It was dawn when I heard a knock on our door. My husband had travelled so I thought he was the one who had returned. I woke up wearing only my panty and slowly shuffled through the room until I got to the door. I could hear someone breathing loudly from the outside yet I went ahead and opened the door.
Immediately I opened the door, a woman with a dagger in her hand jumped on me. I screamed, “Jesus save me.” I was on the floor while she was on top of me. She was trying to stab me with the dagger but I held the hand in which she was holding the dagger. I looked at her face but I couldn’t see her eyes. Her eyes were hiding in the shadows. I started pleading, “Please don’t kill me. I beg you in the name of God.”
She kept pushing the dagger towards me while I kept fighting her off. I’m not a strong woman but when it comes to life and death, there’s always an inner strength. With the last stroke of energy left in me, I pushed her off with my legs. I got up and started running. She was laughing hysterically and all the while screaming, “Today would be the end of you. I’ll finish you.”
I screamed but no one could hear me. I ran out of the door and she chased after me while shouting, “There’s no hiding place for you. Your husband didn’t tell you about me?” I kept running as fast as my legs could carry me, but she was faster. I tripped and fell down. She jumped over me and tried to push the dagger into my heart. I screamed, “The blood of Jesus” and I suddenly opened my eyes. It was a dream.
I looked at the time and it was around 2am. The dream looked so real that I couldn’t fall asleep again. I prayed for the rest of the night casting out devils and soaking myself in the blood of Jesus. Immediately the time struck 5am. I called my husband who had travelled to Nigeria for business. I narrated the whole dream to him and he laughed. “I left you for just one night and demons are coming to devour you? What did you eat last night before sleeping?” He burst out laughing. “Kweku, don’t laugh. If you were the one who dreamed the same dream, you would have shit in your pant.”
We both laughed it off but the memory of the dream stuck with me until my husband returned. When he came around, everything returned to normal so I didn’t think about the dream again. Our marriage was only three months old and that was the first time he had travelled and left me behind.
He travels to Nigeria often to buy things and come and sell them in Ghana. He’ll bring the things today and a month later, it will finish. So once every month he travelled to Nigeria. When we were dating, I was eager to travel with him but he told me I wouldn’t have the strength to go through what he goes through to buy those things so he always left me behind. He’ll return and tell me the stories but he won’t let me go with him.
He was building his own house when we got married. The house was near completion when we got married so we didn’t move in immediately after marriage. It took us two months to get a section of the house ready for us to move in. It is a new house in a new area where development is not that huge. The next time he was travelling again he told me, “Don’t eat spoilt fufu and go to bed and be having silly dreams. I’m only going for three days.”
The woman came again that very night. She didn’t knock like she did the other time. In the dream, I was walking to the fridge when I saw her seated in the corner with her head buried between her thighs. She was wearing the same dress but without a dagger. She didn’t even lift her head before telling me, “You’re still here? You want to end up like me before you learn sense?”
I was walking slowly backwards. By the time I turned to run to the bedroom, she was standing right in front of me. I screamed “Jesus!” and I woke up. Early the next morning, I packed a few things and went to my parents. I knew my husband will make jokes about my dream but my parents won’t. The first person I told was my dad. “I’ve had the same dream twice, Dad. It’s only when he travels to Nigeria that I get those dreams. The funny thing is, when I dream and I wake up, I don’t remember but these dreams appear vividly as if it is real. I can even recall the scent of the woman.”
Later that evening, we landed in front of my father’s prophet. He asked me, “What does he go to Nigeria to do?” I answered, “To buy things and sell them.”
“What things?”
“Electronics. Anything that can be sold, he brings them.”
“How well do you know your husband?”
We dated for a year before we got married. I met him in his shop and we became friends. The friendship grew into dating and dating stretched into marriage. We were very close when we were dating. I knew his friends and family. We went to a lot of places together so I can conclude that I knew him very well before we got married.
The prophet said, “What you see is not a dream. Something serious is going on in that house. You have to bring him here so we pray about it.”
I did all I could to take my husband to the prophet but he didn’t go. He accused me of listening to bad advice. He said, “Why do you only dream when I’m not here? It’s your mind. Get out of the fear and live your life. There’s nothing wrong. There’s no strange woman after you. Don’t you believe in God again?”
He didn’t go but the prophet gave me direction and I followed. For the next several months, he travelled but I didn’t dream again. It was my marriage that suffered. My husband developed a serious temper. He hit me once because I didn’t serve him early enough. Little things developed into a war. I was scared of who he had become. I prayed about it but nothing changed. The only thing was, he didn’t hit me again so I managed the other excesses.
In November last year, I got pregnant. The news of the pregnancy changed my husband a lot. For weeks, he didn’t get angry. He came home early to play with me and talked to the child growing in me. I thanked God for the change and prayed for it to last. In early December, my husband went to Nigeria. He went on a Friday and for the first time in a very long time, the woman appeared in my dream again.
In the dream, she was forcing her hand inside of me while saying, “You can’t have this abomination in this house. It has to die.” I was trying to scream God’s name but I couldn’t open my mouth. It felt like I was being choked. I opened my mouth but no word came out. I lay there helpless while this woman pushed her hand through me. When I woke up, I called my father’s prophet and he asked me to leave the house or else my child will die. I told my husband I was going to spend a week with my parents and he screamed, “If you leave this house to your parents, don’t think of ever coming back.”
I didn’t go. That very night, I had a miscarriage. I was crying my lungs out while telling him, “You see what I’ve been telling you? You never believed me. Now you see?”
I thought my condition will cause my husband to believe the dreams about the woman. I thought the miscarriage will cause him to seek spiritual help with me. He said, “Bad things happen. It doesn’t mean it comes from any spirit.” The doctor who took care of me expressed shock that I could lose my pregnancy when there was nothing wrong with the pregnancy.
My father came to the hospital with the prophet but my husband left the hospital. He didn’t want to see my dad or the prophet. When I was discharged, my dad took me home. He said, “If he wants you, he should come home for you. Until then, don’t ever go back to that house. If he wants a divorce, we are ready.”
My husband called. I pleaded with him to come over so we go and see the prophet. He told me, “Is he the only man of God on earth? I’ve seen mine. He says there’s nothing wrong. I won’t believe yours over mine. If you want this marriage, come home or else….”
My dad spoke to him like his son. He coerced him, “What’s there to lose that you don’t want to come? We are not saying it’s your fault. The man of God is saying you two need help so why don’t you come so we go?”
The next thing we knew, my husband’s family were calling my parents witches. They said my parents caused the miscarriage just to prove a point. “If there’s any spirit working against her, then it’s from her parents and not from our son,” they told other people.
I’ve been living with my parents since December but I’ve never had that dream. The prophet prays and sees a lot of things but he doesn’t tell me. He said, “If your husband will understand and let this go, you two will be free. Soon it will go after him and he’ll have nowhere to run to.” I asked what is it and he told me, “I don’t want to be the one to say it. Your husband has to confess it. Don’t worry, once you’re in your parents’ house, the lady you see in the dream can’t hurt you again.”
My husband comes to my office to try to take me home. I decline. He gets angry. He tries to carry me home by force. I decline and it turns into a scene. Sometimes, he talks to me apologetically. He pleads for me to come because he loves me. I tell him, “If you truly love me and can’t see a prophet because of me, then where’s the love?”
He tells me it’s the prophet who has brainwashed me to believe nonsense. These days, he doesn’t talk about divorce but I think it’s a decision I have to make for myself instead of staying with him to get killed. I’m only twenty-seven years old. Life is not far gone. I can always start again.
I discussed divorce with the prophet and he told me, “Take your time. God is working for your good. It’s too early to walk out. Wait and see.”
Wait and see what? He didn’t tell me.
Now I’m in the middle, not knowing which way to go. When he’s travelling to Nigeria, he calls to tell me. I tell him, “Whatever you do there apart from trading, be careful because the end doesn’t look good.” He’ll laugh and call me the daughter of a fake prophet. “Come home and marry, that’s what wives do,” he tells me, but I can’t risk it so I’m here praying and waiting on the face of God.
–Anoa