The Debt

The sun was high as the rays beat down on the little church on top of the hill. It was a steep incline to reach the church, but Adwoa always climbed and sat where she always sat, perched on the steps of the church her mother and father got married. She found solitude here, knowing that these steps once represented her parents’ strongest bond and even though her mother and father were no longer married and her father had only recently died, coming here was more important than ever.

All she had left of her father, were his memories that were documented in his old black leather notebook that she carried everywhere. The leather of the notebook had faded on the folds, the elastic that once held the pages so tightly had loosened and inside the pages contained all his adventures, all his travels and reading them made me her feel like he was still here.

Adwoa sat there quietly and recited the book again for the hundredth time. One story stuck out the most; her father had travelled to a small island, which was a few hours from her village called Modo Modo, where he wrote that he buried a sum of twenty thousand American dollars and according to his notebook, it remained there buried until this day.

“And you won’t go looking for it” An out of breath voice bellowed out of nowhere.

Adwoa was startled and looked up and there stood her grandma, sweat dripping from her forehead as she leaned on the stone plinths by the steps.

“Wait! Grandma what are you doing here?” and what…. and how did you know?

“I have seen you puzzled over the notebook for weeks now and I know what’s in there”

And how did you know I was here?”

“You have been coming here ever since your parents decided to separate and little did you, I would occasionally follow you.

“Wait! This whole time you were always here?

She nodded her head in agreement as she slowly sat down next to Adwoa.

“So, tell me what it is that you want to know?”

“What happened? and why did he have to bury the money and how did he even come into that money?”

“That money was his lifeline and he had to pay a debt.”

“A $20,000 debt! Like who was he? Some sort of mafia boss or something?”

Her grandma laughed, “You watch too many western films” she looked at Adwoa dead in the eye and softly placed her hand under her chin and said, “My child your father was no gangster, he just got himself mixed up in our spiritual rituals and paid the price.”

“Paid the price?” Adwoa shouted.

“Yes! There is a price for everything in this world and asking those type of people for something and expect not to pay a debt in return is unheard of, the spiritual world is dangerous.”

“Wait! Are you telling me, my dad went to a ritual doctor? A juju man?”

Precisely!

“So, what did he ask for that was so bad?”

“He didn’t ask, someone asked on his behalf.”

“What, that doesn’t make sense?”

“Listen…. you know your dad once had a successful shipping business that took him all over the world, but the economy crashed, and people were no longer shipping goods through Africa, so his business began to crumble. You were young and your mother was pregnant with your brother Kofi at the time and they were struggling; your dad needed money to provide for his family. He got loans and borrowed from business partners; he exhausted every avenue, but the money was never enough. When you spend and have no income it only leads to one thing, especially when you don’t know how to leave a sinking ship.”

“You go down with the ship.” Adwoa said interrupting her grandma.

“Your father refused to walk away from his business and so did your mother, she had become accustomed to the lifestyle that your dad had provided and decided to take it upon herself to make a decision that would affect us all.” In that moment, her eyes began to well up with tears.

“Looking back, I wish she told us what she was going to do. There is only one outcome in these matters Adwoa, you can’t expect to make a deal with the devil and come out alive.” She aggressively began to wipe her tears that had streamed down her cheeks and tickled her chin.

“I don’t understand Grandma.”

“One day there was a knock at the door and when your father went to answer there was no one there besides a green duffle bag. He looked around to see if he could see anyone who might have dropped it off but there was no one in sight and the street was dead. He looked inside the bag and to his surprise the bag was full of money, $20,000 dollars to be exact. His prays seemed to have been answered and he praised God, but little did we know that it was not by divine intervention that this money had just appear on his doorstep; your mother had gone to the village witch doctor and pleaded her case for financial reckoning, and it was granted and from the moment that first dollar was spent, it all went downhill from there.”

“So, mum did this?” Adwoa said confused.

“Naively yes, she did, you see initially business was booming once again, and your parents were living the life they once had. But it all took a major turn when your father began losing sleep because he was having the same reoccurring dream that kept him up. He would find himself in the sea at night and the waves would compress his chest and fall over him as he tried to catch a steady breath. He would look around and there would be no one around most of the time, just water for miles and miles in each direction; sometimes he could see the mountains in the distance, and he would see your mother on the shoreline but every time he tried to call out her name nothing came out of his mouth; all he could do was try to keep afloat, while the waves haunted his every move. But there were times when he felt the presence of a woman holding him in the water, not physically, but somehow, she has engulfed his spirit and he could feel her causing him to struggle; feeling her weight on him, as he would slowly begin to drown, but he always seemed to wake up just before he took his last breath.”

“He mentions that dream in the notebook”. As Adwoa hurriedly flipped the pages locating her father’s encounter.

“You see it wasn’t until your mother became ill that we discovered the truth of what she had done, she had confessed to your father and explained she had to make a sacrifice and that sacrifice was her and the woman in the water that he dreamed about was in fact her weighting him down causing him to drown.”

“But that doesn’t explain him burying the money?”

“Your mother was going to die, that was her price to pay but your father couldn’t have her pay the price, despite the consequences. So, he went to another witch doctor to reverse your mother initial pleas for help. He was instructed to take $20,000 to Modo Modo island bury it with his blood and all would be right with your mother, if it remained buried and untouched by his bloodline.”

As in me?

“Yes you, if you go looking for something that needs to remain buried you will release a curse onto this family and a new debt will have to be paid. We already lost your father for your mother; we are not doing that again!”