THE UCHAWI ODYSSEY
Part One: The White Ghost
EXT. OPEN PLAIN, KENYA — DAY
Doktor Snake stands beneath the enormous sky.
Safari jacket. Panama hat. Shades.
He raises a digital monocular.
Through the lens —
An elderly woman stands alone in the far distance.
Motionless.
Her eyes are closed, but she has already seen him.
She is a mchawi.
Her eyes open.
They lock upon Dok across the plain.
And we —
CUT TO:
Dok drops the monocular.
He falls to his knees, one hand pressed against the earth.
Pain twists his face. Something is moving through him — searching for an entrance.
Across the plain, the mchawi smiles.
MCHAWI
No white ghost gets the better of me.
She turns away.
Then stops.
Her hand moves to her abdomen.
The smile disappears.
A second pain strikes her. Harder.
She stares back across the plain.
MCHAWI
No.
It cannot be.
CUT TO:
Dok is standing again.
Unsteady, but composed.
He retrieves the monocular and brushes the dust from it.
DOK
An alliance may be in order.
Like it or not.
He begins walking towards her.
Each sees the other coming.
Neither moves aside.
INT. STUDY, OLD HOUSE, HERTFORDSHIRE — NIGHT
A library assembled over generations.
Dark wood. Low lamps. Rain against leaded glass.
Phenix stands before one of the shelves.
Cream blouse. Dark-red trousers. Around her neck, an ornate necklace whose geometry belongs to somewhere older than this house.
Kenyan by birth, she has lived between America and England since 2010.
She removes a heavy volume.
THE ARS NOTORIA.
As she opens it, something falls from between the pages.
Not paper.
A strip of cured hide, covered in unfamiliar marks.
Phenix studies them.
Then looks towards the dark window.
PHENIX
He’s found her.
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