=link=: Mother Village Chapter 1

The Ashen Grove lay before him, gray and still. No birds. No wind. Just trees that grew in spirals and a path that seemed to invite him in.

Koffi stood. He tucked the leaking gourd into the fold of his tunic. He did not tell his mother goodbye—she wouldn’t understand. He did not tell Tebo, who would chain him to the baobab. He simply walked. mother village chapter 1

Koffi had heard this story every Dry Season for fifteen years, always from a different grandmother, always with the same ending: “You are not from Lapazza, child. Lapazza is from you.” The Ashen Grove lay before him, gray and still

The old women of Lapazza said the village was born from a single tear. Not a tear of sorrow, but of exhaustion—dropped by the first mother, Yema, as she collapsed after walking for three moons with a child on her back and another in her belly. Where the tear hit the cracked earth, a spring burst forth. Where the spring flowed, the baobab grew. And where the baobab cast its shade, Lapazza took root. Just trees that grew in spirals and a

Behind him, in the village, his mother stopped humming.