ECHOES OF A WILD GIRL’S DRUM by TIFFINI JOHNSON

A village lives by the drum that keeps them safe. But the night Maikel plays for Soryelle, the sound is soft as a heartbeat and louder than fear. What begins as a boy playing for a girl becomes a wild story that shatters secrets. In a remote Highland village, rumor is as deadly as a spear. When a child falls sick and crops fail, the whispers begin: someone must be to blame. The villagers find their scapegoat in a girl whose mother was once killed for witchcraft. She survives the first punishment but carries its scars into the jungle. For years she lives feral, sustained by the forest, hunted by memory. When hunger finally forces her back, she is no longer the girl they knew — and no longer willing to bow. Only one person remembers the first time she was tied to the stake: the boy who beat the drum that condemned her — and then broke rhythm to set her free. Now a young man marked by his own punishments, Maikel sees the girl again and finds the old rhythm rising between them. But another death rekindles the villagers’ fear. Accusations mount. The drumbeat calls for blood. Maikel must decide: obey the rhythm of the village, or shatter it once and for all — even if it means burning what little remains of his world.

Soryelle lives in the Highlands with her mother, Nangi. This is when we first meet Soryelle as a very young girl picking herbs and learning their medicinal purposes. She is loved. She is curious. She is playful.

And she will be targeted by a village that lives in fear.

This excerpt shows the last carefree, happy memory she’ll have of her mother before her young life is thrown upside down. Soryelle’s life will soon intertwine with Maikel‘s as she confronts what it means to truly trust someone and what makes life worthwhile in the midst of trauma.