Chapter Eighteen
"Baby, going?"
"Yea," she slid in and the vehicle tore away, the driver, her, and three others.
"You know Ijesha well?" she asked the fellow beside her in a low decibel.
The fellow, a man, mumbled and waved his head like a pendulum between yes and no.
"Which area are you going to? " he asked her.
Lati, or Crudest Lati, as she had jettisoned the title 'Your Highness,' only knows that Princess Yemi has traveled or run to Ijesha. Why the uncertainty in which manner she left Ile Ife?
Because, the information was passed to her from Ruth, Princess Yemi's enemy. From their young ages, they had been at loggerheads often.
If Princess Yemi ran to Ijesha, not traveled to Ijesha, that will mean she was afraid of Lati.
And to defeat an opponent, the opponent has to be afraid first.
But did Princess Yemi run to Ijesha, Princess Yem, her sworn enemy she says is talkative? Princess Yemi, that called for the mandate that gave her six months to give them a child or go and did not wait for the mandate to expire, sneaked out in the night to plant a charm in her apartment for her to pack and go.
Well, she did not know any area and, she did not answer the man immediately.
What she knew was she was an Odieshi member, she could be at a coven in Ijesha because Ruth simply told her that the witch is in Ijesha now.
Ijesha was a city, but behind the beautiful roads and houses were batches of groves for bad people's meetings.
"A Catholic church, you have an idea?" she asked the man.
The man nodded and said 'yes altogether.
Within the interval, he viewed her with the corner of his left eye. "Wel,l Catholics are not born again," his heart told him, he was determined to toast her.
She got down at the Church gate. This place she was going to now was not in her plan. Immediately she boarded the vehicle, her eyes opened to know she had not much info or a workable plan.
So, asking of a Catholic church though, a Catholic, was an improvisation.
The man followed her, he was around 1.73/4 cm in height because, when they stood face to face, they seem to be of equal height.
Despite his top cover, a blue coat, and ash-colored trousers, his muscles were visible and he was pure dark with a skin-cut hairdo.
He catcalled her, and she turned.
He gave her a gesture to wait and walked up to her.
"I'm Luke," he introduced himself."Are you a Catholic?"
"She nodded, "Yes," a couple of times.
"You came to find someone or there is a program?"
She muttered, waving her head. "Not really, but…"
She did not know exactly what to say. She did not come to find anybody in the church or for a church program.
So, it will be damned foolish to snob because a helper could be anybody.
But it will be odd to start telling a stranger her mission.
"Okay, you did not come for either of that,won't you for a minute listen to, me? I'm the one you chose to speak to and there could be a divine connection to that."
She made a relaxing sound in her throat and he directed her away from the road as a car was passing.
Now, out of the road, Luke said," I used to be Pentecostal, but."
"But what?" she demanded.
He smiled, he has a likable smile and a set of crystal clear teeth for those who want, not Lati.
"Why are you not a Pentecostal, or which church do you go to now?" she asked him and shifted her eyes from his face
He palmed his broad chest and declared," My mum's a witch, a white witch…"
"What?"
"Yes, I'm not ashamed!"
"No no no," Lati protested with a very wide glare.
"She gives me the directive I should go," he told her and she queried how? getting excited.
"That is for another day, but my main worry is you, I love you! You or I die!"
"Hehe-hey! Die…? Please not cus of me o," she shuddered. But this was the connection or kind of person she needed. As she said earlier, it will be damn foolish to distance herself from him because of ego or whatever. "But Latifa is not in love," she told herself and told him plainly that she is married.
"Me, too, I'm," he said.
"Then, be faithful to her," she said.
"She's not kind, she's not loving."
Lati made another sound in her throat and nodded, agreeably.
He asked her why.
"I know."
"You knew? How?"
"I don't wanna say."
"No, say," the man, Luke, persuaded her.
She smiled and told him. He was half ashamed, half surprised as he touched his nose, trying to feel the hairs sticking out from one of the nostrils.
"Did you read Shylock Holmes?"
"Yes, in the school."
"You don't mean it! Which school?"
"OAU."
"Here? My wife's school? Which year?"
"Graduated 2015."
"I can't believe this! My wife, the same year. Which course?"
"Law."
He threw caution into the wind and embraced her.
The embrace was like a romance, so tight, lasting longer with all his masculinity caressing her. She did not know on time, she would have given him a side of her as it is done, if necessary.
She pulled herself away.
The current killed the man( Luke)
He did not feel remorseful.
"You will know my wife then. Petua," he said.
"What!?"
"Yes!"
"Are you the husband?"Lati's stare was the widest, and she could not close her mouth.
She jumped and reacted anyhow.
Petu could not believe her eyes
Where is this leading her?
Will she go back to Ile Ife, mission accomplished?