Two days into Izondu's journey back home, no message came to Udobuaku about how it all went. Earlier on, before Izondu went back home, he promised to come back to the Evil Forest after two days, to brief his daughter on how it all went.
So, two days had elapsed, and it had become obvious to her that not even that very evening would witness his visitation. She extended her hope to the next day, being Orie market day.
She woke up early in the morning the next day to prepare Ukasi soup for her father to eat if he came around. She was so convinced he would be coming that very day. It eluded. Yet, on the third day, Izondu was nowhere close to the Evil Forest to see how his now-herbalist daughter, Udobuaku, was doing those lonely days.
If one had searched for Udobuaku in the land of the spirit, she would still have been sorrowful as worries had become her representation. In her state of mind, as she walked along the borders of the Evil Forest, he sighted a farmer weeding her crops. On getting closer, she greeted the peasant farmer. She responded in good faith but when she stood up to acknowledge who greeted her, it turned out to be Udobuaku, who was a daughter to her very good friend, the late Omani. She greeted her once again while getting closer, because seeing Udobuaku had become too difficult for her to imagine or believe. Most Isumeh people had concluded that she had died with her father, Izondu.
Earlier, three days ago, the sight of Izondu had caused a market scare and pandemonium. The news that he was spotted around the market square had forced the entire market to close at its peak. Here again, Udobuaku was seen by a lone peasant farmer making as she walked out of the jungle of the Evil Forest. ''No, no'' were the last words Udobuaku heard from her before she fell down and fainted.
Udobuaku, who had come to give Nwadi a message to pass across to his father, became helpless. She looked around for help but saw none. She lifted unconscious Nwadi up, and took her to the Evil Forest to resuscitate her.
In less than an hour, Nwadi regained full consciousness and was facing Udobuaku, and no one else, in the jungle. She was as helpless as she was weak and jittery at the same time. ''Are you still alive, Udobuaku?'' Nwadi asked, fearfully. ''Yes. We are. This was the Evil Forest the Gods chose for us to regain our health. My father left yesterday for his house. He had recovered fully. I am still planning when to leave'' Udobuaku said, excitedly.
''Nne, please, don't tell anyone that I was with you; unless you want Isumeh people to desert me. We all believed you and your father had died in the jungle when we learned you voluntarily joined him in this Evil Forest even when you were still strong. His return caused a big scare in the market square three days ago. People were running for their lives. Nobody believed that you people were alive and nobody believed there was a cure to this ailment. A whole Afor market closed down because of Izondu, your father'' Nwadi said, regretfully.
Fear and fainting of Nwadi had given Udobuaku a clue about what could be wrong with her father. She was moved with tears running down her cheeks as Nwadi was briefing her about how unwelcoming the people of Isumeh were towards the unexpected return of her father. Nwadi ended up consoling her and at the same time kept begging her not to disclose their meeting to anybody. It was a well-known fact that the Evil Forest was a resting place for skulls, and this information kept Nwadi's mind terrified as her eyes ruminated around as she was looking around all the parts of the jungle she could have a glimpse of.
The Evil Forest was an ancient forest filled with the skulls of dead people who were made to join their ancestors along the unnerving path of ancient time. It still had not abated so much, as Udobuaku still met some which she struggled to bury, even as it was forbidden for a woman in most Igbo republics to bury human beings. Every life was seen as a gift coming from the womb of a woman, so to the Igbos, giving the women the duty to bury them, comes off as though it was giving her the unnatural right to use her hands to close the nostrils of her creation.
The soul-dashing chills of the forest's unique dark trees' shades for hundreds of years, and still counting, could still be seen shading those bones whose owners had left the world, from direct sun rays. The stench was so much to her new environment, and the perception, and rightly so, that those smells were coming from the decaying bodies of human beings, gave her a forced opportunity to think deeper about the sacredness of the bodies that human beings had worn at one time, to express life on earth.
So, Udobuaku chose to break the rules to give not just herself, the living, the better air, but to accord the dead ones some dignity by burying their scattered bones scattered all over the place. To her, those were still the remains of her children as a woman. It had all these years become her duty to bury any piece of bone she came across, shedding tears as she did so. To Udobuaku, motherhood goes beyond rules.
''Udo, how do you live among the dead here?'' Nwadi asked. ''There are paths for everything under the sun. We came here for a purpose. To die, and even the spirits knew that we came here for a purpose, and they respect that choice. I have learned about so many things here, and I am still learning. This world is deeper than we thought it was,'' Udobuaku responded, sorrowfully, looking up intermittently, at the twigs, the leaves, the trees and the epiphytes that hung on them.
When she became in charge of her emotions once again, she went into her inner tent and brought four sets of powdered herbs and handed them over to Nwadi. She taught her how to use them against Hansen's disease on rampage, and other ailments. However, she instructed her not to tell people she received them from her so that they wouldn't isolate her.
''These are from the last sets I took to Kalaku village. The sickness has almost disappeared there. But we see our people still dying from it. How would they accept that healing can come from the Evil Forest? Our people are so intelligent that stupidity has become part of it'' Udobuaku said, angrily. Nwadi was so thankful while still reminding Udobuaku not to tell anybody that she had a talk with her. It seemed the two were avoiding the same reaction from their own people.