How A Witch Should Die

“Tell them my blood is bitter”

“Tell them it is poison for their stomach”

That is what you said to the ‘oracle’ when the witches were vying for your blood. They loved the crimson velvet glamour it possessed. Even though you detest the rusty odour it gives, when you have incision cuts for protection, it won't stop them. To them, it reeks of lust and passion. Denotes strength. They love to drink it fresh and warm. Someday, they wait for the blood to clot. Makes them appear in clumps. Congealed blood. Just like succulent bits of meat to meet the demands of their deathly-looking fangs and gory insides.

“Appease the mothers of the night, Appease the daughters of wickedness", your native doctor bellowed. 

Isn't this the hundredth time? 

"Wait, but I offered some sacrifices about two moons ago," you thought. Your head couldn't wrap around how much food these dreadful creatures eat. But then who are you to question the mediator of unseen spirits? You should put your trust in him. He has helped your mother to combat these merciless beings before she later perished at their hands. HIV/AIDS. The modern healers confirmed.

“Five gallons of palm oil, seven gourds of palm wine, three bundles of kola nuts, a white cock, 7 yards of white cloth, 7 yards of red cloth, a ram...” your native doctor's voice boomed with a pitch that made a mockery of money. If the ritual ceremony will scare those bloodsucking monsters away, you will give it your all.

That is a man with three wives. Makes you wonder how he does that thing. Sex. The first is a stout woman with a commanding voice. The second, a former village wrestling champion and the third built like a rock. Aye! Something must kill a man. A man who is yet to observe his necessary marital rites but you were too blind to see. Your eyes, your end.

"Forty tubers of yam...”

How strong are their teeth?

Strong enough to crush your skull

How large is their stomach?

The questions you should have asked.

Still, you proceeded with the ritual ceremony.

When you sleep at night, you check the doors over and over again to make sure they don't open themselves. Is that a joke?

There was a particular night, a long time ago. You could bet you locked your door, went back to check and saw the door closed, only to wake up to the creaking of the door. Ever since you realized checking once will never be enough. It must have skipped your mind that you gave a spare key to Ujuah, your cousin who is the reason behind the opened door. The same way you thought the witches forgot to drink your blood when it was fresh and innocent. Without sin. Come to think of it, what were they waiting for?

A typical example of a witch you know is your mother's senior wife. A full-blown witch. You were told she operates at midnight as a result of shame accosted by the villagers upon her and left the daytime for humans.

Your people said she ate all her babies though the white man called it miscarriages.

"She drinks human blood too" 

Gulps it down like sweet palm wine, the kind your previous lover loved to drink.

They call her Nana Makpo. Your mother said she was excommunicated from the family house as a result of her insatiable thirst for blood. She had no child of her own and still went ahead to drink your father's blood, months after hearing of your conceived pregnancy. She is the reason why you have no father. She is the devil behind your sufferings.

“I will not forgive her”, you vowed.

“My dia, your fada my loff was thin like broom before he went to be with his ancestors. Dey sed he had sumtin like ant drinkin his blood," Your mother said answering your question of how Baba died.

“How ant enter him body if not witchcraft work?" She asked confirming your suspicions about the power of the witches.

Another example is Auntie Rani. This particular one, you can testify before a court of law.

Does she eat babies?

Does she drink blood?

You heard she ate Chief Amadi's eyes because he was cross-eyed. 

"I no know if he dey look me or not", people heard her say and now, Chief Amadi is blind. You also heard she drank Mr Boyi's blood after he told her “You will not drink my blood the way you drank your children's blood". You were present at the market square where the fight ensued on a Monday morning. Mr Boyi returned home without his head on his neck. Maybe he forgot she didn't only drink their blood but also ravished their flesh. He would have realized that by now. You, on the other hand, know that and pay your homage as and when due, that is why you haven’t eaten the food of spirits. They said she nurtured her children to adulthood and killed all nine of them when they came of age. What does she stand to gain?

She loves the breaking of matured bones in her teeth. "Hard bones make the teeth strong," she said at Chief Amadi's daughter's naming ceremony. She wasn't invited yet was present. Even had the guts to point to the meat she wanted.

"Give me that one. Yes, the chicken's head"

“Of all parts!” You wondered.

Seven days later, the baby died from a terrible swelling of the head.

****

Just like you were uninterested in furthering your education, you wanted nothing to do with Emeka, the businessman who sold spare parts of vehicles across your street. You know big people who made it without school and you wanted to be like them.

"What to do now?" You thought.

"Omalicha! You won’t answer me today abi?" You heard a voice, exactly how you heard it yesterday and every other day. It sounded like how a man beckons to his lover when it’s time for the bedroom game. Husky yet inviting. One thing led to another and you became his girlfriend. The minty smell of his pockets made you forget the gypsy look on his face. 

This big shop, we die there.

But of course, nothing comes for free. You are good in bed and him too, not less of a man. As far as it comes with cool cash, you are good to go. Money answers all things; the motto you uphold. Just when you thought of repositioning yourself to become Emeka's wife, you discovered something very important. It happened the day you decided to visit your Emeka.

"Good morning Sir," you greeted the bald, fat middle-aged man sitting in front of your lover boy’s shop.

"Good morning dear."

"What would you like to buy?" he asked hailing for the presence of a sales boy.

“Ekene, customer don come o, bia osiso.”

The boy left the electric bulb he was trying to fix, heeding the man’s command instantly.

"Who is this man seff? Maybe he is a senior worker here," you thought.

"No, Sir. I am not a customer", you answered with a bit of annoyance.

"How may I help you then?" He asked looking puzzled.

"I am looking for Emeka."

"Oh...that boy, I already sent him away. He was my sales boy. Almost made me bankrupt."

That was all you needed to know. You left for home hurriedly.

"What to do now?" You thought. Another money-making machine is in view.

And you made your next move. Off to your native doctor for some love potions. 

"This rich man must not slip off my fingers", you said

"Wise one, wise one, come to my aid," you wailed.

"My husband-to-be doesn't love me anymore and now, I may lose him to the hands of female vultures on the street," you continued to cry profusely wiping your face intermittently with the edge of your wrapper.

"Wipe away your tears, Adah. Beautiful girls don't cry. I am here for you. Your solution lies with you." You satisfied his manly appetites and he solved your love problem.

Nine months later, you were groaning in the labour room, ready to give your husband his first child.

"Wheeeennnn! Wheeeeeen!" Your baby's cries filled the air.  

"My first male child! The fruit of my loins!" Your husband's joy knew no bounds. He ran home and sent his wife and three children packing. All girls.

"Do not corrupt my joy with your cargoes of misery." He yelped.

"If I return and meet any of you in my house, consider yourself dead meat."

And you started living with him, though you were unable to give him another child. You wish to secure your place by giving him as many male children as possible, but your womb refused to bear more seeds. Your mother told you that the women of your family are very fertile yet she gave birth to only you. One thing you is that the curse that befell your mother is here for you too. The witches are still alive. They have refused to dine with death; they have abstained from your blood and settled for your eggs, your womb.

So, you went back to him. Your little secret.

(Chanting in ancient tongues)

"Woman, listen to the voice of the Oracle."

"Aye, they are back. Now with teeth sharper than blades, with eyes glistening with blood, with merciless horrors, they will eat your insides, one by one, starting with your womb to end your generation, they will come after you, chase you to a cliff, surround you with spikes, stakes and by then, you will have nowhere to go except for their bellies or the deep where the devil himself lives."

"Wise one, what must I do? I have given them my all, don't let me be put to shame."

"Help me, help me," you wailed louder than before. The fear of death. The fear of the devil. What he will do to you for assuming his role.

He lists the items for the sacrifices and like before, made his sexual desires known which you welcomed. "Maybe my husband is the problem. May the goddess of fertility bless me again," you muttered rubbing your stomach with both hands, reassuring yourself of the good to come. You waited and waited until your husband began to complain.

Are the gods dead?

One male child can’t give you a lifetime warranty as a married woman. Something your mother could not achieve and your aunts will never know. Marital bliss.Your mother, a widow and your aunties, baby mamas for several men.

"My Obinna! The son of Maduka. The strength of my loins," you watched your naive husband boast, consuming more akpu with bitter leaf soup as his friends cheered him to eat as much as he could so that he would put another seed inside you. All his efforts proved abortive so you headed for the doctor who revealed that you were the problem. Your husband’s problem. The sole cause of his misfortunes.

Two of his warehouses burnt to ashes without a pin to save them. As if that was not enough, his vessel containing four containers capsized into the Atlantic.

The fear of poverty. The fear of an end to a ten-year marriage sustained with love charms.

For the fear of poverty, you found your way into the arms of the father of your child and begged him to find you a solution.

He spoke, giving you the biggest shock of your life.

"You, you think you can escape me? You gave my only son to that useless thing you call your husband but don’t worry I am coming for my heir."

"He is not your son."

"I am not a fool. Woman, don’t try me."

Since he won’t stop pestering you, you started to beg. "Please, I can give you anything but not my son." 

"You have done something abominable, hence your husband’s misfortunes. Woman, expect my visit."

"What to do, now?"

In the swift of time, you rushed outside, came in with a wooden rod and pummeled his head till his blood splattered all over his shrine.

"I did what I had to do," you consoled yourself after seeing the evil you have committed.

"But what would I have told my husband?"

"That he is love bound by some unseen spirits? Or that my son is not his? Or that my inability to give him the large family he has always wanted is because of my incongruous past abortions."

"Impossible!"

You hurriedly drove home, shaking uncontrollably while thinking of your next action only to meet a furious, unrecognizable husband.

"What do you take me for? What the hell did you do to me, you witch?"

"Witch?" You haven’t changed your blood-stained gown and so you looked like one. Just when you were about to explain yourself, the sirens of the police vans filled your ears.

You ran from the sitting room to the store and then to the bedroom. Hot tears genuinely trickled down your cheeks, staining the notes you were writing.

Tell them I am a witch. Let them know I am a murderer. I killed six of my babies before they could cry. Let them know I didn’t only eat babies but ate a mature human too.

The witches have made me one of them. I was initiated through the evil deeds of my hands. The witches couldn’t eat me but the devil made me his queen.

And then, you tied the rope to the fan and gave yourself a befitting death.

*Omalicha* - an Igbo word meaning "beautiful"

*Bia osiso* - an Igbo phrase meaning "come quickly".

K