**Chapter Four: Fire Beneath the Sky**
398 Words
Toba didn’t start with questions. Not yet.
He knocked on her door early that morning, carrying a pot of bean porridge, and said, “Eat something or I’ll have to make you.”
Awele gave him a faint smile and let him in.
He set the pot on the mat and sat next to her, studying her face closely. “You didn’t sleep much.”
“Had dreams,” she replied.
“Bad ones?”
She stayed quiet.
He waited a moment, then spoke gently, “You’re going through something.”
“I know.”
“And it scares you.”
“Yeah, I get that too.”
They sat in silence for a bit.
Then she said, “I saw a tree on fire. A child was tied to it. It was calling me.”
Toba’s brow furrowed. “That sounds like something to worry about.”
“Or maybe it’s a memory.”
“A memory?”
She locked eyes with him. “What if what I see isn’t just about the future? What if it’s about the past, too? Like what’s already happened?”
Toba fell silent. Then he reached into his bag and pulled out a small, folded paper. “I found this at the creek. Someone buried it under some stones. Looks like it’s been there a while.”
Awele unfolded it.
It was a drawing.
The spiral.
But there were two flames around it, one gold and one black.
Written below in shaky handwriting were the words:
> “The child with the Spiral bears the fire of both worlds.”
Awele glanced at Toba. “I think… my blood connects me to both sides. But one wants to use me.”
Toba’s tone turned serious. “Then we need to figure out which side that is. And we won’t let them take control.”
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The next day in the village square, a girl fell into a trance.
Ten-year-old Ngozi was selling plantains when she suddenly dropped her basket, started humming an old tune no one heard for years, and spoke in a deep voice.
“The veil is torn. The keeper has crossed. Seven suns remain.”
Then she collapsed.
When she came to, she remembered nothing.
Awele was watching from the shadows.
So was Papa Chidi.
For the first time in a long while, the old priest looked scared.
- Writer
