PodCastle

* Author : Uchechukwu Nwaka
* Narrator : Shingai Njeri Kagunda
* Host : Matt Dovey
* Audio Producer : Eric Valdes
*
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Previously Published by Cossmass Infinities


Rated PG-13
 
The music for the promotion intro is “Sneaky Snitch” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

 
Hey everyone, Alasdair here – hope you’re doing okay. The summer months are upon us, which means two things – hat weather for yours truly, and the part of our year when costs are high and support tends to dip. We know things are tight everywhere at the moment, and that includes us. For those of you who support us already, thank you so much. We hope you’re enjoying the great new CatsCast episodes. If you’d like to join them, we’ve got tons of options for you at Patreon and PayPal. Even a one-off at Ko-fi makes a big difference, or check out our great new swag store – maybe like me you need a hat! It all adds up, and helps us bring you the best in free audio fiction every week. Thanks, and enjoy this week’s episode.
Sungrass Girl
by Uchechukwu Nwaka
 
My first memory of the Light is her face. Her round eyes that swelled in curious wonder and innocent inquisition. I remember the way the light from the incandescent bulb fell on her face, outlining her dark skin in paint strokes of shimmering gold that twinkled right into her large doe eyes. Her smile was warm milk, her laughter the essence of happiness. Her hands — they were so small then, yet so calloused — reached under my forelimbs and she lifted me into the sky with an ebullition of glee so intoxicating, it reverberates through my bones till this day.
“An mmụọ!” she cried. The pitch did not startle me. Rather, it was joy lit in the pits of my gut. “Mama! Papa! An mmụọ!”

Her parents, I remember them now. They stood beside the summoning altar, unmoving. Their expressions had frozen over their faces, like they had forgotten how to speak. They had not expected the ritual to work at all, and now that it had, they did not expect the mmụọ to be so . . .
“A tortoise.” It was the dibia who performed this ritual who’d spoken on their behalf. He was a wizened thing, but his back was straight and the seams of his suit fit his thin bones like a second skin. The Ichie cap on his head fell to his shoulder — the only coloured item on his person.
“How curious,” he said again, and I heard his decades of experience in the depths of his baritone. “Kamsi, take the mmụọ to the mirror to establish its self-awareness.”
Kamsi skipped to the altar. The summoning circle was constructed of white chalk, with a single miscoloured flame flickering at its centre. Her small hands trembled with excitement as sh...