I Ended My Pregnancy in College—Years Later, Two Little Girls Appeared at My Window Every Night Crying, “Mom, Why Didn’t You Let Us Live?”

Chapter 3

David’s mother met us at a bus stop with a face folded like old paper. No hug. No smile. She did not even ask how I was feeling. She looked at my empty hands, nodded once, and turned to lead the way.

We followed her down red-earth paths that grew narrower and dustier with every step, past barking dogs and scattering goats, past children who stopped mid-game to stare at us like we were a strange procession. The deeper we went, the quieter the world became, until even the birds seemed to hold their tongues.

The smell of the village—wood smoke and cassava and rain on red earth—wrapped around me like a childhood I had forgotten. Somewhere ahead, a drum beat a slow, patient rhythm, the kind of sound that asks no questions and gives no answers. My mother-in-law walked as if she had made this journey a thousand times, which she probably had. This was her world. The city, the hospital, the doctors with their machines—that was my world. And standing on the threshold between the two, I felt like a woman standing in two rivers at once, belonging to neither.

David walked ahead of me the whole way, close to his mother, never once turning back to check if I was following. The distance between us felt wider than the path itself. I wanted to run to him, to grab his arm, to beg him to look at me—but every time I opened my mouth, the words died in my throat. What could I say? That I was sorry? That I loved him? I had already said those things, and he had turned his back on them.

We finally stopped in front of a small, old wooden house that leaned slightly to one side, like a tired old man resting against the wind. It smelled of dried leaves and roots older than my shame—earthy, sharp, and strangely familiar, the way my grandmother’s house had smelled in the village of my childhood.

An old woman sat on a mat inside. Her hair was the color of ash, and her eyes were the color of dark river water. She looked at me for a long, long time—not at my face, but into something behind it, like a fisherman studying the surface of a pond for the fish hiding beneath.

David’s mother spoke first, and her voice had dropped its usual sharpness. “Mama, this is my son and his wife. Two years married. No child. Please help us.”

The old woman did not answer. She reached into a large clay pot behind her, her thin arm disappearing up to the elbow, and brought out a small cup. The liquid inside was dark and thick, like mud left out in the rain. It smelled of every bitter thing in the world—of bark and ash and unripe leaves.

I stared at it, and my hands began to shake.

The twins’ warning rang in my ears like a bell struck too close: *Do not try to outsmart us. You cannot force a child into that womb.*

David’s mother nudged me with her elbow, hard enough to make me stumble. “Elizabeth, what are you waiting for? Drink it. This is what will wash your womb and bring my grandchildren.”

I looked up at David. He stood by the door with his arms folded, watching me with a face I could not read. He did not blink. He did not soften. He simply waited, like a judge waiting for a confession.

So I closed my eyes. I held my breath. And I drank.

The liquid was hot and so bitter that tears spilled from my closed eyes. It burned all the way down my throat and settled in my stomach like a stone. For one terrible moment, my body tried to reject it, and I choked, my hand flying to my mouth. But I forced myself to swallow. And I kept it down.

The old woman nodded slowly. A thin, knowing smile crossed her weathered face. “Now,” she said, “you will get pregnant with ease.”

We left the village the same way we came—David ahead, his mother ahead of him, and me trailing behind like a thought nobody wanted to keep. My mouth was still bitter, and my stomach churned, and my heart was a battlefield between hope and terror. All the way home, I prayed. I prayed that the medicine would work. I prayed that the girls would leave me alone. I prayed that David would one day look at me with love again.

And for a while, it seemed that someone was listening.

The very first morning after the herbs, I woke up and looked out the window, and the world felt lighter. The room was warm. No cold air. No faint glow. No whispers in the dark.

I let myself breathe.

I let myself believe that maybe—just maybe—I had finally outrun my past.

Then, one month later, I woke up dizzy, and the world tilted around me. And the old, familiar hope rose in my chest like a bird testing its wings.

But as I walked to the pharmacy with my hands trembling, a cold little voice at the back of my mind kept asking:

*The medicine worked. The girls went quiet. But did they truly go away—or are they simply waiting for the right moment to come back?*