For days after his encounter at the Market of the Tempted, Lagos felt louder.
Not because the traffic grew worse, or because the hawkers screamed any higher, but because Iyi's own silence had thickened. He returned to his stall every morning, mixing herbs, packaging soaps, treating the bruised and sore with calm patience. But something had shifted inside him.
He kept the fourth sponge close, but never visible. He could feel it humming in the satchel by his side, like a coiled river waiting for a storm.
Then, on a Thursday afternoon, the invitation came.
It arrived not as a whisper, nor as a warning—but in a sealed envelope delivered by a small girl with a scar above her left eyebrow and eyes too old for her face. She said nothing. Just handed him the envelope and walked away barefoot, vanishing into the crowd.
Iyi opened it slowly, wary of anything that arrived in silence.
Inside: a cream-colored card, gold-edged, the logo pressed into its center — A.G. Enterprise.
Beneath it, the words:
"Invitation to Join the Lagos Healing Summit.
You have been chosen as a featured speaker for the launch of our new nationwide 'Urban Ancestral Wellness' campaign.
Honorarium: ₦5,000,000.
Platform: National broadcast.
Audience: 10 million."
And at the bottom, in gold ink:
"Your story heals. Now let it sell."
His breath caught.
₦5,000,000.
He could rebuild his mother's house. He could expand the stall. Fund others. Help the blind beggar. Even build a healing center.
But the words burned. Let it sell.
He didn't sleep that night.
Instead, he lit a candle beside the sponge and sat on the floor, rocking slightly, letting the city hum through the windows. He spoke no prayers. The room didn't need them. The air was already full of ancestors waiting to see what he'd do.
By morning, he knew.
—
The summit was being held in a newly built glass-and-chrome auditorium in Victoria Island — a building that looked like it was trying too hard to forget the earth it stood on. Security guards wore earpieces and stared at Iyi's bare feet with concern. His simple buba and wrapper marked him immediately as "other."
They ushered him through anyway.
Backstage was a whirl of branded water bottles, ring lights, and influencers rehearsing "spiritual" one-liners in the mirror.
"Say 'ritual' but make it marketable," one girl whispered to herself. "Say 'ancestor' like it's a lifestyle."
Iyi sat in a corner, the invitation still tucked into his pocket, unopened now like a wound.
Finally, a coordinator with a gleaming bald head and a headset leaned down to him.
"You're up in six minutes," he said. "You'll speak right after the herbalist from Ghana, and before the oil brand CEO. Just keep it light and uplifting. No dark stuff."
Iyi looked at him. "No dark stuff?"
The man chuckled. "You know — none of the sacrifice this, spirit world that. Keep it clean. Talk about inspiration. Your rise. The soap. The smiles."
The sponge inside Iyi's satchel seemed to warm, just slightly.
"And if I don't?" Iyi asked quietly.
The man blinked. "Sorry?"
"If I don't keep it light. If I tell them the truth. That healing hurts. That the spirit doesn't work on schedules. That some rituals take everything you are and give nothing back but silence."
The coordinator shifted. "We're not that kind of summit."
Iyi stood.
He walked calmly through the side curtain and onto the stage. Lights struck his face like open palms. The auditorium went quiet.
Ten million screens. Social feeds. Streaming.
They were all watching.
The woman at the podium announced him: "Please welcome Ọmọ Iyi — spiritual healer and founder of the River Soap Movement."
Applause rose.
Iyi stood there, still holding the invitation.
He didn't smile.
"I was born hungry," he began. "Not just in the belly. But in the soul."
The audience hushed.
"I've stolen. Lied. Vanished into places the city pretends don't exist. I found soap that cleans not the skin, but the bloodline. I've seen mirrors that speak and coins that scream. I bathed with sponges that remembered who I was, even when I forgot."
People began shifting in their seats.
"Some of you came for a formula. A one-step ritual to success. But there isn't one. If you want healing, you must first lose something. Or someone. Or yourself. You must die into the silence of your ancestors and pray they let you rise again."
The moderator at the edge of the stage gestured nervously.
Iyi turned to him and said, "I decline."
He held up the cream-colored invitation.
"I decline the honorarium. The applause. The stage."
Then he ripped the card in half and let it fall.
"I was never healing for you. I was healing because I had no choice."
Silence fell like a final curtain.
Then, slowly — somewhere in the back — someone clapped.
And then another.
And another.
But he didn't wait to see how many joined.
He turned, walked off the stage, and didn't look back.
—
Outside, the sky was split between sunlight and coming rain.
Iyi exhaled.
The sponge in his satchel was quiet now.
Still.
He had chosen.
Not out of pride. Not out of rebellion.
But because some voices must remain sacred.
And sometimes, the first real gift a healer gives… is no.