Mother Village Chapter 1 -

And at the start of that path, tied to a thornbush with a strip of faded cloth, was a small wooden doll. It had no face. But around its neck hung a pendant carved from the same wood as the baobab’s eastern root.

The sun was a white blister in the sky. Koffi squatted at the edge of the Cassava Field, the one closest to the Old Wall—a crumbling spine of mud-and-stone that no one remembered building but everyone knew not to cross. Beyond it lay the Ashen Grove, where the red soil turned gray and the trees grew twisted, their branches pointing east like accusatory fingers. No one from Lapazza had gone into the Grove in three generations. Not since the Season of the Missing. mother village chapter 1

I had been away for what felt like an eternity, chasing dreams and making mistakes in the city. But now, with a sense of restlessness and longing, I had returned to the one place that had ever truly felt like home. And at the start of that path, tied

The church serves as a haunting landmark in Chapter 1. It acts as the eventual meeting point for the characters, though it is framed more as a place of judgment and fear than one of sanctuary. The sun was a white blister in the sky