Eunice Nwankwo walks the corridors of University
of Lagos library after curfew, her fingers
tracing faded Yoruba incantations in colonialera
anthropology files. She doesn’t know the texts
are alive — they rewrite themselves when touched
by blood kin of the old priestesses. Each night,
she bleeds a drop from her thumb onto page 47 of
The Ancestral Ledger, and the ink swallows her
fear, her hunger, her silence.
Chijioke “Chiji” Okonkwo, once a law student
turned Yahoo Boy, now sleeps in a rented room in
Surulere where his shadow moves without him. He
carries a charm made from dried python skin and
church ashes — bought from a pastor’s son to
break his father’s curse. But the charm is a
loan. Every full moon, his bones crack like dry
calabash. He doesn’t know Eunice is the one who
binds him now — her ink is the counterspell.
The university’s new Dean, a Pentecostal
firebrand, has ordered all “pagan relics” burned.
On the third night of the purge, guards find
Eunice’s notebook under a desk in the History
Wing. They throw it into the bonfire. The flames
turn black. The smoke forms a face — her
grandmother’s. That night, Chiji wakes with a
new tattoo on his chest: the same symbol Eunice
had been copying. He knows now — she’s not just
writing. She’s bargaining.
He finds her at the old mosqueturnedbookstore on
Allen Avenue. She’s burning her own hair in a
bowl, whispering to the wind. He doesn’t speak.
He drops a bundle of naira notes — stolen from a
minister’s son — onto the floor. The notes burn
to ash before they touch the ground. The rule
bites: no money from illgotten gain can buy
spiritual peace. Not even in the oil boom.
She takes his hand. Leads him to the riverbank
behind the Faculty of Arts. There, she cuts her
palm and presses it to his chest. The ink from
her notebook rises like mist, weaving into his
skin, pulling the curse out in threads of black
smoke. The spirits scream through the reeds. The
moon bleeds red.
By dawn, Chiji’s bones are quiet. His shadow
walks with him again. But Eunice’s left hand is
now bonewhite, cold as a tombstone. She cannot
write. Cannot hold a pen. The university expels
her for “indecent conduct.” Her father disowns
her. The pastor’s son who sold Chiji the charm
is found drowned in his bathtub, mouth full of
library pages.
The oil boom still hums in the streets. Cars
honk. Market women shout. But in the quiet hours,
students whisper: the girl who wrote spells to
save a Yahoo Boy didn’t win. She traded her
voice for his soul. And the ledger? It’s still
open. Waiting.
She walks alone now, through Surulere, through
Mushin, through the alleys where the spirits
still listen. Her hand doesn’t shake. She
doesn’t cry. She just walks — because some
curses don’t end. They just change hands.
