ONE WEEK EARLIER
“Anire, take this fifty naira and go and get us matches and two bulbs of onions at Iyawo’s place. She’s the only shopkeeper in this neighbourhood who sells things at the right price,” Wasn’t it only a few minutes ago Mola had said these words to her?

Smiling sardonically, Anire reached out to collect the money. “She’s not a businesswoman, Daddy.”

“She’s a honest person,” Mola half-countered, half-reproached. “The rest of them are not. If we didn’t have good people like her on this street, you and I would have to pay through our noses to get the commonest of items from these extortionists masquerading as salespeople.”

Anire laughed and was already heading to the door when Mola spoke again,

“Anire, where is your crucifix?”


The girl froze; she hadn’t expected him to notice.

“Anire,” Mola called gently, “you are aware that it is an auspicious week and every member of the church is to wear their crucifix during this period. Where is your crucifix?”

“Daddy, I’ve been wearing my crucifix in school since Monday, I swear,” she replied evasively, her back still turned to him.

“You left your crucifix in school? Do you mean to say you travelled back here without it?”

Anire grumbled something. “Daddy I will get my crucifix when I get back to school. Let me quickly go and get what you sent me to,” and with that, she dashed out of the house. Anire knew in her heart that her father wouldn’t be pleased if he found out where she’d really left the crucifix. She didn’t know how he would react neither was she prepared to find out.


Back inside the house, Mola reclined in his chair and heaved a frustrated sigh.

Anire, his niece was many things. Having lost her parents to a bus accident at infant age, she had become his sole responsibility. He’d raised her up as his own so that very few people knew that she was his deceased brother’s daughter. And how he had loved his brother!

Anire seemed to have taken after her father; proud, impulsive, stubborn which made Mola sometimes think that had he been a woman, she would have been addressing him by his name as though they were equals and yet, she possessed a spirit so sweet she brought bittersweet memories of the sacrifices his brother had made for him.

He could trust her to be safe out there. However, during this week, such confidence eluded him. He’d had dreams, strange terrifying dreams of Shimmi and his wife asking him to send Anire to them so much that he woke up at midnights all drenched in thick sweat. He prayed, bound and cast against the spirit of death. This was the main reason he’d sent for her, so that she would be close to him during this auspicious week. He found it quite ironical that he should have such dreams during such a period.
Three successive raps came on the door jolting him out of his thoughts. He opened it to the sweaty face of Chinma, his neighbour’s son. What he heard next sent him out of his house in a mad run.

Interesting, well done OP