Chapter 4: Baba segun
Adana had clung to the high branches of the iroko for so many nights that her arms ached and her legs felt like lead. But this night, something was different.
The Egbere were gone from the circle below. Their usual baby-like weeping was missing. Instead, faint, distant screams echoed from deep in the thick forest, high-pitched and desperate, as if the little gnome-spirits were being kept away by some greater power.
She hesitated, then slowly climbed down, her bare feet touching the red laterite soil with a soft thud. The moment she reached the ground, a low, ancient voice rumbled from the palm tree nearby, or perhaps it was the iroko itself speaking through the night air, deep and calm like distant thunder.
"Child, do not fear today. Those little ones will listen from afar. They cannot come closer… but I am here. Tell your tale, Adana. The forest hungers for it."
Adana looked up at the palm fronds rustling gently, then bowed her small head. "Thank you, great tree. I will tell a good one tonight."
She settled against the warm trunk, knees drawn up, and began in a soft, steady voice that carried into the darkness where the distant screams of the Egbere pleaded to be let back in.
"Today I will tell you about another spirit that came at the dawn of night, when the lights were out in the girls' dormitory at St. Agnes…"
Old Baba Segun was the night security guard at St. Agnes Secondary School for over twenty years. He was quiet, wrinkled, and walked with a slight limp from an old injury.
The girls liked him, he never troubled them much and sometimes shared groundnuts during night prep.
But one rainy evening, Baba Segun was found brutally killed behind the girls' dorm. His body was mangled, throat torn open, eyes wide with terror. The school hushed it up as an animal attack. No one asked too many questions.
But something evil found the body that same night and claimed it.
Every night after lights-out, when the dormitory was dark and the only sounds were soft breathing and the occasional creak of beds, the creature would come.
It moved with slow, careful tiptoes so its heavy footsteps would not wake the matron. The possessed body still looked mostly like old Baba Segun, but the skin had turned deep black, blending perfectly with the shadows, and the eyes were too wide, too empty.
It would stop beside the bed of the prettiest girls, the ones with smooth skin, bright eyes, and the kind of beauty that made others jealous.
Leaning close, it would whisper in a low, pleading voice thick with Pidgin:
"Shift… make I sleep."
If the girl pretended to be asleep or did not answer, the thing would sigh sadly and walk away on those tiptoe steps. You would feel relieved, thinking it had gone for good. But several nights later it would return.
The voice would be more sorrowful, almost crying:
"Shift… make I sleep… abeg." ("Abeg" is pleading)
If ignored again, the creature would not leave quietly this time.
It would force itself onto the narrow bed with sudden, shocking strength. Cold hands, flesh so deep black it seemed to swallow the moonlight, it would wrap around the girl's body, pinning her down.
Its wide, unblinking eyes would stare inches from her face, and in the total darkness it looked like a living shadow wearing Baba Segun's stolen skin.
"Why didn't you shift for me?" it would ask, voice now flat and terrible.
If the answer was not satisfactory, if she cried, or begged, or gave any reply that did not please it, the spirit would snatch her soul.
You could hear it happening. A horrible, wet ripping sound mixed with the girl's soul crying out in pure terror, high, inhuman wails that echoed inside the dorm even though her body stayed perfectly still and silent.
By morning, the girl would be found dead, eyes open, face frozen in endless fear, her body strangely empty, like a beautiful doll with nothing inside.
Even the girls who obeyed and shifted over to make space on the bed were not safe.
They would wake up the next morning feeling strangely cold, but alive. For the first few days nothing seemed wrong. Then, slowly, their beauty began to regress. Their smooth skin grew dull and patchy. Their bright eyes sank and lost their shine. Their hair became brittle and fell out in clumps. Day by day they watched themselves degrade in the mirror, once-pretty faces turning ordinary, then ugly, then something worse than ugly.
They withdrew into themselves, hiding under hijabs or wrappers, avoiding the teachers and boys and even their own friends.
The shame ate them alive. The fall from grace was too cruel, too public for a girls to bear .
One by one, those who had shifted for the spirit could not bear it anymore. They hanged themselves with their school ties, or drank poison, or walked into the forest and never returned.
The spirit never took their souls by force, but it stole something worse, their light, their pride, their reason to live.
To this day, on certain quiet nights at the old St. Agnes girls' dorm, if the lights are out and you are one of the pretty ones, you might hear soft tiptoe steps approaching your bed.
A low, pleading voice will whisper from the darkness:
"Shift… make I sleep."
Do not answer.
Do not shift.
But whatever you do… do not look into those wide, empty eyes.
Adana's voice trailed off. She rested her head against the tree trunk and whispered again, "Thank you for protecting me tonight, great tree."
From far away in the forest, the distant screams of the Egbere rose higher, pleading, begging to be allowed closer so they could hear more. But the tree only rustled its fronds gently, as if smiling.
Adana hugged her knees tighter, knowing the night was not yet over, and the spirits, both near and far, were still listening.