Plus One

SUMMER 2025, SHORT STORY, 2500 WORDS

 

There was a time when the forest of horror was feared and left alone, when the spirits had to travel far to find people to torment, and even then they had to gather their strength and bide their time. They could weave dreams and cook up stories, subtle and overt temptations to bring people into their territory. At that time, people knew of the forest and its inhabitants, they called it an evil place, and to speak of the spirits within was taboo. Because they knew about it, they had rituals and spells to protect them. The spirits knew this, so they had to prepare for every incursion. Otherwise, they were powerless outside their forest and the world was safe from them, but that was a long time ago. It was before the missionaries came with their beliefs and unbelief and cut down the trees. Before the Mamry girls’ school was built.

The school was built on a sliver of land, leaving the rest of the forest to encircle it in a half-moon shape. The only clear path out of the school was its front gate and the crumbling tarred road that led to it.

When you clear a house, the former occupants have to find new accommodation, and that was the case with the forest spirits. Some spirits were bloodthirsty and the chaos they wreaked upon the human world just as bloody, while some were more insidious. The tree spirits saw themselves as neither, but humans would call them evil all the same. They were beautiful beings who loved each other as family, but they hated people for tearing down their homes and for not being exactly like them. But they were also irrepressibly curious about people and their world; they wanted to be born and live with people. Like rats, they wanted to have a taste and leave the rest, not caring if what was left behind would be spoiled because of their bite. So they entered a pact to always come back to each other, and then they scattered themselves around the world, riding on the winds.

There is a bird that puts its eggs in another bird’s nest and pushes out the other bird’s real eggs. These tree spirits are just like those birds. Some called them Abiku, others called them Ogbanje, and the rest told their pregnant women to fix a small iron pin on their wrappers right on their bellies to ward them off and prayed to never have to call them anything.

The Abiku were born into this world but did not have a lasting wish to stay in it. The curiosity that drew them to become people would not last long enough to carry them past the age of seventeen. They were all beautiful children, they were born beautiful, they stayed beautiful, and they died beautiful. Then when they died, they did it all again like a faulty music player stuck on repeat. People hated Abiku for the anguish they brought them, as some of the spirits would pick a family and stick to it, going as far as to be born into the family and die young more than three times. People hated Abiku for the hope they brought with their birth and extinguished by leaving so decisively. They hated Abiku for the mounds of grave dirt they left in their backyards and the dread they now felt whenever they or their wives were pregnant. Those families hated Abiku because, after a while, they began to associate the smell of newborns with the stench of grave dirt and the fear of the inevitable. Far from their first home, the Abiku could only kill themselves when it was time to go, but it was different closer to home. It was different in the forest near Mamry girls’ school, their source of power.

Mamry girls knew what the spirits were really called, but there is power in a name and they didn’t want anything to have power over them. No one knows how this knowledge came to be, but every Mamry student passed it on to the new students, part of a twisted compilation of rules the students had made up to survive. They knew that calling the spirits Abiku or Ogbanje so close to their source of power would place a tag on them, like a mark on their soul, and the spirits would sink their teeth in, cling to it and never let go. So they called them “plus one,” and even at that, they only called them this name in hushed tones. The students called them this because in Mamry, a plus one never went alone when it was time to go. The girls in Mamry lived constantly on the edge. Part of it was a side effect from being in a boarding school, with the many rules that seemed to hover over them like a fog. The rest of it came from the feeling that hung around, a feeling of constant fear and hopelessness.

New students try to fight it; they go back home after their first term and they cry. They cry rivers of tears in their homes and tell their parents tales of how twisted the school was and how evil spirits were everywhere. The lucky ones who were born to kind parents would be pulled out and transferred to a new school.

However, most parents who put their children in boarding schools wanted their children disciplined by someone else. The parents drawn to Mamry loved the school because it was the oldest school in the state, and that held some prestige. Another thing they loved was that the students who came out of that school were usually high achievers. Their results were usually higher than those of other schools whenever they met in competitions or before external examining bodies. This meant that for most of the students, complaining about Mamry would be met with a swift put-down by their parents. Finally, the students would return to school, keep their heads down, and try to follow all the rules to keep them off the radar of the spirits.

You can trust only yourself in Mamry, because the girl next to you, the one who shows you her answer sheet when you are writing your social studies tests, the same girl you switch food with on Monday mornings because she doesn’t like akara and you don’t like ogi, the girl you call your best friend, she could come up to you one day, ask you to walk her to the bathroom, and it would be the start of a terrifying new life.

To be in a boarding school is to embrace loneliness and the knowledge that no matter how homesick you get, your parents will not bring you back home. But whenever Mamry girls encounter a plus one, this knowledge is thrown away. With an aching desperation, you call home. You tell them that something is wrong in school and you need to come home. You tell them you are desperate. You are hitting all the checks the school management told your parents to watch out for in lazy students who cannot take the routine of boarding school. Your parents do not believe you.

Mamry girls tell stories, not for entertainment but to educate themselves. They know that they cannot rely on their teachers or parents. They can only rely on their own knowledge and hope that it will save them if they ever encounter a spirit.

The stories are always the same. When a plus one is being called home, their chosen companion hears the sound of drums. You, the chosen companion, hear the drums everywhere. You hear it in class, you hear it during study hour, and when you look around, it is clear that the beat only plays for you. The ba-dum-pums of the drum start out far, and if you’re brave enough in your hostel after lights out, you take a peek out the window and you can barely see through the nets nailed around the window frame to keep flies out. You see a fire blazing far off at the foot of the old Iroko tree, but you don’t go out to check. Once you focus on the tree, your vision becomes impossibly clear. You can see all the details without even leaving your room. The Iroko tree has a faint hollow at the base of its trunk; the hollow looks like it reaches deep into the tree and straight into the soil. You stare at the hollow, you cannot look away, the hollow seems to grow larger the longer you gaze upon it, and it looks darker than the night itself. The flames brighten and dim steadily as if to the rhythm of the drums you alone can hear. It is hypnotic, it is exciting, and for the first time that night, you realize that it is unusual. The unusual is never a good sign in Mamry, so you pull yourself away and go back to your bed. You can’t sleep though, the drums are getting closer, you go back to the window to check but the fire hasn’t moved and neither has the tree.

But the drums get closer still, and closer until they are no longer outside but right beside you, and then they’re in your head too, rising and rising to an impossible crescendo. Then, as suddenly as they started, they’re gone, and all you can do is stare at the reflection in the window and wonder why you don’t remember getting out of bed.

The girl you can see in the glass is a familiar person with a strange look. You look wild, with a feverish look in your eyes and scattered hair you didn’t notice get free of the rubber band you had put it in before. A strange thought pops into your head, and it remains with you even as you step away from the window. You think that you don’t look like you belong in a house of stone, glass, and iron. You yearn for freedom but do not know what exactly it is. But as you fall asleep you remember that the wooden windows were open, and there aren’t any glass windows around it, just the net. You don’t know it, but your best friend stays awake and watches you until you fall asleep again. She has a smile on her face as her slender fingers reach out to your bunk and trace a pattern on it.

The next day you’re distracted, you wake up confused and you feel strange, your school uniform makes your skin itch, it feels too rough, too artificial and you have to leave your watch in the hostel because it gave you a rash. The classrooms are too loud and stifling, they reek of people and it’s disgusting, as if everyone douses their bodies in chemicals every morning. You feel stifled, caged in, like a bird raised in captivity, longing for freedom, longing to be outside and away from people.

You are worried, so you call home again. Your parents have a choice again. They do not believe you. The sound of the drums echoes in your head as you battle with this knowledge. You fight it at first. You want to go home. You want to be safe. So you dial your parents again under the watchful eyes of the hostel matron. Their answer does not change. This time, the shock you feel is muted, insulated by the sound of the drums. There is something wrong, but you are too far gone to do more than notice it.

That night, you hear the drums again, and this time you follow the sound, you see them around the fire then, the beautiful children. You know that this isn’t good, but you can’t bring yourself to care, they’re all so beautiful, with their clothes made of leaves that look so soft, not like your polyester fabric nightgown. Their clothes look and feel right, and so does their company. The dancing spirits welcome you with open arms, and soon you are wearing a top and skirt made out of big soft banana leaves. You are slightly alarmed, but you spot your best friend dancing and it sets your mind at ease. If she is there, everything is okay. You dance and dance, and your best friend is there too, so it’s okay. They dance near the Iroko tree and get closer to the hollow. They enter the tree through a doorway that forms when one of the dancers puts her hand into the hollow. The doorway seems to extend deep into the soil, and something in the darkness within sings beautifully. The ethereal voice wraps itself around you, it feels like silk on your skin. You are at a crossroads, but you don’t know it yet. The light of the flames dances across their beautiful faces and yours too. A hand emerges from within the tree and beckons you in. You are so untethered from the world that a light breeze could blow you straight into the hollow of the tree.

You love your parents and have fond memories of them. But boarding school is a cocoon and it keeps those memories out, it traps the good feelings outside and leaves you to stew in the bad ones. All you have left is this choice. You hesitate briefly, but the sound of a dial tone echoes in your memory. You have made up your mind. You follow, and your best friend is there too, so it’s okay.

Your body is found in the forest the next morning, you die in your sleep, a peaceful way to go, they tell your parents. Your parents are confused, but the autopsy shows no signs of foul play. So they mourn, and eventually, when their pain dulls, they accept that it was just your time. Maybe they mourn longer, for life even. You will not be affected by this if and when you see it. Their emotions are like cake in a display case to you; you can see it, but you can’t touch it, so you are unaffected. Mamry girls know better than to tell adults anything, but they know, they don’t talk about it but they know that plus one has taken another.

The drums usually start slow, so faint that you can almost believe that you’re hearing your own heartbeat, ba-dum-pum it starts before dying down for a second. Then you hear it again.

You find yourself in the forest. Now you are one of the things that live in it. When the drums play, you are with your friend from school. Now you are one of the beautiful dancers beside, around, and inside the trees. Now you wait your turn to be born again and enjoy the world before returning to the trees. And if your new parents send you to Mamry, you will not return to the trees alone.

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