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

"Lead who?"

"No more tithes," Fina said.

Not cooking smoke. Not ceremonial incense. The thick, wet smoke of something burning alive . Mother Village -Finished- - Version- Ch. 1 Fina...

Fina's stomach turned. The tithe. It hadn't stopped after she fled. The village had kept feeding the tree. And the tree had kept taking .

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." "Lead who

"I want you to finish what you started," she said. "I want you to come inside. And I want you to lead them out."

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 thick, wet smoke of something burning alive

Fina looked at the crack in the tree. The amber light beckoned like a hearth on a winter night.