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 7

The police cell was a place I had never imagined for myself.

It was dark and dirty and smelled of sweat and rust and old fear. A single bare bulb buzzed above us, throwing pale light on walls covered in scratches. I sat on the cold floor, holding my knees to my chest, crying until my eyes were dry and my throat was raw.

David sat far away from me, near the iron bars, staring at the wall. He had not said a single word to me for hours.

“David, please talk to me,” I begged, my voice cracking. “I am sorry for all this trouble. I didn’t know Julia and Junia would do such a thing.”

He turned his head slowly. His eyes were full of a disappointment so heavy I could feel it pressing on my chest.

“Elizabeth, look at where your secret past has dragged us. A police cell. Because of children that are only six years old. If anybody had told me I would sleep in a cell because of my own kids, I would have called them a liar.” He turned back to the wall. “I am totally ashamed of you.”

The cell had no window, only a small square of bars where the gray light of morning leaked in. I counted the hours the way you count coins when you are trying to see if you have enough. Ten hours. Fourteen. My father’s voice, when he came to the station, was thin and old, and I could hear in it every shame I had brought upon our family. He did not look at me either. He looked at the money in his hands, counted it, and placed it on the table like he was paying for a mistake he did not understand.

I covered my face and wept.

Our families came together the next day. My father stood in the police station, sweating and trembling, pressing bundles of cash into Madam Silas’s hand. “Please, Madam Silas, we are deeply sorry for what our children did. This is the fifty thousand Naira they stole, plus extra for the items they took. Please drop the case.”

Madam Silas counted the money carefully, twice. Then she nodded. “Standard! I have dropped the case. But tell your daughter and her husband to chain those their children! They are not normal!”

The officers made us sign papers. The leading officer opened the iron gate and barked: “Oya, go! But make sure you produce those twins within forty-eight hours!”

We went home to an empty, silent house.

The twins had still not returned. The back door was still open. Our family members sat us down and asked questions—so many questions—and I sat there with my hands folded in my lap, nodding and saying nothing. Because what could I tell them? That my six-year-old daughters were stolen spirits? That I had aborted twins in university and they had come back as my own children to destroy me?

They left. The house went quiet. David walked into the bedroom, locked the door from inside, and left me alone in the parlor.

I sat on the long sofa for a long time.

And then, slowly, the pieces began to click together in my mind.

I remembered that night, years ago, when the two girls in white had chanted their curse: *You will not give birth till six years.* I remembered their warning when I was dressing for the village: *Do not try to outsmart us. You cannot force a child into that womb.*

But I had not listened. I had drunk the bitter herbs. I had forced open a door that they had told me to leave closed.

And now I understood the full, terrible shape of what I had done.

The spirits of the twins I had aborted had not left me alone. They had entered the children I forced into existence. Julia and Junia were not my daughters at all—they were my punishment, wearing the faces of my sins, growing up in my own house, exacting their revenge one cruel act at a time.

I thought about the day I had stood in that dark bedroom with the bitter cup, and I had chosen my own hunger over their warning. I had wanted a child so badly that I had been willing to steal one from fate itself. And fate, in its patient, terrible way, had let me have my wish—twisted into the shape of my own destruction. The cane had not scared them. The flogging had not hurt them. They had laughed at punishment because they were not afraid of me. I was the one who owed them a debt, and they had come to collect.

I slid off the sofa and knelt on the parlor rug. The night was dark and lonely, and my tears dripped onto the floor like rain.

“My babies… Julia, Junia, please!” I sobbed, raising my hands to the ceiling. “I know I committed a great sin against you when I was in the university. I was young, wild, and foolish! But please, I am begging you to forgive me! Do not destroy my marriage! Remove any evil spirit possessing my children! Let them come back home and be normal kids—please!”

I stayed on my knees, blowing my nose, shivering in the dark room, praying until my voice broke.

And then—the ceiling fan stopped rotating.

The blades hung frozen in mid-air, as if time itself had held its breath.

The air turned cold.

And I knew, with every hair on my body standing on end, that I was no longer alone.

I raised my tear-streaked face.

And the question that I had carried for six years finally rose to my lips:

*They said the punishment would last six years. The six years are over tonight. Will they forgive me at last—or will they finish what they started?*