00:00In the dusty hills of eastern Nigeria, where the Harmattan wind still carries whispers of forgotten promises, Chukwuma returned to his ancestral village after 12 years in Lagos.
00:13He had built a life there, a steady job in I.T., a sleek apartment in Leki, and Etaora, the woman he planned to marry next Harmattan.
00:23The village called him back only because his father's compound needed tending after the old man's passing.
00:29Just two weeks, he told Etaora over the phone. Sort the papers, fix the roof, then I'm gone.
00:36The first night, the air felt heavier than he remembered. The zinc roof groaned under no wind.
00:42He woke at 3.17 a.m. to the soft patter of bare feet on the earthen floor outside his room.
00:50When he opened the door, nothing. Only moonlight pooling like spilled milk on the ground.
00:55The second night, it was laughter low, melodic, coming from the old Iroko tree his grandfather had planted decades ago.
01:04Chukwuma laughed it off as village nostalgia playing tricks. But on the third night, she spoke.
01:10You came back, the voice said, clear as a bell, yet sounding from everywhere and nowhere.
01:18I waited. He spun around. No one, yet the kerosene lamp flickered, as though someone had passed between it and the wall.
01:28By the fifth night, he could see her outline if he stared long enough into the shadows.
01:33Tall, slender, skin-like polished ebony under moon, glow, wearing coral beads, and a white gown the way women in old photographs did.
01:44Her eyes were the worst deep, knowing, and strangely tender.
01:48I am Neneka, she told him one evening, as he sat on the veranda trying to call a daora.
01:55The network refused to connect.
01:57Your great-grandfather promised me to his first-born son's line.
02:01The promise was sealed in blood and cola.
02:03You are that line.
02:05Chukwuma felt ice slide down his spine.
02:08I don't know any Neneka.
02:10I don't believe in... this.
02:13You don't have to believe, she answered gently.
02:16You only have to remember.
02:17She began to appear in daylight too, always at the edge of vision.
02:22A flash of white cloth disappearing behind the mango tree.
02:25The scent of camwood and palm oil lingering in rooms he had just entered alone.
02:30His phone filled with missed calls from unknown numbers that, when he redialed, played only soft humming.
02:37A daora noticed first.
02:39You sound different, she said during one rare call that connected.
02:43Distant, like someone else is in the room with you.
02:46He wanted to laugh, to lie, but the words caught.
02:50Instead he said, it's just the village.
02:53Memories.
02:54When he returned to Lagos two weeks later, Neneka followed.
02:58She did not ride in the bus.
03:00She was already waiting in his apartment, sitting cross-legged on the rug he and A daora had bought together.
03:06Her white gown spread like spilled moonlight.
03:09The air conditioner labored but could not cool the sudden chill.
03:13You cannot outrun lineage, she said simply.
03:16At first she was subtle.
03:19A daora would find her hairbrush moved, her perfume bottle open, faint fingerprints on the bathroom mirror that weren't either of theirs.
03:27Then came the dreams.
03:28A daora, dreaming of a woman in white, standing at the foot of their bed, smiling sadly, whispering, he was mine first.
03:38Arguments followed.
03:39A daora accused him of cheating.
03:41Chukwuma accused her of paranoia.
03:43The flat that once echoed with laughter now rang with silence and suspicion.
03:50One night, desperate, Chukwuma drove to see Dibia Eze, an old Dibia his father once consulted.
03:57The old man listened, smoked his pipe, and said only,
04:01The spirit wife does not leave unless she is given what was promised, or unless the living wife is strong enough to claim what is hers.
04:09Chukwuma returned home at dawn.
04:11A daora sat on the couch, eyes red, a small clay pot of water and alligator pepper between her knees, an offering she had learned from her own grandmother.
04:21I saw her, a daora said quietly.
04:25She stood right here and told me she loved you before I was born.
04:29She said she waited lifetimes.
04:31Chukwuma knelt.
04:33For the first time, he spoke to Nekka aloud, voice cracking.
04:38I honor the promise my ancestor made.
04:41But I choose this life.
04:44I choose her.
04:45If you are family, then let me live.
04:48The room grew still.
04:49The lights dimmed, then brightened.
04:53A soft sigh moved through the curtains like wind through dry leaves.
04:57Nekka appeared one last time fully visible now, beautiful and sorrowful.
05:02She placed a single cowrie shell in a daora's palm.
05:06Keep him safe, she said.
05:08The road is long, and promises have long memories.
05:12Then she was gone.
05:13The apartment felt lighter.
05:15The air conditioner hummed normally again.
05:17A daora closed her fingers around the shell.
05:20Chukwuma never spoke of it again.
05:23But sometimes, when he traveled back to the village, he left a small dish of cola and gin beneath the iroko tree.
05:30Not out of fear.
05:32Out of respect.
05:33And a daora.
05:36Strong, fierce a daora kept the cowrie shell on her nightstand.
05:41A quiet reminder that love, even across worlds, must sometimes negotiate its borders.
05:47Have you ever felt the weight of an old promise you never made?
05:51Or sensed a presence tied to your bloodline?
05:54That modern life can't quite explain away?
05:57Share your own story of ancestral echoes, strange dreams, or unexplained encounters in the replies.
06:04I'd love to read them.
06:06Some ties refuse to be broken.
06:08Some stories refuse to stay buried.
06:11What's yours?
06:11I'd love to read them.
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