His mother, Beatrice, had fallen asleep while braiding his hair. The comb slipped from her fingers, and her hand went cold. In the village of Umueze, the women wailed and the men shook their heads. Malaria, they said. The rainy season’s curse.

But deep down, Paul Nwokocha knew the truth.

But Paul placed his small palm on her chest and whispered the song his late grandmother used to hum—the one about the One who was, who is, who is to come. Beatrice opened her eyes. She sat up. She asked for water.

He calculated quickly, the way a gambler counts cards. Adwoa was old, near the end. To undo fifty years of blindness, to rebuild her marrow, to push back the grave—that would cost years. Not months. Years.