The Water Remembers

A body in a locked pool unearths buried secrets and a haunting past where water remembers.

The sun hadn’t fully risen when I pulled the curtains open and saw him; a man floating facedown in my pool.

I didn’t move at first. Just stood there, mug of tea cooling in my hand, watching the body drift slightly in the water like it belonged there.

The morning was quiet, even for Enugu. No keke horns. No hawkers. Just the rustling of mango leaves in the compound and the slow, eerie lapping of water against tile.

My housekeeper, Ngozi, was already in the kitchen. I could hear her singing as she prepped pap. I didn’t call her. I didn’t speak. I just walked out the back door barefoot, the stone floor cool under my feet, and made my way to the edge of the pool.

He was a grown man, dressed in trousers and a button-down, shoes still on. His arms floated out from his sides, fingers curled like he’d been holding something. His skin had gone pale, not the pale of his natural complexion, but that soft, heavy gray of someone who’d been under too long.

I had never seen him before in my life.

The pool had been locked. I was certain of it. I always checked before bed, just like I checked the doors, the windows, and the generator fuel. It had become a habit since my brother died, and I started living alone. Security was routine now, like brushing teeth or folding laundry.

I unlocked the phone in my hand and called the police.

They came late. Not surprising.

By the time Inspector Nwosu arrived, the body had started to sink slightly, tilting forward so the crown of the head faced the sky. Ngozi stood by the door, whispering a prayer under her breath. I told her to go inside.

Nwosu wore a khaki uniform soaked through with sweat, his belly peeking beneath a shirt one size too small. He barely looked at me before approaching the edge.

“Pool is locked, eh?”

“Always,” I said. “It was locked last night.”

He scratched his head and waved over a constable who seemed more interested in taking selfies by the patrol van. Together, they used a long pole to pull the body to the shallow end. I turned away.

“Do you recognize him?” Nwosu asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“Hmm.”

That hmm told me everything I needed to know. He didn’t believe me.

And I couldn’t blame him. The man was fully dressed, with no ID, no sign of struggle, just dead and floating in my pool. That sort of thing doesn’t happen without a reason.

They took the body. I signed forms I didn’t understand. By afternoon, my compound was quiet again, but not peaceful. Ngozi had cleaned around the pool, but I could still see it in my mind; the shape, the stillness, the water lapping like it knew something I didn’t.

It wasn’t until I opened the front door to get the newspaper that I found the envelope.

Plain brown. No stamp. No markings. Just my name in capital letters. Inside was a photo.

Me.

Maybe seven or eight years ago, sitting outside a restaurant in Independence Layout, holding a bottle of Star and smiling like I did not weigh the world.

Beside me was the same man they had pulled from the pool.

I didn’t remember the photo. I didn’t remember him. But there we were, caught in time. My hand rested on his shoulder like we were old friends.

I stared at it for a long time.

When I called the police, they didn’t answer.

I drove to the station the next morning, and Nwosu met me at the gate.

“You again,” he said, already impatient.

I showed him the photo. “This was in an envelope on my doorstep yesterday.”

He looked at it and frowned.

“You don’t remember him?”

“No.”

“You look comfortable in the photo.”

“I don’t remember him,” I said, slower this time.

Nwosu didn’t say anything for a while. Just turned the photo over. Blank.

Then he said, “His name was Okechukwu Anya. Civil servant. Worked in land records. Went missing five years ago.”

“Missing?”

“Declared dead. Empty coffin funeral. Wife moved to Onitsha. The case was never solved.”

“And now he’s in my pool.”

“Maybe he came back for you.”

I blinked.

He shrugged. “People return when there’s something unfinished.”

I didn’t sleep that night.

The ceiling fan clicked overhead, spinning slower than usual. Outside, crickets buzzed in the hedges, but the pool was silent.

At 3:27 a.m., I got out of bed. Padded to the kitchen. Poured water from the clay pot. The air felt heavier than before, thick with something I couldn’t name.

I stepped outside and sat by the pool. I didn’t know what I was expecting; maybe a ripple, a whisper, a voice in the back of my mind.

Instead, I just sat there in the dark, staring at the water.

Ngozi found me the next morning.

“Oga,” she said gently. “You’ve been outside since before cock crow.”

“I didn’t sleep.”

She looked at the water. Then back at me.

“You know,” she said slowly, “this land… it used to be a shrine.”

I turned to her.

“My grandmother used to say, water doesn’t forget. It may dry, it may move, but it remembers. Everything.”

I had the pool drained. Permanently.

Later that week, I received another envelope. It had the same handwriting, but no return address. This one did not have a photo or message; it was just a thin, folded page from a land registry file.

It was dated eight years ago, stamped by Okechukwu Anya.

And signed by me.

A land transfer. This compound.

I didn’t remember signing it.

But the ink was mine.