Bound by ancestry - Chapter 48: Chapter 48

The river had always flowed through Umuguma like a lifeline whispering stories to anyone who would listen but now it did something more it spoke not with words or sounds but with presence as if it had begun to carry memory within its currents those who sat by its banks no longer came to fetch water alone they came to be remembered they came to remember.
Adaeze sat beside the river before the break of dawn wrapped in her woven cloth of listening her feet dipped into the cool water her eyes watching the shifting surface without trying to read it her breathing matched the river’s rhythm slow steady eternal the sun had not risen but the sky had begun to warm with soft colors and within that quiet she heard it not with her ears but from the space inside her where spirit dwells it was not a message but an invitation an urge to become like the river to carry memory without clinging to flow without force.
Chidubem approached without making a sound and knelt beside her his presence gentle his mind still they did not greet each other with words instead they leaned in and rested their foreheads together and in that simple gesture entire stories were exchanged he had dreamt of fire walking through rain not being quenched but being crowned he had seen Adaeze inside a circle of trees speaking to light and being answered by wind he did not know what it meant but he did not need to she would understand.
She pulled back from him only slightly and whispered one sentence the water remembers us he nodded and whispered back then we must remember the water together they stood and walked into the river not to bathe not to wash but to surrender the water came up to their waists wrapping around them with a quiet embrace they closed their eyes and breathed letting the current pass through them as if it were flowing not just around their bodies but through their souls.
By midday word had spread throughout the village not through mouths but through hearts people began arriving at the river one by one then in pairs then in families no one spoke loudly no one instructed anything people simply entered the water with reverence and stillness and stood beside one another with open hearts it became a sacred silence a collective remembering the river became a mirror reflecting not faces but essence.
Uzochi stepped into the water holding his mother’s hand she was old her steps slow but her spirit strong she had lived many seasons carried many losses but she still sang in her sleep he had once feared she would forget him entirely but now he saw that memory did not live in names or faces but in spirit she stood beside him water circling her knees and she began to hum a tune he had not heard since he was a child it echoed across the surface and entered the hearts of everyone present.
Mama Ukamaka watched from the bank her hands folded before her chest her eyes full of tears she had seen many things in her life but never a moment like this she turned slowly and began walking toward the well the same well that once dried up during the famine the same well they now called the whispering mouth she touched its stones and began speaking softly not to the people not to herself but to the spirit that had never left even when they had forgotten she said the flame is walking on water and we are walking in it.
That evening as the sun dipped low and painted the sky with fire a new sound emerged from the village not drums not chants not clapping but a layered humming rising and falling like waves people began humming without knowing they were doing it mothers hummed while cooking fathers hummed while returning from the fields children hummed as they played and in every home a deep vibration filled the air like the voice of the land itself joining in their remembering.
Adaeze returned to her home and sat before her weaving mat but this time she did not touch the threads instead she placed her hands on her chest and closed her eyes inside she saw the man in white standing in the circle of stones not speaking just breathing his hands raised palms open and above him a light neither sun nor moon burned with quiet certainty he did not tell her what to do he simply existed and in that existence she found guidance.
She opened her eyes and began to weave not with patterns she had known before but with ones that came as visions a spiral that unfolded into branches a path that bent like a question and then straightened like an answer a shape like a heart but also like a flame she did not name these patterns she did not interpret them she simply gave them space to exist and when she was done she left the cloth outside her doorway for anyone to see anyone to touch anyone to feel.
Chidubem began waking at midnight walking alone through the village with bare feet and open hands sometimes he would pause beside a sleeping house and whisper a blessing into the darkness sometimes he would kneel beneath the iroko tree and stay still until the breeze changed direction once he saw a child sitting awake in the dark their eyes wide and unafraid the child said I heard the tree say your name and Chidubem smiled and replied then it must know I am listening.
Dreams began to spread like stories not just at night but even in the middle of the day people would pause in the middle of work with a faraway look in their eyes and when they returned to awareness they would share what they had seen rivers flowing upward ancestors dancing in circles people walking through flames without being burned every dream was different but they all carried the same feeling truth not spoken but felt truth not explained but lived.
The children of Umuguma began gathering near the stones at dusk forming circles without instruction they would close their eyes and hum together until the stars appeared in the sky some said they saw lights dancing above their heads some said they felt someone brushing their shoulders with light no adult told them what it meant but every adult who passed by paused and bowed slightly honoring the quiet wisdom unfolding in the next generation.
On the seventh evening after the river gathering something new happened a mist rolled in from the east not thick not cold but filled with a soft glow it entered the village without fear without rush it wrapped itself around homes and trees and people and in that mist many saw the man in white standing at different places at once some saw him beside the well others saw him near the iroko tree others saw him at the river he spoke to none but all felt spoken to.
And as quickly as the mist arrived it faded leaving behind a warmth in the bones and a stillness in the breath the villagers did not speak of what they saw not because they were afraid but because they had learned that some truths are better carried than described they began calling that night the walking silence and from then on whenever mist returned they opened their doors and windows and sat in stillness ready to receive.
The idea of distance began to shift in Umuguma people no longer felt far from one another even when separated by space a woman would begin singing in her home and another would finish the verse in hers a child would begin drawing a symbol on one side of the village and another child would draw the same one across town without ever having met they began saying the spirit has no borders it walks where it is welcomed.
The temple within became a common saying not just as an idea but as a lived truth people would say I am going to the temple and then they would enter their rooms close the door and sit in silence others would say I met Nwa Chineke today and when asked where they would reply in the kitchen in the field in the shadow of the tree in my own chest the idea of meeting the divine had changed it was no longer about location but about posture.
That night Adaeze sat by the river again this time surrounded by candles placed by others not for ceremony but for remembering each flame reflected in the water created a dance of light like a thousand spirits bowing to the unseen she placed both hands on the water and closed her eyes and in the space between one breath and the next she heard it not with ears but with essence a voice not loud but absolute not demanding but inviting not from outside but from within it said become the river.
She remained there for hours unmoving unthinking only being and when she rose she left behind nothing but a ripple and when Chidubem came to that same spot in the morning he knelt and touched the ripple still moving and said she heard.