Adia Kelbara and the Circle of Shamans by Isi Hendrix
Summary of Adia Kelbara and the Circle of Shamans Part One: The Curse of the Swamplands The Swamplands and the “Year of Practicality” The story begins in the Swamplands, a remote and neglected region of the Zarian Empire that most maps dismiss as “not worth discussing”. Twelve-year-old Adia Kelbara is an orphan living with her aunt Ife and uncle Eric, along with her “ugly, dull, and brute” cousin Ericson. Adia’s life is defined by isolation; the village believes she is an ogbanje a child demon born to heap misery on their family and die young out of spite. This suspicion is fueled by her extraordinary, “unnatural” memory she never forgets anything she reads or hears and her historical bouts of sickness. Adia’s favorite relative was her cousin, Eric Jr. (EJ), who was kind and smart but vanished a year prior while they were at a lake. The village missionaries claimed EJ was also an ogbanje who had returned to the realm of the dead, a claim that fueled Adia’s internal rage and guilt, as she felt she had failed to protect him. The inciting incident occurs when Adia receives her placement letter for her “year of practicality,” a mandatory Zarian …
