After Olaide's mother dies, her father remarries a woman from the north who brings along her two daughters. Northern women practice FGM and have traditional values about how women should behave. Olaide is used to a culture where women have power and freedom: they can join secret societies, travel alone, and read and write. Her stepmother deems these behaviors witch-like since they are so male in nature. Olaide's father and step-mother have a child who disappears soon after birth. Her father is extremely angry about this. Olaide is told the child was sent away, but she later realizes that the child died from her step-mother's attempt at FGM. Soon after, Olaide's step-mother poisons her father. Without his presence, the stepmother burns Olaide's books and tries to perform FGM on Olaide so she can marry Olaide off to one of her brothers. Each attempt, Olaide is saved by ancestral spirits. The stepmother decides to chain up Olaide and force her to complete hard labor. She tells Olaide's step-sisters to beat her and to withhold sufficient food from her. Finally, the spirits tell Olaide to dance, and force the stepmother to allow Olaide to compete in auditions for an American dance troupe looking for African dancers. Olaide competes and the ancestral spirits enter her body to ensure she will win the competition. She does, and after this everyone in the town begins to see the truth about Olaide's stepmother. Olaide's stepmother and stepsisters are eaten by crocodiles as punishment for their behavior.