The rains brought more than life to the soil they stirred memories buried deep beneath it.
As the garden soaked in water and light, something unusual happened: a portion of the earth behind the sanctuary shifted, revealing what looked like a stone arch, overgrown with vines and half-buried in the ground.
Kaira approached it cautiously with Emeka and a few elders. Mama Ebele gasped.
"I know this place," she whispered, eyes wide. "Before the war. Before the hunger. There was a house of voices here."
They carefully cleared the vines and uncovered a doorway ancient, but not forgotten. Emeka and two others pushed it open, and a warm gust of air emerged, scented with earth and echoes.
Inside was a small room carved in stone, lined with walls painted in faded colors. Symbols danced across them eyes, seeds, stars, hands reaching upward. In the center sat a bowl-shaped altar, and on it, a simple inscription in an old dialect:
"Dreams buried are not dreams lost."
The room seemed to hum softly.
Kaira's fingers brushed one of the symbols, and suddenly, the air shimmered. A whisper, soft and melodic, drifted through the space.
A woman's voice:
"To those who carry light in dark places your dreams will awaken the dreams of others."
Mama Ebele placed her hand over her heart. "It was real, after all," she said. "My grandmother told me the dreamkeepers once lived here."
The villagers looked at Kaira, then at one another.
They hadn't just found a garden.
They had rediscovered a legacy.
A place where generations of dreamers had once gathered. A sanctuary older than memory.
And now, with Kaira's revival, that legacy had returned.
As they left the stone room, Emeka turned to her.
"You're not just tending a garden," he said. "You're awakening a forgotten lineage."
Kaira's heart swelled not with pride, but with purpose.
The garden was older than any of them knew.
And it was calling not just for new dreams… but for the ancient ones to rise again.