyes, the way his hands stilled on the beads.
“You’ve grown bold,” he began, voice low, eyes fixed on the sky. “Bold enough to hide things from me.”
She swallowed hard. “Baba, I—”
“Don’t insult my ears,” he interrupted, raising a hand. “I saw him. That Tarik boy.”
Her chest tightened. So he had seen them—seen Ishak slipping out the back gate, his soft words still echoing in the mango grove.
“His name is Ishak,” she said quietly, unable to lie.
“I don’t care what he calls himself,” her father snapped. “Do you even know who the Tarik are, Amina? Do you understand what their name carries?”
She blinked. He had never spoken of the Tarik tribe before—not directly, not like this.
He stood slowly, his hands clenched at his sides. “My uncle, Musa Dogo—your godfather—was a trader, you know this. He crossed borders with salt, cloth, books. He brought stories from faraway lands. One year, he didn’t return. Dry season came and went. No word. Then, a Fulani herdsman arrived with news.”
His voice cracked. “Tarik raiders. They attacked the caravan. Killed for sport. Musa... we never found his body. We buried an empty grave. Do you know what that means in our culture, Amina? An unburied soul, left to wander.”
She lowered her eyes, her throat thick.
“And now you,” he said, his voice shaking with grief more than anger, “you bring one of them here, into our home.”
“Baba,” she whispered. “I love him.”
The words hung in the air like incense smoke—sweet, yet choking.
“Love?” he spat the word as if it were poison. “Love doesn’t erase blood. It doesn’t rewrite the past. Love won’t keep you safe when war returns.”
He looked at her then, truly looked—his eyes glistening.
“I will not let my daughter become a cautionary tale. Forget him.”
She turned her head away, tears brimming, but she said nothing more. Not yet. There was no space left for words.
That night, under a moonless sky, the air cool with wind and expectation, Amina sat beside Fatima in the backyard—the very spot where Ishak had once whispered, “You are like the stars—distant, bright, and impossible to ignore.”
Fatima had been quiet all evening, watching her sister carefully.
Then she reached into her apron and handed over a folded note.
“I didn’t want to give this to you earlier,” she murmured. “But you should read it.”
Amina’s hands trembled as she opened the letter. Ishak’s handwriting—sharp, deliberate—spread across the page like a path she desperately wanted to follow.
My beloved Amina,
I tried speaking to my brother. He calls me a traitor. He says I dishonor our mother’s memory. He calls you outsider. Dangerous. But what he doesn’t know is how your laughter echoes like birdsong at dawn, or how your voice makes the desert want to listen.
Still, I cannot stay. Not yet. But I will return—when the time is right. When the date palms bloom and the wind smells of wet soil and new beginnings. If your heart still waits for me, meet me beneath the baobab tree outside Galan City’s northern wall on the first night of the rainy season.
Let love be our compass.
—Ishak
Amina clutched the note to her chest, her breath trembling between sobs. Fatima wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“He’ll come back,” Amina whispered, as though speaking it aloud would make it true.
Fatima’s sigh was soft but sad. “If the world lets him.”
Days passed, then weeks. The silence between Amina and her father remained, like a wound that refused to heal. She poured herself into her writing, her only outlet. Her blog post “The Boy from the Dunes” went viral across youth networks, though she hadn’t dared attach her name. Encouraged, she drafted another. This one, too, she published anonymously.
She called it: “Between Two Worlds.”
It was a story woven with longing and heritage, about ancient grudges and new hope. About a boy with sand in his voice, and a girl born of roots and rain. She ended it with a line she hadn’t dared say aloud:
“I wait beneath the baobab tree.”
The rainy season came late that year. The clouds held their promise too long, hovering above Galan City like silent watchers.
But finally, on a heavy night in May, the sky broke open.
Amina wrapped herself in the blue scarf Ishak had once admired, the one he’d said brought out the fire in her eyes. She slipped from the compound, heart pounding, sandals silent on the dusty path. The baobab tree stood tall against the stormy sky, its gnarled limbs like open arms awaiting lovers and secrets.
She waited.
And waited.
The first drops of rain began to fall—light at first, then a steady whisper on the leaves.
Footsteps.
She turned, hope rising like lightning.
But it wasn’t Ishak.
A young Tarik boy—no older than thirteen—stood before her, his eyes dark and solemn. Without a word, he handed her a folded note, then turned and vanished into the shadows.
Amina unfolded it, heart hammering.
Forgive me. —I
Her knees gave out. She leaned against the baobab’s thick trunk, tears mingling with the rain. Her blue scarf clung to her face. The storm soaked her, but she didn’t care.
She had believed.
Still believed.
This couldn’t be the end.
Just as she turned to leave, the wind shifted. Something light brushed her foot. Another paper. Smaller. Wetter.
She bent, her hands now shaking with more than cold.
It read:
“Don’t trust Sidi.”
Her breath caught.
Who was Sidi? And what had Ishak discovered?
She clutched both notes to her chest, her heart now not just broken—but burning with questions.
And somewhere, far beyond the city walls, the desert whispered.
The story wasn’t over.
Not yet.
- Writer
