“That same night,” he whispered, “I lost my wife. And my daughter disappeared.”
Latifah gasped.
He leaned closer. “Did you keep anything? Anything she wore?”
Mama Zanab pointed weakly to a small wooden box beneath her mat.
Inside it, wrapped carefully in cloth, were the burnt remains of a tiny pink dress and a small gold anklet engraved with the letter Z.
Chief Karim froze.
He recognized it instantly.
His wife had commissioned that anklet herself.
The Z stood for Zanab—their daughter’s birth name.
He clutched it in shaking hands and cried.
“It’s hers,” he whispered. “This belonged to my little girl.”
Latifah sat in stunned silence as the room seemed to tilt around her.
Could it be true?
Could this man really be her father?
At last he looked at her with tears still on his face.
“My heart tells me you are mine,” he said softly. “But to protect your future, to remove every doubt, we must do one thing more. We must confirm it.”
“A DNA test?” Latifah asked.
He nodded.
Mama Zanab squeezed her hand. “My child, if this is your father, the truth must stand in the light.”
Latifah swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes.”
The next morning, a helicopter landed outside Ojoko.
The villagers nearly lost their minds.
Some fell to their knees.
Some ran.
Some whispered that spirits had come for the witch child.
Latifah helped Mama Zanab into the aircraft while Chief Karim’s security team formed a protective circle around them.
Within hours they were in a city hospital far beyond anything Latifah had ever imagined.
Doctors treated Mama Zanab immediately.
The DNA samples were taken.
