Howa’s last clear image before darkness took her was the leather bracelet on his wrist—thin, worn, familiar even then, as if it carried history of its own.
When Howa woke hours later, her mouth was dry, her body aching, but she was alive.
Nana was there, sitting beside her bed, eyes rimmed red with fear she had tried to hide, and the stranger was gone.
The nurse said he had paid the bill in full and left quietly after making sure Howa was stable.
“What is his name?” Nana had asked.
The nurse shrugged.
“He didn’t give it.”
Back in the village, Howa expected the story to end there.
But Nana did not let it become just another tale people repeated and forgot.
She made Howa sit with her outside their compound the next evening and listen as if it was a lesson written into the sky.
“Someone wanted to harm you,” Nana said plainly.
“Not because you are special, but because the world is full of people who like to test how cheap a life can be.”
Howa’s voice trembled.
“Why would someone do that?”
Nana’s gaze was far away.
“Greed, anger, sometimes just sport.”
Howa stared at the dirt.
“If that man didn’t come, I would have died.”
“Yes,” Nana said, and her voice softened.
“And that is why you must remember: kindness can arrive wearing any face.”
For weeks after, Nana became stricter with Howa.
She taught her to recognize bitter scents that didn’t belong in water.
She taught her which leaves countered toxins and which soothed lungs in a person who seemed to be slipping away.
It was during one of those lessons years later, when Howa was about 16, that Nana said something that stayed with her like a hidden stone in her pocket.
They were sitting near the back of the compound, away from listening ears.
Nana laid out a small bundle of dried leaves, darker than most, with a scent that was sharp and clean.
“This one,” Nana said, “is not for ordinary sickness.”
Howa leaned closer.
“What is it for?”
Nana lowered her voice.
“For someone whose breath is being stolen.”
Howa frowned.
“Stolen? By who?”
Nana’s eyes lifted to the sky briefly, as if asking for patience with a child’s questions.
“Sometimes illness is not only illness. Sometimes it is arranged.”
Howa swallowed.
“So this leaf can cure poison?”
Nana shook her head.
“Not cure. Not always. But it can buy time. It can wake the body enough for other help to work. It is a bridge, not the destination.”
She pressed the dried leaves into Howa’s palm.
“You will not use this for money. You will not use it to show off. And you will not mention it to people who enjoy rumors.”
Howa’s fingers curled around the leaves.
“When will I need it?”
Nana held her gaze with unsettling seriousness.
“When you see someone surrounded by power but still helpless. When doctors say it is finished and something in you refuses to accept it.”
Howa felt a chill despite the heat.
“How will I know?”
Nana’s voice became a whisper.
“Because your spirit will recognize the moment, and when it comes, you must be brave enough to be mocked.”
Years later in Logos, Howa would try to forget those words.
Life in the city was loud and impatient.
People laughed at village wisdom.
They called it superstition.
They demanded proof and certificates and stamped documents for everything, even compassion.
But now, with Taiwin lying in a hospital bed and his bracelet pulling the past into the present, Nana’s warning returned with force.
Howa sat in her rented room that night, rain tapping the roof like persistent fingers.
She opened her cloth bundle and stared at the dried leaves she had carried all these years.
Not because she believed she would need them, but because Nana had told her never to throw them away.
Her hand trembled.
In the distance, Lagos traffic roared like an ocean indifferent.
In the hospital, Taiw’s body fought silently against something no one had named yet.
And deep in the shadows around him—shadows made of ambition, paperwork, and smiling faces—plans were tightening like a noose.
Howwa looked down at her belly and whispered, not to the baby alone, but to herself:
“If they say it’s finished, and I still have breath, then maybe I was brought here for a reason.”
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