07/04/2025
Title: The Landlord and the Lost Crown
*Part 2: The Whispering Baobab
The night Zuba received the vision, the wind refused to rest.
His grandmother’s hut trembled as if the spirits themselves had entered. The fire in the clay pot danced violently, throwing shadows of warriors and beasts across the walls. His grandmother sat cross-legged, her milky-white eyes staring into nothingness… and yet, everything.
“Zuba,” she said, her voice low and strange. “The land speaks your name. The crown is cursed. And only you can set things right.”
Zuba swallowed hard. “Me?” He looked at his thin arms, his bare feet, the slingshot tied to his waist with palm rope. “I’m not a warrior.”
But the spirits had already chosen.
At dawn, he packed what little he had: the gourd filled with river water his grandmother blessed with chants, a piece of yam wrapped in banana leaf, and his slingshot—carved by his late father.
Before he left, his grandmother whispered a final warning:
“To find the crown, seek the tree that speaks. But beware—the forest remembers.”
Zuba’s journey led him to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, where the trees grew so close together they swallowed sunlight. Birds refused to sing there. Hunters never returned from it. But Zuba stepped in, heart pounding like a royal drum.
Inside, the air was thick. Roots twisted like serpents, and strange eyes blinked from the bushes.
Then he heard it—whispers.
They came from a massive baobab tree, larger than any he’d seen. Its bark pulsed with light. Its leaves moved though the wind was still.
Zuba approached, and the tree spoke—not with words, but through visions.
He saw Ogundele, younger, digging in greed. He saw the golden crown, pulled from the earth, glowing like the sun. And then, a shadow spreading from it, poisoning the land.
“The crown is not his,” the tree’s voice echoed in Zuba’s chest.
“It calls for the blood of the true heir. It calls for you.”
Zuba fell to his knees. “But how do I stop him?”
The tree dropped a single glowing seed.
“Plant this where his power is strongest. The earth will remember the truth.”
Suddenly, a growl echoed through the forest.
From behind the trees, two spirit wolves, their bodies made of smoke and eyes burning with fire, stepped into the clearing.
“The landlord has sent hunters,” the baobab warned.
“Run, child of destiny… or be devoured before the battle begins.”
Will Zuba escape the spirit wolves? Will he survive long enough to plant the seed and face Ogundele?
Like and comment “Part 3” if you’re ready for the next chapter
