Mome gave her a gentle smile. “I had a feeling you did.” The old man leaned in and tapped her forehead. “I think that a time when you learned to borrow from neighbors is part of your story.”
Kirra turned her head away.
“Come now.” He nudged her in the ribs. “If you and I start acting neighborly and borrowing from each other, who knows? The practice might catch on with these folks.” Mome gestured at the surrounding forest.
Kirra turned to face him again; that was another reason she had always liked this man, ever since she first arrived. He spoke to her as a fellow outsider. Like her, Mome hadn’t been born into the Tree Folk, so the two of them shared an unlikely bond.
“Hmm…how far away is your new house?”
Mome pointed directly overhead. “We’re practically there. This”—he kicked at the fallen net—“is my last line of defense against all things leopardy.”
He reached up and disappeared into the leaves above. Kirra sighed and followed. She saw his “house” immediately, though it was a pretty bare-bones operation: thatched roof woven among the branches to keep the rainfall away, a single hammock, and a few shelves harboring Mome’s meager accumulation of possessions.
Soon Kirra was sitting in the guest chair: a bunch of thick, soft moss that had been stuffed into the V created by two branches emerging from the trunk at the same spot. She was able to lie back and relax a bit, holding a wooden cup of the honey juice that Mome had whipped up. It was delicious.
“Okay, this is pretty cozy,” she admitted. “But why do you change houses so often, Mome?”
Sipping from his own cup, the older man tilted his head and gave her question some thought for a few moments. He always did that. Most adults answered right away, even if they weren’t completely sure about what they were saying. It was like they just wanted to get the conversation over with as quickly as possible. Mome taking time to weigh her words was proof that he took them seriously.
“Well…I suppose it’s because if you work really hard to build a perfect house, and you spend all your time filling it with this and that…it becomes easy to confuse what truly belongs there with what doesn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
He turned back, fixing her with his soft gaze. “It’s the people in a house that matter, not the house or the possessions. Never the things.”
Kirra nodded. Sometimes when he said something, it hit her in the core of her being and sounded right without her having to think about it.
Mome glanced away, looking absently at the surrounding trees. His face fell a bit as he stared at nothing in particular, as if dismayed by a distant memory. When he spoke again, his voice was much quieter. “And also because you can never be sure when you might have to leave your home quickly. Not being too attached makes that easier to do.”
Kirra flinched as if he had reared back to strike her.
The older man noticed the reaction. He gently placed a hand on her arm. “Sometimes when I say things to you, I can see storm clouds roll across your eyes.” He patted her for a while, letting Kirra gather herself. Finally, Mome said, “Will you at last tell me what happened to you? Share part of your story with me—where you came from, perhaps? I may be able to help you, Kirra.”
She just shook her head. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Everyone has a story.”
“I don’t like stories,” she said quickly.
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.” Mome sighed deeply. “They are what make us different from the animals, you know?”
“What are you talking about?” Kirra knew she had to step carefully. Mome could surround her with Memory Traps before she even knew what was happening. This could end very, very badly.
But still…it had been so long since she’d heard a new story. Or even heard anyone say something good about stories. Salt was not the only thing that the Tree Folk failed to share with one another.
Mome leaned forward from his perch in the hammock and gestured to the forest floor far below. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that the animals are much better suited for life in this hard world than we are. Warm fur coats, sharp teeth, claws that work like a handful of tools, the power to run much faster, or jump higher, or even fly. They should be in charge of everything!”
Kirra might be nervous about where this conversation was headed, but it was always a treat to watch Mome get worked up about something. His eyes shone like they were sparkling in the light of a campfire, and his fingers danced in the air as he gestured to emphasize his points.
“But the beasts do not have stories, and that is our one advantage.” He grinned and waggled his eyebrows at her. “Stories pass on hard-earned knowledge to the next generation, they gather communities together for the telling, and they show us what life is like in other tribes in distant lands, even make us feel what those people might be feeling. It’s like magic for your mind!” Mome clapped as if his body needed an outlet for all of this joy.
Kirra couldn’t help but smile a little at his enthusiasm, but she kept it hidden by training her face downward, pretending to study the ground below.
Mome leaned even closer, trying to establish eye contact with her. “And perhaps most importantly, they can teach us about ourselves.”
Kirra allowed her mind to flash backward, only for a moment. She saw a man, a woman, and a small boy sitting beside her around a campfire. The man—faceless, like the others—was telling a silly story and the rest of them were cracking up, throwing their heads back with laughter and clutching one another. The woman turned in her direction and—
No. Kirra shut that memory down hard.
Finally, she shrugged and looked back at Mome. Her voice was very quiet. “And sometimes stories are just for fun.”
“Exactly!” Mome broke into a giggle that made him sound like a much younger man. “That is indeed the truth, and isn’t it wonderful? The leopard may have the speed and the strength and the teeth and the claws, but when does he ever have a little fun?” Mome shook his head, still letting loose unself-consciously with his childlike snickering. “Do you know any just-for-fun stories, meerkat?”
She slurped the last of her drink and handed the empty cup to Mome. “I think I should be getting back home now.”
Mome grabbed the cup, and before Kirra could haul herself out of the comfy seat, he refilled it. “Okay, the past is out. Stories are out. I understand.” He wafted the drink under her nose. It smelled so good, she found herself accepting it. “Let us talk about the present, then,” Mome went on. “How are you getting along with your Tree Family these days?”
Kirra leaned back and sighed. This was also difficult to speak about, but it was definitely preferable to trying to describe anything that might have taken place Before.
“Things are…Oh, they’re the same, I suppose.” She shook her head. “Luwan is as crazy as ever.”
Mome grinned. “I’m glad you two have each other. I have not seen him buzzing around here recently, so please tell him I said hello.”
“Catch him in one of your leopard traps and tell him yourself. He’s the one who deserves that kind of treatment, not me.”
“I might just do that.” Mome took a deep breath, and his grin faltered a bit. “And Luwan’s parents? Any developments there?”
Kirra shrugged. “Not really. Loba concentrates on the hunt while Maham does the fishing and foraging. They are a good team. I see them at mealtimes and in the evenings, especially if it’s cold and the family is sitting around the fire.”
Mome nodded. “And they are kind to you?”
“Always,” Kirra said quickly. “They have provided everything I need, ever since the first day I got here. Never a harsh word. Not once. I owe them everything.”
“I know, I know.” Mome held up his palms in a placating gesture. “They take very good care of your physical needs. I’m just wondering, young Kirra”—Mome tapped his chest—“are they able to take care of your heart, as well?”
She gav
e him a look. “I don’t need that, Mome. Just because I don’t talk about where I came—”
“Everyone needs heart care, meerkat. It’s a simple fact, and nothing to be ashamed of.”
She stared at him. She had not cried since she’d arrived in this forest, and she did not intend to start now.
“I know that. And they try. Really. It’s just that…we’ve never made a real connection…because, well…”
“You come from somewhere else,” Mome said softly.
It took her several moments to answer. “Yes.”
“And that makes them uneasy.”
Kirra swallowed heavily. “Yes.” She chewed on her lip in thought. “But doesn’t…I mean, doesn’t everyone around here come from somewhere else? Originally?”
“Why do you ask?”
“The families…they look different from each other. And they sound different, too.”
“Indeed. The first Tree Folk did come from many places. It’s a patchwork community of sorts.” Mome sighed and poured them each a bit more of the berry drink. “You have more in common with these people than you think.”
Kirra was silent but made a keep going gesture by twirling her fingers in a circle.
“As you know, communities can come to an end for many reasons. Resources dry up, or a flood displaces a tribe, or sometimes, war breaks out—” Mome saw Kirra wince at that, and so he hurried along. “Whatever the reason, sometimes survivors need to find a new place. That’s what brought all these different people to the forest.”
Mome gestured to his little hideaway. “Since they were running from something unpleasant, they decided to hide up here in the branches. Create a safe haven for themselves. Or at least make it so they feel safe.”
Mome let that soak in for a while. Eventually Kirra looked back up at him. “So that’s why this community…isn’t like one big family? Why people are polite but not, you know, friendly?”
“That’s exactly right. They might share when they need to—in an emergency—but they don’t share what’s truly important. They don’t share themselves. They’re too afraid.”
His words, though spoken gently, crashed against Kirra’s ears. He might have been explaining how this community works, but he could have just as easily been describing how she had felt for the last four years.
Mome paused and tapped her on the forehead again. “Like you, they’re not only afraid of others…They’re also afraid of themselves. They are trying to forget their own stories. And since they’ve been here longer than you—a few generations, perhaps, long enough to see you as an outsider—many of them have succeeded.” He sat back again. “But a community without stories is a sad place,” he went on. “It has no past, and so it has no future.”
Kirra didn’t answer. Sometimes not crying took all her concentration.
Mome looked at her silently with sad but kind eyes. He didn’t say Everything will be okay like most adults did when kids felt terrible. He allowed her to feel what she was feeling, and Kirra was reminded again of why she liked being around him so much.
Finally, the older man spoke. “If you’re not careful, meerkat, you, too, may forget where you came from. You may forget your story entirely, as these people have.”
She sighed heavily. “That’s the plan.”
Mome shook his head. But then he stood and stretched, and lifted Kirra’s pouch from the branch where she had hung it. He found his salt bowl on a rough plank that served as a shelf, dumped the contents inside the pouch, and handed it to Kirra.
“Come with me. Before you return home, I would like to show you something.”
ENCOUNTERING TREE FOLK while traveling through the woods was eerie. Kirra didn’t think she would ever get used to it.
Everyone dressed in forest-friendly earth tones, like Mome, so they blended right in with their surroundings. And while she used to fancy herself as someone who could quietly make her way through the trees, Kirra had quickly learned she was no match for those who’d been born two hundred feet off the ground in a windstorm. These people had grown up being part of the very fabric of the forest, just as much as the birds or the beasts or the rain that dripped from the leaves during the wet season.
But mostly it was the way the Tree Folk acted, she supposed. The way they kept to themselves. Outside the Tree Folk community, when you passed a person on a trail or the road, they acknowledged you somehow. A smile, a wave, or perhaps just a quick nod. Something that conveyed the message Hey there, we’re both people who happen to be out walking near each other today!
But the Tree Folk rarely recognized your presence at all unless you looked at them directly. Several times Kirra had been working her way across a delicate branch, searching for handholds and testing the limb to see if it would carry her weight, blithely assuming she was the only one in this stretch of the forest…and then she would turn to see someone perched, silent and nearly invisible, right next to her on a neighboring branch. It gave her the willies every time. The person was never being weird or menacing or anything—just politely waiting for her to pass so he didn’t interfere with her navigation of the tree—but it was still unnerving.
It was a bit better traversing the forest with Mome, as he was always better at spotting—or perhaps sensing—these fellow travelers, so at least he provided Kirra some warning.
She was walking on a thick branch behind him when he said, “Is this still the best way to get to the clearing by the lake? The one with the rocky ridge at one end where a fisher might sit comfortably and throw out a line?”
Kirra scrunched up her eyebrows. Why would he be asking me? she wondered. She opened her mouth to say she had no idea, then realized that Mome was actually talking to three men who were silently passing them among the branches.
The oldest one, his beard flecked with gray, pointed into the distance. “A fire last week made travel treacherous to the south. Better to loop around this way. The distance may be greater, but you will save time.”
“I appreciate that. Thank you.”
“Yes. Good travels.”
And then all three men slipped away into the heart of the forest without a sound. Kirra thought about how this was typical of all interactions with Tree Folk who were not part of one’s immediate inner circle. There was no animosity at all, no fear that these people might rob you or attack you or otherwise take any advantage from the encounter. But there was no warmth, either, no sense that it mattered to them whether you reached your destination, and certainly no inclination that they might want to join you and chat along the way. The meeting happened by chance, information was exchanged, and then the meeting ended.
But maybe that was starting to change a bit with the younger members of the Tree Folk. After all, Luwan had his little group of friends that he ran around with. And while the more established Hook Hunter groups were made up of only family members, she knew that some of the newer ones held open trials once a year and would take new recruits from anywhere in the community, as long as they had the skill and the nerve.
“Something on your mind?” Mome said, pulling her out of her thoughts about the future of Tree Folk society.
Kirra shook her head. “So…are you taking me on a fishing trip?” she asked.
“What? Oh, no. I just need to find that clearing with the lake. There is something I want to show you. We’re almost there.”
Mome started to descend straight down the tree. Kirra followed and felt the familiar twinges of relief as they got closer to the forest floor. She simply felt safer on the ground.
The clearing was beautiful, and she did remember being here before, with Luwan, daring each other to dive from atop the ridge. Her arrival in the Tree Folk community was mostly lost to her recollection in a hazy mix of confusion and fear and things that she didn’t want to think or talk about at the time. But coming here was one of her first good memories of this place.
The clearing allowed in much more sunlight than the dense forest, so it was one of the brightest spots Kir
ra had seen in this area. And the surrounding trees gave the lake a beautiful emerald tint. The water was warm and felt like silk on bare skin, and if you floated on your back and stayed very still, the fish would start jumping all around you. It had felt like a welcome to her new home when that happened. If the people weren’t overly enthusiastic about her arrival, at least the fish had accepted her as part of the landscape.
This little oasis was also one of the few places where you saw Tree Folk from different families out in the open at the same time. But still, they were separate. Small groups of three or four huddled around the perimeter of the lake, throwing out fishing lines, or wading in the water to cool off, or filling buckets with water to take back home.
There were about two dozen Tree Folk out here now, scattered around the great open space. Kirra watched them, the evening sun fading but still warm on her face, until Mome took her gently by the hand and led her to a jumbled pile of rocks at one end of the clearing. She couldn’t imagine what was out here that he might need to show her.
Kirra gave the older man a look. “I’m not the bait for your next leopard trap, am I?”
Mome chuckled. “No, meerkat. I want to introduce you to something else.”
As they neared the rocks, Mome slowed. Then he dropped to one knee and Kirra did the same. He pointed ahead and whispered to her, “Do you see that? Underneath that ledge of stone there?”
Kirra craned her neck forward and squinted. There was a dark mound a few feet high. “Is it a nest or pod of some kind?”
Mome nodded. “It is. And do you see anything unusual about it?”
Kirra tilted her head this way and that, studying the little knoll. “Not particularly. Looks like a small animal lives in there, or a family of them, maybe? But nothing seems out of the ordinary.”
Mome waved her forward. “Let’s get a bit closer.”
As she got nearer, Kirra saw that the surface of the structure was…moving? Writhing. How was that possible? What kind of a material would do that with no discernible breeze? She took a few steps closer and saw—
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