Ritual Woman Read online

sister, Ifedinma, who lived in Ikoyi with her husband, calling to get the real details of what had happened.

  ‘She just disappeared from the face of the earth and nobody seems to have any inkling about where she is currently,’ she wailed through her sniffs. ‘She just vanished, and there was nothing they could do about telling me where she could have gone to. Where can she be? And you know that this is Lagos and there are thieves and kidnappers_’

  ‘Take it easy, dear,’ Ifedinma interrupted calmly, her voice strong over the phone waves. She had the knack of being always calm and serene in very stressful situations, never breaking up into pieces. ‘It could be kidnappers.’

  ‘Oh, God forbid!’ Fidelia wailed into the phone. ‘What do they think I have that they will ever want from me? I am not rich.’

  ‘You are richer than you think you are,’ Ifedinma said calmly. ‘If it is kidnappers that want some kind of ransom, then at least we’ll know where to start from and what to do. But there is also the possibility that . . .’ her voice trailed off into uncertainty.

  ‘I know what you’re trying to tell me. Maybe she’s in the hands of some ritual killers who intend to use her for something evil.’

  And as soon as these words were out of her mouth, Fidelia hung up, the implications of what she had said sinking into her mind. She knew that there was no way she could not consider that possibility; that her only child had fallen into the hands of some ritual murderers. She had seen it a lot in the news lately, of men kidnapping and killing young boys and girls and then selling their body parts for money rituals. There was even the story of the man at Ikorodu who had grabbed the son of his neighbor and had then hacked her to pieces with a machete. As he was on his way out of the apartment building with the decapitated body in a suitcase, the yard dog had gotten to him, biting and hacking at the suitcase with scary ferocity. That was when the alarm had been sounded and then the people in the street had assembled, seeking to know what was in the bag that had nearly driven the dog mad. And that was the end for the young man; he was currently at the Kirikiri prison awaiting his death sentence.

  And what if my only daughter has met the same fate? Fidelia wondered. Then she retrieved her rosary beads and began to pray the decades of the holy rosary, her tears flowing down her cheeks as she implored on the Holy Mother for help.

  By the time she was done, she felt some peace within her, and it was as if there was a voice speaking within her, telling her that all would be well soon. She just had to try and believe it within her that the things she thought were hopeless weren’t so hopeless like she had thought.

  Nick returned late that night, and his eyes were red-rimmed, his expression glassy.

  ‘I am sorry, honey, we couldn’t find our daughter,’ he told her.

  Fidelia said nothing, she did nothing; she just sat there in the living room, the lights on, the TV turned on to Arise TV. She was staring out into space, in shock because she had lost the only thing that mattered more to her than her own life. She wished there had been the opportunity for her to have been there with her daughter, so that if it was murderers that had gotten to her, then she could have negotiated with them to trade her life for her daughter’s. But she had been too busy in the office, speaking her British English and attending to foreign clients, earning money for the firm where she worked as one of the rising stars of the firm, and her daughter had been in danger and she had been oblivious to it.

  She sat there throughout the night, her pain like something physical she had to bear, her mind flogging her with guilt. But she was objective enough to know that there was nothing she could do at the moment: there were search parties still combing through the streets of Yaba, looking for Bianca; the police had already been notified; she had already emailed AIT and NTA the details of her daughter while Nick had phoned them and they had agreed to give their daughter’s disappearance top priority over every other news they had for the day. She had done all she could do at the moment, so all she had to do was pray.

  And pray she did, hard and fast and really furious. She prayed like she had never prayed before, asking God to save her baby, that the girl was all she had. She asked Him to forget that she existed and just save her daughter for her, that she would do anything that was necessary for Him.

  Then she went and brushed her teeth, took her bath, did her makeup, and then she got dressed in a long flowing gown that swept the floor. She did it all mechanically, like someone in a state of near catatonia, and then she stepped into the living room.

  Nick was seated on a settee, his head in his hands. He looked haggard and frightened, and he frowned when he saw that she was dressed up and ready to go out of the house.

  ‘Honey, what are you doing?’ he asked, bewildered.

  ‘I am going to the salon and then I’ll go to the prayer meeting at the church that I had told you about last week,’ she replied, her smile serene, her face radiant as if from an inner light that had been switched on by the tragedy that had befallen her. ‘I had been meaning to go though I never really told you about it.’

  ‘But honey, our daughter is missing!’ Nick exclaimed. ‘The neighbors are all aware of that and they are all looking for her. What will they think if you just looked like a fashion plate, ready to go out while we should be looking for her?’

  She smiled, and the serenity was still maintained in her face. It was as if there was nothing wrong to upset the balance of her life at the moment. ‘I had promised myself two weeks ago that I must attend this crusade, so I must go there. Even though our daughter is missing, there’s nothing I can do to find her for the moment, so I might as well go to the church.’

  Then she turned and left the mansion to her car. She was aware of the worried look on her husband’s face as she drove out of the vast, opulent grounds of the mansion, but she felt that this was something she had to do for herself. She had to go and praise the Lord, for it was there in the bible; that you shall praise the Lord in any situation you find yourself in.

  Twenty minutes later, she was there at the Life Adoration Prayer Ministries at Bode Thomas Street, Surulere. The place was filled with many people, so there was barely standing room in the church, not to talk of chairs. She joined in the praises and worship songs, and soon, she was so enraptured by the songs that she temporarily forgot about the things that had gone awry in her life.

  Before long, the prayers had begun, and even though the Father in charge_ a new visiting priest that had come to Lagos from Anambra State_ had given them the prayer point to focus on, she overlooked it and instead continued to sing to God, tears flowing from her eyes, cascading down her cheeks. She was oblivious to everything else that was happening around her. Then suddenly, the voice of the Reverend Father rang out clearly like bells pealing in the dead of the night.

  ‘There is a woman here that her child is missing,’ the Reverend said confidently, his voice booming into the microphone.

  Fidelia stopped her singing and her eyes flew open. The vast prayer room was now as still and quiet like a graveyard, all ears primed to hear the man of God, for it was obvious to all there that something was going down. Her eyes were focused on the podium too, and the tall man looked ethereal to her, like some being from some higher plane of existence. She was listening to him intently, her heart thumping loudly in her chest.

  ‘I want that woman to step up here today, for the Lord has heard your cries and He will make an example of you to the unbelievers here,’ the man boomed. ‘For further clarification, that woman here is a lawyer, so come out now!’

  In the deadly silence that ensued, Fidelia gingerly stepped up to the man on legs that had turned rubbery all of a sudden. A microphone was passed to her as all watched, and then she was looking at this man, this new Father she’d never seen before. She did not even know what to think of him, but she could feel the coolness of his gaze on her, feel the serenity that oozed off of him.

  ‘I am a lawyer, and yes, my daughter is missing,’ Fidelia said into the mike.
/>   There were gasps and shakes of heads, and some of the women had even clutched their breasts in commiseration with the tortured woman there on the stage.

  ‘She disappeared from the school without a trace and up till now, the girl is yet to be found by anybody and nobody seems to know her whereabouts,’ the Father continued, and this time, in the silence that ensued, if a pin had dropped, then that pin would have sounded loud as a bomb and the assemblage would have wished it to oblivion with their hearts.

  ‘Yes,’ Fidelia said, her eyes glued to the man. There was something about him that was profoundly comforting to her, and he seemed to be giving her a sense of peace. She seemed to forget that she was in the midst of over a thousand other worshippers; it was as if the persons there had fallen off into some great chasm, and there was only she and the Father now.

  ‘I tell you that your girl did not just go missing,’ the Father said, and then he shook his head and laughed. ‘I want to tell you that the Lord will make an example of you, my child. If I may be so brazen to ask, where is your husband? Is he here?’

  ‘He was at home when I was on my way here to the crusade.’

  ‘And you know that your husband has been trying the best he can to find the little girl for you because that is the only