When attempting to rid herself of magic, seventeen-year-old Liska is captured by the demon warden of the spirit-wood who offers her one year of servitude in exchange for any wish, but she soon discovers the sinister truth at the heart of their deal.

Many African stories are called "Spider stories". This book is about how that came to be. And it tells that long, long ago there were no stories on earth for children to hear. All stories belonged to Nyame, the Sky god. Ananse, the Spider man, wanted to buy some of these stories, so he spun a web up to the sky and went to bargain with the Sky god. The price the Sky god asked was Osebo, the leopard-of-the-terrible-teeth, Mmboro the hornet who-stings-like-fire...