The market of Ekun was alive before the sun rose. Traders shouted, goats bleated, the smell of roasted maize and fried akara filled the air. People came from nearby villages to buy cloth, spices, charms, and carved wood. But when the stalls closed at night, when silence fell, the market changed.
That was when the whispers began.
Everyone in Ekun knew the rule: never linger in the market after dark.
⸻
Chika was seventeen, quick with numbers, quicker with words. She had taken over her mother’s stall after illness had kept the older woman bedridden. They sold palm oil, dried fish, and peppers. Business was good, but competition fierce, and Chika was desperate to prove herself.
One evening, she stayed late to tally coins. The market was emptying, shadows long. The last customers drifted away, and even the goats had been led home. She should have left.
Instead, she lingered.
At first, she thought it was the wind. A low hum carried across the market. But the sound grew sharper—voices, hundreds of them, whispering together in a chorus. She froze, her basket clutched in hand.
The whispers came from the stalls themselves. The dried fish muttered in broken voices. The cloth fluttered without wind, sighing secrets. Calabashes rolled slightly, as if restless.
Chika’s heart pounded. She turned to flee when a single voice called her name.
“Chika…”
Her blood ran cold.
⸻
She spun around, but no one was there. Then, from the shadows of a spice stall, she saw something shift. A figure, darker than night, its body shaped from smoke, its face a blur. It reached toward her with long fingers.
She bolted, racing home, but the whispers followed her. All night, she heard them beneath her window: hissing promises, secrets in tongues she didn’t understand. When she finally slept, she dreamed of the market—its stalls alive, its goods breathing, its shadows reaching.
⸻
The next morning, she told her mother. The older woman went pale.
“You stayed past sunset?”
Chika nodded weakly.
Her mother clasped her hands tightly. “You must never, never do that again. The market belongs to us by day, but by night it belongs to them.”
“To who?” Chika asked.
Her mother whispered, “The taken.”
⸻
Chika pressed the elders for answers, but they were reluctant. Finally, Baba Tayo, the oldest trader, explained.
“Long ago, this market was built on stolen lives. Slaves were sold here, their cries swallowed by the dust. They were not buried with honor. Their spirits lingered. Over time, they became whispers, binding themselves to the goods we sell, to the earth beneath our feet. They cannot rest. They hunger.”
Chika shivered. “What do they want?”
The old man’s eyes clouded. “Companions.”
⸻
For weeks, Chika tried to forget, but the whispers found her. Every night, faint voices hissed from her basket, from her coins, even from her cooking pots. She grew restless, snapping at customers, staring too long at shadows.
Then came the night she made a mistake.
She had been struggling to outdo a rival trader, a sharp-tongued woman who always drew more buyers. As Chika closed her stall, a whisper rose from her basket: “We can help you. We can silence her. Just say yes.”
Her breath caught. “What do you mean?”
The whispers chuckled softly. “Leave it to us.”
Against her better judgment, she whispered, “Yes.”
The next morning, her rival did not come to market. Whispers of illness spread, but Chika saw the truth. The woman’s stall sat untouched. Her shadow was gone.
Chika trembled. The whispers had kept their word.
⸻
But deals with the dead are never clean.
From then on, the whispers demanded more. “Feed us,” they hissed. “Bring us others.”
Chika resisted at first, but the voices grew louder, sharper, until her skull ached with them. They followed her everywhere—on the wind, in her pots, even in her dreams.
One night, she returned to the market after dark. The stalls leaned toward her as if alive, their goods twitching, muttering. The shadowy figure appeared again, smoke twisting around its form.
“You are ours now,” it rasped. “Bring us more.”
Chika shook her head. “No.”
The figure’s smile widened, revealing rows of teeth too many to belong to any human. “Then we will take from you.”
⸻
After that, people began to vanish. A boy who lingered to gather scraps of food. A woman who forgot her basket and returned after sunset. Each time, the market grew quieter by day, yet the whispers at night grew stronger, bolder.
Chika’s guilt consumed her. She had fed them once; she had opened the door.
Desperate, she sought Mama Onwe, a reclusive priestess who lived at the edge of town. The old woman listened grimly.
“The whispers are bound to the market. They thrive on greed and fear. If you answered them, they will cling to you.”
“Can I be free?” Chika asked, tears burning her eyes.
Mama Onwe nodded slowly. “Yes. But it will cost you. To silence the whispers, you must give them what they crave most.”
Chika’s voice broke. “What is that?”
The old woman’s eyes were sorrowful. “Yourself.”
⸻
That night, Chika walked to the market with a lantern. The whispers swelled eagerly, rushing from every stall. The figure of smoke rose, towering over her.
“Come, child,” it crooned. “You are ready to stay.”
Chika closed her eyes. She thought of her mother, of the villagers who had already been taken, of the countless lost souls bound in whispers. Then she opened her mouth and said, “Take me.”
The whispers roared. They swallowed her, tearing her shadow from her body, wrapping her in smoke. Her scream echoed across the stalls, then faded into a low hum.
The next morning, her stall stood empty. Her shadow was gone.
But at night, in the market of Ekun, a new voice joined the chorus of whispers.
And if you linger after dark, you might hear it calling your name.
