For days after, the mood on which Izondu left the Evil Forest became a source of worries in the memory of Udobuaku. The dream she had the previous night did not appeal well to her spirit. ''How could I have come to rescue my father from the people that were trying to hurt him, and ended up hitting him with my club, on his head'' she kept saying since she woke up from sleep. She had already prepared her father's favourite soup, Ukasi soup.
She got down from the bed, stretched her arms, and sat down again on the bamboo bed. When she could not wrap her head around something, she rose in the middle of the night, to pay a visit to her father. A few hours later she was at the threshold of her father's house, calling him as she used to, but no answer was given except a few neighbours who chose to make some sounds that indicated that people were still living in Isumeh.
Yet, there was neither a direct response from those neighbours, nor a any pleasantry, or greeting that was extended to Udobuaku even though they had observed that for some days they had not had a view of Izondu.''I don't care whether you are alive, or not, because, if you are alive somebody should have asked why Izondu's door is still open by this time of the night'' she muttered, sorrowfully, and went inside.
On accessing her father's bedroom she perceived a distasteful smell of something she couldn't wrap her head around. She dreadfully looked around and saw a clay plate in which there were some pieces of udara fruits decaying. She took up the plate and made a move towards her father's room.
Voom-vooroom was the sound of timed destruction she heard as she found herself landed inside the tunnel where half dead Izondu was lying helplessly. Fear gripped her as she got a burnt scare on her arm from the palm cake candle that fell off her hand.
She reached out to the candle which its flame had been put off, and took it up. With her mouth she blew back the flame on it, and found a helpless body of her father lying still with some pieces of debris from the tunnel's collapsed earth, which had given her father enough kick to quicken his transition to the other world.
''What is this?'' she asked, almost reflexively. The shocks and surprises that came with what she was seeing had made her forget that the whole of Isumeh had isolated them. She cried, and called out all the names of relatives, and neighbours of the Izondu family.
Every one of them around, willy-nilly, heard Udobuaku, but none wanted to hear her. Only a deafening silence was heard in Isumeh as a response to the voice of a broken woman who was at the verge of losing her father. If anyone had seen Udobuaku that night, such a one had also seen the face of one on whose shoulder all the regrets and pains of humanity laid on, and still dangling.
When she quickly remembered that she was alone, she entered back into the room, and into the now exposed tunnel, and separated his father from the debris, and took the shriveled body of Izondu back to the Evil Forest, on her back.
When she got to the Evil Forest, she sighed, adjusted her father on her back before she went straight to her tent. She was welcomed back by the roars, barking and chirping that accompany night in the jungle. It was an unusual night as she heard a strange sound only made by an apia bird in the Evil Forest.
In Isumeh, when a prominent one joins his ancestors, whether people know yet, or not, apia birds owe them the announcement. It usually happens at the odd time of the night. And if such a one was known as a warrior when he was alive, and had defended Isumeh, the sound of a big tree would be heard falling down, in the Evil Forest.
For hundreds of years the children of Isumeh had occupied this very land, these mysteries, and secrets had always remained true till this day. The now queen of the Evil Forest, Udobuaku, like every other adult in Isumeh, had grown up with this knowledge.
She was yet to grab the meaning in the apia bird message that moment as the body of her father on her shoulder was still warm even though it was becoming heavier on her. In a few minutes, right there in her tent, she bent down to make him sit while being backed by the bamboo wall of her tent, but was disappointed when she discovered that Izondu died the very moment he put up a little struggle at a place called Ama Isumeh.
Ama Isumeh was the spiritual headquarters of the Isumeh people. It was the first place they first settled when they arrived in the land before they dispersed to the various lands that made up what Isumeh had become today.
From her brokenness, she cried, but it was only animals that were there to hear her as chickens and their chicks started clucking and twittering. Her dogs had followed suit, as they barked in what looked like a rage of sorrow, and suddenly a loud bang was heard.
It was the bang of a huge tree a few meters away from her tent that had fallen down. It was really the mark of exit of a man who had become everything any village doesn't pray to lack. That seemed to have brought a pint of courage to her vexed heart.
Immediately the sound settled, it was all a shout of joy for Udobuaku in the heart of the Evil Forest. Her heavy heart could still permit her to blend the reality before her with shrewdness of pride.
''Yes, you have reached your home. Your ancestors had deemed you worthy. The pains and the wickedness that freely charm this world to submission are all over. Rest Nna m- my father'' she said, tearfully, as she fought so many things in her mind at the same time.
Within a few minutes, the corpse of Izondu had been bathed, and made to lie in state in the jungle at the edge of Udobuaku's tent. She took her own bath, and got her mind made up for a short journey, yet again.
In Amudani, she was seen as a God-sent since it became known to everybody that those medicines they used in treating Leprosy were all hers. They had only recorded about four deaths of victims, and so were yet to recognize it as a punitive measure from the Gods. Yet tens of people had been infected before Udobuaku made entry into their market square. In their own case, they saw leprosy as evil that old foes had invoked on them.
Amudani were the power that rose earlier with skills in the blacksmithing business. They had in their history that an apprentice from Nkwerre called Dioka came down to Amudani, and learnt the art which launched them into the technological stardom they had attained.
However, it was said that they were yet to teach him how to make gunpowder before a war broke out between Amudani and Nkwerre. With the power of gunpowder, Amudani was able to win the war they fondly called Ogu Igwe. This victory gave them right over a parcel of land across Ibomai River called Ala Udemgba.
Although during peacetime, this uninhabited land was shared among Nkwerre people and Amudani. Udani people, as other people fondly called them, rose to the zenith of their military strength. Their war mercenaries were sorted from among other republics, until they decided to put an end to their mercenary activities. Now, they only fight wars that were truly theirs.
Udobuaku cried, and shouted in the scanty market square because it was not their orie market day which they usually host for their surrounding neighbours on every eight day. But when the people heard the wailing of Udobuaku who was rolling on the bare ground in Orie market square, it took only a few minutes to see assemblage of people around her, trying to get the true position of things that made her to wail uncontrollably like a day swept off on both legs by a daring sun dawn.
When she saw that the number of people needed for her mission had surrounded her, she opened up. She could now talk to her kind; humans, and no more animals in the wild. ''Over one year now I have been traversing through the length and strength of this land, healing people of leprosy.
''Over this period of time, my father and I had been subjected to all sorts of dehumanization because we once had this sickness. We were chased out of our houses because our people believed that anybody that talked to us got infected. We were sent into the Evil Forest to die. But the Gods of our land chose that place to reveal these herbs, roots, and fruits I used to make these medicines, to me. Within time we all recovered but our people refused to take us or receive us back among themselves.
''He was an old man, and decided to go home so he could die in his own house. He fell down in his house and nobody cared enough to come closer to hear why he was crying. Luckily I went to our house to see him and found him lying in the pull of his blood. I took him back to the Evil Forest, where I now live, and he died. That man is my father. Please, I want him buried in his own house. It was his wish. I am not calling for war; they are still our own flesh and blood. All I want is an opportunity to bury him as a human being'' Udobuaku screamed, beseechingly.
It did not take more than an hour to assemble forty able bodied men of Amudani, drafted from among their warriors by their elders to accompany her to the Evil Forest, to assist her bury her father. They came well prepared; with their arms and arms bearers. Within a few hours these men had entered the Evil Forest, took the corpse, and were led home by Udobuaku as she astutely, and mournfully sang her father's body home.
When they came to her father's house, Udobuaku pointed to them where her father should be buried. But within them, they tried to find out whose maternal home was Okanimo. Such a one was in a better position to validate the portion that Udobuaku had chosen for the burial of her father since there was no representative from Izondu's maternal home, Okanimo, that was there. However, at last, they found one; Ocheze, who validated the choice, and he was buried there, beside the grave of his father.
In Isumeh, it was the responsibility of one's maternal people to confirm the right place for the burial of their grandchild if it was a man. If it was a married woman, her corpse returns back to her father's house. Isumeh people had lost their heart beat they so much cherished when they thought it mattered.