had not scared her before, because she never entertained the belief that he existed. Now, being one on a coffle that could have populated half of Kwakrom, her hometown, Adwoa wondered about the appetite of such a being. Traders continually raided for captives and sold war prisoners at the coast, so their creator must be insatiable. After all, the previous night after they‘d bathed, Paa Kwesi had fed them the finest foods they‘d seen since ending up on the coffle: the smoothest fufu for dinner, submerged in a spicy palm nut soup, with dried fish and land snail bought from a trade caravan headed north. Even roasted bush meat was provided for clan members who had a taboo against eating the fish. Paa Kwesi also offered plenty of palm wine and beer. If others on the coffle were anything like Adwoa, they ate in pleasure and fear, sensing they were being fattened like goats prepared for a festival meal.
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The first people they saw in that place called Edina were three of its teenagers, who looked slightly younger than Adwoa. But two of them were not black like her, and not pink like the Abroad men they were all told to expect. The color was hard to describe—groundnut stew, maybe, mixed with the red of too much palm oil. The boys‘ hair was short, like normal, but the girl‘s was longer than any Adwoa had seen. The color was also hard to define: brown, but at the same time, gold. Little sharp-eyed beings with gold hair and too-light eyes. One of the boys was normal looking, with black skin and dark eyes, but he wore the same fat wooden shoes, and clothing like that of Paa Kwesi and his guards. Adwoa felt fear creeping up her neck. What if they were really not children, but magic beings created by the Abroad men, who might look even more bizarre? She calmed somewhat, reminding herself that she didn‘t have eyes like her Nana Esi, who knew where the mmoetia dwarves were hiding in the forest long before anyone else heard their eerie whistles, and who knew which trees were too consecrated to chop for firewood. Adwoa wondered if a witch had produced those groundnut-colored people. Almost everyone on the coffle blinked through the drizzle, focusing on the teenagers. One of the boys picked his nose with disinterest and called to the others in a strange language. Whatever he said made them laugh. Adwoa was surprised to see that their tongues were the normal pink, and their teeth white. Paa Kwesi‘s guards tried to shoo them away, but they FOOTE ∫ 11