Mother Village -finished- - Version- Ch. 1 Fina... Direct

Fina spun. A woman sat on a low stone at the base of the tree. She was old—older than the Council, older than the village itself, it seemed. Her skin was bark-brown and cracked like dry earth. Her eyes were two hollows with tiny flames flickering inside.

The path down was overgrown with thornvines that hadn't been there before. She cut through them with a rusted machete, the blade singing against the thorns. Every step felt like wading through mud made of memory.

She remembered her mother's hands. Calloused, warm, smelling of yam flour and smoke. Her mother had not cried. Instead, she had pressed a seed into Fina's palm and whispered, "If the tree asks for your life, give it this instead. It won't know the difference until you're gone." Mother Village -Finished- - Version- Ch. 1 Fina...

"Lead who?"

"That's what you came back to see?" a voice said. Fina spun

The old woman smiled. It was not a kind smile. It was the smile of a river eating its own bank.

Fina's hand went to her chest, where the tin box used to press against her ribs. She had sold the seed years ago to a trader for passage on a boat. She had nothing left to trade. Nothing but herself. Her skin was bark-brown and cracked like dry earth

Its trunk, once wide as a granary, was now split open like a pod. From the crack pulsed a soft, amber light—warm, rhythmic, like a heartbeat. And wrapped around its roots, as if the tree had grown around them, were the skeletons of children.