Bound by ancestry - Chapter 79: Chapter 79

Before the first rooster crowed over Umuguma Adaeze was already awake her eyes open to the hush that pressed close behind her ribs steady and warm even as the air around her felt thick with the promise of more questions. She lay still on the mat listening to Chidubem’s slow breathing beside her his presence a reminder that the hush was not hers alone to carry but a flame passed from breath to breath. She rose quietly wrapping her wrapper tighter around her shoulders as she gathered her beads letting their cool weight remind her of the ember that refused to fade even when the world outside cracked and bent beneath storms.
Outside the morning stirred softly chickens scratching the earth mothers whispering to restless children while smoke curled above clay roofs carrying the hush on its slow dance into the breaking dawn. Chidubem stepped from the doorway into the pale light feeling the cold clay under his feet his mind replaying the vision of the man in white who stood at the place where water met sky his silence deeper than any wall he had ever built. In the dream the man’s name drifted through the hush Nwa Chineke Okwu Onye Ndum and when Chidubem woke he knew the hush had come not to hide them from storms but to teach them to breathe through the wind and stand when fear knocked loud at the door.
Adaeze stepped into the courtyard her eyes meeting his without a word needed because the hush had become a language of its own threading them together when words fell short. They did not rush the day open they let the hush stretch into the earth pressing roots deeper than any rumor or restless doubt waiting to rise with the sun. When they walked the narrow path toward the Iroko tree they carried no banners only breath steady enough to speak what clay shrines and broken walls never could.
The villagers gathered slowly some clutching baskets of vegetables some carrying broken pieces of clay from old altars hoping perhaps to trade them for something stronger than fear. They came because the hush kept pulling them back to the place where shadows could not follow where the hush spoke of a temple not built with hands but grown behind ribs tended each time breath remembered its name. Children sat cross-legged at the Iroko roots tracing lines in the dust with sticks their laughter slipping between stories their elders whispered about storms that once tore roofs apart but never touched the hush carried by breath alone.
Adaeze raised her hands not to command but to remind them that the hush was not hers to give but theirs to find again and again whenever the world rattled too loud for sleep to come easy. She spoke of the ember that glowed in every chest waiting for trust to fan it back to life. She told them the man in white never promised a fortress of stone but gave them breath to build a place where fear could find no foothold. The hush did not roar it hummed deep it pressed against the ribs when storms rose wild and when doors threatened to crack open beneath old ghosts that whispered half truths in the night.
Chidubem’s voice joined hers his words slow and even carrying the weight of every wall he had raised and lost. He spoke of city gates that promised safety but crumbled when thunder cracked too close of gold spent on locks that rusted of dreams that only found root when the hush finally whispered that a true fortress stands where breath remembers its beginning. He looked at their eyes searching for doubt yet found only quiet hunger to understand why the hush never shouted yet never left them.
Among them an old woman leaned on her stick her voice brittle but clear as she asked why the hush could not simply chase storms away once and for all. Adaeze stepped close her beads brushing the woman’s knotted fingers her words soft but steady as she reminded them all that storms come to test the hush to press it deeper so it does not scatter at the first sound of thunder. She said the temple built within does not fear storms because storms cannot cross its threshold only the breath that feeds the hush can do that.
Children leaned closer now their fingers pressing beads into soft palms their heads full of stories that would grow roots beneath the clay floor of every room they slept in. They asked small questions about the man in white whether he would ever build them a house so large no wind could find a crack. Adaeze told them the man in white builds no house of clay or stone he teaches them to build a house behind ribs stronger than walls carved by human hands. Nwa Chineke Okwu Onye Ndum a name they could carry without fear that it would crumble under storms.
The sun crept high above them pressing warmth onto shoulders and foreheads yet no one moved to leave the hush weaving through every heartbeat like a quiet drum that held back the restless winds that scraped at fences and rooftops. Chidubem pressed his palm to the tree’s rough bark feeling how deep the roots stretched how still they stayed even when the breeze tugged at branches above. He reminded them the hush is like these roots it bends when wind demands but never breaks because it knows its place within the earth where shadows cannot dig deep enough to steal it away.
As dusk drifted across the village feet shuffled through the dust families carrying small pieces of hush home wrapped inside chests where old fear used to live. Some would forget by nightfall but the hush would wait behind their ribs whispering again each dawn when the first rooster called and the ember flickered alive when they remembered to breathe it awake. Adaeze and Chidubem stayed beneath the Iroko their shoulders pressed close words falling away until only breath remained.
When they stepped back into their clay home the hush followed like an old friend wrapping the walls not with locks but with breath stronger than fear. And when Chidubem whispered the names once more into the dark Nwa Chineke Okwu Onye Ndum Adaeze pressed her forehead to his chest letting the hush answer for them both.