One muggy afternoon, the market buzzed with voices, cloth bags, rushed laughter, and flies dancing over fresh fish.
Sod was finishing packing the last bunches of plantains at her stand when she saw a familiar figure in the distance. Her mother, Bimbo, was there, but she had not come for her. She stood with her back turned, speaking with someone, a figure leaning against the tobacco stall, wrapped in a wine-colored scarf that covered part of her face.
Sod narrowed her eyes, tilted her head, trying to make out the silhouette. The conversation looked tense. The woman was gesturing nervously, and Bimbo seemed to be trying to calm her down. Before she could get closer, the woman slipped away down the side of the market, vanishing between sacks of rice and herb vendors.
Sod ran to her mother.
“Mama.”
“Oh, Sod, are you done already? I just came to buy tobacco for your uncle,” she answered too quickly, her eyes darting like she had ants in her shoes.
“Who was that woman you were talking to?”
“What woman?”
“The one with the scarf leaning on the stall. I saw her. Mama, you were talking to her.”
“Sod, please don’t start. It must have been some vendor asking me for change. I didn’t even see who it was. Come on, let’s go home. It’s already getting dark.”
Bimbo grabbed the basket and hurried away, leaving no room for further questions.
Sod stood frozen for a few seconds. The smell of dried fish felt sour. The air seemed stuck between the teeth of time.
A lie.
And a bad one.
In the days that followed, Sod could not forget that moment. Her mind became a sleepless mill.
Why was her mother hiding things? Who was that woman? Why did she look so scared?
Until one muggy Thursday, the truth began to peel away like yam skin.
Sod was crossing the packed dirt alley, returning from Dona Qualommo’s candy stand, when her eyes locked with that same woman.
She was standing next to the village well, a bucket in hand. She wore a simple burnt-orange dress and a white scarf over her poorly braided hair. But what caught Sod was her face.
It was like looking into a broken mirror.
The woman had the same spots on her face as Sod, the same jaw structure, the same strange eyes, one slightly larger than the other, with an iris that changed color under the sun.
She was older, perhaps five years older, but it was like seeing herself distorted by time.
Sod froze.
The woman saw her too. Her eyes widened with a fear that screamed silently. The bucket slipped from her hands and fell to the ground with a dull thud. She covered her mouth and began to cry in silence. Tears streamed down her face as if a secret river had overflowed inside her.
Sod did not say a word, but she felt a knot in her chest, as if all the air had been sucked out by the well.
Who are you?
The question did not come out, but it was written in her eyes.
The woman tried to approach, but Sod stepped back. Her feet felt glued to the ground, yet wanting to run.
Not knowing what to do, she turned and ran. She ran as if the past were chasing her. She passed the corner where women sold pineapples, ignored the greeting of the old man selling cashews, tripped over a sack of flour, and did not stop until she got home.
Bimbo was in the backyard doing laundry when she saw her daughter arrive with a pale face and frightened eyes. She ran to her.
“What happened? Did you fall, Sod?”
Her voice came out as a breath.
“I saw her. The woman from the market. She was at the well. She saw me and cried.”
The wash basin slipped from Bimbo’s hands, spreading soap and foam across the floor.
“Sod, what are you talking about?”
“You know who I’m talking about!” Sod shouted, her hands trembling. “She has my face. My face, Mama. Who is she?”
Bimbo took two steps back. She had not expected the truth to come out of her daughter’s mouth with the weight of a sacred drum.
“Sod, you’re tired. It must have been someone who just looks like you. The world is full of lookalikes. Soul twins. Go drink some water. Lie down. Rest. Go.”
“Go, Sod.”
The shout was louder than it should have been, more afraid than angry.
Sod swallowed hard and went up to her room.
But she did not sleep. Not that day, nor the ones after.
The image of that woman would not leave her mind. The pain in her eyes. The way she cried. The look of someone who had seen a ghost.
But who was the ghost of whom?
Sod knew something was buried in that river. Something her mother pretended did not exist. But it would not stay hidden for long.
The voices of the past were returning.
And now they had faces.
Ugly, marked, deformed—but real, and alive.
Sod began to avoid the mirror, not out of shame, but out of fear that one day she would look into it and not see herself, but one of them looking back.
The days passed as if the sky were always cloudy. Even when the sun was shining, Sod walked as if she expected something at every corner. Something or someone.
The market was no longer the same. Every corner seemed to hide a glance. Every voice seemed to whisper secrets. No one dared to speak aloud.
She still remembered the woman at the well. The mirrored face. The tears.
But what would truly break her was yet to come.
It happened on another hot morning. She was stacking sacks of flour under the shade of her stand when she saw them through the hanging sheets: two women walking side by side, discreetly dressed in simple floral fabrics, but with an unsettling air because both had her face.
Each step they took made Sod’s world shrink. Her heart pounded. Cold sweat ran down her back. One was shocking enough. Two—that was impossible.
“My God, what is happening to me?”
They passed without looking at her.
She pretended to shop for peanuts, then for fabric. Sod tried to follow them, but a swarm of running children blocked her path. When she reached the end of the alley, the women had vanished like smoke.
Later that day, Sod tried to speak with her mother.
“Mom, I saw—now there were two.”
“Two? What?”
Bimbo pretended to be surprised, but her voice trembled.
“Two women just like me. Like the other one, but now there were two. You swore you weren’t hiding anything from me.”
Bimbo lowered her gaze.
“Daughter, you’re confused. You dreamed of them before. Maybe you’re mixing up what’s real with what’s imaginary. Soul twins, like the elders say.”
“Mom, stop it. I know what I saw.”
“Sod, please…”
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