The Witches Brew and Other Stories

By Umelo Ojinmah

Witches Brew and Other Stories is a collection of short stories that span many cultural and contemporary beliefs and topics.
Crossed Bones chronicles what a boy-soldier in the Nigeria-Biafra war thought was fun only to be confronted by horrors of unimaginable proportions. Even in the snippet he narrates, it’s still difficult to put into words what he saw and experienced. A trauma that is his daily existence.
Deception explores a contemporary distressing phenomenon rocking the West African immigrants in America which has led to a slew of killings and suicides.
The Witches Brew taps into various cultural issues: from the way widows are handed over to the dead husband’s brother as if she were property, to the old quest for the elixir for long life and its repercussions.
This book covers a wide range of issues that many will find interesting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664177307

Umelo Ojinmah

Umelo Ojinmah, an alumnus of St Augustine’s Grammar School, Nkwerre, University of Calabar, and University of Otago, New Zealand, is a Professor of English and Literary Studies. Former Dean, Students Affairs, Federal University of Technology, Owerri and former Dean, Faculty of Arts, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, he is a storyteller, poet, and literary critic. His published works include: Chinua Achebe: New Perspectives, The Writings of Witi Ihimaera, The Witches Brew and Other Stories and Aloneness (poems), which are all available on Amazon. Others are Flower Kissed by the Sun and The Pact, among others. He currently resides in Seattle, Washington State.

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Copyright © 2021 by Umelo Ojinmah.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

All the short stories in this collection are works of fiction.

Resemblance to persons, living or dead are coincidental.

Cover designed by Arnold Umelo Ojinmah

Rev. date: 05/27/2021

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

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Acknowledgements

This book could not have been possible without the active encouragement of Professor Thelma Obah. She nudged me more times than I can count to write again. When I started, she graciously read and edited the works as they came along. I owe her much gratitude in more ways than one. I also want to thank Helga Jnr Ojinmah for her assistance with some of the editing.

My thanks goes to the following friends and relations without whom this book would probably not be published: Engr Felix Eze, Dr Andy Brockenbrough, Nze James EzeOkeke, Mr Ferguson Adesoye, Pastor Ndukwe Chinaka, Okezie Eze, Dr Ikechukwu Apakama, Nze Obim Ojinmah, Helga Jnr Ojinmah, Nze Okey Chigbu, Nze Jasper & Dr Ihuoma Ofoma, Arnold Umelo Ojinmah, Simi Obe, Dr John Ojinmah, Ben Tyndale Opara, Jessica Wright, and a host of others too numerous to mention in this limited space. Thank you all.

I want to specially appreciate my Wife, Obum Chinyere; my son, Arnold Umelo; and daughter, Praise Ebube, for the joy and peace they bring daily into my life. You are the air I breathe. Love you all so much.

All glory goes to my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for keeping His covenant.

Umelo Ojinmah

(Seattle WA)

Contents

Acknowledgements

Crossed Bones

Deception

The Whatever Room

Witches Brew

The Verdict

The Joneses

Spirit of Divination

Visit of Ancestral Ghosts

Crossed Bones

I.   Years of Innocence

More than fifty years after the Biafra war, it is still intensely personal to me. I have tried to repress some feelings that I have and done everything to forget the experience but little things call to mind the brutality and savagery of those years. In other climes, I probably would have had a sit down with a specialist to get a hold of my feelings. That I made it this far without something catastrophic happening attests to the stable childhood that I had. The cuddling love of a mother and father that gave me everything they could afford.

I was ignorant of politics and current affairs growing up in the rural environment that my parents lived. Our lives revolved around planting and harvesting seasons. My father was always chaffing that he was not able to have the opportunity to go to school. Two things in his life solidified his belief in the power of education. The first was when he had to scrawl his initials while buying his first car. That galled him. The second was when he was swindled of his insurance payment by a lawyer he trusted because they were from the same town. He determined that he would educate all his children to the extent they were able.

So, I found myself bundled to Portharcourt to live with a maternal uncle who was a teacher. It was while living with Uncle Ndee that I began to get a glimpse of happenings around the country and the world. He was an avid listener of the news. He would swivel the knob of his transistor radio from BBC to VOA to Radio Nigeria and compare their coverage of each item of news and discuss with his fellow teachers. The events that precipitated the war were dissected from every angle. Most of the discussions went over my head but when the war started, they became real.

My mother insisted that I should come home. I had only been home three months when we had to flee from Ukwa to Aba. But our stay in Aba was short-lived. At midnight the fourth day, my father roused all of us from sleep. All the children and our mothers were packed onto an open lorry with whatever moveable property that could be accommodated. I was the oldest son around at the time. My mother sat in the front seat with the driver. Father leaned over where I was squeezed on top of unstable luggage and whispered to me: Take care of the family my son. I will join you people in a few days, He pressed a pistol into my hands and said take this and if anybody tries to rob you, shoot him. And left.

He didn’t ask me if I knew how to shoot a gun. Of course, I have helped him clean both the double barrel gun he slings each time he goes to the farm and the six-cylinder revolver now in my hand, but I had never shot a gun before and he had not taught me how. Now, here I was with a gun in my hand that I wasn’t sure I could shoot. I don’t know if it was excitement or fear but my eyes cleared of sleep.

We drove off heading to Owerri enroute to our village. After a few hours we stopped. I didn’t know why we stopped but the driver said we had to wait till morning to continue. I went to talk to my mom. She told me that the driver almost drove into a ditch. He must have fallen temporarily asleep. The lorry was parked in an old Service station at a village called Okpalla. I went back to my perch. I must have dozed off because I was woken by shouts from the women. I jumped down and my mother told me that a man was attempting to steal something from the lorry but ran as soon as alarm was raised. I shamefacedly circled round and climbed back into the lorry.

The war was raging in 1968 and a lot of things were beginning to be very scarce. For those of us just entering our teen years, every waking hour was spent hunting for squirrels and chipmunks, digging up holes of rodents: African cane- rats, African rabbits, African bush-tailed porcupines etc. Sometimes instead of the anticipated rodents we found snakes. Because of the danger of snake bites, we mastered the art of forcing the animals to run out of their holes. Once we see a promising hole, we try and locate the secondary hole in the vicinity because rodents create a maze underground and one or two secondary openings through which they can escape once spooked. We gather twigs and dry shrubs and make a fire in the first hole. Then we add fresh leaves to the fire to create smoke which we fan into the hole. Then wait for the rodent to