Blood Moon | ✔

Chapter 22

The connection snapped as quickly as Zeke uttered those words, suddenly, the sun was back and Dr. Munachi was peering at her eagerly, flinching back when Lekan startled, her eyes snapping open.

"Why did you stop?" Dr. Munachi asked, her hands on her hips.

Lekan was already stumbling to her feet, using her bare feet to scatter the circle unwittingly. She quickly slipped on her sandals and dashed towards the door, having seen that Zeke was no where in sight. He had run, disappeared, and this time willingly.

"I didn't stop, Zeke broke the connection, he remembers everything and I think I was right, he has nothing to do with these murders, nothing at all."

Dr. Munachi heaved a sigh of relief, Lekan remembered she hadn't told the poor woman yet that it was the seemingly harmless Cook that was the mastermind.

"I'm going after Zeke." Lekan threw over her shoulder and pushed the door open, outside, Noah startled, jumping from the wall he leaned on.

"Did something go wrong?" He asked, rubbing his eyes. Lekan got the feeling that he had been snoozing off few minutes ago, she didn't blame him, the boys had just finished raking off their portion of weed assigned to them only an hour ago. Lekan felt tired herself, she hadn't been getting much sleep since the murders and she spent every night trying not to sleep, trying not to return to the nightmares that plagued her sleep.

"I just need to find him, Zeke bailed." Lekan said, she swallowed, worried that she wouldn't find him. "I was right, his death was unrelated to —" Lekan broke off, she got the sense that Noah didn't really care what happened to Zeke.

She gave him a pat on his shoulder and was almost dashing off when the door behind her opened and Dr. Munachi stepped out, still barefooted.

"There is something you must know, now that your friend knows the truth concerning his death, the next step is guiding his spirit to rest and you cannot help him if he is not ready." Dr. Munachi said.

"And what happens if he's not ready?" Lekan asked.

Dr. Munachi shook her head. "His spirit will be lost, I'm afraid he will fizzle out of existence, like air."

A shiver ran down Lekan's spine.

"I'm going to find him." And force him to find peace even if that means I won't see him again.

As Lekan walked away, she thought about when she unwittingly guided her father's ghost to peace, it had been a few weeks to Mary Slessor, she had always had a sinking suspicion that it was because of her that he had never found the peace he deserved. Even in death, her stubborn father was hell bent on protecting her so much that she had had to harshly tell him that she had survived when he had died and that she would continue to do so without him.

There hadn't been any supernatural thing that happened after it, he had just disappeared, like he had never been there, not even leaving a farewell word — she hadn't wanted one anyway — and Lekan had known that she wouldn't see him again. Strangely, the part of her that had always wanted him, had died with him.

She wasn't sure what to do with Zeke's case.

She found him where she had first met him, at the back of the cemetery and he was sitting on a headstone, head bent between his laps. If he noticed her presence, he didn't show it by raising his head, he only began to speak.

"I was fourteen when I realized that my family wasn't the typical one, at school I used to be asked how it felt to be born to a home with different religious lifestyles and I used to jokingly tell them that I was both Christan and Muslim, and it was true, I followed my mother to churches on Sunday and prayed with my father when he asked it."