GRANDMOTHER’S BOX Episode 10 – Elisha Kehinde Fagbemi

GRANDMOTHER’S BOX Episode 10 – Elisha Kehinde Fagbemi

The look on their faces was frigh•tening, it made my blo–od run cold. Regret washed over me at that moment, I wished that we had not left the room.

“They might still be alive if we had stayed”, I chided myself.

The light that got restored earlier started to fluctuate, making the whole atmosphere more sc•ary.

I was now the last man standing.

“Why did you trip. Why did you let us fall”, My brothers bellowed voice said queryingly.

I was about give them the same answer, that it wasn’t intentional when I saw the little girl lurking around and watching me with w!cked smiles, or rather, a wild grin on her face.

The light flickered on and off and suddenly, she was not there.

“She… She…”, I found myself stuttering as I staggered backward and fell heavily to the ground.

The clattering of teeth from heads sounded all around me.

And the walls seemed to echo one word.

Die!
Die!
Die!

I picked myself up from the floor and fled immediately, running to no particular direction.

“God please, I don’t want to die”. I whispered to myself while running aimlessly.

I was still running round the house when I spotted the room Grandma has always warned us not to get near too. “This room is a forbidden area, and none of you must come here”, Grandma told us playfully the very first time we arrived at her place.

I change my direction towards the room instantly, and I ran towards it with full speed.

Perhaps it might be the end to my anguish.

I barged into the room as fast as I could and I locked the door.

To my surprise, the room was absolutely empty and the only thing that was in the room was Grandpa’s picture.

I was still trying to find a place to hide when the girl reappeared just a few inches from me.

The fear that coursed through me made my teeth rattle. I jolted back and screamed . And she, this ev!l being, was just watching me.

“Please don’t k!ll me” I pleaded.

” I think we are done playing now. Told you no one has ever escaped from my den”, She said as she laughed hysterically.

Her voice seemed to echo like it was more than one person speaking.

“But…..but we didn’t do anything to you neither do we know you”, I answered, with my hands still up in the air.

It was at this exact point she moved finally to me and the whole light went off again.

She held my hands and it felt so cold and otherworldly.

Taking my arms, she sort of led me into the past. I could see the past as a different dimension of time.

I could experience it, I saw the everything that happened.

And this was what happened.

---

“Anna, Anna!!”, I heard a man call a girl as he shook her out of her sleep. The Man looked like my Dad and in a brief instant, I realized it was Grandpa when he was younger.

She opened her eyes to see him, Grand ma and my dad standing by her bedside. And for some reason, she was at the verge of crying.

Grand pa stood with a short odd-looking black man, clad in a black garment.

“Pleased let me go she begged, my… my my mother will…”

Before she could finish, Grandpa bellowed “Shut up”.

“Please my mother, I am her only child please…”, The girl begged.
The creases of Grandpa’s face showed he was dead serious and he wouldn’t be swayed.

All the while, the odd-looking man in black garment said nothing but stared meaningfully in a different direction. At intervals, he would turn and sigh deeply: “hmmmmm”.

I saw the man, Grandpa and my dad step out to talk, and when they both returned, they asked Grandma to leave because she was a woman.

The man produced a machete and gave it to my Grandpa and my dad immediately stepped in and held the girl’s legs.

“Did Grandpa really want to k!ll her”, I thought. ” No, he can’t, he can’t”

“You are a man” the other man in black garment pep-talked Grandpa.

Grandpa approached her, he hesitated for a moment before it happened so fast.

The mouth on her head gaped open in speechless surprise as I saw blo–od spurt out from her neck and her head went flying to the other side of the bed.

My daddy picked it and it was placed in a box.

The man in black garment laughed w!ckedly.

And Grandpa, my dad and Grandma dragged the de•ad child to a room.

After they were done dragging the girl to a particular room in the house, two male teenagers came out to clean the bl•ood that was on the floor.

That was when I saw the face of one of the teens, It was my Dad and his brother when they were very young.

I was still trying to grasp the face of the little girl that was murd•ered by them when I returned back to my former conscious state.

It was then that I realised that the face of the girl that was being dragged is the same with the face of the girl that was standing before me.

I realized instantly that our family has hand in her dea•th.

And I snapped back to reality, facing the girl.

“I seek revenge and my blo–od cries from this house”

“Blo–od for blo–od”, she began weeping blo–od.

“Tears of the sla!n”

“You all must feel my pa!n”

She rushed towards me and….

---

I awoke with a start.

Someone was tapping me. It was my sibling.

“We’re almost at Grandma’s house but why were you crying and groaning in your sleep”

I was still a bit befuddled. But slowly realization set in.

As the dreams resurfaced in my memory, I began to cry again.

My family all became concerned and began asking to know the cause of my tears.

I, mustering all my courage, narrated the dream, and right one cue, we were almost at Grandma’s house when I awoke so I stopped them.

I bra-zenly confronted my dad.

“We’re all going to d!e”

They tried to shut me up but I wouldn’t be rebuffed.

“Daddy, she’s there. Grandpa k!lled her and she’s out for this family”

My dad looked panicked and began to cry, he confessed that it was Grandpa.

For money and life in the family but he had no hand in it really. Grandpa forced him to play the role he did as the first son.

My mother was aghast.

But we had to still visit Grandma because Grandpa was already dead.

But this time around, we had to go with a Priest.

When we arrived at the house, Grandma was sick and at the point of death.

She soon confessed and the family had to be prayed for.

“The word of the Lord came unto me again, saying, What mean ye, that ye use this proverb saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb. Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” the Priest said.

And then prayed for us.

Grandma died shortly after in a pain-filled but we were saved.

May the mistakes of our parents past not come after us.

The End.

© Elisha Kehinde Fagbemi

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