CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Salt in the Blood
"Bí omi bá rọ̀, a máa mọ̀ ẹni tó mọ̀yà."
When the flood comes, we will know who can swim.
---
Zainab folded the last page of her grandmother's journal and placed it gently beside the cracked mirror.
Something had shifted.
Not just in the house, but in her. It wasn't a break — not yet — but a thinning. Like the line between dream and waking had become a thread, stretched and humming, ready to snap or stitch something new.
She still watched her Kdramas — not for joy anymore, but as a way to remember who she used to be. The girl who cried over fictional heartbreak, who cooked noodles at 1 AM and texted Tolu memes. Her phone was dead, but her mind still reached for those things, like a hand brushing empty air for a familiar wall.
She wasn't fully lost.
Not yet.
She stepped out into the corridor again. This time, she carried a notebook of her own — small, brown-covered, bought during her first semester in school. It was filled with random Bible verses, copied Ifá verses, half-written poems, and lists of things to do "when I figure things out."
Now she was writing in it again. But differently.
"Dreamt of the spiral-eyed mask again. But it didn't speak. Just… watched."
"Three knocks last night. No doors in the house. Just the walls. Still answered."
"Must find out what Ayéròyá means — not just in language, but in weight."
The shrine-room was still open. She had not sealed it. Somehow, it felt disrespectful to do so. The eyes drawn on the floor had faded slightly. She didn't redraw them. Instead, she lit a candle.
One.
Just one.
She sat and waited. Not for voices. Not even for understanding. But for peace — or whatever passed for peace when your ancestors were watching through stone and mirror.
"Okay," she whispered into the silence. "What now?"
There was no answer. But the silence this time didn't feel empty.
It felt expectant.
---
Later, she took her grandmother's diary to the sitting room and pulled out her laptop. The battery was nearly dead, but she had ten minutes — maybe less. She didn't want Instagram or messages.
She searched for the word Ayéròyá.
Most of the results were music videos or Oríkì fragments. Nothing precise.
She added: "Yoruba spirit name," "Ajogun," "Orí paths," "naming echoes," "house whispers."
The screen flickered. Her battery dipped to 5%.
Then, something popped up. A thesis paper — poorly scanned — from a forgotten university archive. Titled:
"Naming the Echo: Transitional Soul States and the Ajogun Phenomenon in Pre-Colonial Yoruba Cosmology."
She clicked. The screen stuttered.
Her hands itched.
Her breath caught in her throat as she skimmed:
"Ayéròyá is an inherited title, not a given name. It is a soul-state passed through bloodlines where the bearer functions as both echo and doorway. When the Ajogun rise, only Ayéròyá can identify them by name…"
The laptop died.
Darkness fell around her, but inside, a terrible clarity was settling.
She was Ayéròyá.
And Ayéròyá was never meant to remain just a girl.
Still, she was not ready to let go of Zainab. Not yet. Not fully. Not ever, if she could help it.
She closed the dead laptop and sat with herself — her back against the wall, the smell of candlewax lingering, the silence pressing close.
"I'm still here," she whispered. "Whatever else is coming… I'm still here."
And the walls — for once — didn't whisper back.
---
If your name is the key that opens old doors, do you walk through — or do you change the lock?