In the village of Umueke, no one went near the iroko tree that stood at the edge of the forest. It was older than memory, its roots thick as huts, its branches clawing at the sky. The elders said the tree was alive—not with sap and leaves, but with hunger.
Long ago, when drought plagued the land, the villagers prayed for rain. They poured libations, they sang songs, but the sky stayed dry. Then a stranger came, cloaked in red, his face hidden. He told the people, “Feed the tree, and the sky will open.”
Desperate, they obeyed. They bound a goat to the tree, slit its throat, and let the blood soak into the roots. The next morning, rain poured, flooding the earth. The villagers rejoiced.
But the stranger’s voice returned in the night, whispering: “Goats are not enough. The tree drinks deeper.”
And so the first child was given. Tied to the trunk, crying as the tree’s roots coiled around them. When dawn came, only silence remained. The rains never stopped after that, and Umueke grew rich in harvests.
But the price was remembered. Each year, when the rains threatened to fail, a child disappeared into the tree.
⸻
Obi was fifteen, restless, and reckless. He had heard the whispers but refused to believe. “It’s just a story to scare us,” he told his friends. “Trees don’t drink blood.”
But when his younger sister Ada fell sick, his mother whispered that the iroko demanded her. Obi’s heart clenched. “No! She’s only eight!”
That night, he made a choice. He would end the curse.
⸻
Armed with a machete, Obi crept to the forest’s edge. The iroko loomed, taller than any palm, its bark dark and wet as though soaked in something thicker than rain. The air around it was cold, even in the heat of night.
He raised the blade and struck the trunk.
A scream ripped through the forest—high, shrill, not human. The tree shuddered. Sap oozed from the cut, but it was no ordinary sap. It was red. Thick. Warm.
Obi staggered back, his stomach turning. The tree bled.
Then the ground shifted. Roots burst from the soil, writhing like snakes. They wrapped around his legs, his arms, his chest. He hacked at them, but for every root he severed, two more coiled tighter.
A voice thundered inside his skull, deep and ancient:
“You dare wound me, child?”
Obi screamed, thrashing. “You won’t take Ada! You won’t take anyone again!”
The tree laughed, a sound of rustling leaves that shook the night. “I have taken for centuries. I will take for centuries more. Blood feeds me. Fear feeds me. And now—you will feed me too.”
The roots dragged him against the trunk. Bark split open, revealing a hollow that pulsed like a mouth. The smell of rot and iron filled his nose. He clawed at the ground, screaming his sister’s name.
The last thing he felt was the tree swallowing him whole.
⸻
Morning came. The villagers found Obi’s machete at the forest’s edge, its blade stained red. His mother wept, tearing her clothes, while the elders shook their heads.
“The tree has taken its sacrifice,” they said. “The rains will come.”
And they did. That very evening, black clouds rolled in, thunder cracked, and rain drenched the earth. The people rejoiced.
But Ada sat by the fire, silent. That night, she woke from a dream of her brother’s voice, muffled and broken, calling from deep inside the roots.
She pressed her ear to the ground. Beneath the thunder and rain, she swore she could hear hundreds of voices, crying, screaming, begging to be freed.
The tree was full. And still, it was hungry.
⸻
Even now, when the skies threaten to dry, children of Umueke tremble. The elders say it is better not to resist. Because if the tree is denied, it does not only take one child.
It takes many.
And when the wind blows through the branches, if you listen closely, you will hear them—the voices of the swallowed—pleading, forever.
