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Tides sway the children, one way to the other as they lay cradled on the surface, far from the shore yet close to their first home. Each movement drifted them further from the center of the river’s belly and even further from each other, closer to the land with no tear shed from either child, nor a scream released from their lips. It was unlike children to remain without fuss or commotion in the face of the body large enough to engulf them but the body rendered them life, why fear your mother?  

Like her usual routine, Tolani sat at the side of the rushing waters. Her hands were pressed into the silt, her voice a low hum of desperate prayer. For years, she wished on the wet of the soil like other women with testimonies did, while whispers had begun to sting like salt.

Today seemed to be different, it seemed that the water had finally answered. A bundle, slick with the iridescent sheen of a dragonfly’s wing, bumped gently against her knees that made her eyes crack open. Inside lay a child, her skin cool and smelling of rain after a drought. Tolani whispered her gratitude and swallowed the scream she would’ve let out; and gathered the river-gift to her chest.

Miles downstream, where the river slowed into the deep, green lagoons of the south, Moremi who washed her linen early to avoid her thoughts, sat humming. Distracted, the second baby began to cry at the touch of land. With no one else in sight, Moremi realized that she had received a blessing.  

Each of the women got home with lies of a pregnancy that went unnoticed and uncommunicated, ignoring whoever questioned their stories. 

Tolani and Moremi both took care of the children like their own. Listening to the instructions given during visits to their mother strictly. Each child was named as given by the water, Tolani’s given child was to bear Omolomi and Moremi’s was to bear Omifunke.

As  the girls grew into teenagers, they became wonders of their respective communities, yet they were specters in their own lives.

Omolomi could never quite tether herself to the dusty earth of Tolani’s community. To her peers, she seemed interesting in a way children could not quite place their fingers which made her feel like an outcast despite being welcomed and well-loved. 

The feeling of being unable to relate to peers aggravated the phantom limb she had always felt itching at her side, a phantom voice humming in her ear and dreams that became clearer to describe as days went by. Her laughter always felt like half a chord, waiting for the other note to strike.

In the south, Omifunke moved with a heavy, fluid grace. She was often reserved and quiet, mistaken for shy. She found the local children loud and abrasive, their spirits too solid, too jagged so she avoided them completely. 

At night, while the girls slept, their dreams were always the same: A mirror made of moving water. On the other side of the ripples, a girl would reach out. They would play among the submerged roots of the trees, their hair intertwining like river grass. 

The longing eventually became a physical ache. Omolomi approached her earth mother, Tolani one evening, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. 

"Mother," she whispered

 "I am dreaming of a girl and we play together in the water. She’s my only friend. I wish I could meet her."

Tolani, her heart heavy with the secret she had guarded like a precious stone, finally broke. She told Omolomi of the day the river breathed her out. "You are a child of the water, Lomi. If your soul is searching, it is because the river does not give in halves without a purpose."

Simultaneously, Moremi led Omifunke to the riverbank where they had first met.

 "I found you floating," Moremi admitted, her voice trembling.

 "I have loved you as my own, but I have always known your spirit was tied to a current I could not follow."

Armed with the truth, both girls began their pilgrimages. They visited the waterside daily, singing praises and speaking with the water. They were searching for the source of their own heartbeat. They became fixtures of the shoreline, two girls separated by miles of winding water, both singing for the same song.

The river, sensing its daughters were ready, began to pull.

A great seasonal flood swelled the banks, forcing the inland waters to rush toward the south with unprecedented ferocity. Omolomi followed the rising tide, her feet moving instinctively toward the mouth of the Great Bend. Omifunke, feeling the pull in her very marrow began to swim, her eyes fixed on the horizon where the fresh water met the salt.

They met at the Confluence, a place where the air hums with the spray of colliding worlds. The water was waist-deep when they saw each other. There was no doubt, no hesitation. The "half-heartedness" that had plagued their lives evaporated like mist under a morning sun.

As they waded toward one another, the river beneath them seemed to still. When their fingers finally locked, a literal spark of blue light danced between their palms.

"You," Omolomi breathed, her voice finally whole. "Us," Omifunke corrected, her soul finally anchored.

They were easy to recognize. Sisters never seem to miss each other, souls yearning for the connection beyond the physical. They recognized each other as parts of their souls and fragments of their beings. Soul sisters, Soul Sisters of the Current, birthed from the belly of  river, forever reunited in the flow of their own shared divinity.