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a few inches from her open palm. He let his arms drop to his sides.
    Bolanle collapsed onto the floor.
    Akin made to run toward Bolanle but Iya Segi’s arm shot out from her side and held him in his tracks. His mother’s arm was steadfast so he bowed his head and ran down the road.
    Iya Tope knelt beside Bolanle. With Baba Segi towering over them, she slapped Bolanle’s cheeks lightly. “Tell him, Bolanle. Tell him if you did it. Tell him. He will forgive you. We have all offended our husband before. He always forgives us. Confess to him.”
    Bolanle spluttered and grabbed her throat. The dry weather had split her lips and a solitary droplet of blood trickled from one of the creases in them.
    “Tope, bring me some water.” Iya Tope didn’t take her eyes off Bolanle until her daughter returned with half a plastic cup of warm, recently boiled water. Iya Tope sprinkled some on Bolanle’s face and placed the cup to her lips.
    Bolanle looked up at the woman cradling her face in the crook of her arm. “Confess to what?”
    Baba Segi marched to the stool beside his armchair and produced a see-through polyethylene bag. “This!” He spat, pinching the bag at the corner farthest away from what it contained. At the bottom of the bag, looking vaguely surprised by all the attention it was getting, was the head of a decomposed rodent, a large bush rat perhaps. “Tell me why I found this in my bedroom!”
    There were bits of dried flesh stuck to it. Its mouth was bound together by red thread. A four-inch nail had been knocked into the crown of its head, shattering the skull at the point of entry, then driven all the way in until it protruded out of the rodent’s throat.
    Bolanle’s face hardened. “How can I confess to something I know nothing about? Strangle me. Kill me. But first ask yourself if I would descend this low? Would I descend to this? Would I touch something so revolting? Do you really think I would go to a babalawo, let alone ask for something that would harm you? If I didn’t want to be with you, would I not just leave?”
    Iya Segi was by the door. She saw the opening and jumped in. “Who can tell why she would do this, Baba Segi? She wants to kill you first and then leave. She is a destroyer of homes! Why didn’t she go to the abattoir if she was thirsty for blood? There is no blood for you here, Bolanle. There is no blood for you here. Kruuk .” She paused and turned to Iya Tope. “We have been suspicious for some months now, haven’t we, Iya Tope?”
    Iya Tope looked up at the older wife. She opened hermouth but no words came out. She tried again but her lips just opened and closed like a fish anticipating a maggot.
    “Iya Segi, I have never desired blood in my life.” Bolanle felt tears welling up in her eyes but she blinked them back.
    “Then why was this found in your bedroom?” Baba Segi’s voice was calmer now. He was beginning to see that things didn’t quite add up but he decided to see it through so he could observe her reactions. “Stand up and come and see for yourself. I will not touch it.” He sighed with relief when Bolanle crawled toward whatever it was that Baba Segi had pushed beneath a stool. In a small calabash, there was a spool of once-white thread half-immersed in a pool of blood.
    “Unspeakable!” Bolanle hissed. She turned and looked up at Baba Segi. “Do you think so little of me?”
    Baba Segi looked away but Iya Segi would not let it go. “Oh, it is unspeakable now you’ve been found out! Who would have known that all those times you left the house, you were visiting a babalawo ? Who would have thought that a graduate would stoop to something so unspeakable ?” Iya Segi pronounced the word “unspeakable” like she was swallowing a single ear of corn. A clucking started deep within her double chin.
    Bolanle put one hand on the side of her neck and grimaced. She let her head roll round in a full circle before turning to her husband. She shook her head and coughed