To Cause a Reckoning First Chapter

Aria

“I am Folasade Soro. I am Folasade Soro,” I said into the mirror for the third time that morning. It was a morning ritual for me for the past three months, reminding myself of who I was now. It was strange, I never had to do that when I was in Sapele. Then again I was five years old, it wasn’t like I had a real life before, not one I could fully remember at least. I looked away from the mirror as I took off my gloves and I found myself startled when I saw only four fingers on my left hand. I’ve learned to live with it. I’ve had no choice in the matter.

The story I told was that it came off in an accident when I was younger. Most people bought it and they were others with injuries more prominent than mine around so people knew better than to push. I walked out of the room to the corridor which was winding as usual but I had memorized it like the back of my hand to the kitchens. I just needed to follow the scent of onions. I opened the cupboard for the cleaning supplies and took out my mop and bucket I say mine don’t was the only one there. I went to a tap and fill the bucket with water adding detergent along with it. This was my routine now, day in and day out. It was almost comforting and distracting me from the pain both emotionally and physically and from wondering what’s happening in the outside world, wondering what was happening in the places of power that I was exempt from and wondering what happened to David. He always came home from whatever assignment he got but that didn’t stop the wondering or the sleepless nights.

I met with the others on the learning day but the girl in dungarees with dreadlocks in front of me, Tokpe was the first one I’d met outside my rescuers since I arrived at the rebel base. The only thing that interested her about me was that I was the cousin David and Liberty they seem to have a notorious reputation here especially David she went on and on on my first day about how about all the stories about David when he was younger involving dangerous chases and not so secret assignations.

Tokpe acknowledged my arrival as I put my bucket down. She was my cleaning partner for this side of the base she didn’t talk much but when she did there is a lot of sharpness and complaints but she was alright.

“Start from there,” she told me pointing to the end of the corridor.

“Okay,” I replied more than ready to get to work.

We each had two corridors to clean. First, they had to be swept then they had to be mopped.

It was an easy job, these were the corridors that not many people passed, but still, appearances mattered.

“You take the east end,” Tokpe said tossing the other broom at me.

“Okay,” I said and dragged my bucket along to the other corridor. Some rebels walked quickly passed then I remembered I couldn’t call them rebels in my mind any more. I, Folasade Soro, was one of them now.

I bent down sweeping the floor while in the main room down the corridor I heard the TV blaring.

Here it was for news rather than entertainment, mostly Xavian news and what was happening in Auja.

There were mainly their celebrations at having brought Xavia into the fold with the help of an ambassador who was really Jonathan Korade, a descant of the old dynasty of Xavia.

I nearly broke my broom as I thought about him and his betrayal, the way he played us all. Three months later and it still stung, I guess it always would. The hardest part was trying to hide that sting from everyone who came around me. I was supposed to be a girl who lost both her parents in a car accident, not a former princess who had seen her mother and friends killed, watched as the world she knew fell around her, then was tortured in prison. I had built another mask one I couldn’t afford to let slip.

“I’ll move on to the next one yes?”I asked Tokpe, all too aware of how my voice sounded. I tried to forget all my elocution lessons and sound less like myself as possible. I tried to remember how people in Lagos talked, the hard cadences opposite the softer pronunciations of the south.

“Yes,” Tokpe replied pointing me to the other corridor. It was the longest, I sighed thinking about the time when David would come back. He had been away for three days and I was starting to worry but I continued my sweeping counting the minutes until my shift ended. I still couldn’t believe that he was here with me, or rather me with him. I was the one who decided to stay though I still couldn’t believe it even after three months here in this refurbished oil factory.

At least I was alive, that had to count for something. Right? I packed up the dirt and threw it in a black bag. How different my life was now than it was four months ago.

When we finished work the others went to their bedrooms while I went to David’s. Thankfully, no one said anything about me not staying with the girls, not yet at least. I walked past the common room where people were watching television. I was about to go to the sleeping quarters when I heard something on the television.

“The former Queen Mother was found dead today in her house today.”

I ran into the room where people were talking more than they were focused on the news report. On the box-like TV set was my grandmother’s regal face on one side and her obituary beside her. My throat constricted. I had only met her once but still, it was horrible on top of everything else that had happened. Some of the people jeered and I was so unsure of how my face looked. I backed out and ran to the room. I pushed in the door and shut it behind me. Breathing heavily, I leaned back against the door. The tears ran down my cheeks. It wasn’t over. My family was still in danger. I fell upon the bed David and I shared. This was Jonathan’s doing, it had to be. He killed my grandmother then he was going to blame it on the rebels. I wasn’t naive enough to think this was over but something in me snapped.

I laid down thinking about everyone I knew who had died. I turned and looked at the ceiling. It couldn’t be compared to the one in the palace.

The door opened slowly, I looked up and gripped the knife hidden in my pocket. I jumped out of the bed and ran to face the entrance as the door opened fully.

It was David, eyes wide looking at my knife. I lowered it down sheepishly.

He closed the door behind him, dropped the bag he was holding and pulled me into his arms. I dropped my knife on the floor and wrapped my arms around my former guard.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” I said, my face in his chest.

“I told you, I’d be back soon,” he replied with a chuckle before pulling away and frowning at the knife on the ground. I bent down to pick it up and put it under my pillow.

“Did something happen?” He asked.

“No, it’s just…” I caressed the pillow. What was it? I was surrounded by people who if they knew who I really was, some of them would make my life really difficult if not outright killing me even though I was less than a threat to their goals now but still I couldn’t be too careful, hence the knife that David gave me. I’m sure he didn’t expect me to turn the knife on him.

“No, you don’t have to explain,” he replied removing his jacket and his combat boots and placing them into a storage box beside his bed. It was filled with jackets. Then he sat on the bed and gestured for me to come over. I settled in next to him and leaned my head on his shoulder.

“How was your assignment?” I asked itching to take my gloves off and at the same time too afraid to for some reason.

“You don’t want to hear about it,” he said with a sigh.

“It can’t have been boring if it took you three days,” I said.

He turned to me with an easy smile. “I’d rather hear what you’ve been up to.”

I had to force the muscles in my face to smile because it would reassure him that I was fine. He always asked how I was doing and I always said I was fine. Why wouldn’t I be? No one had found out who I really was.

“Well, I swept the corridors,” I replied, “That was it.”

“Have you eaten?”

I paused then lied. “Yes,” I said. I lied because if I told him that the only thing had all day was some chunks of the bread after I woke up, then he would hurry me out to meet the others which I didn’t feel like doing anyway. I didn’t eat much these days. Turns out the human body doesn’t exactly need that much food to function especially with my new intake of ORT, it was the only thing that kept me going when my appetite was messed up which it usually was.

David narrowed his eyes at me. I hoped against hope that Ramat hadn’t said anything about my probably exorbitant use of ORT instead of food but in my mind as long as I was functioning I was fine.

“What did you eat?”

I rolled my eyes. “Quaker oats and bread.” That was one of the staple meals they had here even for dinner. It was filling, not that I had had much.

David nodded but I could still tell he wasn’t convinced.

“And no one bothered you while I was away?”

I shook my head. Apparently, David and his brother had a bit of reputation around here. When I told the very few people I interacted with that they were my cousins they looked at me differently, not with awe but a certain wariness. I supposed that was a good thing, if they were frightened of Liberty and David then they wouldn’t mess with me.

“You’ll tell me if they would,” he asked anxiously.

“I will,” I replied still hoping that time would never come as long as I was there.

He drew a hand across his face and smiled again.

“I know this is far from ideal but…”

“It’s okay…”

“I’m glad about how you’re handling this.”

I buried my face into his shoulder which he must have taken as an invitation to hug me. I mean it wasn’t an invitation. I only did it to remove the image of my grandmother’s face from my head. Why did I think this was over? Why didn’t I realize the kind of man Jonathan was? That he’d go after the rest of my family even the ones who couldn’t oppose him now? It scared me to think who else might be next. Were the Srahans safe? Would he stoop that low? A cold hand of fear gripped my heart almost as bad as those nights in the prison when I was alone with the guards wondering if one of them would open the gate, come in, and…

“Aria?”

I jerked my head up and met David’s worried eyes.

“Did you say something?” I asked.

“You were whimpering,” he said taking my hand in his, or rather my glove in his hand.

“I’m just tired.” And sad and angry and frustrated.

David got up and pulled back the covers on his side of the bed.

“Go in,” he said, holding the sheet. “It’s warm underneath.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I’m hot.”

“Then it’s cool underneath.”

I got up and chuckled moving to his side of the bed.

“So it’s both hot and cool under the covers?”

I slid underneath and he tucked the covers under my chin with a smile.

“It’s whatever you want it to be,” he replied, then picked up a towel from his box on the floor.

“I’ll be right back.”

I eased into the thin covers as he left thinking about today, still riled up from the news. I hoped I could get this feeling under control before tomorrow. Truth be told, this was the strongest feeling I had had since I arrived in Imo State. Everything else was fleeting and at the best of times, all I felt was hollow. The odd times I thought about how I was feeling, I could trace back the hollowness to my time in prison which made perfect sense. It was as if something died in me that day in the dining, something which along with my mother, Cisi, Mustafa, and the others, something I wouldn’t get back.

In the midst of my wondering, David walked back in, hair damp and shirtless, still drying himself. I watched his every move almost a bit too closely. I had gotten good at watching to make sure that no one looked at me too long and would finally say “That’s her, Imotenya Accra!”

I took off my gloves as he hung his towel on the box and came back to the bed next to me.

I turn to face him. Somehow he looked different from the way he did at the palace. I could still see the scars from his beating and he looked thinner, his muscles more defined.

I reached out gingerly to touch his shoulder.

“I missed you,” I said, drawing lines along his chest. That was an emotion that didn’t wane in intensity; missing David.

He took my hand and squeezed it. “I was counting down to the second when I got back.”

If David had said something like that four months ago, I’m not my heart would have been able to handle it but now I felt nothing. Strange.

“Can’t you tell me what you did?” I begged.

David placed an arm at and back of his head and fixed me with a fond exasperated look.

“Why does it matter so much to you anyway?”

“I don’t know,” I sighed looking away from him to the barred window. If I looked at it hard enough I could see the bars of the prison, the cold iron, the cold knife, the warm blood, the stump…

I looked back at David. “I guess there’s this whole part of you I don’t about and you never talk about it.”

David hummed thoughtfully. “I understand, but you have to understand that most of what I do is of a very sensitive nature, I don’t think you should worry about it.”

He reached out a hand to caress my cheek. “Just focus on getting yourself back.”

I had to stop the frown threatening to come on my face. Get yourself back. That’s what Ramat had told me on my multiple check-ups. It felt weird though. I never really knew who I was, all the time some new layer to discover when I hadn’t even comprehended the first one. I was the heir to a kingdom, then I was scapegoat, then I was bastard princess, then I was dead. How could I get myself back when I wasn’t even sure I was, to begin with?

All was thinking was driving me to a bad place, somehow worse than the prison, somehow worse than the dining room.

I closed my eyes and put up my wall. That was all Imotenya. I am Folasade.

When I opened my eyes, David was staring at me with a puzzled look on his face.

“You didn’t hear a word I said did you?” he asked.

“No, I did…”

“It’s fine,” he said, with a chuckle.

I grumbled an apology and laid against his chest.

“What did you say, please tell me it’ll probably be the most interesting thing I’ve heard all day.”

“It was stupid of me to ask, it’s a good thing you didn’t hear it.”

I glared up at him as he put an arm around my waist.

David was never one to use words unwisely. What could he have said that he needed to take back? Too many questions and unknowns. I needed a distraction.

I turned to look up at David who was at that moment lost in thought. I slipped gently out of his grip and eased my way across his chest until we were face to face. His hand gripped my waist and his mouth formed a question which I answered a kiss. Unlike the desperate one in the corridor, this one was cold and calculated. I gripped his shoulders, my hands slipping across his bare skin. He kissed me back with equal vigor, pressing me against him. I wrapped my legs around him as we parted for air. He moved to kiss me again, then stopped.

His eyes blinked as if waking from a daze, and before I knew what was happening he took both my hands in his. I flinched as he touched my stump.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“I just… I wasn’t thinking.”

I took a deep breath. “It’s just what you wrote in your letter and now we’re here…”

This was the first time since my first night here, that we had spoken about the letter.

David bit his lip and rubbed small circles across my hands.

“I know but I hate to tell you that you’re still not safe here.”

He put our entwined hands down between us. “I mean you’re still pretending, and I want anything to make you lose focus as long as your here.” “What do you mean?”

“You shouldn’t be Folasade out in the halls and Aria in the bedroom, it’s too hard of a switch to keep up with.”

I pulled myself away from him and knelt on the bed.

“You know this from experience?”

He nodded sadly. “I had never called any of my family until I got out of prison.”

“That must have been hard.”

He shrugged then smiled. “But it helped with my reinvention until Avery ratted me out.”

“So you’re saying we can’t…”

I gestured uncertainly between us.

“We shouldn’t not for some time,” he said.

“Sure, yes,” I replied itching to put my gloves back on now. “We could always wait a few more years.”

David looked taken aback and let go of my hands. I took the opportunity to put on my gloves.

“A few more years?” he repeated.

“Yes,” I said nonchalantly. “Till I’m older.”

“You plan to stay here for years?” he asked.

“Well, I’ll stay wherever you are,” I replied then I took in the look on his face. What was wrong. Didn’t he say the two of us would be a home, what was the problem now?

“Of course.”

I frowned. Something was wrong.

“My grandmother died today,” I blurted out, desperate to change the subject. “I saw it on the television.”

David pulled me back into his arms, again, holding on tightly. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Do they know if it was natural or…”

“She was killed, stabbed repeatedly. I’m sure Jonathan had something to do with it.”

I was so sure of it, it had had his work written all over it.

We stayed silent for a couple of more minutes until I pulled away.

“Not the kind of welcome you were expecting, was it?” I said.

“I’ve got to come back to you so it’s better than nothing,” he chuckled, then he yawned.

“Sorry. I haven’t slept for three days.”

“You should rest,” I said getting up out of the bed and moving to my own. It was three weeks before I could spend the whole night without waking up and slipping into David’s bed. But even then I didn’t sleep, or at least not for longer than ten minutes else I’d wake up in a frightful sweat seeing chains, bars, and knives.

David reached out a hand and pulled me back. “You don’t have to go, you know.”

“I know. I want to.”

He let go and I stumbled back into my bed.

“Goodnight,” I said.

“Goodnight Folasade,” David called back.

Why did that feel so wrong? Didn’t he just tell me, it was difficult to be Folasade outside and then Aria in here? Shouldn’t I be happy he was trying to help me straddle the line? But all I could feel was hollow. The hollowness continued as I stared up at the iron ceiling.

As long as I was here I was Folasade Soro. I am Folasade Soro.