Kiki never thought much of dreams.
To her they were just shadowy figures that didn’t make much sense, but not like “The silent child” as she usually called it.

“It”

She couldn’t tell the gender.
It would sit at the end of her foot, watching her with huge eyes, which happened to be the only thing she could make out of its face in the dark of the night.
It’s head hung to one side, as It curiously stared at a sleeping Kiki.

So it thought.

You see, over the time that Kiki had come to know The silent child, she figured out that anytime she opened her eyes wide to match the large unblinking eyes of The silent child, It would vanish into thin air, leaving trails of black smoke disappearing into the air little by little.

Kiki wasn’t scared of The silent child, instead she wanted to be “Its” friend and maybe then, she would ask if It is a boy or girl.
But The silent child never gave her a chance, It always disappeared anytime she opened her eyes talk less of opening her mouth to talk.
And even if The silent child were to give Kiki a chance to get to know it, she wondered if she would be able to move her numb lips to speak to It, as her body grew weaker and weaker as the days passed.

But she had learned over the few weeks from her short meetings with The silent child not to open her eyes wide when It came and sat at the end of her foot with its curious stare and unblinking eyes.
Instead she would leave her eyes open just in tiny slits enough to see the small dark figure of The silent child and its head bent to one side, then gradually Kiki’s eyes would really shut and she would awaken to a brand new day with The silent child gone, only to come back late at night.

Tonight as usual, it stared at her.
After staring for a while and Kiki’s eyes began to shut as usual, The silent child moved so quick before Kiki had time to think and now The silent child’s face was just inches away from Kikis face.

The moonlight above Kikis head gave a pale glow and for the first time Kiki saw the face of The silent child.

“I-Itah…” Kiki managed to croak.

Her whole body was weak from the weather and the storm. Her limbs ached from the hard wooden board she had laid on all these weeks she had been adrift on sea.

The silent child smile was warm, Kiki smiled back.
“Itah…” She whispered again as tears of joy dropped down her face.

The silent child was her beloved Itah, her little sister who had died a year ago in the slave camp.

Had Itah come to take her home?
Kiki earnestly hoped so.

Itah placed her hand on Kiki’s chest then whispered,
“You are going left.”

Then the board on its own began to move left.

Kiki looked towards the direction the raft was going, confused.

She looked up, but Itah was gone.

For a while she laid there dazed and confused, trying to process where Itah had gone, then the board hit something hard, it was land.

The board had come ashore on a small island.

Kiki tried to get up but her body didn’t cooperate, she heard voices behind her in small mutters then they grew louder and then they were sounds of footsteps.

Scared, she closed her eyes, expecting the worse then she heard someone speak close to her in her local dialect,

“Child” The person said in a gentle tone.

Kiki opened her eyes and saw her own tribes men and women gathered around her, were they all victims of the storm on the white mans’ slave ships? Did they all escape a shipwreck as well?

The man who spoke to her had kind eyes then he bent down and scooped her into his arms and whispered into her ear as he took her deep into the island,

“Rest now child, you are safe here.”

Kiki looked around the man as he carried her, at the people around, the island.

No whites, she thought.

Then fresh tears began to flow down Kiki’s eyes.

Itah had led her here.

“Itah…” She whispered again, then closed her eyes and for the first time in weeks she fell asleep without the watchful eyes of The silent child.

She had hoped to see The silent child in her dreams just once but Itah never came to visit again.

#Africandisapora
#ghostchild
#Africa
#short-story
#fiction
#Africanheritage
#shipwreck
#slavetrade


© Erinma