1001 Sins | ✔

young gods

This one's for those of you who have read Women Of Steel, I thought it would be fun to do a short piece about Demilade's mother. Enjoy!

The new yam festival always brings with it the thick almost pungent smell of happiness in the air — it is disgusting and I don't care for it. By night, the whole village will gather at the town square, the dancers will twist their hips to the pounding beat of the drums, the men will sneak to shower their heads with cowries and feel the thickness of their waists.

Food and drinks will flow in abundance then by morning, the beggars will flock to the square like vultures over a dead body and the villagers that went to their huts drunk and fed will again complain about how useless the Oba is and why the village continues to wither under him. But tonight is a distraction, everyone will drop their worries and let them loose to the wind, everyone except for me — because my ancient father takes it as an opportunity to marry me off to the first man that leers at me.

Ile Wura is nestled between the feared settlement of the forest people and the little fishing town; Abule Agba, it means that whenever it is the period for the new yam festival, the bandits come out to play, and tonight, I will catch them.

My vendetta against the bandit stems from the long standing rivalry between Abule Agba and Ile Wura. The former is a small fishing town, the latter is the most powerful Yoruba kingdom in the empire, but both settlements have depended on each other for almost forty years, Ile Wura gets its sea food from Abule Agba, and Abule Agba gets most of its market from Ile Wura — and the bandits from Agba sets to tear that long standing bond.

I don't care much about trading or fish market, I do care that three years ago, a raid from the bandits left many bleeding dead on the sand, including my mother.

Tonight I sharpen my knives and prepare for war because, make no mistake, they will come.

My father finds me in the corner at the back of our hut and he doesn't even flinch when he sees me, crouched and sharpening my knives against a shiny stone.

He sighs, I can hear the disappointment in it. My father is chief ifa priest and I know when I was born, he expected a male child, someone who would learn the trade of magic and take his place when he is gone, but then he got me instead, a girl with a foul mouth and no respect for anybody, not even for the king.

At first, he was fondly exasperated by my affinity for all things of war, he used to say that I was a boy in the wrong body but as I grew older to the point where other girls my age were being married off to men who wanted a docile little mouse, and I remained unmarried, without a betrothal because no one wants a spitfire, he became less fond and more harsh, and I learnt to ignore his jabs.

What he does not know is that I am not against the idea of marriage, if the men can want docile little girls, then why can't I want a powerful man, second to none but me and when I look around the village, there are none. Because everyman is a spineless coward.

"Girls don't play with knives, Yemisi, unless they are in the kitchen." He says, clocking his tongue and looking down at me, my father is holding a calabash of his eaten dinner, he probably came out here to rinse of his plate and saw me instead.

I don't bother to convince him or say a word in my defense, I only stare coolly at him — the way my mother used to look at me whenever I disappointed her — until he looks away. I resume my task and when I look up again, he is gone.

Like he always leaves when he sees things he does not understand.

I scoff but I continue, scraping knife against stone, until my hands are bruised with the motion and tendrils of stray hair slipping from the carefully gathered bun. The stone is hot when I am done and the knife glints in the rising moonlight.

I don't look up until I hear the sounds of merriments, the slap slap of feet on the sand as villagers slip out of their huts, dressed in the most beautiful colours, woven together intricately by crafty hands, the women walk with their head high, hair covered by gallant geles and the men hold on to the billowing sleeves of their agbada.

They chatter as they walk, some of them stepping out of their huts to join others, throwing greetings into the air. They push aside the hate they have for each other and walk side by side, head bobbing to the music they are yet to hear. Their excitement is so thick that I am half sure that if I reach high enough I can touch it.

I shake my head and pretend to be unaffected by it all. I remain sitting on the sand, even when my father comes by and mutters to me that he will be leaving for the square already, since my mother died, we have never gone to the festival together, in fact, it seems the village has forgotten that the revered ifa priest has a daughter. Truthfully, it hurts, to be forgotten, but tonight, no one will notice when I plunge knives into the heart of men.

Maybe they will think I am a goddess, or maybe they will remember. I tell myself it does not matter, that I am not doing this for glory but for my dead mother, still a part of me wonders how it would feel, to have the glory of war, how it would feel to wield power.

I stagger to my feet, looking up at the full moon, the moon that breeds the most legendary stories, it was on a moon like this that Osun slayed her enemies and blessed the land, it was on a moon like this that Sango led men to war and declared himself a god.

Maybe tonight, the moon will tell my story.