As I drove into my compound, I leaned on the steering, still caught up in everything. By the time the gate slid shut, I was still in the car, wrung out and unable to move.

There was a knock at my window that made me look up. Rowi was standing outside the car, waving at me. I really wasn't in the mood to deal with her nonsense, so I got out of the car.

'I thought I told you I didn't want to see you again.'

'Too bad, because I wanted to see you.'

When she broke the bottle at my feet, I shifted and covered my nose. There was no way I was going to fall for that trick, twice. It was unfortunate that in trying to block the powder from taking effect, I didn't see her coming until she'd backed me against the car and put a knife on my throat.

'It's not so much fun when someone else is holding the knife, is it?'

'Am I supposed to believe that you'd hurt me, Rowi?'

She shifted the knife and stabbed me on my shoulder. When she pulled the knife out, the pain was excruciating. Worse than anything those men had done to me.

'What are you doing?'

She placed the knife back on my neck, making me lean away again, unable to defend myself as she collected my blood in one of her mysterious bottles. As she stepped away from me, shaking the bottle vigorously, I bent over, covering the blood that spilled from my shoulder.

'You never want to see me again, right? I think it's only fair that I unlink us.'

She emptied the bottle into her mouth and shook the liquid around. Then she spat it all on the ground.

'There!' she said. 'We're unlinked.'

'And you didn't think you could explain all that to me before you stabbed me?'

'Do I look like I'm in the mood to be gracious to you?'

She didn't. She looked furious, standing, looking down at me as if she'd want nothing more than to see me dead. She wasn't going to kill me, but that didn't mean she couldn't make my life a living hell.

'Can I get up now? Can I go to a hospital? You just stabbed me in the shoulder.'

'I want you to apologise to me.'

'Excuse me?'

'Apologise,' she said, opening the small raffia bag hanging on her waist. From it, she removed a little, cloth doll that was sewn, haphazardly with black thread. Then she also took out a very, very big needle.

I didn't know much about witchcraft, but the one thing I knew was the fact that I didn't want a witch holding a doll and looking at me.

'What's that?'

'Apologise.'

'I'm sorry,' I said, immediately. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything I said back there.'

'Don't exaggerate. I know you meant to hurt me.'

'You meant to hurt me too.' I told her.

'When?'

'We've said a lot of worse things to each other. None of that matters.'

'You called me a liar. You told me you were done with me. You tried to cut me out of your life.'

'Because I was unhappy with you.'

'ALL I'VE EVER DONE, IS BE THERE FOR YOU AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME?'

She brought the needle close to the doll and I quickly stood up, waving frantically at her.

'What now? Eh? Rowi, we had an argument. It doesn't mean you have to make a voodoo doll to punish me. If you really want me back in your life, just say so.'

'Do you think it's that easy? Are you really that foolish?'

'Rowi, put the doll and the needle down.' When she raised her eyebrows at me, I quickly added, 'Please.'

'I followed you, you know,' she said. 'I know you went to see Mbo. Which is funny but par for the course, with you. I thought last night meant something, but-'

'Meant something? Rowi, what future do you think we can ever have? I'm going to become a woman again, one day.'

'DO YOU THINK I CARE ABOUT THAT?'

'Rowi-'

'If you didn't want me, then why did you come to me, last night? Why did you choose me?'

I was confused by the question. Hadn't she been there? Didn't she remember that anything that happened between us only happened because I was desperate? Anyone would have been enough for me? A table could have done it. However, there was a very high chance that if I explained all that, things might get worse.

'I'm sorry,' I said, instead.

'Look at you. You've become the one thing you hate.'

'I never cheated on you.'

'You broke my heart,' she said. 'I don't want you to die, but I guess I'll have to settle for watching you suffer.'

Before I could stop her, she pressed the needle into the doll and everything around me went black.

_____

I woke up to the sound of someone knocking on the gate. My head was pounding but the fact that I was alive was more than a miracle. Rowi was nowhere to be found, which was a plus.

My shoulder hurt, but it looked like she'd poured an ointment on it and wrapped it with a blouse a to stop the bleeding before she left. Rowi was such an enigma. If she'd come to punish, why had she bothered dressing my wound? Granted, it was a wound she'd caused but it was still strange that she'd made the effort.

Another knock jolted me back to my senses. It was evening time and I'd laid out there, the whole day. I wondered who could be knocking and it occurred to me that it might be Mbo.

Ever since the last time he'd led the police into my house, I'd changed the password so he couldn't enter. But if he'd come to see me now, there was no way I'd let him stay out there.

Giddy with anticipation, I ran to the gate, cupping my injured shoulder in my hand.

But as I put in the code and the gate slid open, my body felt strange. I touched my head and realised that my hair had grown back. My face felt different but familiar and as I got to my chest, I gasped when I felt the mounds of boobs that I'd missed for the last couple of weeks.

When the gate opened and I saw that I was facing a barrage of armed, policemen, it suddenly dawned on me that I was, once again, a woman.