The word echoed in Ayanwale's mind long after the vision faded.
Begin.
Not continue. Not restore.
But begin.
And yet… how do you begin when you've already lived through endings?
He stood at the edge of the pool until the first bird dared to sing again. Dawn crept slowly over the Grove of Shells, bathing the village in a golden warmth that made the ash seem like a passing memory. But Ayanwale knew better.
The memory of ash always lingers.
Amoke found him still staring into the water. She crouched beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Something new is coming," he said quietly.
She nodded. "And something old is stirring to stop it."
By midday, elders from surrounding villages arrived.
Word of the reconciliation at the burnt shrine had traveled fast—faster than fear, faster than drums.
The leaders did not arrive with war in their hearts. They came with questions. With children. With broken instruments.
A woman in yellow robes—Yèyé Àṣà, keeper of the forgotten songs—approached first. She carried a drum with no skin. Hollowed. Useless.
She placed it before Ayanwale.
"I buried this after the war," she said. "It belonged to my mother. The wind called me to dig it up. Said the boy with stars in his drum would know what to do."
Ayanwale crouched, brushing his fingers across the smooth rim. The drum looked dead.
But as he touched it—his own living drum trembled.
Not with sound.
With recognition.
"This was never meant to sing," Ayanwale murmured. "It was meant to hold silence."
Yèyé Àṣà's eyes narrowed. "Then why give it to me?"
He looked up at her.
"Because sometimes the strongest song is the one that absorbs others."
He tapped the rim once. It thudded softly—like a pulse with no voice.
And then something impossible happened:
The ground answered.
Beneath their feet, the soil vibrated. A gentle hum. Then a deeper one. Until every rock, every root, began to murmur a low, aching tone.
Children covered their ears, not from pain—but from memory.
The drum with no skin had become a basin of sound.
It remembered every rhythm it had once heard—and gave them back in mournful echoes.
Amoke gasped. "It's not a drum. It's a mirror."
Ayanwale nodded. "It reflects the songs of those who no longer sing."
That night, the drum with no skin was placed at the center of the Grove.
Ayanwale sat beside it.
So did Yèyé Àṣà. And then the other elders. Then the children. Then even the former Ajalu remnant drummers, no longer masked in fear.
One by one, they took turns tapping the rim, whispering into the basin, or laying their hands across the hollow.
And with each touch—another rhythm returned.
Not just music.
Memories.
A mother calling a son to fetch water.
A girl singing beside her dying father.
A warrior dancing before battle.
A spirit weeping beneath the moon.
All of it flowed into the basin.
And all of it came back.
Refined.
Recalled.
Redeemed.
The Grove of Shells became something more.
Not a village.
Not a temple.
But a Resonance Ground—a place where sound was not worshipped, but welcomed.
Spirits began to arrive.
Not to haunt.
To listen.
To heal.
The children who had once been silent began whispering stories into the wind, letting their words ride the air like seeds.
And at the center of it all, the skinless drum beat its soft, unheard heart.
But far away, not all were pleased.
In the crumbled remains of Baba Oro's shrine, a new figure emerged.
Not masked.
Not robed.
Just old.
Older than memory.
She had no name.
But those who met her in dreams called her Ìkàkú—She-Who-Silences.
A spirit born of abandoned truths.
She moved through the ash barefoot, her fingers dragging across bones, her eyes blind but all-seeing.
Before her, a black mirror floated—showing her the Grove.
Showing her the child called Ṣadé.
Showing her the drum with no skin.
She smiled.
Not cruelly.
But with hunger.
"They've begun," she whispered.
"Then so shall I."
And she reached into the black mirror—and pulled a drum from its depths.
It was not made of wood or skin.
It was made of regret.
Back at the Grove, Ayanwale woke with a sharp gasp.
His heart raced. His hands twitched. His drum glowed with unease.
Amoke sat up beside him.
"You felt it?"
He nodded. "A rhythm that doesn't want to be heard."
She rose and paced. "Another cursed drum?"
"Worse," Ayanwale said. "A drum that eats other rhythms."
Amoke paused.
"That's not a rhythm," she said.
"That's undoing."
At dawn, he gathered the elders.
He told them of the vision. Of Ìkàkú.
Of a rhythm coming that would not echo—but consume.
Yèyé Àṣà stepped forward.
"My mother once spoke of her. A spirit from before the first drum. A being made not of silence, but of emptiness. Before music. Before voice. Before memory."
"She'll come for the children," Amoke said. "For Ṣadé."
"No," Ayanwale said, eyes burning. "She'll come for the Tenth. The rhythm Ṣadé carries inside her."
He looked at the skinless drum.
And for the first time—it trembled.
A sound not of remembrance.
But of warning.