Titilayo's eyes grew red as she mourned her daughter's death. She could not be comforted for days, as she went on without food nor drink. "Iyamo" her mum called out, "Eat something, it's not good crying on an empty stomach" cunningly she added. "how can a mourning woman eat"? She asked, " I have lost the only source of my joy". Her husband held her close to himself, " God knows why he took her this early, I believe, he will bring to us someone as loving as Adasa again" he told her. He wasn't himself less sadden about her death but he was supposed to play the role of a father and a husband, he thought. Behind lock doors ,he had wept severely.
Months later, Titilayo was joyed to had conceived again. Secretly she had visited Adasa's grave, making a wish that she birth a child just like her. She wanted to share that same bond she had with Adasa before her death.
She had sneaked out one night incognizant of her husband and had visited Adasa's grave again. While she lied there crying and saying her usual request, she felt like someone penetrating into her womb. She couldn't comprehend what had happened but it occurred faster than her reality could phantom. "It must be a dream" , she said. But her body's physiology seems to have changed, for an instance she had felt a struggle in her womb, like a battle that took a glimpse to conquer.
"Temi" she called her husband who was snoring on the other side of the bed. She tapped him "wake up, wakeup, there's something I want to tell you".
" Oooh, you just cut me off from a dream to which the gods was rewarding me luck" he said. " Am sorry" she replied " but there's something that's bothering me"
"Alright, go ahead, what's it" he asked
" I have been having night mare recently of ghost chasing after me, sometimes it's a ghost stealing something from me" she told him.
"You know I can't interpret dreams, let's wait when the day is break. We shall go meet olado,the chief priest to tell what the dream meant" he said this returning to his bed but Titilayo could not get some sleep bothered by what the dream could mean.
She couldn't wait the day to be fully grown when she woke her husband to go visit olado.
After some incantation and throwing of some cowries on a goat skin, he blow our some powder singing and chanting in the spirits tone. After what seem like forever to impatient titi. Olado finally spoke out.
"Adasa is back"
"But we buried her and you know of this. What do you mean by she's back" her confused husband asked
He pointed at titilayo's belly, " she had reincarnated, the ghost is back to live with the humans" he looked at Temi and swiftly to titi. " The baby in your womb is an ogbanje , you must get rid of it".
"Over my dead body will I kill an innocent child" Titilayomi retort
" Then you'll live to regret it, the dead should be with the dead and the living among the living" olado said , as he bid them farewell " It's your choice" he said.