ECHOS FROM YESTERDAY, PART 2.

ECHOS FROM YESTERDAY, PART 2.

(..........continued from the first part)



I fainted when I saw mother eating the food that I'd poison. My mother rushed me to a general hospital. It didn't take them long to resuscitate me at the hospital and

mother was there, standing beside my bed, crying nonstop as she held on to my hand as if she'd let go of my hand she wouldn't see me again. There was also a nurse and a kind looking doctor in the room, they were all looking curiously down at me on the bed.

"Mom, are you okay?" was the first statement I uttered when I opened my eyes. She looked incredulously at me. "I should be asking you if you are okay, look who is talking" she said with distress and smile. "What exactly happened and why did you scare me so badly?" I knew there was no way to lie any longer. Besides, her life is in jeopardy if I didn't tell her the truth on time so she could seek medical help before it was too late. So I poured out all the secrets that I have been habouring. While I was narrating this, the nurse and the doctor gaped ponderously. Mum was alarmed at the evil that would soon befallher. She became hysterical.

"Does that mean that I am going to die?" She asked in distress as she held on tightly to the doctor's scrub. The latter was having a swell time placating her fears.

"You need to calm down ma" he soothed but mother could not be placated. In the end, she was sedated and put on a bed. Several injections were given to her to detoxicate the poison she'd consumed.

The poison reactions began later in the afternoon of the following day. Both of us were still in the hospital at the time and mother was being put under "monitoring" as the nurse put it.I first noticed that blood was trickling down her nostril. The doctor came in and I was led out of the ward, with promises that nothing would happen to mother.

For hours, neither the doctor nor the nurses came of mum's room. I slep and woke up and slept again but there was no news about mother. Later in the evening, I was called into the ward to sit beside her. By then, the doctor said that all dangers have passed and that she would be discharged the next day.

Truth to what the doctor said, mum was discharged the next day but what I was not told was that mum's uterus was damaged by the poison and that after me, she wouldn't have any babies again. Later that I thought more about it, I realized that that was the reason why mother was crying nonstop when we left the hospital. And I was the cause of it. For many years after that, I held myself responsible for not having brothers or sisters because I foolishly destroyed mum's womb.


The demon- my step dad was not home by the time we got there. He had traveled and he didn't come back till a couple of months later. He didn't say anything and he carried on as if nothing has happened. Mum thought I didn't know, but I was watching all this. Several years passed, so many things changed. For instance, grandpa died when I was eight years old and grandma too died three months later. Mum said grandma died because she couldn't do without grandpa. Most of our old time friends and neighbours moved away, I graduated from primary school to secondary school and was eventually made the head-girl when I was fifteen. Despite all these changes, nothing changed in our house. The demon still beats mum whenever he felt like. And mum stubbornly held on to the marriage because her religion forbids divorce.

"Besides" She often said "I am a marriage counselor, what should I tell my clients if I don't do what I preach?"

I understood her dilemma and desperately wished that I could help but I saw no sense in holding on when one feels like letting go.


When I was sixteen, I wrote my WAEC and JAMB. There were a few months that I had to stay at home after the exams. Unfortunately, that was the time that the demon was

sacked from his job. I never knew the type of job he did anyways. This made us to be seeing too much of each other during those months. After mum had left home by 7:30

AM to work, I would take my breakfast up to my room and lock myself up in the room, reading or writing till mum generally comes back in the evening. On his part, he would play pop music and increase the volume to ear breaking level. Most times, a few of his friends would come around and they would smoke and drink till evening.

Sometimes, mum would come back to find the house filled with smoke and strong smell of alcohol but most times, they would have ended the parties before she came came.


One fateful Tuesday, around 11AM, mum had gone to work as usual. I left my room because one of my books was in mum's room and mum's room was beside the living room. This means that I had to pass through the living where the demon and his friends were. Because it was very important, I decided to risk it. As I descended the stairs into living room, I was surprised that there no noise whatsoever, that should be the first time in history. Curiously, I walked into the living room to see if he and his friends were still there and I found them at the extreme corner of the room, they were eight in number, their backs were turned to me and the demon was on a call that all of them were listening to with rapt attention.

The call was put on a loudspeaker.

"Your daughter has been kidnapped and we want ten million Naira before five O clock today. Don't even think of telling the police because if you do, we will kill her. To tell you that I mean business, let me describe her for you, she is eleven years old and dark in complexion. She is in JSS3 at BloomHeights International College Ikeja. For further prove, call the school now and asked to speak to her, they will tell you they can't find her. I have said too much already. Don't bother to call this line because after this call, it will go offline but keep your lines open and your mouth shut. I am watching you. If you tell anyone, then you should forget about your daughter...." he said huskily into the phone. I could hear a woman crying and pleading helplessly on the phone before he ended the call. Immediately the call ends, he removed the sim card and broke it.





I was paralyzed by what I just heard so I stood shivering on the spot. Before I could stop it, a sob escaped my throat to my own detriment. They all turned back and stared at me murderously.

"Damn!" one of them cursed under his breath.

"Dino, this girl must go, otherwise, we are done for" another one said.

Dino-my stepfather, looked like a wounded python. He sprang up and ran after me as I sped back up the stairs, towards my room, with the intention of locking myself up till my mum comes but he was faster. He caught me on the first step and violently yanked back my hair. I collapsed against the settee in the in the room. I was dragged to the middle of the room and gagged, my knees scrapping against the tiled floor and the skin peeling forcefully because of the friction. By now, all of them have stood up watching me the way a mother will look at a scorpion that is about to bite her only child.

"She must go" some of them were saying "Or we are dead meat"

Suddenly, someone struck me behind my head and the last thing I saw before I fainted was Dino, holding a sharp pocket knife...........