The Secret of the Purple Lake by Yaba Badoe

Author:Yaba Badoe [Yaba Badoe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781911115328
Publisher: CASSAVA REPUBLIC PRESS
Published: 2017-08-21T16:00:00+00:00

They travelled across the choppy waters of the Bay of Biscay, around the coast of Africa, to the emerald land of Siam where the people live by an inner grace directed by the sea and stars. There, they discovered Ajuba floating on warm water, her face turned up to the sun.

Up till that moment, Leo, having only been a walrus for a short time, had never seen a mermaid. He was startled by what he saw. Ajuba was almost as tall as Whale. Her skin shone like polished black coral and her long fish’s tail, which could move with the strength of a herd of sea lions, swished seductively in the turquoise water.

The fisherman’s daughter gave the walrus Prince a lazy smile of welcome and, as she did so, Leo sensed that if anyone could help him find his voice again then Ajuba was that person.

‘Well,’ she said, when she’d listened to Leo’s story, ‘I think the first thing we must do is investigate your talent for singing. When you walked on land, what did people say your voice was like?’

Leo paused to think. Eventually, he said: ‘At times they used to say that I sang like a nightingale. I’ve also heard it said that my voice is like a tinkling silver bell. But my mother claims that when I sing she is enchanted, overcome with the magical splendour of the Northern Lights.’

‘Anything else?’ Ajuba probed, sensitive to the wobble in Leo’s voice when he mentioned his mother.

The walrus Prince snuffled. ‘Sometimes,’ he sighed, ‘when I was really inspired, people used to say that it was as if I was singing to Freya – the goddess of love. They said I used to sing to her with the voice of a bird born in paradise,’

‘A bird of paradise,’ Ajuba murmured, scratching her scalp to help her think. ‘I’m not sure about this, but it’s worth a try …’

Without further ado she dived underwater, cutting through currents to the boats of the sea gypsies. The gypsy children hailed her, calling to their parents to come and look at the black goddess. Soon the decks were crowded with people throwing paper flowers at Ajuba. There were old men and women, naked brown children, men wrapped in sarongs, and sun-kissed women suckling their babies.

Ajuba silenced them with a wave of her hand. ‘I want you to do something for me,’ she asked, as a hush descended over the honey-brown people. ‘Will you fetch me the feathers of birds of paradise? Twenty-one glorious feathers; one for every year the walrus Prince has lived.’

Delighted to do the bidding of their ebony goddess, the sea gypsies pulled up anchor and sailed away in their brightly coloured boats. A warm wind blew them gently along the coast until they arrived at their destination: a sheltered cove that led to a jungle on the mainland of Siam.

When night fell, a group of gypsies waded to shore guided by the fluorescence of the sea and the light of the stars.

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