Writers 
Chapter One: The Girl with Two Faces
In a small village hidden between seven hills in southeastern Nigeria, there lived a beautiful girl named Amara.
Amara was eighteen years old, with dark skin that shone like polished ebony, eyes as bright as morning stars, and a voice that could make even an angry man forget why he was angry.
But Amara had a terrible secret.
Every morning, when the first rooster crowed, her body began to change.
Her smooth skin folded into wrinkles. Her black hair turned white. Her straight back bent like a branch carrying too much rain. Her youthful eyes became cloudy, and her hands trembled as though they had spent a hundred years carrying invisible burdens.
Within minutes, the eighteen-year-old girl became an old woman.
Yet when the sun disappeared and the moon climbed into the sky, something even stranger happened.
Her wrinkles vanished.
Her white hair turned black.
Her bent back straightened, and her youthful beauty returned.
Every night, Amara became eighteen again.
She had lived this way for three years.
During the day, villagers called her Mama Amara, believing her to be an old widow who lived alone at the edge of the village.
At night, when she walked beneath the moonlight, young men admired her beauty, unaware that she was the same old woman they had pitied that morning.
Nobody knew her secret.
Not even the man she loved.
His name was Chidi.
And Amara was terrified that one day, he would discover the truth.
Chapter Two: The Night She Fell in Love
Chidi was the village palm-wine tapper's son. He was kind, hardworking, and possessed a laugh that sounded like rain striking a zinc roof.
He first met Amara on a moonlit night beside the village stream.
She was washing her feet when he approached with a calabash in his hand.
"Why do you always come here alone?" he asked.
Amara smiled. "Perhaps I am waiting for someone."
"Who?"
"Someone who can love what he cannot understand."
Chidi laughed softly.
"That sounds like a difficult person to find."
"Perhaps," she whispered. "Or perhaps such a person is standing in front of me."
From that night, they became inseparable.
They met beneath the old udala tree, shared roasted corn, and spoke about the lives they hoped to build together.
Chidi promised to marry her.
But Amara never allowed him to visit her home during the day.
Whenever he asked why, she invented another excuse.
One night, Chidi held her hands and said, "Amara, I love you. But how can I marry a woman who hides half her life from me?"
Her smile disappeared.
"Some truths destroy the people who discover them."
"Then let the truth destroy me," he replied. "At least I will die knowing the woman I love."
Amara wanted to tell him everything.
But before she could speak, the village gong sounded.
Midnight was approaching.
She ran away before the transformation could begin in front of him.
Chidi watched her disappear into the darkness.
For the first time, he began to suspect that the woman he loved was hiding something far more terrible than a secret lover.
Chapter Three: The Old Woman's Warning
The following morning, Amara sat outside her hut, her ancient face resting between her trembling hands.
An old woman appeared on the path.
Unlike the other villagers, this stranger did not look at Amara with pity.
She looked at her with recognition.
"So," the stranger said, "the moon still returns what the sun steals."
Amara froze.
"Who are you?"
The woman sat beside her.
"Someone who knew your mother."
Amara's heart began to pound.
Her mother had died when she was fifteen. Before her death, she had often warned Amara never to enter the forbidden forest beyond the seventh hill.
Three years earlier, Amara had disobeyed her.
She had gone into that forest searching for a rare flower that could save her dying mother.
Instead, she had found a black pond beneath a gigantic tree.
A voice had risen from the water.
I can give your mother one more night of life.
Desperate, Amara had agreed to whatever price the voice demanded.
Her mother survived until dawn.
But when the sun rose, Amara's youth disappeared.
The voice had laughed from inside the pond.
You borrowed a night from death. Now you shall pay for every morning you have left.
The old stranger listened to Amara's story and shook her head.
"You made a bargain with the Keeper of the Dawn."
"Can the curse be broken?" Amara begged.
"Yes. But there is a price."
"What price?"
"Before the next full moon, someone must willingly give up the years they have left to live so that yours may be returned."
Amara stared at her.
"You mean someone must die for me?"
The old woman rose slowly.
"Love is the only thing that can break a bargain made with death. But be careful, child. Many people claim they would die for love. Very few understand what those words mean."
Then she walked away.
And Amara was left wondering whether loving Chidi had brought her a chance at salvation—or placed his life in danger.
Chapter Four: The Man Who Followed Her
Chidi had heard everything.
He had followed Amara that morning after spending the entire night wondering why she always disappeared before dawn.
Hidden behind a mango tree, he had heard the story of the black pond, the bargain, and the curse.
When the old stranger left, Chidi stepped forward.
Amara turned.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then she covered her face with her wrinkled hands.
"You saw me," she whispered.
"I heard you."
"Then go."
Chidi did not move.
"Amara—"
"Look at me!" she screamed. "Look at what I have become! This is the face I wear when the sun rises. This is the woman you would have to wake beside every morning. Is this what you want?"
Chidi looked at her for a long time.
Then he knelt in the dust before her.
"I fell in love with the woman who shared roasted corn with me. I fell in love with the woman who cried when she spoke about her mother. I fell in love with the woman who pretended to be strong when she was afraid."
He took her trembling hands.
"Tell me, Amara. Which of those women disappeared when your hair turned white?"
Tears rolled down her wrinkled cheeks.
"None," she whispered.
"Then none of them has disappeared."
For the first time in three years, Amara cried without trying to hide her face.
But Chidi had already made a decision.
That night, he would enter the forbidden forest.
And he would find the Keeper of the Dawn.
Chapter Five: The Bargain Beneath the Moon
The full moon rose like a silver bowl above the seventh hill.
Chidi and Amara entered the forbidden forest together.
The trees leaned over them, their branches twisting like the fingers of dead giants. Somewhere in the distance, a child laughed, though no village lay within miles.
At the centre of the forest, they found the black pond.
Its surface reflected no stars.
Chidi stepped forward.
"Keeper of the Dawn!" he shouted. "Come and speak with me!"
The water began to boil.
A tall figure rose from its depths, wearing a crown of dried leaves. Its face changed constantly—first a beautiful young man, then a newborn baby, then a corpse with hollow eyes.
"Who dares summon me?"
"I have come to pay for Amara's freedom."
The creature smiled.
"And what do you possess that death desires?"
"My remaining years."
Amara screamed.
"No, Chidi!"
The Keeper extended a long finger.
"You understand the bargain? Every year you surrender will be added to her life. If you surrender them all, you will die before the next sunrise."
Chidi swallowed.
He was afraid. His hands shook, and his mouth had gone dry.
But he looked at Amara and remembered the woman who had once told him that she was afraid nobody would ever love her completely.
"I understand," he said.
Amara fell to her knees.
"Please! There must be another way!"
The Keeper laughed.
"There is always another way. But every other way demands something more difficult than death."
"What?" Amara cried.
The creature leaned towards her.
"You must choose between the life you want and the life you already have. You may keep your youth forever, but you must forget the man standing beside you. Or you may return to your natural age and remember every moment of your life—including the years you lost."
The forest fell silent.
Chidi turned to Amara.
"Choose your life," he whispered.
But Amara looked at him and understood something terrible.
She had spent three years wishing to become young again.
She had hated every sunrise, every wrinkle, every trembling hand.
She had believed youth was the only thing that made her worthy of love.
Now, standing beside the man who had loved her even when she looked a hundred years old, she finally understood what the curse had stolen from her.
It had not stolen her beauty.
It had stolen her belief that she could be loved without it.
Amara stood.
"I choose my life," she said. "All of it. The mornings and the nights. The years I lost and the years I have left. I will not purchase youth by forgetting the man who taught me that I was still worth loving."
The Keeper's smile vanished.
For the first time, the creature looked afraid.
"You cannot reject the bargain!"
"I can reject the fear that made me accept it."
Amara stepped into the black water.
And the moon disappeared.
