THE HOUSE THAT REMEMBERS HER NAME

Nobody has lived in the white house at the end of Unity Street for eleven years.........The windows are always open, but no wind moves the curtains.

When Zara returned to Awka after five years in Canada, her mother gave her the key.

"Your aunt left it for you," her mother said. "Don't go and live there. Just go and pack her things and sell it."

Zara laughed. She was 29, fearless, a city girl. She did not believe in haunted house stories.

The first day, she went to clean. The house was dusty but beautiful. Old but strong. On the wall in the parlor, there were family pictures. In every picture, there was a little girl standing behind the family, blurred, like someone moved when the photo was taken.

Zara ignored it.

She slept there that night because the cleaning was too much.

At 2:13 AM, she heard a child crying downstairs........

She woke up with her heart beating fast....... She carried her phone torch down. Nobody was there. But the parlor floor was wet, small wet footprints leading from the front door to the kitchen. Child footprints.

She followed them. In the kitchen, on the table, was a plate of hot jollof rice, still steaming, even though she did not cook.

A small voice behind her said, "You forgot to add salt."

Zara turned. A littlee girl, about seveen years old, in a fadeed blue school unifoorm, was standingg there. Her feeet were not touchinng the groound.

Zara could not scream. Her legs refused to move.

The girl smiled. "I have been waiting. Mummy said you would come."

"Whooooo are you?!!!!!!" Zara finally whispered.

"I am Ugo. I lived here. This was my house before."

Zara remembered. Eleven years ago, her cousin Ugo died in that house. She drowned in the small well behind the house. Everyone said it was an accident. Zara was in secondary school then.

"I did not drown," Ugo said, as if she heard her thoughts. "Somebody pushed me."

The kitchen light flickered...... The plate of rice turned black, full of worms.

Zara ran out. She did not stop until she reached the gate........ She slept in her mother's house that night and told her mother everything.

Her mother went pale. "We told you not to sleep there. Your aunt... your aunt has been confessing since last month. She is in the hospital now. She said she pushed Ugo because she wanted the land. She thought nobody knew."

Zara refused to go back. But the next morning, she found a small blue school shoe on her doorstep. Wet.

At night, the dream came again. Ugo standing in the parlor, crying. "Help me. I cannot leave until someone hears me. My body is still in the well. They never brought me out. They covered the well with cement."

Zara reported to the police. They broke the cement covering the old well behind the house. And truly, inside, tangled in old ropes and mud, were small bones in a faded blue uniform.

After the burial, Zara went back to the house to lock it for the last time. The air was different. Warm. Light.

On the parlor wall, the family pictures had changed. In every picture, the blurred little girl was now clear. She was smiling.

And on the kitchen table, there was a fresh paper, with a child's handwriting:

"Thank you, big sister. Now I can sleep. You can have my house."

Zara sold the house two weeks later. The new owners say sometimmes at night they hear a little girl laugghing upstaairs, but it is not scaary....... It sounds happy.

Some houses don't haunt. Some houses just wait for justice.

IMAGE SOURCE AI