Summary

In Chapter 13, a woman at the shrine, Mama Darkwa, takes charge of Abeo, bathing her roughly and shaving her head. Mama Darkwa throws Abeo’s cross into the dirt and gives her a plain gray dress to wear. Abeo sees other girls with shaved heads dressed like her and notices they wear red beads around their necks. She notices she’s in a small village of huts with acres of corn growing nearby.

Mama Darkwa pushes Abeo into a hut that holds an old man dressed in a white robe, the priest, who two girls are fanning. He tells her he is the priest of the village and that she lives at his shrine. Yame, the supreme god of heaven, came to him in a dream when he was 12, the priest says. The priest sees that Abeo doesn’t know why she is...