Whisper by the river

It was dusk when he arrived.

The sky wore the color of old copper. Not quite red. Not yet black. The wind was quiet—too quiet for a place that had once screamed through his dreams.

Detective Durojaiye Fágbègbè parked the rusting cruiser at the edge of the village and stepped out. He hadn't planned to return. Not after what he saw. Not after what he refused to see.

But then the letters came.

Handwritten. Unmarked.

Each one the same:

"The river is speaking. And the dead want you to listen."

He'd burned the first.

Ignored the second.

But the third came wrapped in damp cloth that smelled of salt and earth and something old. Folded inside was a photograph: the face of the mutilated body he'd pulled from the river weeks ago.

Except in the photo—the corpse had eyes.

And they were open.

Obade was not the same.

He felt it before he saw it.

The air did not hum with suspicion. Children did not vanish behind huts. Even the trees, once gnarled and crooked, now leaned gently toward the river—as if listening.

He walked slowly, past the square, past the shrine that hadn't existed before.

Then he saw her.

Iyagbẹ́kọ.

Seated at the foot of the mirror shrine, weaving something into a cloth of glowing verses.

Her eyes met his without surprise.

"You came," she said.

He nodded. His voice, dry. "I got your... messages."

"I didn't send them."

He froze.

She pointed to the river. "She did."

At the shrine

He stood before the mirror.

And it did not show his reflection.

Instead, it showed the girl.

The murdered one.

But she was singing.

Mouth open. Hands raised. Not in fear—but in defiance.

Behind her stood others—blurry, shifting, almost spectral.

He reached out, trembling. "Who is she?"

Iyagbẹ́kọ joined him. "One of many. They called her Ọmọyẹmi. Daughter of balance. A name stolen when she refused silence."

He remembered the coroner's report.

No ID. No known family. No fingerprints in the system.

Only strange lacerations around the throat. Burned palms. Something carved into her chest they had dismissed as ritualistic nonsense.

"She had no voice box," he muttered.

Iyagbẹ́kọ's tone was gentle. "No visible one. But you heard her, didn't you? Even in your sleep."

He swallowed hard.

Yes.

In the weeks after her death, her hum had haunted him. No matter where he went—city stations, hotel rooms, even his childhood church—he could hear it. Faint. Broken. But constant.

Reckoning

"She was the river's herald," Iyagbẹ́kọ said. "The last before the remembering began."

He turned to her. "You mean… she died for this?"

"She died because no one listened when she spoke. And when they buried her truth, the river took her back."

He stared down at the mirror. "Why me?"

"Because you carried her body. And in doing so, you became a vessel. Part of her story clings to you."

He took a step back.

"I'm not one of you. I don't believe in…"

He stopped.

Because he did.

He believed now.

Not in myths.

But in truths that won't stay buried.

He had seen her die.

And now… he saw her sing.

The Last Clue

Iyagbẹ́kọ handed him a gourd. "Her final memory is inside. You must carry it. To where it began."

"Where did it begin?"

She didn't answer.

The river did.

Its waters swirled.

And from its edge rose a single sandal.

Caked in mud. Tied with coral thread.

He recognized it instantly.

It had been missing from her body when they found her.

And beneath it, scrawled in wet earth, formed five letters:

"Èkóyé."

Return to the Past

He found Èkóyé standing near the sacred platform, eyes on the current. He did not look surprised to see the detective.

"She sang to you, didn't she?" Èkóyé asked.

"Yes."

"And now you want to know why she was killed."

Durojaiye nodded.

"She carried the first verse. The one that shattered the old seals. It was her voice that cracked the silence of the drowned names."

He turned.

"She was my sister."

The detective staggered. "But she had no records. No birth certificate. No"

"Because she was hidden. For her protection. And when she stepped into the open to offer the Queen's call again, they found her."

"Who?"

Èkóyé said nothing.

But his gaze turned toward the hills.

Toward the world beyond Obade.

Where those who had profited from silence still waited.

Closure or Continuation

Durojaiye returned to the riverbank that night.

He held the gourd close to his chest.

Inside, her memory pulsed not dead, not broken. Waiting.

He whispered aloud, "What do I do with this?"

And the river, calm and clear, replied not with sound.

But with reflection.

In its surface, he saw himself.

Holding not just evidence.

But a story.

And stories, once remembered, demand to be told.