Changing Times: Mafenda and Daniela's Underspelled Adventure

It was a hot day in the village. The sun shone down on the thatched roofs and people moved about in their daily hustle and bustle. The two young boys were sitting in their yard under a mango tree, playing with their toys when they heard a woman scream.

“Mafenda! Daniela!”

The two boys looked at each other and jumped up from where they had been playing. They ran to where the voice had come from and saw an old woman bent over with her hands on her knees, gasping for breath. When she finally found her breath, she said, “What you did today has consequences.”

The boys looked at each other again before turning back to the woman who, still bent over and wheezing, looked like she was going to die any moment.

“What? What have we done?” Mafenda asked, not sure whether he should feel guilty or not.

“I don’t know what you call it but it is a bad thing. You turned me into an old woman!” She mumbled. “I am cursed now. I don’t have long left and I think it is your fault!”

At this point, Mafenda and Daniela felt very guilty indeed and the panic set in immediately. They didn’t want to be the ones responsible for making the witch old! Surely something bad would happen to them if they did that! They rushed over to her and began apologizing profusely until the witch managed to stand upright again. She brushed herself off and straightened out her clothes before speaking. “You did this because of this book here, didn’t you?” She pointed at a book that lay on the ground nearby.

Mafenda nodded his head vigorously as he looked at the book with mischievous eyes. He could still remember how much fun he had caused by reading the spells in there so he couldn’t understand why the book would be considered bad by the witch; especially since he had used some of those spells himself!

She sighed before walking over to pick up the book, dusting it off and handing it over to Mafenda as she spoke again, “You know we are not supposed to read these books don’t you? Only certain people can read them and reading them will cost you dearly if you do not have permission from your elders first! So you see my little ones, what you have done is very bad indeed! It has cost me my health so now I must make sure nothing bad happens to my body anymore! This curse cannot be broken by anyone except me but I need someone else to do that for me... So I am going to give you a choice: one of you will stay outside with me while the other one goes inside with me so that we can discuss things...”