Obade was quiet.
But not the old kind of quiet the kind made of secrets and fear.
This quiet was heavy. Awake.
Like the town had drawn a long breath, and didn't know how to exhale.
Word had spread. Not just of Ola's return, or the drowned fisherman, or the detective's strange discoveries
But of something older.
The townspeople didn't speak of her openly yet.
But they all knew now:
The river wasn't just water.
And the silence had never been peace.
Back at the riverbank…
Kareem stood with Amaka and Ola, watching the current flow not calmly, but in deliberate pulses. It was like the water itself had a heartbeat now.
"She's still with us," Ola said.
Kareem nodded. "But she's waiting."
"For what?" Amaka asked, not looking away from the river.
Ola turned to her slowly.
"For us to choose what we do with the truth."
That night…
People gathered.
Not in fear but in remembrance.
Elders came forward with stories they'd buried for decades. Midwives confessed dreams they'd inherited from mothers and grandmothers. Young people brought drawings strange symbols they said came to them in sleep.
And there, beneath a rising full moon, the people of Obade did what they hadn't done in generations:
They listened.
And the river listened back.
In the dark hills…
A different gathering stirred.
Not of villagers.
Not of followers.
But of those who had long benefited from the silence.
Landowners. Judges. Priests.
Descendants of the colonial pact.
They had heard whispers that the river goddess had returned.
They had seen her storms on the horizon.
And they were afraid.
Because the breaking of silence meant the breaking of control.
One man stepped forward an older chief with gold on his fingers and deadness in his eyes.
"She cannot be allowed to rise," he said.
The others nodded.
"Then we bury her again."
Back in Obade…
Ola sat by the water's edge.
He felt her. Not like before not in whispers. Now she was a presence. A rhythm behind the trees. A hum inside every breath.
"You're watching, aren't you?" he said aloud.
The wind shifted.
A woman's voice answered not from the sky, not from the water but from within him.
"I am listening. But the river is not mine alone now. It is yours."
He swallowed. "What do I do?"
"Sing what was lost.
Guard what was found.
And when they come to silence me again…
Do not bow."
In the distance, Kareem watched lights flickering on the hills.
He turned to Amaka.
"We're not done yet," he said.
"They're coming."
She nodded.
"Let them come."