The Forgotten God — Movement 8
Eruption
The moment Zahare raised his head and looked directly at her, Nayela knew. She was being summoned before the council of elders.
When she stepped into the circle, her head bowed in deference, a soft cough made her look up—right into the warmth of Oba’s gaze. He gave her a slight, almost imperceptible nod, and his eyes crinkled at the corners, just like his father’s.
“Tell we about dis god and what he say we must do,” Zahare commanded—every trace of her uncle subsumed under the kgosi’s cloak of authority.
Folding her hands across her chest to ease their trembling, Nayela felt her heart expand as if it were going to explode. Darkness flowed outwards from her belly, climbing up through her throat and into her mouth, where it welled up, and burst forth.
It was not her voice that answered the kgosi. No. This voice—deep as the ocean, wild as the wind, implacable as the mountains that sheltered them—belonged to something else entirely.
Nayela’s world grew smaller as the voice thundered through her. She could feel herself slipping, but she was helpless to stop it. Soon, only Oba’s face remained, his mouth open and eyes wide with terror. Then even that faded into the darkness.
…
Dappled light, hazy and soft, danced behind Nayela’s eyelids. Somewhere in the distance, someone called out to a neighbour, and she could smell roasted breadfruit and saltfish. Her stomach heaved. She tried to turn her head but she couldn’t even open her eyes.
“Rest, girl. Rest. We right here.” It was her uncle's voice—warm and comforting.
She drifted back into the darkness, cradled by a deep, powerful tide that smelt of rich earth, ocean salt and her mother’s arms.
…
When she was finally able to open her eyes, it was night. The room was dark, except for a candle on the wooden table by her bed.
Oba was leaning over her, wiping her face with a damp cloth.
When he smiled, his eyes glinting with unshed tears, she tried to raise her hand to his cheek but it wouldn’t obey her.
She groaned in frustration.
“Come, come.” He lifted her head and placed a calabash to her lips.
…
The next morning, the scent of nutmeg, basil and gommier resin pulled her up from the depths of slumber.
Her uncle sat beside her cot, his huge hands twirling a familiar sachet tied with a thin leather cord.
Her nkisi bag! Nayela smiled. Zahare smiled back.
…
One morning, when she had gathered enough strength to speak, Zahere told her about her mother—his voice ebbing and flowing like the river of time that had wrested Abeo from their grasp.
He told her about her father, his right-hand man and head hunter. About how his sister had come to him while her husband was away and showed him the marks on her back and her arms. About how she begged him to protect her and the child in her belly.
And with downcast eyes, he told her how he refused. He was new to the role of kgosi, still grasping at power with uncertain hands, and he could not afford to lose his second-in-command.
“Is mama who help her,” he said.
Yagba gave Abeo three gold bangles—heavy with memory and untold secrets—and sent her off to the city.
When his tale was finished, and he sat before her like a condemned man awaiting his sentence, Nayela reached for his hand.
Her voice, choked with tears, rasped and broke but her words were clear.
“ Is ok, Uncle. She loved you. The stories she tell me about you…” She smiled at him and drifted back to sleep.
…
The clacking of wooden beads broke through the quiet that cocooned her.
Nayela opened her eyes to see the sangoma standing above her.
“ So he give you back the nkisi bag, eh?” Her lips curled into a grimace, the tips of her canines peeking through.
“Yuh have no right to such a ting. Dat is for the sangomas to wear. Abeo shoulda never wear it, much less show you how to make it.”
Nayela clutched the sachet tied around her neck.
“And now dis god dat say we forget him, dat he was here, waiting, all along … Waiting fuh who? Fuh you?” Adama sneered.
“Daughter of de woman who leave she mother to grieve de end of she lineage?”
Her words were sharper now, meant to slash through flesh and bone. Nayela could feel them stabbing at her heart, reverberating in her head. She put her hands to her ears to block them out.
It was Zahare who saved her.
He rushed into the room, grabbed the sangoma by the shoulders, and pulled her out with him.
“Me eh going nowhere. Yuh hear me?” Adama spat as she was dragged away. “Me eh going to dat place!”
Her shouts faded into the distance.
. . .
An Invitation
Dear reader,
Here are some questions that I asked myself as I wrote this part of The Forgotten God. I thought that I should share them with you, as an offering of sorts — an invitation to swim a little deeper, journey a little further with me.
You can read them quietly to yourself, use them as journal prompts, light a candle and hold them softly in your hands. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you are gentle with yourself.
What does it feel like to carry both weakness and strength in the same body, to be fragile and trembling, yet chosen to hold something powerful?
What stories of your family or lineage, spoken or unspoken, shape the way you see yourself now? Which of those stories carry pain, and which carry love?
Have you ever faced words meant to wound or diminish you? What gave you the strength to hold on to your own center, even when those words echoed inside you?
A Note on Cultural Context
This story draws inspiration from various Afro-diasporic spiritual systems and ancestral traditions. It presents a fictional, syncretic world—not a direct representation of any single belief or community. The Forgotten God was created with deep respect for the cultural and spiritual heritages that continue to shape and inspire Black diasporic storytelling.