Lagos chews up dreams and spits them out, laughing. I’m Adaeze, sixteen, and it took my mother. Her clothing business crumbled when spirit-touched officials, their eye sockets devoid of light, denied her licence—her kind, penniless and unsworn to the Sects of Orishas, never stood a chance. Last night, lone spirits whispered debts in her dreams, then claimed her soul. Today, I clutch a witch’s amulet, its glow hiding me as one of them. The price? My life, ticking down to a year. I’ll find her, or Lagos will eat me too.
My mother and I lived in a self-contained apartment in Yaba, Lagos. It was cheap and dirty but home. She always wore a large smile, even drowning in money problems, deflecting to hide the truth—but I knew. I returned home from school on a sunny Monday afternoon to find her gone, a single text on her cracked Samsung: “Debt has been paid.”
I couldn’t accept it. She didn’t deserve this; she just wanted to care for me. That’s why I’m here. A witch’s bargain led me to their bone-carved realm, staring into the bottomless eyes of the clerk appointing assistant spirits in the government office.
“Ndịbisi?” His voice scraped like nails on chalk.
I nodded, sweating bullets. I didn’t want to be caught—only death awaited.
“Born at Nnewi River?” He huffed.
“Eziokwu,” I replied. My new scratchy, airy voice scared me. I didn’t sound like me. I sounded like them.
At this point I wanted to turn back and return home, but home did not exist without my mother. The clerk nodded, lifting a bony finger to imprint my forehead.
BAM!
The pain was unbearable. It felt like they were breaking me apart. “How pathetic,” he huffed. Nnewi River only bore lowlife spirits, those with no ambition or power to manifest as human. The perfect disguise.
An eternity later, the pain stopped. I stumbled from the office, the imprint burning. I stepped outside the line to allow the other low-born spirits to meet the clerk. I walked alongside the path to my hut near the river; the spirit who had lived there was...swallowed. He dared to insult the Orisha of water. A dreadful mistake.
As I walked, I blocked out the screams of the people slaving away and the crack of whips against their backs. Humans were not allowed entry, and if they were, it was to serve the Orishas, and only death awaited them if they wanted to leave. They came from different regions around Nigeria: Calabar, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, and many other states. Lagos is the economic centre, and even spirits themselves hustled; they were only one tier above us humans. The Orishas oversaw all.
I did not care; I could only save one.
I got home and sprinkled salt around the hut; it will provide a brief barrier against peering eyes, and with a sigh, I dropped my spirit form. My hands had wrinkles, and my bones creaked with every movement. I was dying; I could feel it.
I fell to my knees, the pain deep. I wanted my mum to comfort me. I remembered her smile, not the large, deflecting one, but the small curl of her lips she saved for our darkest moments. The one that said, We are still here.
No one knew where human souls with debts were kept, but the witch had said there was a vault. A soul-battery that powered the Orishas. My mother was in there. I had been in this sick place for three months now, scurrying along the streets and avoiding detection just for an opportunity to enter the government house.
The government house is where I shall start my search. When tomorrow comes, even if I have to commit atrocities, I must find that vault.