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Have you ever appeared in a situation and you felt like a lot of things were just wrong?

Kwento did. He felt everything bad the moment he teleported into a small hut and found a young boy, a child of the world, huddled up in a corner of his bed in fear, with the window wide open and nothing but darkness and snores filling the room. Tentatively, Kwento walked to the boy's bed and patted it to feel its dampness, confirming his suspicion; the boy had cried himself to sleep. But why?

He waited, and after a while, he decided to walk about. From the bedroom, he arrived at a narrow hallway that led to the sitting room which looked like a million trucks rammed over it. Broken wares littered the floor and the position of the table and chairs had been obviously altered. To cut it short, despite the awful smell of alcohol in the air, there was present also, a woman, lying in a pool of vomit.

Kwento plugged his nose with his thumb and index fingers and tried turning the woman to her side to check her heartbeat. Just his luck that hours after he was released from prison he had to deal with another alcohol situation.

Fair enough, she was still breathing but probably high off the world. He heard murmurings, so low that he started doubting his sanity. He moved his ears closer to her lips to to hear her properly and found out instead that her were incorrigible.

Inhaling, he tried pulling her up. He had no idea where the bedroom was but maybe the threadbare couch could help. He later found the couch to be really cold and uncomfortable, even worse than the floor of his prison cell- nope. No talking!

The woman was of average height, a slim melanin. Somehow, despite being intoxicated, she still looked descent in an ankle skirt and a t-shirt. Halfway to what Kwento presumed to be her room, she regained a bit of consciousness and said, "Who are you and where am I?"

"You are in your house. I'm the one who cares for children and I sensed the young boy here in danger. From your current state, maybe you are the one in danger."

However, what he had just said didn't seem to be entering her head anytime soon. Instead, she asked, "Hope we didn't do anything together?"

"No my lady," Kwento said with a sigh, grateful when they finally arrived at a door which was shut.

As he supported her on a shoulder and his hand on her waist, he tried using the other hand to turn the knob but the woman just seemed to remember something. Whipping her head up so fast that he was afraid it will topple of her neck, her eyes widened and she tugged at his hand.

"No, no, no, no," she chanted. "Please don't!"

Her eyes almost teary and her hazy look appeared to have disappeared. " If you open that door it'll kill me.

"But Milady, you have to rest."

Now, she had definitely forgotten what they were discussing. "What is Milady?" she asked with a childish enthusiasm, successfully stunning Kwento into a remarkable silence because truly, "milady" had become an obsolete term.

*****

Dike woke up before sunset as usual, forced and pressurized to confirm if whatever happened in his dream had become a reality.

Sadly, not yet.

Nothing in the room was visible, every crevice darker than the first. He looked at the ceiling for a while, despite not being able to identify any structure, then inhaled and exhaled and then started doubting why he was feeling so well rested unlike the previous nights where his nightmares usually left him paralyzed.

It was not normal: pushing out from the bed and standing on his own accord. The raffia palms underneath it rattled and stretched against the thin mattress placed on it. Feet, bruised and soft, hopped against the floor and he limped to the bedside table and felt its surface for a searchlight, trying his best not to pressurize his injured arm.

He flicked the switch on, and a sudden burst of light shone before him. Using the light to illuminate his surrounding, he came across a shocking shadow, muscular and stiff and sitting so still it appeared like a statue. It should be though, because his eyes found a pair of dark orbs staring him down with inquiry and a loud silence.

Dike could not hesitate to break such a silence.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Why were you screaming in your sleep?" Kwento fired back. Dike did not take his gaze away from the god of the innocent. In fact, the child believed that this bald, muscular god, whose weight was at the height of crippling his barely structured wooden chair was most definitely a spirit, worst, the kinds that he'd had sleepless nights over.

"You're them, aren't you?" he asked the god.

"Them, who?"

"Those spirits that wouldn't let me rest," the child said, maintaining a suspicious silence afterward. He studied the god from head to toe and subtly glided towards the cutlass he kept underneath his bed. This tower of muscles was dark skinned, had thick arms that compared with a tree trunk and then, his feet were bare and he had not a shirt on. What era was he from? Dike thought.

In Ala-ọnwụ, the males were already quite exposed to the European culture to the extent that it appeared abnormal if someone wore the traditional attire of beads, wrapper, red cap and staff. Barely anyone did that again, if not grandmothers and great-grandfathers and this stranger sitting on his seat was just too young to be dressed like their ancestors.

Dike grabbed the handle of the cutlass with an accuracy, as if he had just sighted a cobra and stood sharply, ready to swing, but before his fingers could release the cutlass, he felt a rough skin enclose his fingers and his heartbeat threatened to entertain the whole village.

"That is not necessary child," Kwento said but Dike was not focused on his words. The child's eyes appeared like lasers about to saw through the god's palms. It was more of a surprise to him that he could feel the touch of this spirit and he could feel the warm breath of the spirit. His heart palpitated. Maybe he was hallucinating but unfortunately he wasn't. Indeed was he having skin contact with an imoortal.

The child's eyes rolled to the back of his head and he fainted, the searchlight splitting into it's component parts on the floor.

Kwento studied the boy's face and long lashes. There was not a single movement made. The second person that fainted on his arms? Kwento thought. It was going to be one hell of a day.

He laid the boy on his bed and proceeded to cover him with the barely there duvet only to find the numerous bruises on his body.

"What is this?" Idi ọcha wondered, fingers tracing a bruise on Dike's skin. A young boy, bruised and left alone to cater for himself and then, his drunk mother, stumbling into the house in the early hours of the morning only to cry out about him opening a door. What was happening to this family?

Kwento forced himself to cover the boy with the duvet. Then, he stood up and walked out of the room in the direction of the hallway. He had to find out why his senses brought him there and his investigation would start from that room. He must know why the mother did not want to get into the room.

Daylight had already started seeping through the cracks in the window, but yet, the hallway remained dark. Kwento had to walk back to the bedroom, to gather the boy's torch when he heard a knock. The knock was at the main entrance and almost rapid. He paused. He paused because it would not be the first time he was accused of exposing his real self to the children of the world and to adults. So, with a snap of his fingers, which woke Dike, he changed to an office cloth of button up shirt, pants and sandals.

Dike opened his eyes, unable to sleep through the constant knocking. That was the way his neighbour knocked anytime they suspected that his mum had gone through with one of her late night shenanigans again.

With a yawn, he stood up from the bed, the duvet ruthlessly squeezed to a corner just so he could go attend to the door, and like that, he failed to actually notice the god who was merged to the wall at the corner of the room.

He opened the door to find Obiora and her mum.

"Dike, how are you?" the mother asked when she came face to face with the young child. Face filled with nothing but maternal love which his own mother lacked. As mama Obiora's eyes searched the boy's body for any sign of abuse, they relaxed when they found none, because Dike was particular about hiding his dislocated arm.

"I'm fine ma. Good morning ma," he said, trying so hard in using his body to block his unconscious mother who had fallen off the couch and was now on the floor.

"Let us in," Mama Obiora said, and walked past Dike, heading straight for his mother until she heard Dike wince. The stench of alcohol was paramount but even the child's subtle show of pain was enough to drown it.

"What's that?" she asked as Dike avoided her gaze. She could not ignore such a looming sign even if she wanted to. So she went ahead to deliberately pat his arms and behold, he cried out.

Without asking any question, she went to beat his mother into consciousness.

"Magdalene!" she said. "Magdalene! 8Oya, wake up!" Magdalene couldn not avoid it. She could not ignore it. Immediately she heard their neighbour's voice she shot up like she had been electrocuted while Dike stood guiltily by the door. Even Obiora had walked in to set the food they had brought on an half filled table.

"Obiora, carry that food back home and take Dike with you," mama Obiora commanded and Obiora silently obeyed, beginning the task of taking the pot of concoction rice back, but when she paused to see if Dike would follow and the child refused to, she left him for her mother.

"Mama Obiora, so your child is injured and you didn't even know? 9Abi are you the one that abused him."

An accusation like that was enough to wake the dead and Magdalene. "What? No, God forbid!" She said with such seriousness that you'd think she was worried about how hungry her son must be.

"Why are you now shouting as if you haven't done worse. So tell me how your son would acquire such an injury or how you sleep in the same house with him and couldn't find out?" Mama Obiora went livid and gestured at the boy's appearance. "See him, see his face! He looks like a child forced to cohabit with a lion. This woman, what you are doing to this boy is not good. Your husband left you, that's fine. But pushing your anger on a child is what I would not accept! See the way you are messing everywhere up and that's not enough for you until you mess up your child's life. I swear," she said and beat her chest. "-you don't deserve to have a sweet child like this. Tomorrow, the elders must hear of your case. Tomorrow; just watch and watch quietly as you'll loose the best thing that ever happened to you! Watch quietly!" Mama Obiora said and did a dramatic turn towards Dike. "Go and park your school things, you'll be staying with me," she softly said to Dike and he nodded before walking to the room.

Now, mama Obiora was left alone with Magdalene who had her head down in shame. Being the ever dramatic and caring chubby woman, she waved her hand in front of her nose as if to tell Dike's mother that she stank.

Finally, Dike came out again, with a bunch of worn out clothing and his cutlass. Mama Obiora took the cloth from his hand and assessed them. They all looked alike, even the boy's uniform and shoe. She would have disposed them but she and her husband were big on saving money. Besides, she had decided to take on a bigger case. She would just had to wait till tomorrow so that they would hear the elders' judgement.

****

Kwento was now left with the drunk woman that he had assisted yesterday. She should be hungover but she did not seem to be so. Instead, the worries that she had tried drinking off appeared to have arrived back to the surface and now, she looked sad that she could not get rid of them or more like her son.

If that was the reason why she was drunk, what was his? Because as far as he was concerned he was never depressed about an husband that left or the son he left.

Magdalene, still did not stand up from the ground. She had been in that slumped position for minutes now and he was sure that she would continue till hours passed. He did not know what thought passed through her head that made her let out a choked sob, and after that, a series of wails that included her harshly cursing at a Dominic who he assumed was her husband.

"Dominic, I swear, it'll never be well with you!" she said as she flung something at the wall and it crashed to the floor.

Leaning on the other side of that wall and barely exposing himself to her, the cries were making him uncomfortable that he had no other option than to leave her to her sentiments. As he was still curious to know the type of man that left his son and wife, he walked in the direction of that door for the second time and opened it gently to see what was inside.

Lo and behold, he was surprised. The room was a study that appeared to be in use. It was like the owner had left in a hurry that the last things he did could be arrived at.

Among rows of old, heavy books was one, face down on the desk, with an ink and a scroll beside it and there was the chair, sitting askew from what would normally be its position beside the desk. The floor was dusty and Kwento could barely see but as he moved to pick a book on the shelves, he came across a shiny piece of jewelry that would be familiar to anyone in the domain.

He moved closer to inspect it and wondered quietly to himself. "How?" Because the jewelry was surely not a counterfeit. In fact, it looked very much like the one he currently had around his neck... a stone from the Fates' waterfall?

He sniffed it while sticking to his belief; there was no such thing as a coincidence.

*****

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