CHAPTER 1 — THE RIVER BEGINS
Section 2 (continued)
That night, the sky stretched wide and endless above their small hut, the stars blinking like a thousand quiet eyes. Amara lay between her mother and the wall of woven reeds, listening to the night sounds the call of distant frogs, the wind brushing through the thatch, the heartbeat of the river not far away.
Her mother's breathing was slow, steady, the sound of a woman who worked until the world itself slept. Amara turned slightly, watching the faint light of the moon touch her mother's face. There were tiny lines near her eyes, traces of laughter and worry carved by years of sun and time.
Amara wanted to ask her what the river said. But even at her age, she knew some questions were not meant to be asked aloud.
Instead, she whispered to herself, I will learn to listen.
And with that small promise, something shifted within her a quiet awakening, like the first ripple before a flood.
In the days that followed, Amara began to notice the river differently. Its color changed with the sky amber in the morning, green by noon, and silver when the moon rose. Sometimes it laughed, splashing against rocks other times it sulked, silent and deep. But always, it was alive.
The elders often warned, Do not play too close. The river has a will of its own.Yet Amara felt no fear. She believed the river knew her name, that it had known it long before she was born.
One evening, as the sun sank and the world turned gold, her grandmother called her to help peel cassava. Amara hesitated, glancing toward the water. For a brief moment, she thought she saw a shimmer like a hand waving just beneath the surface. When she blinked, it was gone.
Her grandmother's voice broke her trance.
Amara You'll let the night catch you if you don't move.
She ran back, breathless, a strange joy and fear twined together inside her.
That night, as the village settled into sleep, the whisper came again softer this time, almost tender.
Child of the water remember.
And though she could not yet understand what it meant, Amara's heart beat in rhythm with the river's unseen pulse slow, patient, eternal