CHAPTER 32 CORDELIA

© Opeyemi Akintunde

I laid on my bed… Sorry not my bed… the bed given to me still humbled by what I had seen. Pretending to be unaware of what was happening was one thing, but having flashes of what I had just seen was another…The compound had become quiet after devotion. Voices had drifted away, footsteps faded, and laughter echoed faintly in the distance. But in my room, silence sat like a heavy stone. Tears poured from my eyes like the crowd after service.

I stood up suddenly and started pacing  again, but this time not in fear. My mind was racing, searching, calculating.

What’s your next move, Mabel? How do you buy yourself time? How do you get out of this prison before they drag you to the slaughter?… I asked myself

My eyes darted around the room…nothing out of place, a small bed, a table. I saw “M was H” again.  Mildred had become food in people’s tummy. I began to think as to why there were people eating human flesh.. Power..Fame…Money…or what else? I kept questioning…

I wish this place could be raided… I thought about a phone. If only I could get my hands on one. If I could just call Tijesuni. Or the church. Or even my relatives. Somebody had to know the truth before I disappeared into smoke.

I thought about skipping devotion the next day, but that would draw suspicion. Maybe the better move was to get closer to Father. To pretend so well that he would trust me, keep me near, and in that nearness, I could discover his weaknesses.

I sank to my knees. My hands clutched the sheets of my bed. “Lord, I don’t know what to do. Give me wisdom. Show me how to move.”

Esther came to mind again. The story I had known since childhood, but now it had teeth. I began to pick it apart.

Esther must have never wanted that life. To be married to a pagan king, to be paraded like a prize in a beauty contest. She was a virgin…how many times had she imagined a quiet life, a husband of her faith, children raised in holiness? But destiny interrupted. She had a people to save.

I whispered her name over and over. Esther. Esther. Esther.

Esther didn’t choose the king. But she chose obedience to God. She endured what she didn’t want to do, not because it pleased her flesh, but because it preserved a nation.

I swallowed hard. My chest tightened, but a strange courage rose in me. Maybe Father Soji was the Haman of our time. The Haman that needed to fall.

My spirit shook as I pictured it…his head hanging on the gallows of his own making.

Something clicked. A thought I hadn’t considered before.

Why hadn’t Father Soji asked me to stay in his quarters? Any husband would want his bride close. But he left me here, in this plain room, as if shielding something.

It hit me like a slap.

He was hiding things. Doing shady things there. Cordelia’s name flashed in my head. Oh God. Could it be? Had he used Cordelia? And the others before her?

My hands trembled, but not from fear this time. From anger. From resolve.

I pressed my forehead to the bed and whispered fiercely, “Lord, I am not just Eve. I am Esther. If You have called me here, then let it be that Father Soji, this Haman, will fall by his own devices. Let his head hang on the gallows he built for others.”

A fire burned low in my chest. I was still trapped. Still watched. Still one wrong step away from death.

But now, I was no longer just a victim.

I was a woman with a mission.

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