
deliberately after the first time men came stalking her, their machetes ready, their intentions clear. She had
had to kill seven times on that terrible day—seven frightened men who could have been spared—and she
had nearly died herself, all because she let people come upon her unnoticed. Never again.
Now, for instance, she was very much aware of the lone intruder who prowled the bush near her. He
kept himself hidden, moved toward her like smoke, but she heard him, followed him with her ears.
Giving no outward sign, she went on tending her garden. As long as she knew where the intruder was,
she had no fear of him. Perhaps he would lose his courage and go away. Meanwhile, there were weeds
among her coco yams and her herbs. The herbs were not the traditional ones grown or gathered by her
people. Only she grew them as medicines for healing, used them when people brought their sick to her.
Often she needed no medicines, but she kept that to herself. She served her people by giving them relief
from pain and sickness. Also, she enriched them by allowing them to spread word of her abilities to
neighboring people. She was an oracle. A woman through whom a god spoke. Strangers paid heavily for
her services. They paid her people, then they paid her. That was as it should have been. Her people
could see that they benefited from her presence, and that they had reason to fear her abilities. Thus was
she protected from them—and they from her—most of the time. But now and then one of them
overcame his fear and found reason to try to end her long life.
The intruder was moving closer, still not allowing her to see him. No person of honest intentions would
approach so stealthily. Who was he then? A thief? A murderer? Someone who blamed her for the death
of a kinsman or for some other misfortune? During her various youths, she had been blamed several times
for causing misfortune. She had been fed poison in the test for witchcraft. Each time, she had taken the
test willingly, knowing that she had bewitched no one—and knowing that no ordinary man with his scanty
knowledge of poisons could harm her. She knew more about poisons, had ingested more poisons in her
long life than any of her people could imagine. Each time she passed the test, her accusers had been
ridiculed and fined for their false charges. In each of her lives as she grew older, people ceased to accuse
her—though not all ceased to believe she was a witch. Some sought to take matters into their own hands
and kill her regardless of the tests.
The intruder finally moved onto the narrow path to approach her openly—now that he had had enough
of spying on her. She looked up as though becoming aware of him for the first time.
He was a stranger, a fine man taller than most and broader at the shoulders. His skin was as dark as her
own, and his face was broad and handsome, the mouth slightly smiling. He was young—not yet thirty,
she thought. Surely too young to be any threat to her. Yet something about him worried her. His sudden
openness after so much stealth, perhaps. Who was he? What did he want?
When he was near enough, he spoke to her, and his words made her frown in confusion. They were
foreign words, completely incomprehensible to her, but there was a strange familiarity to them—as
though she should have understood. She stood up, concealing uncharacteristic nervousness. "Who are
you?" she asked.
He lifted his head slightly as she spoke, seemed to listen.
"How can we speak?" she asked. "You must be from very far away if your speech is so different."
"Very far," he said in her own language. His words were clear to her now, though he had an accent that
reminded her of the way people spoke long ago when she was truly young. She did not like it. Everything
about him made her uneasy.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html