Chapter 4: The phoniex's Mark
The red-leather diary felt heavier than paper had any right to be. It pulsed with a faint heat as Nia turned the pages, as if it had a heartbeat—ancient and unhurried.
She sat cross-legged on her bunk, the room dimly lit by her reading lamp. Halima was—as always—motionless. Kaira snored softly above. Outside, the wind moaned through the courtyard like a flute mourning its player.
Nia opened to the first full entry:
September 5, 1978
I arrived today. Bright-eyed, burdened with hope. They gave us Phoenix pins and said we were flames of change. I thought it was poetic. I didn't know they meant it literally.
Nia's pulse quickened. She read on.
September 12, 1978
I saw the girl with no shadow again. She walks the halls when no one else is looking. I followed her to the East Wing. The door opened for her… but when I tried to enter, it burned me.
They say Professor Itaye's lectures on "ancestral recursion" were too dangerous. That he wanted us to remember things not meant to be remembered. He vanished last semester. But his voice still echoes in the library sometimes, especially near the locked door.
Nia glanced over at her backpack, where the same door had appeared in her thoughts more than once since that day.
The diary's next page was splattered with something—old ink, maybe… or dried blood.
October 3, 1978
The Phoenix Courtyard glowed blue today. It only does that when the line between the "then" and the "now" is thinning. I tried to warn my roommate. She laughed. That night, she sleepwalked into the sacred grove and came back mute. The doctors say it's psychological. I say it's punishment.
They call us students. But we are seeds. Planted in a soil rich with forgotten bones and broken oaths.
Nia paused. The room felt colder, despite the stifling humidity. She turned the page.
A pressed cowrie shell fell out and landed in her lap.
She picked it up slowly. It was warm.
October 17, 1978
Something is coming. I can feel it in my dreams. The Orisha are restless. The Phoenix is watching. It is no longer a protector—it is a warden. I fear we are trapped inside a story we didn't write.
If you're reading this, you've already been chosen.
Find the Whisperer. She walks the chapel halls at midnight, carrying the scent of salt and incense. She'll know how to open the door without burning. But beware… the door remembers.
The last entry on the page:
October 23, 1978
They took Ireti.
A chill ran down Nia's spine.
She flipped to the next page.
It was blank.
And the next.
And the next.
Until the final one:
I am not gone. I am just beneath. Buried in the silence between the bells.
When the Phoenix glows red, run.
At that exact moment, from the window behind her, Nia saw a faint red glow.
Coming from the courtyard.
From the fountain.
The Phoenix… was glowing again.
***
The chapel at Ivory Crest University was old—older than the school itself, some said. Built with red clay bricks and etched with fading Yoruba sigils, it stood at the far end of the campus, surrounded by baobab trees that had grown so tall their branches shadowed the chapel even at noon.
It was said to be non-denominational, open to all faiths, all prayers.
But some prayers were not meant to be heard.
And some doors, even when open, led only inward.
Nia made her way there just before midnight, guided by the diary's last clear instruction: "Find the Whisperer. She walks the chapel halls at midnight, carrying the scent of salt and incense."
The air grew heavy as she approached. The breeze stilled. Even the crickets quieted.
She entered.
Inside, the chapel was dimly lit by dozens of candle stubs—none of which had been lit by anyone living, Nia was sure. The scent was unmistakable: sea salt, old incense, and something older—a memory of smoke.
The pews were empty, but voices echoed faintly. Not loud. Not sharp. Just whispers, like children murmuring behind closed doors.
She moved carefully toward the altar. It was made of dark wood, carved with Orisha symbols—Oshun, Shango, Obatala—and behind it, a circular stained-glass window showing a woman with no face, wrapped in a cloth of stars.
And then she saw her.
A figure walking slowly down the left aisle.
She wore a long white robe, frayed at the edges, and her hair was braided with shells and thorns. She held a censer in her hand, swaying with each step, releasing coils of silver smoke that clung to the chapel walls like ghostly vines.
Nia's voice came out as a whisper. "Are you the Whisperer?"
The figure paused.
Then turned.
Her face was painted—white lines and black dots forming a pattern older than language. Her eyes shimmered with moonlight.
"You carry the diary," she said, voice like wind brushing through sand. "That means the Phoenix has marked you."
Nia held it up. "Ireti said you could help me open the door."
The Whisperer walked forward, slow and deliberate. "That door is not locked by metal. It is locked by memory. Yours. Hers. The land's."
She dipped a finger into the censer smoke and touched Nia's forehead.
The world went silent.
And then—memories not hers flooded her mind:
A fire in the East Wing.
A scream buried beneath hymnals.
A circle of girls chanting in a room with no ceiling.
Professor Itaye, standing in front of a door made of light, saying, "To open it, you must remember who you were before you were born."
Nia stumbled back, gasping.
The Whisperer placed a hand on her shoulder. "You are awakening, child. But remember—every answer costs you something."
"I just want the truth," Nia said.
"Then be ready to pay in pieces of yourself."
She handed Nia a single cowrie shell dipped in ash.
"Place this on the brass plate of the door. It will open. But do not enter alone. The Phoenix tests all who walk through... and not all return."
Nia nodded slowly, eyes wide.
Then the Whisperer turned and began to fade—literally—into mist and smoke.
And as she vanished, her final words lingered in the air:
"Midnight is not the hour of sleep. It is the hour when truth walks without feet."