“No one walks in Ilare after midnight.”

This is what Iya Agba tells us every time we visit her village. “Once the moon shines high in the sky, and the wind starts to smell like wet dust, don’t go outside. Stay in, lock your doors, and pray before you sleep.”

“But Iya Agba, why?” My cousin, Femi, had asked the first time she told us.

 “Just do as I say. And more importantly, if you hear the cry of a child, no matter how pitiful it sounds, never open your door.”

We always laughed whenever she reminded us during each visit. We were Lagos kids – smart and used to people going about at any time of the night.

To us, all of these superstitions were for the village people. Not for us who use the latest smartphones and have acquired quality education.

We were always skeptical. Until the night it cried outside our window.

The sound began faintly, like a kitten that was in pain. “Wiunnn wiunnnn!”

Femi stood up from the bed and walked to the curtain, pulling it slightly, and peeked outside.

“Femi, Iya Agba said not to look oo,” I told him, half-warning, half-joking.

“Guy, it’s nothing. It's probably a kitten or even a goat. There are so many animals in this village,” he said to me. “I can’t even see the one making this noise.”

Just as he finished talking, the sound got louder. Or let me say, closer. At first, it sounded like it was far off outside our compound. Now it sounded as though the sound was creeping closer towards our house.

“Wiunnnnnnnnn! Wiunnnnnnnn!”

As the sound became clearer, it stopped sounding like a kitten in need of help. But more like a spirit that was searching for souls.

Then we heard scratching sounds on the window glass. Kraa! Kraaaa!

Thankfully, Femi had already joined me on the bed again. We froze, and neither of us said a word.

Then we heard the scratching sound again. This time, louder and followed by a child’s voice, “Open the door, please. I am cold.”

I wanted to scream, ‘Get lost!’ but my voice was trapped down in my throat like a wanted criminal in chains. Iya Agba’s words rang in my head again, “…no matter how pitiful it sounds, never open your door.”

It took me a while to realize that Femi had left the bed and was walking to the door already.

“Femi, don’t…!”

But he had already opened the door.

“There’s nothing here,” he said reassuringly. “No child. No animal. Not even a ghost. I’m sure Iya Agba only wanted us to have a curfew, that’s all.”

However, something had already entered. Not in the house, but into him. Because Femi changed that night. He became too quiet. More like he was withdrawn from reality. He preferred staying in the dark, and sometimes we would hear him giggle as if he were playing with someone. Other times, he would scratch the window glass with his nails.

Iya Agba cried out to the village elders.

And on the third night, Baba Gbotemi, the oldest man in the village, and the Chief Priest visited our house. After some consultations, the priest raised his eyes from the white piece of cloth, and the Ifa divination beads lay in front of him.

“He has seen it. It will not stop until it is ready to take him.”

“What has seen him?” I questioned in frustration. Tiny beads of sweat were already forming on my forehead.

“The bush baby,” Baba Gbotemi answered me calmly.

“I warned them,” Iya Agba muttered, shakingly.

That night, Femi became aggressive. The Chief Priest tried to calm him by giving him some pieces of kola nut from the sack bag around his neck. He also tied a piece of red cloth around his neck. But Femi did not become calm.

Around midnight, he vanished.