“I know! So why did you ask?”
Luwan tsk-tsked and slowly shook his head in mock sadness. “Oh, Kirra. So much to learn about negotiating.”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, it’s a setup. All part of the game that kids and their parents play.” He shifted in his hammock so he was lying on his side, facing her. “Step one: I ask them for something impossible. Step two: They say no. Step three: I put up a bit of a fight and pretend that it crushes me.”
Kirra raised one eyebrow. “So far, doesn’t seem like the best plan.”
Luwan smirked. “But all that leads to step four, when I ask them for what I really want, and since they feel so bad about saying no today, it increases the chances they say yes tomorrow.”
“Oh. So what is it you really want?”
“I’ll show you tomorrow. Promise.”
Kirra was curious, but she knew better than to ask him any more about it. Luwan loved his little surprises, and she would just have to find out when he was ready to tell her.
They lay there quietly for a while, listening to the night noises of the forest. A breeze rustled the leaves in a pleasant way; it wasn’t strong enough to sway the hammocks.
Finally, she said, “Did Teeha really build a raft?”
“Yes, and it’s amazing. I swear, that girl could build anything.”
She felt a pang of jealousy. She was glad Luwan had friends—she didn’t expect him to hang around with her at home all day—but sometimes she wished she could do something to make her seem like more than just the poor victim he rescued. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t want to worry you. And besides…you don’t really like to talk about the river, you know? You never go down there.”
“You heard your father. We’re not supposed to.”
“I know, but all the kids do, sometimes. Except you. In fact, I don’t think you have been down there at all since—”
“I know the last time I was at the river, Luwan.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Silence stretched out between them for a bit until Luwan cleared his throat. “Okay. Time to get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be an exciting day.” He flopped over on his side.
Exciting how? Kirra wondered, but Luwan was already softly snoring. She marveled—with more than a little envy—at how untroubled a mind he must have to be able to turn it off that easily.
KIRRA WOKE TO THE SOUND OF BIRDSONG, the soft morning light revealing the forest home around her. Slowly coming back to consciousness in the fresh open air was one of her favorite parts of living here.
Luwan’s hammock hung empty beside her. That was unusual—he liked to sleep late. But as Kirra slowly reached above her head with both hands, working the sleep-sore kinks out of her back, she remembered that he was planning to ask his parents for something today. So he was probably currying favor with them right now by getting an early start on his studies.
The Tree Folk had no community school—no community services of any kind, for that matter—so each family was in charge of teaching its own kids. Maham took this very seriously, drilling them on things like horticulture, the medicinal uses of plants, and food preservation every morning. The afternoons were spent farther afield, hunting and trapping and building and exploring.
But when Kirra finally pulled herself out of the sleep sling and climbed up through the trapdoor, Luwan was all by himself in the hut, slurping leftover stew for breakfast.
“You’re finally up! Good. I was just about to wake you. We have things to do.”
“We do? Where are Loba and Maham?”
“They both went to the swamp. Father needed Mother’s help today. Have you ever tried to carry a crocodile? Those things are heavy.”
“So no studies this morning? Really?”
Luwan shrugged and tried to pull off an innocent expression. “Well…if someone had left a note with parental instructions on it next to a window…I mean, who’s to say that a breeze didn’t come by and, whoosh, snatch that note right off the sill and send it sailing away into the forest, never to be seen again? Things like that happen all the time. The world is a cruel and windy place.”
Kirra rolled her eyes. “You’re going to get us in trouble.”
Luwan waved away her concerns. “Nah. They’ll be so tired when they get back that they will have forgotten all about it.” He grabbed a long, thin pouch from a hook on the wall and looped it over his shoulders. Kirra could hear something rattling around in there. “Let’s go.”
After shoveling in a few mouthfuls of stew, Kirra followed Luwan out of the hut and through several trees. He was working his way toward the ground, which was a little odd. Luwan usually liked to stay as high up as possible. She could tell he was moving more slowly than normal, certainly slower than when he was with his friends. Luwan was polite about letting Kirra go at her own pace. He knew she was doing the best she could.
When they were down to where only a few layers of branches separated them from the forest floor, he stopped. “This looks perfect,” Luwan said. “I tried to pick a spot where the trees were packed pretty closely together. That should make it easier.” He looked down and took a deep breath. “I hope.”
Kirra looked around, wrinkling her brow. “Aren’t we getting close to the river?” She cocked her head to listen for the telltale sign of the current, even though it would be more sluggish now with the lack of rain. “You’re not trying to trick me into looking at that stupid raft, are you?”
“No! I promise. I just wanted to show you something.”
“Does this have anything to do with what you’re planning to ask your parents today?”
“It does.” He sat down on a thick branch, took the pouch off his back, and set it on his lap. “Check these out.” He pulled out two short, slender poles. They had been rounded into smooth curves at one end and had a loop of leather attached near the base.
“Wait, are those—?”
“Yes! Teeha helped me make them. Aren’t they great?” He proudly held up one in each hand and shook them back and forth triumphantly.
“Okay, so…what are you going to do with them?”
“What do you mean? Isn’t it obvious? I’ve decided what I want to do with my life. I’m going to join a group of Hook Hunters.” He noticed the expression on Kirra’s face. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know, Luwan, it’s just…hook hunting is so risky. It’s hard to imagine Loba being okay with this.” Kirra knew that bringing up his father’s reaction was partly an excuse. She would be worried about Luwan as well.
“That man has been telling me I have to find my purpose ever since I learned to walk. Well, I’ve found it. And he’s just going to have to be okay with it.” Luwan held her gaze, looking a little wounded. “Parents react negatively to everything the first time they hear about it. I expected you to be happy for me, Kirra.”
“I’m sorry,” she said with a sigh. Even though it made her uncomfortable, she had to admit it was the perfect job for Luwan. And if he could get all his energy out during the day on the hunt, maybe he would be a little calmer around the hut in the evenings.
If he made it back in the evening…
She pushed that thought aside. Luwan was going to do whatever Luwan decided to do, and Kirra could either choose to support him or not.
She nodded at the hooks in his hand. “So what’s next? Do you have to practice with those things?” She had no idea what was involved in joining a Hook Hunter group.
“I already have been! Here, watch this.”
Luwan stood and wrapped the leather straps around his wrists. Then he leaped to a neighboring branch, looping the hook on an overhead limb, and pull-stepped his way to another, and another. He started out a little shaky, tentative, but as he traced a wide circle around the spot where Kirra remained sitting, moving from tree to tree to tree, she could tell he was becoming more confident. His speed was nowhere near that of the actual Hook Hun
ters, but it was clear he had potential. Luwan was athletic and a natural daredevil; now he needed to develop fluidity. He made a few more passes around her, gaining speed as he
went.
“Aren’t you supposed to be quieter?” Kirra called to him. “I don’t think Hook Hunters do all that gasping and giggling. Kind of scares away the prey.”
“I can’t help it!” he called back. “This is so much fun!”
He must have heeded her advice, though, because he wiped the grin off his face and became silent and more intent as he continued to hook-jump-pull-lunge his way through the air.
Kirra leaned back and rested against the trunk, settling in for the show. Luwan would probably want to do this all morning. As he zoomed around and around the motion became hypnotic, and Kirra could feel herself being lulled almost to sleep.
That is, until one of Luwan’s hooks either failed to gain purchase or he selected a bad branch. Either way, he lost his balance. Kirra leaned forward and put her hands over her mouth as he crashed through the screen of branches, snapping and cracking them noisily until he ended up in a heap on the forest floor.
At first, Kirra was frozen to the spot. She had never seen Luwan fall before, not once in all the years she had known him. It was scary and unsettling. And was there something else? A memory of another boy falling from a tree… ? She pushed that thought away almost before she knew it had surfaced.
Kirra could hardly breathe as she watched Luwan lying there, silently willing him to move, to get up.
Finally Luwan pushed himself into a sitting position, brushing leaves from his hair. He felt himself all over, head and ribs and legs, and seemed to determine that he was all right. Kirra felt like she could breathe again.
That’s when she heard people calling to each other. Men, perhaps four or five different voices. Deep, gruff tones.
And she realized that she didn’t understand the words.
Luwan tilted his head, listening. He had clearly heard them as well. Kirra, eyes wide, frantically motioned for him to get up and join her in the tree.
He popped to his feet and dashed for the trunk, perhaps limping a bit. When he got there, he scrambled up the tree until he was sitting on the limb next to her. He started to whisper something, but Kirra shook her head fiercely and placed a finger over her lips.
The two watched the forest together, and tromping through the brush came a half-dozen men, burdened by their spoils. One man had a forest buck slung around his neck, its two front hooves clasped in his right hand and the hind hooves in his left. Its throat had been slit to drain the blood and its head lolled to the side, eyes blank. Another man carried a length of rope in each hand, three fat guinea fowl dangling from both. Two other men supported a thick branch between them on their shoulders, the body of a leopard hanging from the middle.
They stopped where Luwan had fallen, pointing at the branches that had dropped to the ground, then looked up at the surrounding trees. Kirra and Luwan stayed very still, trusting their dull-green-and-brown forest camouflage clothing to keep them hidden. They watched as the men spoke to each other in more of those words that Kirra did not understand but at the same time found horribly familiar.
Kirra could hardly think about their words or the forest animals they were holding. She had eyes only for their appearance. The skeletal arms attached to tall and powerful bodies. Leathery gray skin. Each man with a shock of white hair. The clothes made from leather and some kind of hard, shiny material. And the slender, cruel weapons belted to their waists.
The Takers had come to the Tree Folk.
KIRRA REMEMBERED EVERYTHING. All of it. All at once.
The volcano and little Tiko and storytelling contests and all the villages she had visited and her parents her real parents and that horrible camp and fire and smoke and…
Seeing those Takers, standing in the middle of her new home, was the Memory Trap she could not avoid. It grabbed her in a searingly painful grip and shook all the memories out of their carefully stored boxes.
And, oh, dear gods, how was her heart supposed to contain them all? How much more could she take before it burst?
SHE WASN’T TOUCHING THE GROUND. Her body bounced along. At first, she thought she might be floating but then understood that this boy was carrying her. A canopy of branches rushed by overhead.
He stopped at a tree, a particular tree, the same tree as before. Again, he craned his neck to look skyward and called to his parents for help. Just as he had done the first time.
Kirra was sitting on the floor, slumped against the wall for support. She could see the interior of the hut, but it was like she was viewing it at the end of a tunnel. She also couldn’t tell if it was a picture from her memory or if she was really looking at it right now. It seemed like her eyes might be open but it was hard to tell. She couldn’t move her head to look around, or at least she didn’t want to. It felt like too monumental a task to undertake.
She could hear voices. They might have been inside the hut, but they were muffled, so maybe they were outside? Investigating this seemed much too difficult, and it didn’t really matter, anyway.
Loba:…like she’s here but not really here. She’s acting like she did when she first arrived. What was that, four years ago now?
Maham: Oh, the poor thing. What happened?
Loba: She’s never told us what happened before. What makes you think this time will be any different?
Maham: I was talking to Luwan.
Loba: Well, good, because it’s no use talking to her. The first time, it took her weeks to snap out of this. Months, maybe.
Maham: And since then she has become our daughter. She’s a hard worker and a good girl. Kirra has earned her place in this home, and you know it.
Loba: (A pause.) She has. I freely admit that. But what if it takes her weeks to get well again? Who will tend to her this time? Luwan is older now, with responsibilities of his own, and much has to be done before—
Maham: It will take as long as it takes, and we will all tend to her, and that is that. Now, Luwan, tell us what happened. All of it.
Luwan: I already told you. We were just tree-walking near the ground to meet up with some of my friends, and we saw a group of hunters.
Maham: Why would a group of hunters make her react like this?
Luwan: They must have been from someplace far away, because—
Hunters.
The word caused Kirra to jolt upright. The back of her head hit the wall. The tunnel disappeared and the entire hut rushed to fill her field of vision, the light much too bright. And there was the family, huddled together and staring at her.
“Kirra?” Luwan bent down, looked into her eyes. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Hunters, no.” She shook her head fiercely. “Not normal hunters. Takers.”
Maham dropped to one knee and rested a warm hand on Kirra’s shoulder. “It’s okay to be spooked. I understand that seeing people from distant lands can be unsettling.” She rubbed Kirra’s arm reassuringly. “But it’s okay. This happens occasionally. We’re completely hidden up here. All will be well.”
“Yeah,” Luwan said. “I tried to tell you. They’re probably only on this side because the river is so low. After the rainy season comes, they’ll stay on their side and not come back. You’ll see.”
Kirra opened her mouth to protest, but Loba stepped forward and spoke first. “Were you by the river, then? Taking her down there—in defiance of my orders—to jump on your foolish raft?”
“No, Father, I swear. We were just tree-walking, playing around.”
Loba turned his gaze to Kirra. “Is this true?”
“Yes, but—” She shook her head. The raft didn’t matter. Loba was focusing on the wrong thing.
“These hunters—Takers. Will not stay away. Will not stay on their side. They don’t have sides. They think everything is their side.” She rushed on, felt like she couldn’t get the words out fast enough. “When they see what’s here, they will come bac
k. They’ll take everything, until it’s all gone. They’ll take you. Us. Everyone. Everything.”
“Wait.” Loba gave her an intense look. “This is the way you talked when we first met you. Does this… ?” He glanced at Maham and Luwan before turning back to her. He lowered his voice. “Does this have anything to do with before? Before you came here?”
Kirra’s eyes roved their curious faces. These people who had saved her life, cared for her, taken her into their family.
It had been incredibly gracious of them…But what would they have done if they had known the truth then?
What would they do with her if they found out now?
How could she possibly tell them she was responsible for destroying an entire community? That she was the reason everyone she had ever known and loved was…
The answer was easy. She couldn’t tell them. She would never tell anybody.
But what would have happened if the Takers had seen her again this time? Followed her back to this tree?
As Kirra watched their faces, so familiar now, and so kind, she had a vision: This hut, these people, this tree, this entire forest, going up in flames as the black smoke choked her and she realized it was all her fault.
The darkness took her again.
Someone had put her in the hammock.
The next several days—or was it weeks?—passed by in a haze as she lay there. Intense memories rose up, one after the other, so many of them that her mind would black out to prevent a fatal overload. But ultimately that was no help at all, because in the darkness of sleep the dreams would come, visions of what must have taken place in the volcano. And then her body would jolt awake to save her from the horror of the dreams. And so the cycle continued. It was impossible to say which was worse—waking or dreaming—and most of the time she couldn’t figure out which was which.
Interspersed with this unyielding terror were blips of relief. She was barely aware of what was happening, but she tried to hold on to these moments. Luwan bringing her a cup of water and helping her sip. Maham lying in the next hammock and pressing a cool strip of cloth to her forehead. Loba trying to entice her with a freshly grilled strip of crocodile meat. These acts of compassion saved her from being completely sucked into the black storm raging inside her mind.
If We Were Giants Page 11