Part 5

Adapted from Hans Andersen's The Little Mermaid.

When he opened his eyes she saw bad light in them. Yellow and poisonous-looking. He had taken too much blackheart, a great deal. He was dying. He would die, if she let him, and what would she have come all this way for?

There was a mat laid out beside her, cluttered with all sorts of tools used by the goodforest people in their healing. Other things too. The lower jaw of some large animal, for instance, the bone polished smooth. A toy monkey. A glass eye. ‘Everything you need and more,’ the Old Bat had crooned. She ignored the ‘more’ and took the herbs and smooth black stones and needles that she would need. Already her hands were burning. She wanted to draw the poison out of him, but she wouldn’t rush it, she would take her time. She had almost hurt herself once, when she was eleven and overeager.

Final Fling (part 2)

2.

Yaw sat outside his house in the car after dropping Owusua off at home. They’d gone to watch a Real Madrid match at a pub. He’d kicked himself when he found out she wasn’t a big football fan; but she’d supported Real Madrid with him and seemed to have had fun.

Final Fling (Part 1)

“There’s no way I’m letting you walk out wearing that bandage, Owusua!”

Maame Serwaa growled at her younger sister. Owusua stopped at the door and looked down at her pink plaid, body-hugging mini-skirt, “Ah Maame, this is pretty long. Come on,” she stood with her hands on her hips and a bored look on her face. Maame let out a breath, “Owusua go and change. That skirt is too short. You will give Yaw a bad impression of you. This is your first date. Ahba!”

Part 5

Adapted from Hans Andersen's The Little Mermaid.

When he opened his eyes she saw bad light in them; yellow and poisonous-looking. He had taken too much blackheart, a great deal. He was dying. He would die, if she let him, and what would she have come all this way for?

There was a mat laid out beside her, cluttered with all sorts of tools used by the goodforest people in their healing. Other things too. The lower jaw of some large animal, for instance, the bone polished smooth. A toy monkey. A glass eye. ‘Everything you need and more,’ the Old Bat had crooned. She ignored the ‘more’ and took the herbs and smooth black stones and needles that she would need. Already her hands were burning. She wanted to draw the poison out of him, but she wouldn’t rush it, she would take her time. She had almost hurt herself once, when she was eleven and overeager.

Part 4

Adapted from Hans Andersen's The Little Mermaid.

I did find her, without meaning to. Or rather, she found me. She knew my name and came to me when I was at the washing pool on a full moon night, combing the tangles out of my hair with my fingers, luxuriating in the water over which I had sprinkled flower petals. I liked coming to the pool alone. I could only do this alone. I had escaped the prayer night and there I was. I suppose I deserved, then, to find myself spied upon by a witch.

Part 3

Adapted from Hans Andersen's The Little Mermaid.

Adobea followed the butterfly along a lie-lie path. A path that was a snake, twisting and slithering through the goodforest’s undergrowth, rippling beneath her feet, shimmering with swarms of little things that may have been fireflies. This sort of thing was the stuff of fireside stories, certainly not real life. But then there she was, following a talking butterfly. A singing butterfly now-

Part 2

Adapted from Hans Andersen's The Little Mermaid.

To think my mother would look at me brooding and think that romantic visions were weaving themselves through my head. People had begun to talk, with the great authority, about how Senna and I had always stared at each other since we were children. When I say people, I mean the greenhealers. Given that their gift was especially for healing children, they liked to spin stories. Sakinah did this very convincingly. Everybody believed her when she said that Senna and I sent each other secret messages by crow. Sometimes, she claimed, we left our little missives in the hollows of greentrees, which are believed to hold good luck.

Part One: The Black Butterfly

Adapted from Hans Andersen's The Little Mermaid.

His servants said he was saying crazy things. That a large black butterfly spoke to him and told him that he had to hide or the dark ones would kill him. He said it over and over again. He had wanted to die, true, it was the reason he had done what he had done. But not the way the butterfly described. And, oh, how the creature spoke. With relish! Or so he had claimed. They were sure it was the blackheart making him see awful visions. Did too much of it bring madness as well as death?