Onwuka sat in the empty lesson room, his spirit still trembling from the blessing of Luísa's kiss. The air still carried the scent of citrus and salt, a trace of her presence. The kiss had come unannounced, unexpected as rain in drought. It wasn't a touch that promised fate, yet her laughter—eyes bright with mischief—pulled him forward, seeking answers in what she had left behind.

But Luísa, wise as the mothers who taught their daughters the power of love, only smiled and stepped away with the grace of moonlight leaving dawn. "A kiss is not a thing to be given without thought," she said, her voice carrying both play and prophecy. "I showed you so you would know the difference."

Her words settled into his soul like divination stones cast upon holy ground, each one heavy with meanings that shimmered just beyond his grasp. He had known the touch of skin, the warmth of a body close to his, but this was something different. It was not a transaction, nor a demand. It was a language he did not yet speak, but one he longed to understand.

As she vanished beyond the doorway, her laughter trailing like incense in shrine air, he remained still, watching the space where magic had manifested. The room felt blessed now, charged with the power of what had passed between them.

He released a breath sharp, running his thumb across fight-worn knuckles. Thoughts of Maria rose unbidden as smoke. Would her kiss be like Luísa's? Soft and fleeting, leaving questions in its wake? Or would it be something deeper, something that spoke not in riddles but in truths? He remembered her hands, how they moved with the surety of healers, carrying warmth like an offering to the sick. The thoughts troubled his spirit like ripples in still water. These were dangerous wonderings, yet they would not leave him.

Paraty's streets pulsed with life as he walked toward the hospital. The air was rich with the scent of fish drying in the sun and bread fresh from fire, voices rising and falling like waves against the shore. But near the docks, words caught in his ears like fish in a net.

"Another child gone missing," a woman whispered to her companion, her voice tinged with unease. "Last seen near the docks. That's three now."

Onwuka's steps faltered, his breath catching like cloth on thorns. Three children vanished into darkness. Cold fingers of memory traced his spine, and suddenly he was not in Paraty but back in his village, where the air hung heavy with terror as mothers spoke of slavers moving through night like evil spirits. He knew that fear, how it wrote itself into bone and blood, becoming part of who you were. His eyes turned to the sea, the same waters that had carried him to this new life, and wondered what other stories it held in its depths, what other souls it had swallowed into its endless hunger.

By the time he reached the hospital, his spirit felt heavy as rain-soaked cloth. Beatriz met his searching gaze, her eyes holding wisdom like water holds light. She had seen what grew between them, even before he could give it a name.

"She is at the church," Beatriz said, offering a smile sweet as palm wine. "Teaching the little ones."

The Igreja Nossa Senhora dos Remédios rose like an ancestor's shrine at Paraty's heart, its walls bright as bone in the sun, its bells carrying prayers to heaven. Onwuka paused at the threshold, foreign spirits pressing against his skin. In his village, they had worshipped beneath open sky, their voices joining the dance of leaves, the song of rushing water. Here, incense hung thick as memory, light falling through stained glass in colors that blessed the stone floor. Wooden saints stood guard, their eyes fixed on distant realms. He wondered if they saw him—this child of different gods—or if they, like so many others, looked through him.

Through the side window, he found her. Maria stood before a gathering of children, her hands painting stories in the air, her face bright with the joy of sharing knowledge. The children leaned forward like flowers toward sun, drinking in her words, her presence a river of light in this sacred space.

When she caught sight of him, her smile bloomed slow as dawn. She gestured for him to wait, and he did, patient as earth.

"I didn't think churches were your territory," she said later, stepping into sunlight, her voice carrying playful warmth.

"They're not," he admitted. "But you are here, so here I am."

She laughed, the sound rich as honey. "Are you following me now?"

"Only when Beatriz tells me where to find you."

They fell into step together, Paraty's sounds wrapping around them like a familiar cloth.

"Your Portuguese is improving," she noted, glancing at him sideways.

"I have a good teacher."

"Just good?"

"Excellent," he corrected, earning another laugh. "When she's not too busy with other students."

"Ah, is that jealousy I hear?"

"Recognition of facts."

They walked on, trading words like gifts. She told him of a boy who couldn't pronounce his R's but sang like an angel. He shared stories of João's attempts to learn Igbo, the way the boy's tongue twisted around the unfamiliar sounds.

"He calls you 'brother' now," she said softly.

"He calls everyone brother."

"No," she shook her head. "With you, it's different. He looks up to you."

The warmth in her voice touched something deep in his chest. But then he remembered the whispers, and darkness crept in like evening shadows.

"The missing children," he said. "What do you know of them?"

Her face changed, joy retreating like tide from shore. "Not much. Only whispers. But children don't simply disappear into air."

Something ancient and sharp stirred in his blood—memories of other children, other losses, other fears that never quite left the bone. He studied her then, seeing how she carried the weight of it in her shoulders, how she held others' pain as carefully as her own.

As they walked, her hand brushed his like a question asked in silence. The touch sent lightning through his spirit, quick and bright and undeniable. When he looked at her, she didn't pull away, but neither did she speak of it. Did she feel it too? This thing between them, strong as tide, deep as ancient waters?

He could not say. But as the sun painted the sky in colors rich as festival cloth, he wondered if perhaps it was time to stop fighting the current of his own heart.

A child's scream shattered the evening.

Onwuka moved before thought could catch up, his feet carrying him toward the sound. Maria followed, her skirts rustling against the cobblestones. They rounded the corner into an alley, where a small group had gathered, their voices rising in alarm.

A woman knelt on the ground, clutching a sobbing child to her chest. The boy couldn't have been more than six, his face streaked with tears and dirt.

"What happened?" Maria pushed forward, her healer's instincts taking over.

The woman looked up, her eyes wide with fear. "He tried to take him. A man—he grabbed my son, tried to pull him away. If I hadn't—if I hadn't been holding his hand—"

The child buried his face deeper into his mother's embrace, his small shoulders shaking.

"Did you see his face?" Onwuka asked, scanning the shadows of the alley.

The woman shook her head. "He wore a hood. But he was tall, and his hands—" She shuddered. "His hands were cold as death."

Maria knelt beside them, her voice gentle as she checked the boy for injuries. "You're safe now, pequeno. You're safe."

But Onwuka felt it—the tension in the air, the way the gathered crowd shifted uneasily. Three children missing, and now this attempt. This was no coincidence.

"We should tell the authorities," someone in the crowd suggested.

A bitter laugh rose from another. "They won't do anything. They never do."

Onwuka caught Maria's eye. She nodded slightly, understanding passing between them without words.

"Let me walk you home," she said to the woman and child. Then, to Onwuka: "Meet me at the hospital tomorrow for your injection?"

He nodded and watched them go, the crowd slowly dispersing, leaving him alone in the growing darkness. The sea breeze carried salt and secrets, and somewhere in the shadows, he knew, someone was watching. Waiting.

१ 
  Please vote and   drop a commentッ