You must not bathe this child for 15 years. If you do, something terrible will happen. But if you don’t, the child will become yours forever.”
“I will never bathe her. I promise. I promise. Thank you. Thank you.”
That was the promise she made. But as the child grew, problems grew with her.
Children her age began to run away from her. Villagers covered their noses whenever she passed. They mocked her because she had not bathed for years and smelled very bad.
Each time she came home crying and begged her mother, Aduke, to bathe her, Aduke would hold her tightly and lie to her. She would say, “It is not normal for a human being to bathe.” She would tell her that the people she saw bathing would die quickly, “But if you do not bathe, you will live long.”
Aduke would also lie and tell her that she herself had never bathed since she was born.
But the truth was different.
Whenever Aduke wanted to bathe, she would hide where her child could not see her. She would quickly pour water over her body in secret.
Everything continued like this until the day everything changed.
One night, the child saw her mother bathing secretly. Her heart broke. The lies, the shame, the pain. So the following day, without telling anyone, the child carried soap and a sponge. She went deep into the forest, and what happened next was very, very shocking.
Aduke sat alone in the forest crying.
Why?
She had married five husbands. Each time, no child came, and this always made her husbands send her away. The villagers mocked her. They called her a witch. The shame broke her completely.
With nowhere left to go, Aduke chose the forest.
That day, as she gathered wood to build a small hut in the forest, she unknowingly picked up a strange stick called Kuduku. This stick was a strange spirit. She packed it together with the other sticks she had gathered.
That night, inside the small hut she built, she cried.
“God, even one child. Just one.”
She didn’t know something terrible was listening to her.
The stick heard everything.
The following morning, as Aduke woke up and stepped outside her hut, she froze.
Right in front of her stood a strange tree that had not been there before. The tree looked fresh, almost alive, and on one of its branches there was something.
It was a baby.
A small baby wrapped carefully in green leaves.
Aduke’s heart almost stopped. She slowly moved closer. The baby was alive, breathing, quiet.
Suddenly, the tree began to shake violently before her eyes. Then something unbelievable happened.
An old woman came out of the tree.
The old woman’s body looked thin and dry, almost like wood. She looked like part of the forest itself.
Aduke was shaking with fear.
The old woman spoke.
“My name is Kuduku. I heard your cry last night,” she said in a dry, deep voice. “You asked God for a child. I will give you this child,” the old woman continued, “but on one condition.”
Aduke swallowed hard.
