A few weeks later, Udobuaku woke up in the morning with body aches. Although it has never been easy for the mother of two with nagging arthritis to contend with. The morning had looked so strange in the eyes of this woman of the wild. The dog bite Orji had some days ago had started making him so restless. Something that started like a play had come back to disorganize an already shattered Udobuaku.
Was it not a few weeks ago that Chechei, Orji's own pet dog, returned from a fruitless hunt from the northern part of the Evil Forest, and made a direct run towards Orji, who was woozily seated while eating his wild yam? On sighting him, Chechei screeched and looked away. In a twist of events, the dog added more speed when Orji called it as he dropped some pieces of yam on the ground for it to eat.
To little Orji's surprise, the dog came closer, but chose to ignore its food. But suddenly, with its sharp white teeth, it grabbed Orji's hand. Even his screaming couldn't get the mad dog away except when Udobuaku came with a pestle. Terrified to bone marrow, Chechei ran away, and its running out of the jungle turned to be forever. Nobody saw Chechei again around the Evil Forest.
That morning, Udobuaku had noticed that the little herbs she was able to get around were not doing much for the health of little Orji. She took up some determination, albeit her aching body, and made an early morning walk to the northern part of the jungle. She looked up and saw the Ohi plant crowding all over an Abosi tree, and became mentally tired the more.
She made several efforts to climb but could not. It was during her last trial that she saw the head of a snake. She thought it was a python, but when she climbed closer it dawned on her that it was a cobra. The shock and fear that gripped her made her lose her balance. She fell down from the tree and fractured one of her ribs. She screamed all she could, and ended up swallowing her cries, because she was all alone. It was only her in a world filled with creatures that looked like humans. Before the advent of Hansen's disease in Isumeh, she had thought there were many human beings in the world.
Now, the only active human closer to the jungle was Ekwulu, who had been trying to wake her brother up since the last time he barked like a wild dog, but all was a wasted effort. What missed him at a day old had come back to take him at two. Such a patient's fate is the most heartless.
The more Ekwulu, his twin brother, shook his body to wake him up, the more his body was becoming colder. His frustration led him to cry, and his cries took a long time to stop. People who were on their various farms could hear a child crying, but none deemed it wise to dare come inside the jungle to see things for themselves. It was an evil forest, and deserved no such attention. So they thought.
Nwadi, who heard the cry, had wanted to come closer, but her husband was on the farm with her that day. Thus, the world that hears chose to be deaf because it was coming from a forest that was called evil.
After hours of wrestling with her body against all odds, Udobuaku started crawling back home to her tent, in bits. On getting close to her tent, she saw Ekwulu lying asleep across the lifeless body of his brother with tears that looked baked on his tiny cheeks, with some drops rolling over, across the torso part of an inert Orji. Udobuaku called out her children.
It was only the heartbroken Ekwulu, who had stayed for hours in the jungle without a talking partner, that opened his tearful eyes. Hunger had weakened his body, and the state of the unresponsive body of his brother had pierced his heart in multiple shreds. It was now an irresistible sight of a mother that had strengthened him a little. He unstably stood up, walked a little before falling helplessly into the arms of his mother, the God he had come to know all his life. No other person than Udobuaku.
Unlike the days with his twin brother, Orji, on this fateful day, Ekwulu had no competitor when he fell into the arms of Udobuaku. It used to be a happy race of two lovely brothers whenever Udobuaku was spotted coming back home a few meters away. Today, one is down, and could it be down forever?
Still struggling to lift her crawling legs, Udobuaku called out her son, Orji, with eyes full of tears, because she had already known that it was not really well with him. With doubts of hope, she reached out to her, and felt his body. He was long dead and stiffened. O' come and see the wailing of a lioness in the jungle!
A head that was in dire need of all the attention in the world to make it better was used to hit all the seemingly nonchalant trees around the jungle, as she cared less about what safety was. Yet, shouting was no option for courting sympathy, because there was no human out there to lend her shoulders to.
A heartbroken mother found in the wild who had lost a fragile creature she was on the verge of giving meaning to had, through the loss, lost what looked like the remnants of her uttered sanity. A part of her newly defined humanity was gone. Even the Gods lost their kind? Udobuaku was a God to those little ones that called her mother. Now one is gone; she's back to being human because, unlike many things she has accomplished, raising her own child from the dead had eluded her.
If wailing, if sobbing, if screaming, if feeling broken, and empty, could raise one from the dead, Orji would have been given a second chance. In all her wailing, Ekwulu had a cry to give. In all her sobbing, Ekwulu had only tears to give. Those were his language of misunderstanding the world that had looked far from his gripping. He had never seen a dead person, so he did not know what life was truly, until now that the sorrowful expressions of Udobuaku seemed to be reading out things in silence in his confused mind. But nothing distracts a soul who has chosen to die so that one day his kind could be seen as human and live for it.
In rage of sorrow, Udobuaku lifted the lifeless body of Orji before the Gods and her ancestors. ''I don't know why you chose to take away this child from my hands today. I should have let them die like others. But let it be an abomination for me to say that these children had not brought joy to my wrecked soul. I don't know what they mean to you, but they mean everything to me. I am a mother. I only acted as one. My life is messed up already, and in my damnation I have seen the faces of your children; the children of the evil spirits; these twins. I found out that they have blood, the same blood that also runs through me.
''I have seen that they also have laughter, beautiful smiles and heartbroken sorrows like those that see them as less or more. If getting to knowing these are privileges, I can say you served them to me on a platter. Even a dog bite that kills others can get them killed too. Today I know. Thank you. I will bury him now, but woe unto me if I should be the one to bury Ekwulu. He shall be buried by the same men who wanted them dead from the first day.
''If I had delayed their death by half, I am sorry if you chose them to die for any good reason. This forest is called evil, but it has saved me till this moment. For this, I took a vow to save lives that look like mine that I find in it. After all, nobody cares about what happens here. But I must thank you, my son, Orji, for the privilege of de-icing my ignorance, and making me your mother for it. Thank you, my son'' Udobuaku said desolately.
It was an emotional-laden moment as Udobuaku, with little strength in her, dug open a portion of earth beside her tent and laid Orji to rest, as she battled tears gushing like a brook from a highland. All took place after she had sung Ekwulu to sleep.
Udobuaku did not eat for the next two days, except water. Borrowing courage from anything her mind could ponder on became the order of her remaining existence, as questions coming from Ekwulu about the whereabouts of his buried twin brother, Orji, compelled her to be stronger for the living, and to move on for it. She started rehearsing old songs and lullabies for Ekwulu. All these were desperate quests to refocus the mind of a little boy who had just lost his twin brother.