FA Yuletide Writing Prize — Shortlisted Story
Theme: Dark Yuletide
Year: 2025/2026
Author: Oluwajomiloju Oyelude

1. 

The bell rings, sharp as a blow, so close to my ear that I flinch, certain that if Mama had her way, she’d add deafness to the growing list of things she believes afflict me. The wind sweeps freely through the church, if it can be called that, an open space with nothing but a roof to shelter us from the sun. I keep my eyes shut, just as Mama instructed. Prayer is not the time for roaming gazes or doubt. 

A hand lands firm on my head, tugging it back and forth, rolling it in deliberate circles. I was scared my head would pop off with the way it was rolled. 

The voice above me rings out, rich with urgency. “Oya! Every demon that has stolen this girl’s voice, return it. In the mighty name of Jesus.” 

A chorus swells in response. “Amen! Amen oo.” Mama’s voice rises above the others, loud and tired, carrying the burden of belief and exhaustion in equal measure. 

When she woke me up that Christmas morning and said we were to embark on a journey, I didn’t think it would be to a church. But here I was, in the middle of a circle, pastors hurling prayers at me like I was the madman of Gadarenes. 

A hand lands on my throat, tapping it like someone trying to fix a faulty battery lamp.

“Speak up. Release her voice now. Every link holding this girl to the past, break by fire. This girl must have her voice back. Mari, you shall speak again.” 

The pressure is sharp, the pain curling up my neck, and I wonder just how sturdy the pastor’s hand is. 

“Amen. Amen…amen,” Mama chants, her voice rising, breaking. 

“Oya, Mari. Open your eyes and speak. Open your eyes and speak now. Say something to your mother.” 

I let my eyes open slowly, dragging the moment, giving Mama something to hold on to. Hope. A sign.  

Maybe the pastor is right. Maybe if I just open my mouth, the words will come spilling, breaking free like a flood. 

Mama’s face is the first thing I see, smiling, eyes red and wet, nodding, urging me to try. Her Ankara buba is drenched in sweat, the wrapper around her waist tied carelessly, like she had been pulling at it all day. Her gele sits crooked on her head, rushed and undone like a pepper seller’s. 

My chest tightens and my heart splinters into tiny, aching pieces. 

I open my mouth, but the words won’t come. Not even a sound. I know it before I even try, nothing is waiting to break free. 

My eyes drift to one of the pastors watching me, his face expectant, like I am a show worth seeing. His white garment has a loose thread dangling near the hem. Without thinking, I reach for it and pull. 

A gasp ripples through the room. The pastor jerks back like I burned him, fear flashing across his face, like he just confirmed I am possessed.  

Mama clutches her chest with a sharp scream, the kind that calls for witnesses, for people to gather and see her life scattering before their eyes.  

The thread sits light in my palm. I lift it to my lips and swallow. 

2. 

I finish eating just as Mama walks in. In this house, there is no such thing as privacy. Our two-bedroom apartment is small, everything pressed too close, but Mama calls it comfortable. In truth, it is more of a prayer than a fact.  

“Mari.” 

Mama stands in the doorway, the blue lamp shaking in her hands. She looks at me, then past me, like she doesn’t recognize the child sitting in front of her. 

She steps forward and kneels beside my bed. 

“Mari.” Her voice is quiet this time, but worse than yelling. Empty. “Say Merry Christmas, ma. Say anything.” 

I don’t. And she nods, just once, before pushing herself to her feet and walking away. The next day, Mama isn’t so nice. 

I look up. She stands in the doorway, a wrapper around her chest, her bonnet slipping. In one hand, she is holding her blue lamp, the light aimed straight at my face. For a second, I wonder if she wants to blind me.  

“Say something.”  

I blink. 

“Mari, say something.” 

When I don’t answer, she storms toward me and grabs my shoulders, shaking me so hard my teeth rattle.  

“You will speak. You shall speak. I didn’t bring you into this world mute. For sixteen years, you spoke. Why stop now?”  

I cannot say a word. But in my mind, I am screaming, You’re hurting me. You will kill me. Her grip tightens. “Speak, Mari. Please, speak.”  

I clutch her wrists, pressing hard enough to break her trance. She stops, breathless, damp with sweat. Her eyes plead with me.  

I shake my head.  

She swallows, then whispers, “You have to talk. It’s been a year now. Christmas doesn’t have to be like this. You are just like him, you know. People do say that.” 

I know why they say that. Papa had stopped speaking, too, in those final weeks. Mama railed at him at first, but then one morning he walked straight onto the tracks of a moving train. 

I stay silent, letting my head rest against her chest. She stiffens, then breaks down, her sobs shaking us both. 

“Maybe I should’ve known. Maybe I should’ve stopped him. Please, don’t leave me like your father did,” she whispers. “Please. I beg you. Don’t leave me.”  

Mama tries to be too strong so I let her cry.  

3. 

I knew Papa was going to die on that Christmas day. I don’t know when I knew. Maybe when he stopped speaking. Maybe when he started watching me like he was memorizing my face. Or maybe it was long before when the house stopped feeling like a house and turned into something quieter, something like a glass waiting to break. 

A week before he died, I found him in the backyard, with the rake limp in his hands. He wasn’t moving. Just standing there, staring down at the gutter like he had forgotten why he was even there. 

I wanted to say something. I wanted to ask if he was okay, but I knew the answer already. So I just stood there, my throat itching, waiting for him to tell me something that would make me believe I was wrong. If silence was the way he spoke now, I wanted to learn the language. He looked up at me. Smiled. But it wasn’t a real smile. It was empty, like a bag full of nothing. 

On Christmas Day the following week, he was dead. I didn’t cry. I wasn’t even breathing. I just kept hearing his voice in my head except it wasn’t his voice. It was silent. His silence. The same one that filled the house. The same one that filled him. 

And now, it was filling me too. 

My eyes locked onto my mum’s sleeve as she cried, where a thread stood, barely attached. I thought of how easy it would be to pull it, to let it all destroy. 

4. 

If you ask Mama why I stopped speaking, she’ll tell you it was because of Papa’s death. Or that it happened the day Jesus rose from the dead. On Christmas Day. An abomination. She’ll sob and say it happened the moment he became selfish and killed himself.  

A month after Papa died, she tapped me awake. I groaned, rolling away. “Mama, I have school tomorrow.”  

She ignored me. “I think your father was possessed. He wouldn’t have done this otherwise.”

Her voice cracked. “Mari, why did he do this to us? I would have accepted anything. He could have cheated, I wouldn’t have said a word. But this? This? Why? And in such a way? Why was he so evil? People say I drove him to it. But he was happy.”  

“He wasn’t happy,” I said. “We think he was happy but he wasn’t truly happy.” 

And that was the last thing I said that night. Mama watched me for a long time, as if I had said something she hadn’t heard in years. Something she had been waiting for.  

Then she wiped her tears, retied her wrapper, and walked out of my room.  

I lay there, staring at the ceiling, but my mind wouldn’t quiet. Minutes passed, and still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.  

So I got up, pulled my wrapper tighter around me, and went looking for her.  She wasn’t in her room.  

I found her in the kitchen, standing by the sink.  

I stopped at the doorway, watching.  

She reached for the knife.  

I should have shouted. I should have moved. But I only stood there, frozen, watching as if fascinated.  

She brought the blade to her wrist and sliced, real slow and deliberate. Deep enough to break skin, but not deep enough to do real harm. But I didn’t think Mama knew that. 

Blood slipped down her arm. Then, without a word, Mama walked past me and into her room.  I stood there, gripping my wrapper, a loose thread catching at the hem.  

I opened my mouth but nothing came.