Sub-Saharan Spellbinding

It was the middle of the night. Everyone in the village was asleep. No one even noticed the four silhouettes that snuck into the village, walking all the way to the center.

"You can't be serious!" One of them exclaimed. "We're going to use this? The whole village will know! We're not doing anything! This is just some stupid village in Sub-Saharan Africa."

"Yeah, but who's going to believe that? They'll all think that we're lesbians."

The other two giggled and laughed quietly, whispering things to each other that couldn't be heard from where I was standing. I didn't really want to hear it anyway, so I continued to walk towards them, keeping low to the ground and remaining silent.

I moved slowly and silently. It was easy enough with my training. I couldn't see their faces very well in the dark, but they had a few noticeable features: a long braid that fell over one shoulder and down her back, multiple earrings of different shapes and sizes dangling from her ears, and a large, ornate tattoo on her right arm that I recognized immediately as something used by people in my own tribe. She also had an oddly familiar face. As she turned back around to look at her friends, I realized why. It was this girl from my tribe who always wore pants everywhere and refused to help me set up for tribal meetings because she thought we should treat women like men instead of treating men like women and just let them do stuff for themselves.

The girl must have heard something because she turned around again and looked straight at me as I jumped up from my crouched position and threw myself at her as hard as I could. Her face went flying backwards with a loud crack when it collided with mine. Before she hit the ground, I had already grabbed her by her hair and pulled her back up off of the ground, shoving her down onto her knees with one foot on either side of her waist while holding a dagger against her throat. The other three girls screamed and ran away only seconds after they saw what I did to their friend.

"What's your name?" I demanded through gritted teeth while my eyes searched the campground for any sign of where they might have gone to hide. "Tell me or I will slit your throat!" My dagger shook wildly in my hand as adrenaline coursed through my veins making every part of my body shake uncontrollably except for my right arm; it was locked into place firmly above the girl's neck ready to slice through it at a moment's notice if she decided not to tell me what I wanted to know.

She swallowed hard before answering quietly, "Serendipity." After a few moments passed without movement from me, she spoke again, "My name is Serendipity."

I knew that name well; it belonged to someone who lived in one of our tribes neighboring mine on another continent; someone who had taken a few young girls away from our village and forced them into slavery when they were younger than I was now; someone who killed three out of four members of my family before anyone else even knew what happened; someone who ruined many lives before finally being captured herself years ago and imprisoned here in this village where everyone was supposed to be safe from such danger; someone who threatened us all with death if we ever tried to escape or tried anything brave enough for us to put our lives on the line for anything but yet still managed to get out somehow along with three other witches pretending to be humans pretending to be good until they were discovered before killing five people in total: two children, one woman, two men . . . . But most importantly, Serendipity was supposed to be dead. No one had seen or heard from her since she supposedly died years ago despite searching everywhere within multiple countries while people kept dying every year supposedly by some mysterious force referred to as ‘voodoo’ which was supposedly responsible for bringing this person back from beyond the grave time after time again no matter how many times she seemed defeated until people stopped believing that she'd ever been defeated in the first place and started accusing others of being responsible instead while they found excuses for their inability to stop whoever it was that continued killing their friends and family despite their best efforts which wasn't very convincing considering how much more effort they'd put into finding Serendipity rather than worrying about those deaths which weren't nearly as important as making sure she never got what she wanted before she got it but still didn't bother trying after all those years because there weren't any more killings anyway so it didn't matter anymore did it? No . . . no it didn't matter anymore after all these years because everyone forgot about everything except whatever new thing caught their attention this week whether it meant anything or not or whether it actually happened or not so long as everyone can agree on one thing: Serendipity will never be brought down because Serendipity is immortal!