Age:
Reading Level: 4.3
Chapter 1
As I gazed down at the disheveled path beneath me, my eyes widened.
A slender, patterned trail curved across the path. A snake trail.
But it wasn’t just any snake trail.
Looking at the thickness and length of the print, I knew from the stories I had been told.
It was a Euka Snake. Descendent of the snake-shifting people.
Chapter 2
When I was younger, my nne nne always told me to embrace the ground I walk on, for its very roots hold the magic that made me.
When the beauty of my culture glittered around me, I was taught to believe her solemn, wise words.
I learned to view the world through her colored lens.
I believed it, when she braided my hair, and intertwined her aged fingers with my coiled locks.
I believed it, when she brewed our herbs into my favorite soup, grown from the rich Nigerian soil in our backyard.
I believed it, when she silently sobbed holding my mother’s 26-year-old photo when she thought no one was looking.
The glass in the frame had been left silent and still on the shelf, collecting dust for 14 years.
It immortalized her cherished face, holding her in the moment forever.
Chapter 3
My nne nne said I looked like her. Unlike everything else, I’ve never believed it.
When I look in the mirror, what's reflected back at me isn’t the earth’s magic. Nor is it my mother’s face.
Among my radiant brown skin, and child-like eyes, is a burdensome scar.
It runs from the peak of my forehead, between my eyes, down to the bottom of my cheek.
A curse I wore while my mother gave birth to me and died shortly after.