It had been years since he called her that in front of Agnes.
Gabriel looked at Sarah now, not as a buyer, not as a man inspecting livestock, but as someone asking permission from the air before entering it.
“If she agrees,” he said, “I would like to begin formal discussions.”
Sarah could not speak.
Agnes did.
“You have not even seen Isidora.”
Gabriel turned politely.
“I have seen enough.”
That sentence buried itself in Agnes like a thorn.
The bride price came two days later.
Not because Gabriel wanted to rush Sarah, but because Agnes and John did. John was dazzled. Agnes was burning. Gabriel’s people brought fine cloth, bags of salt, cows, and money placed in sealed envelopes. Gabriel also spoke privately to Sarah and said something no one else heard.
“If you do not want this, say so. I will leave, and no one will punish you for it.”
Sarah looked toward the kitchen where Agnes stood pretending not to listen.
“Can you promise that?”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“No,” he said honestly. “But I can promise that if you say no, I will not be part of forcing you.”
Sarah studied him.
The honesty mattered.
She thought of the house. The chores. Agnes. Isidora. Her father’s silence. A life in which every day became smaller than the last.
“Will I be allowed to learn in the city?” she asked.
“What do you want to learn?”
Sarah blinked.
No one had asked that in years.
“Tailoring. Maybe business. Maybe…” She looked down. “Maybe how to read accounts properly.”
Gabriel smiled faintly.
“Then yes.”
Hope is dangerous when it enters a starving room.
Sarah said yes.
For one night, she allowed herself to dream.
Agnes did not sleep that night.
She sat with Isidora in the small room behind the kitchen, her face lit by a palm-oil lamp, her anger so hot it seemed to warm the walls.
“That girl,” Agnes hissed. “That servant. That leftover child. She will enter a rich house while you sit here?”
Isidora’s eyes were red from crying.
“He chose her.”
“He chose a veil and a soft voice. Men like him think humility is beauty because they have never married hunger. Once she is gone, he will need a bride. You will be there.”
Isidora looked frightened.
“What do you mean gone?”
Agnes leaned closer.
“Tomorrow before dawn, I will take her to the mountain for the bride’s blessing. My grandmother’s people used to do it. We will say tradition demanded it.”
“Mother…”
Agnes gripped her daughter’s arm.
“Listen to me. You think this life is fair? Fairness is for women with property. Sarah’s mother is dead. Her father is weak. If Sarah marries Okafor, she will forget us. If you marry him, we all rise.”
Isidora swallowed.
“And Sarah?”
Agnes’s face hardened.
“The mountain has many stones.”
The night before the wedding, Sarah slept on a thin mat and dreamed of windows.
Not gold.
Not jewelry.
Windows.
A room with clean curtains. A bed that did not smell of damp straw. A table where she could sew. A shelf for books. A life where no one shouted her name before sunrise as if her existence were a debt.
A hand shook her awake.
She opened her eyes.
Agnes crouched above her, face strangely gentle.
“Wake up, child. It is the morning of your joy.”
Sarah sat up, confused.
“Is it time?”
“Not yet.” Agnes wrapped a heavy shawl around Sarah’s shoulders. “In our family, a bride must receive the blessing of the mountain before the sun rises. If the first mist touches your forehead at the peak, your marriage will be blessed with children and wealth.”
Sarah frowned.
“I have never heard of that.”
Agnes smiled.
“You were not raised in my mother’s people’s tradition. Come. Isidora will carry the blessing oil.”
Isidora stood near the doorway, pale and silent.
Sarah looked at her.
Something felt wrong.
But Sarah had been trained to doubt her own fear.
Agnes handed her the veil.
“Do you want the marriage blessed or not?”
Sarah thought of Gabriel. Of the city. Of a future almost close enough to touch.
She stood.
The climb began in darkness.
The great blue mountain rose behind Omio like a sleeping giant, its slopes covered in scrub, rocks, and old paths used by goat herders. Mist gathered near the peak before dawn. Sarah had climbed part of it as a child with her mother, but never this high, never in wedding cloth, never with Agnes walking behind her.
“Careful,” Isidora whispered once when Sarah slipped.
Agnes snapped, “Face forward.”
The sky paled slowly.
Birds began calling.
The village below became a scatter of roofs and smoke.
At the high ledge, Agnes stopped.
“There,” she said. “Stand at the edge. Face the east.”
Sarah stepped carefully toward the rock.
The valley opened beneath her.
Deep.
Beautiful.
Terrifying.
Mist moved upward like breath from the earth.
For a moment, despite fear, Sarah felt awe.
Then she heard Isidora sob.
Sarah turned.
Agnes lunged.
Both hands struck Sarah’s back.
Hard.
The world vanished.
Falling is not like stories say.
There is no long scream.
No time to think of every loved person.
Only shock. Sky. Stone. Pain. Air refusing to become breath.
Then the fig tree caught her.
And the mountain kept her secret.
Sarah did not know how long she hung there before she heard the goats.
Their bells came first.
Soft.
Irregular.
Then a man’s voice.
“Eh? What kind of white bird is crying on my mountain?”
Sarah tried to answer.
Only a broken sound came out.
An old herdsman appeared on the slope above her, barefoot, gray-bearded, carrying a stick and wearing a cap that looked older than half the village. His eyes widened.
“Child!”
He moved with surprising speed for someone so old.
He tied a rope around a tree, lowered himself carefully, and reached her.
“Do not move.”
“I was not planning to dance,” Sarah whispered.
The old man stared.
Then laughed once.
“If you can joke, death has missed breakfast.”
His name was Baba Nuru.
He lived in a stone hut on the mountain with goats, herbs, and a reputation for being half-mad. Children feared him. Adults dismissed him. Women seeking medicine climbed quietly to him when hospitals failed.
Baba Nuru cut Sarah free from the branch, tied her to the rope, and pulled her slowly to a safer ledge with the help of two older boys who had been herding goats nearby.
Sarah fainted before they reached the hut.
When she woke, her left arm was bound in splints, her ribs wrapped, her head bandaged, and the borrowed wedding dress lay torn in a corner like a defeated lie.
Baba Nuru sat near the fire, grinding herbs.
“You are stubborn,” he said.
Sarah turned her head weakly.
“Where am I?”
“Between foolish relatives and God’s mercy.”
She closed her eyes.
The memory returned.
Agnes.
Isidora.
The push.
She began shaking.
Baba Nuru came closer.
“Do not waste strength crying yet. Cry later when your bones have negotiated.”
“They will say I ran away.”
“Yes.”
“They will marry Isidora.”
“Maybe.”
“I have to stop them.”
Baba Nuru looked at her, then toward the mountain path.
“You cannot even sit.”
Sarah tried anyway.
Pain made the world white.
She collapsed back.
The old man grunted.
“Ambition is good. Stupidity is not.”
“But Gabriel—”
“Ah. The rich groom.”
“You know?”
“The mountain hears village noise. Also, goats are excellent informants.”
Despite pain, Sarah almost laughed.
