The Second Path

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

After dropping the knife back into my bag, I made my way to leave the house. I stepped out of the house gate and the first people I saw, as usual, were Arjun and Faisal. But this time they were not alone, as Arjun's mother and sister, Aanya, were also outside. I stared at how beautiful Aanya looked with the shuku hairstyle she plaited on her Indian hair.

Arjun and Faisal were sitting on the dusty floor in front of their gate while playing Ayo, while Aanya and her mother were about to enter their house compound with plenty nylon bags that they must have gotten from their market shopping.

"Don't play outside this area." Arjun's mother warned them, "The street is not safe."

"Eh, Mama." Arjun nodded while replying 'yes' in Hausa, and Faisal nodded too before they returned to their game.

I shut the gate and this caused Arjun and Faisal to turn to me while Aanya and their mother were walking towards their house gate.

"Miriam!" Arjun shouted my name and this caused his mother and Aanya to turn to me. "Namaste!"

"Namaste, Arjun!" I greeted him back the usual way and turned to his mother and greeted with a smile, "Good afternoon."

"Inna wunni." She greeted back in Hausa before entering her house with Aanya following behind her.

Arjun quickly ran over to me while he left Faisal with the game.

"Miriam." He called me again as he came closer, "Please teach me how to play the ayo game. Faisal keeps cheating me because he knows I don't know how to play it well."

I smiled and played with his silky hair.

"I will teach you but first I have somewhere to go to." I said, "But once I come back I will teach you, okay?"

"Promise, oh? Don't do like last week that you forgot." He pouted.

"I promise." I chuckled before he jumped happily and left. He was such a cute happy kid.

Once he got back to Faisal, I quickly made my way to the one place I could get rid of the knife; River Mansur.

After what felt like a long walk, I finally got to river Mansur. The 'dead' east end of the river. There were two sides of the river; the 'safe' west side of the river and the 'dead' east side of the river.

Nobody ever came to the 'dead' east side. This side of the river was cursed. We thought witches were inside but they weren't, it was just a cursed river and everybody avoided it. We knew if it were witches, just like most nollywood movies taught us, someone would have seen a mami water (mermaid) at a point or the water would have been red. But none of that happened.

Most of the time, it's either someone drowns or someone gets badly injured, if they enter the water. This has happened for many years and that was why people don't come here anymore.

I remember the first time I came here not long after my parents' death, Zainab stopped me from going to fetch water here because of the silly story.

But today, I had to choose this side of the river to throw the knife away because nobody ever came this way. The knife had blood on it and if anyone saw me with it, they'll think I was the secret killer.