₦airaland Forum

Fever Magic

Copyright © 2021 by Pabon Godfrey
Published by Pabon Godfrey
Cover design by Pabon Godfrey

5

“You're not going to believe what happened today,” Tega said as he entered the room.
He hadn't even pulled off his uniform before he came to her room. She was feeling way better now, having eaten and taken the drugs her mum prepared.
“What's that?” Ochuko asked although she suspected she knew what he wanted to say.
“It's the weirdest thing that's ever happened. You do remember yesterday's fight. Right?” he asked.
Ochuko nodded.
“Well. Onos, Raphael, and Emmanuel, you know them right? Those two riffraff who follow him, they waylaid me.”
Ochuko shook her head.
“That's not even where I'm going,” Tega said, interpreting her head shaking to mean that was very bad. “Raphael and Emmanuel held me down and only God knows what Onos was going to do to me. Then, something happened. It felt like someone was there but I couldn't see him. Onos fell like someone pushed him. Even Raphael and Emmanuel were struck, too.”
Ochuko sat up.” What do you think it was? “she asked.
“Isn't it obvious?” Tega asked.
“What?”
“My guardian angel's working,” Tega said, with an air of correctness.
Ochuko shook her head. “I don't think that's it. Listen, something happened that you need to know,” she said.
“What happened?” Tega said, a frown on his face.
“Today, just after you've left, I had a dream. I saw things. I saw you being attacked by those same boys. I saw myself defending you, kicking Onos and slapping those boys.”
“That's just coincidence,” Tega said, dismissing her narrative.
“But it isn't. Yesterday, when Onos was ... beating you, just before you took him down, I noticed something. It felt like something, I don't know, power, left my body and entered yours,” Ochuko said.
“Are you listening to yourself?” Tega asked. “What power? You and I know that the only power you have is food power.”
Tega got up.
“Don't talk like that,” Ochuko said.
“Is it a lie?” Tega asked, taking an apple from the bedside table where lots of peeled bananas, sucked oranges, watermelon slices, all laid.
Ochuko sighed when Tega exited the room. Against logical reasoning, she knew what she'd felt. Never had she had such an experience. It wasn't easy to explain. The only thing she knew now was that it came with the fever. For the moment she awoke from the dream, the fever was gone, and so was the power she'd felt idling in her blood.
Someday it would come again. Of this, she was sure - the fever magic would return.

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THE END