Just after midnight, Ayikailey woke with a start.
The house was too quiet. Even the neighborhood dogs that usually barked into the early hours were silent tonight.
Addae snored softly beside her, one arm flung across his chest like a man lost at sea.
Ayikailey sat up slowly, her belly taut with the weight of impending life.
There it was again.
A whisper. Not from outside, but from beneath her. She stilled, heartbeat quickening.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood, moving carefully across the room.
The mat by the crib they had just assembled earlier that day rustled lightly, as if brushed by a wind that wasn’t there. Ayikailey knelt.
The moment her fingers touched the mat’s edge, her vision shifted.
She was no longer in the room.
Instead, she stood in a vast open plain under a twilight sky, glowing blue and gold.
Before her, a little girl stood barefoot, staring at her with wide, ancient eyes.
The girl’s face was familiar—not in its features, but in its presence. Ayikailey knew her.
“You will name me when the drums sound,” the girl said calmly. “And when they do, do not hesitate.”
Ayikailey tried to speak, but no words came. The girl only smiled gently and turned, walking toward a cluster of silhouetted figures in the distance. The grass whispered as she passed.
Ayikailey blinked—and was back in the bedroom. The mat lay flat. Silent.
She sat there in the stillness for a long time, one hand on her belly, the other pressed against her chest to quiet the thudding inside.
Suddenly, Addae stirred. “Are you okay?” he mumbled, eyes still shut.
“I saw her,” Ayikailey whispered. “I saw our daughter.”
Addae’s eyes blinked open slowly. “You mean… like in a dream?”
“No,” she said, voice steady. “Like in a message.”
He sat up, wide awake now. “Message from who?”
Ayikailey didn’t answer. She reached for the wooden carving on the bedside table, now warm to the touch.
“She said I’ll know her name when the drums sound.”
Addae groaned and flopped back onto the bed. “This child better come with a manual.”
Ayikailey smiled faintly and lay back beside him.
But she didn’t sleep.
Outside, the wind picked up, carrying with it the scent of dust and a single, faint drumbeat from far across the night.
