Episode 6
NAOMI
Daddy continued flogging aunt Tracy with the belt while I watched them by the door. She was screaming on top her voice, and I’m sure the neighbors would be hearing her.
I watched the scenario with mixed feeling. Deep down, I felt sorry for aunt Tracy, but another mind was enjoying the moment
“Let her feel the heat too”. I heard myself muttered. I tried to fight back that voice when I heard a loud mockery laughter. Initially, I thought someone was laughing at us through the window, but when I couldn’t find anyone,it dawned on me that the voice was actually mine. I sighed.
Just then I began to perceive the aroma of something burning.
“The soup!”. I whispered, but when I made to go turn off the gas knobs, the force held me at a spot.
“Let it burn!. Let’s burn this house down”. A voice that sounded so much like mine said.
“Leave me alone!, go away from my body”. I yelled.
The little chance I got, I turned the gas out.
“You disobeyed me?”. The voice said.
“You’re in my body, remember?”. I said.
“This is my body, not yours”. The voice replied.
“My body is not yours!, go far away from me”. I continued to rebuke.
As I was still arguing with whatever voice it was, aunt Tracy got up from the bag of rice she’s been lying on and ran out of the kitchen. Daddy ran after her, still whipping her over her shoulder.
After they were gone, I noticed trails of blood all over the floor. My eye widened as I began to lick my lips hungrily.
“Hmm, fresh blood”. I heard myself muttering.
Before I knew it, I lost control of myself and began to crawl all over the floor, happily licking off every drop of the blood until I got to the living room where the beating was still ongoing.
She was squatting between two couches crying and pleading for mercy as dad gave her strokes after strokes.
I crawled all around the living room and when it was obvious there wasn’t any more blood for me, I belched and got back on my feet. That was when whatever that has possessed me left. At same time, the spell on my dad broke.
He stopped instantly, and started looking around like someone who just found himself in an entirely different planet. Aunt Tracy was crying silently now.
“Did I just lick blood again?, oh my God!”. I cried.
He turned to look at me.
“What just happened here?”. He asked.
“You were beating aunt Tracy. You were flogging her with a belt”. I cried.
“Me? why would I do that? Oh my God!”. He exclaimed, and with that, he threw the belt aside, and ran to her.
“Daddy, I need help too”. I cried.
“Are you okay, my love?”. He asked her, ignoring me.
She tried to push him away, but I guess she was too weak, so she just collapsed on him, crying even louder. He swept her off her feet and they disappeared into the room.
Just like the other time, I dashed into the bathroom, turned on the tap and started watching my mouth, trying to get myself to vomit as I do. After that, I went to bed in tears.
For four days after that night, aunt Tracy remained indoor. My daddy was doing the cooking and serving her inside their room.
She started coming out again from the fifth day. By then I was already deep rooted into the w!tchcraft. It no longer freak me out looking directly into the eyes of the woman whenever she speaks to me, I have ceased trying to oppose the forces that possess me… I just give in. I also do not scream whenever I passed by a mirror at night only to see a little gray mouse with red eye staring back at me. Neither do I mind being woken up in the midnight by some little mouses like myself. I just hopped out of the duvet and followed them out of the house to the market where we break into warehouses and stores destroying goods worth millions of thousands. Some nights, we go to houses with that have holes in them to s**k blood of unguarded victims. All these look so normal to me right now.
So when I came back from school in the afternoon of the fifth day and saw aunt Tracy sitting in the living room, I felt the urge to pounce on her and drink her blood….her blood tasted so much like the banana and water.
“Good afternoon ma”. I greeted, putting on an innocent smile.
She only nodded for a response, but when I started walking into the room, her voice interrupted my movement.
“If you change your clothes, you come and buy me something”. She said.
I frowned at the sound of that.This is exactly what I don’t like. The days she was indoor was the best days of my life…
“she is back now to disturb me”. My first voice muttered.
“Okay, ma”. The second voice replied.
“I think she need another break”. another voice said to me while I was in the bathroom.
So that night, history repeated itself.Daddy beat her with the belt. But she didn’t take long before she came out this time. He has to beat her again and again. One night, while he was flogging her in the living room, she ran into the bedroom and locked herself. He would have broken the door down if the spell didn’t clear from his eye while he was still hitting it with a hammer.
He came out to meet me in the living room. By now, I was done licking the drops of blood on the floor and was sitting down like nothing happened.
“What exactly is wrong with me?”. He asked. I didn’t know whether the question was for me to answer so I just sat there staring at him like a lost lamb.
… why am I beating Tracy all the time?”. He lamented.
“It’s not a big deal, dad. You did same to mummy, remember?”. I had to remind him.
“Could you just stop bringing your mom into every discussion. Have I ever laid a hand on her without a cause?”. He raged.
“I don’t know”. I said.
“You should know!. He started pacing up and down the room.
… You don’t have to compare your mother to Tracy, because they are two contrasting characters. Your mother is rude!. She is so disrespectful!. She has no regard for me nor my family. Tracy is just so different, I shouldn’t lay my hands on her”. He said.
“But you did”. I said.
He looked at me and sighed.
“I shouldn’t be having this conversation with you”. He dropped the hammer on the table and went inside.
All his pleas for her to open the door fell on deaf ears. At the end, he had to sleep in the visitor’s room for the night.
It didn’t end there or rather, I didn’t allow it to end there. Before I wrote my common entrance, she was having patches al over her body just like it was on my mom’s before she left us.
One morning, during the holiday, I was passing by their room when I overheard her talking with my daddy.
“I don’t want Naomi to continue staying with us here”. She said.
“Why?”. Dad asked her.
“I have a feeling that that girl is ev!l. Any time I see her in my dream, I wake up feeling fatigue and something must go wrong that day”. She said.
“Tracy, it’s only a dream. There is nothing serious going on”. said, but she insisted.
“I know what I am saying. That girl is possessed, I want her out of this house as soon as possible”. She said.
“Where do you want me to send her to?”. He asked.
“Send her anywhere, but just don’t let her be around me”. She said.
“I have no place to send her to. Just learn how to live with her”. I heard him say.
“Then get ready to live alone with her”. She threatened.
Later that evening, daddy called me into the living room to have a word with me.
“Change of plan, you won’t be going to St Paul’s college anymore. Get ready, at the end of your vacation, you will be going to a boarding school instead”. He announced…..
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