The Sweet Man Jolly Phonics · Step 3, Unit 5: /ee/ mixed

Adaeze is the king's girl. She lives by a big, deep lake. Adaeze is clever and keen. She can see the green trees and name each one. She can read the sky in the lake's shade. But best by far, Adaeze likes a game. And this spring, a big game is at the gate.

A tall man comes to seek her hand. His voice is soft and sweet. He has a dark coat and a green cloth. When he moves, a soft hiss trails him, like a snake in dry grass. The man says it is just his coat. The king is glad. All are glad but Adaeze. She sees the man like a cat sees a crack in the wall. A thing feels off, but what?

That night Adaeze sits by the lake, her feet in the cool water. Old Mama Nnaji comes from the reeds. She is wise, and she sees much. 'You feel it too,' she says. 'A snake-beast can take a man's face, but not his tracks.' She hands Adaeze a thin white ash disc. 'Set it where he must step, and look at what he leaves. Trust what you see.'

Next morning Adaeze wakes with the sun. She sets the ash disc flat at the way in, smooth side up. It is hard to see on the pale floor. Then Adaeze smiles and meets the man with her kin. The man glides out in his dark coat and green cloth, and that soft hiss trails him. He steps over the ash disc. He does not see it. He smiles his sweet smile. Adaeze looks down, and she goes cold, then steady.

No boot print is in the ash. The ash has long twin lines. It shows a big belly, and a wide tail that drags back. No boot. No coat. Just a thing that creeps low when no one sees. Adaeze has a keen brain. She needs to show the king, the elders, all the town what the man is. If not, it is just her tale, and a sweet man's charm can win.

At the meeting, Adaeze speaks to the man. 'Here by the lake, each man who asks for my hand must show he is at ease with water.' The man holds out his hands. 'With ease.' 'We tip water on the hands at each big meal,' says Adaeze. 'But we tip from the left, and each hand must be flat and still. Flat hands mean a man is true.' Adaeze makes up this rite on the spot, but she speaks so well that three old men nod along.

A small lad brings a pitcher. Adaeze tips a thin stream on the man's left hand, then his other. As the stream hits, a thing shifts. That hand, just for a beat, starts to change. The fingers get thin and join. The skin gets dark marks. Then the man stops it, and the hand is just a hand. But all in the room see it. The room goes still, so still.

'No one saw a thing,' says the man, and his sweet voice is not sweet now. 'Look well, Adaeze. There is not a thing to see. You are a silly girl who reads too much.' 'I read tracks,' says Adaeze. She lifts the ash disc so all can see the twin lines pressed in it. 'And I read this.' She sets it on the floor by his feet. The man looks at it a long beat. Then he stands tall, and keeps on rising.

The dark coat falls away. There stands a huge snake, skin dark as the lake, a body wide as a man's chest. His gaze gleams like yellow lamps. He fills the room, and his tail sweeps the floor with a sound like rain. All the elders leap back. The king grips his seat. Adaeze does not run. 'You are found now,' she says, and her voice does not shake.

The big snake looks at Adaeze a long beat. A beast that is named and seen must speak true. It can not hide now. It can not harm the one who sees it. 'You are more clever than the last three lands,' it says. Its voice is old and low now. 'I will go.' Adaeze agrees. 'You will go. And you will not come back.' 'And if I do?' Adaeze lifts the ash disc. 'Then I will make more.'

The snake slips off into the lake. It hardly stirs the water, and then it fades. The lake goes still. The land is at peace. That night the king sits with Adaeze and holds her hand a long time, and says not a thing, and that says a lot. Old Mama Nnaji, by the reeds, sees it all and gives a slow nod. The disc is her gift, yes. But Adaeze can tell where to set it.

The tale goes far. Other clans come to ask Adaeze. How can she tell? What does she see? Adaeze says the same thing each time. 'Look well. Trust what you see.' She still sits at dusk, feet in the cool water, reading the sky's shade. And at the way in, on the smooth floor, Adaeze keeps a faint ash ring. Not from dread. It is just a habit. A keen brain, like a good trap, is best when it is set to spring.