First to Dance

by Sonya Writes

  Ziyad looked her over for a moment. “Oh!” he said. “You’re the girl Dakarai pulled from the lake.”

  “Dakarai…” she said to herself, thinking about the name and connecting it to that wispy-haired young man whose face disappeared from sight as quickly as it had shown.

  “Well, I’m sure you’ve had plenty of questions to answer today, so I’ll just ask them all later.” He winked and flashed a handsome smile. Then he took off in another direction.

  Eventually they came to the large grove of trees that Ayita saw the day before. “These are our gardens,” Panya said. “You may come here any time and eat what you wish. I take it you’re here to stay, so later I will show you how to dry the food, and you can help store rations for the winter.”

  Here to stay, Ayita thought. I suppose I am. She looked back at the trees they used for homes. There had to be a space center here somewhere, but where? She had a whole planet to search, and no hint of where to start.

  As they walked together through the garden, Panya showed her all the different foods that grew there. Ayita picked one that looked like a striped green ball and started to eat it. It was very sweet and delicious. Several small streams flowed through the garden, keeping it well watered, and Panya explained that as long as everyone who came to eat took a moment also to tend the garden, no one went hungry.

  Ayita listened, but she was distracted. She was looking for Dakarai, but she didn’t see him anywhere, so she asked Panya where he disappeared to after he rescued her. “I’d like to speak to him, to thank him,” she said.

  Panya looked toward the lake and sighed.

  7

  Beyond the lake there was a vast forest of trees, and through the forest was a small path. “Follow the path,” Panya said. “It will take you to the center of the forest where there is a clearing and a smaller lake.” There she was to find a lone table-top tree upon a hill, and that was where Dakarai lived in the summer.

  Ayita studied the lake as she walked along its border. It was a lot smaller than it seemed when she was drowning in it. It was still large, though, and frightening. Ayita easily found the path and followed it into the woods. The stream beside it was clear and shallow, and Ayita stopped for a moment to listen to the steady flow of water. It was a soothing sound. She hesitated before baring her feet and stepping in. The water was cool and crisp, stinging her feet but not as much as it had when she was submerged in the lake. Her heart raced, but she closed her eyes and allowed herself to feel safe in this shallow water before stepping out of the stream to continue her walk beside it.

  The forest was silent save for the sound of the trickling water and her footsteps on the path. For the first time ever, Ayita found this kind of silence to be strange. At home the silence would have felt normal in these surroundings, but on this planet the silence was out of place. It seemed there should be something else making noise in that forest. And then, almost as soon as she had this thought, there came a sound from the direction in which she was walking: a high pitched sound that she would have described as being melodic had she ever before heard a melody. The sound continued, smoothly wavering between high and low pitches, and it instilled in her a need to move her body more elegantly, a need to sway and a desire to leap and twirl as though she just discovered her own life. At that moment, Ayita realized what she was missing every time she tried to dance alone in her bedroom. She was missing this. Dance didn’t work alone; it needed a melody. It needed this sound to move to. It couldn’t move to silence. Were the melody even in her head that would be enough, but before now there had always been the same silence in her head as was in everyone’s at home. Before long, Ayita found herself humming to the tune and even adding her own song beside it.

  The melody itself was a sad one, and she moved accordingly, slowly dancing to the song as she walked and embracing this feeling of freedom that she knew she’d never felt before. She feared if she lost it now she might never feel it again. The sound slowed even more and held there onto one final note as Ayita’s careful pirouette came to its finish, and she looked ahead.

  There before her was a clearing beyond the trees that spread out to a wide open area. Upon a hill to the left of the clearing was a lone table-top tree with a wooden chest beneath it, just like the others. Ayita walked slowly toward the tree, and as she got closer, the sound of rushing water grew louder until it sounded like thunder. Soon she understood why, when she was able to see past the hill to where the stream was flowing from. At the bottom of the hill was another lake, smaller than the first, and plummeting into that was a tall and roaring waterfall.

  That was when she saw him, standing at the top of the fall and looking down. There was no mistaking that face, even from this distance. Ayita smiled and walked closer, about to call his name so he would see her, but he closed his eyes and dove. He disappeared under the water and Ayita became filled with fear. She ran to the edge of the lake, looking intently for any sign of him, but there was none. She leaned forward and shouted his name. “Dakarai!” Her eyes darted back and forth, but the water was dark and she couldn’t see anything. Suddenly, two arms shot up from the water, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her down with them. Ayita’s body flipped forward as she entered the lake headfirst. The two hands let go of her shoulders and she couldn’t tell where they had gone. When she hit the water, it immediately rushed into her mouth and nose. She started to cough, which made everything worse, and the freezing cold stabbed at her as if she’d fallen on knives. She searched with her arms for something she could grasp to pull herself up. When at last she felt a hard bumpy surface with sharp edges, she used all her strength to pull on it until her body moved upward, and at last her head was above the surface. The sharp edges dug into her hands, breaking the skin and causing her to bleed, but she barely noticed the pain amid the panic.

  Ayita knelt on the ground and coughed until she could breathe again. Then she rolled onto her back and took slow deep breaths with her eyes closed. When she opened them, two eyes were staring back.

  “What are you doing here?” He was sitting next to her and leaning toward her face. His clothes were dripping wet just as hers.

  Ayita sat up and stared at him, realizing now that his pulling her into the water was deliberate. “I came to thank you, but I can see now that perhaps you don’t deserve it.”

  “Thank me for what?” Dakarai stood up and started to wring his shirt dry.

  Ayita also stood and took two steps away from him. “For pulling me out of the water,” she said.

  “But I pulled you in the water.” He smiled when he said this.

  “No, I meant yesterday.” Ayita stared at him, hoping to see some sincerity or regret, but she did not see it.

  Finally, he stared back at her and looked deep into her eyes. His gaze was captivating. He was silent while he thought. “Who are you?” he said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Do I know you?”

  “We’ve never met formally, but yesterday, at the other lake….”

  This seemed to trigger something, for his eyes widened and he smiled. “Oh! Did you see the crash? Something came from the sky and went into the lake. I think I was there.”

  Ayita frowned. He is mocking me! “Look, if you think this is funny, then I’ll just go.” She turned and started walking toward the path.

  Dakarai paused a while and watched her leave. He had a look of confusion upon his face. Finally he ran to catch up to her and stood in her way. “Think what is funny?”

  “This…joke of yours! Acting as if you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  He frowned, then held her shoulders so she couldn’t leave. He stared long into her face. “I have seen you before.”

  At this, she began to realize that perhaps he wasn’t joking. There was sincerity in his eyes. It was something trustworthy, unlike anything she’d ever seen in a person. “You aren’t kidding, are you? You really don’t remember?”

  Dakarai shook his head.

  “Yesterday, the cra
sh. That was me.”

  “You?”

  “Yes. You came in the water and saved me. Do you remember that?”

  He let go of her shoulders and his arms dropped down to his sides. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s fuzzy, like a dream.”

  Ayita frowned, noticing something very sad about his eyes that she’d neglected to see before. She held out her hand to shake. “My name is Ayita,” she said. “It is nice to meet you, Dakarai. And thank you, for yesterday.” He took her hand and smiled.

  “I’ll try to remember,” he said. When he let go of her hand they both noticed the scrapes and cuts from her gripping the sharp rocks to climb out of the lake. “You’re hurt.”

  “So I am.” Ayita knelt down by the stream and gently washed off her hands. The cuts were not deep and she knew they would heal soon.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Why did you do it?” She looked up and into his eyes, but Dakarai said nothing. She looked down at her hands in the water, and when she looked up again, Dakarai was gone.

  Ayita’s clothes clung to her skin as she walked back through the forest along the path and around the lake. The sun was still out but not as warming as it was earlier, and the light breeze against her skin created an instant and lasting chill. She came to the gathered cluster of table-top trees, wondering whether she could rightly call it a town, and set out to find Panya. She wanted to inquire about Dakarai and his memory loss. It seemed so strange to her, but Ayita was sure that Panya could explain it.

  Everybody seemed just as busy as before but now with a less serious look over their faces. She expected more people would be running up to her with questions, but all she got were a few odd looks. She couldn’t find Panya, so she decided to ask if anyone knew where she was. She approached a girl who she’d met and seen with Panya earlier that day.

  “Kesi!” she called

  The girl turned and looked at Ayita, then walked closer with squinted eyes. She blinked and stopped squinting, but still staring, and had her head to one side.

  “No, I’m Kesi.”

  “Yes, I know. I was calling you, to get your attention.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Kesi, it’s me.”

  “No, I’m Kesi.”

  Ayita frowned when Kesi’s blank stare continued. “It’s me. Ayita.”

  “Ay…ita?”

  She nodded. “I came here in a spaceship yesterday and crashed into the lake, remember?”

  “Oh.” Kesi, noticing Ayita’s still damp clothes, looked over Ayita’s shoulder, to the lake. “Are you sure it wasn’t today?”

  Ayita rolled her eyes, annoyed. “Yes, I‘m sure. It was yesterday.”

  “You do look familiar,” she said.

  What is going on here? she wondered. “Kesi, do you know where Panya is?”

  “Yeah, I saw her heading toward the garden with Ziyad not too long ago.”

  Ayita briefly wondered how long ago ‘not too long ago’ was. Five minutes? Five weeks? “Okay, thanks,” she said. Ayita took a deep breath and glanced toward the garden, but instead she continued walking forward and keeping an eye out for Panya. She finally found her toward the left sitting on the ground and patching a hole in one of her dresses. Ayita walked over and sat beside her.

  Panya looked up and nodded to her. “Panya,” she said.

  Ayita paused for a moment, then responded, “Ayita.”

  Panya looked at her strangely for about a second, but then her face lit up and she said, “Ayita! How good to see you.”

  Ayita frowned. “Panya, what’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why did you give me that strange look just now?”

  Panya shrugged. “It took me a moment to recognize you. That’s all.”

  “That’s all? How could you forget my face after spending so much time with me today and yesterday?”

  “Hey, I remembered. It just took me a second.” Panya looked at her, annoyed. “You don’t have to get offended over this.”

  “I’m not offended; it just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “So I had to think about it before I recognized you. I don’t see what the problem is.” Panya continued stitching the cloth in her lap. She looked back up. “Why are your clothes wet?”

  “I went to thank Dakarai, but he pulled me into the lake. I nearly drowned again. He didn’t remember me at all. He saved my life yesterday; how could he forget that?”

  Panya shrugged. “He forgets things better than we do.”

  “You say that like it’s a good thing. I don’t understand.”

  Panya looked up at her, concerned. “Talk to Ziyad,” she said. “Maybe he can help you understand.”

  Great, Ayita thought, talk to Ziyad, whom I’ve only spoken with once. As if he’ll remember me any more than Kesi did, or Dakarai. She shook her head and walked away from the town. She stopped at the garden and picked one of the strange-looking pieces of fruit that Panya had shown her. As soon as she bit into it she wondered whether it could be the food that caused their poor memory, and she threw the fruit to the ground. Her stomach growled at her, but she didn’t know what to do. Nothing made sense. She left the garden and walked toward the lone table-top tree by the lake. She sat down under the tree and watched the sunset. Somewhere out there her parents lived without a daughter, and Aira lived without a best friend. They weren’t perfect, but they loved her, they knew her, and they would never forget her.

  “What have I done?” Ayita whispered.

  Ayita awoke to the same melodic sound she heard the day before when she was walking through the forest. It sounded now like it was coming from the lake. Ayita stood and stretched before walking by moonlight in that direction. She took notice of the moon. It was darker than the one she could see from Zozeis, and the light it reflected wasn’t nearly as bright, but it was very beautiful and pleasant to the eyes. As she neared the lake and the music, Ayita felt that same urge as before to dance rather than walk.

  It was the same sad-sounding melody, and, thought Ayita, it was the emotion which made the whole thing so beautiful and captivated her heart. When she got to the lake she noticed right away the stillness on the water. She felt drawn to it, though she wasn’t sure why, and as she stepped closer a small branch cracked beneath her foot. The song abruptly ended, and fear rushed into her mind as she realized how close to the lake she had come. There was movement to her left, and she looked just in time to see a figure come up out of the tall grass by the river and run off into the forest down the path.

  “Wait!” Ayita shouted, and she sprinted after him. She had a difficult time keeping up, but she had an idea that he was headed for the lake by the waterfall. He turned the corner at the end of the path, and by the time she got there he was gone. She slowly approached the lake to see, but there was no sign of him having jumped in. Upon hearing a noise behind her, Ayita quickly stepped away from the lake and looked into the forest. It seemed a lot darker now than before. He jumped down from the branches of a tall tree and stepped out toward her, into the moonlight where she could see his face.

  “Why were you spying on me?” Dakarai asked.

  “I wasn’t!” Ayita took one more careful step away from the water.

  “Then why were you there by the lake? Why did you follow me here?”

  “I heard that sound. It’s beautiful, you know. I had to see where it was coming from.”

  “You mean this?” He pulled out what looked like a stick, but Ayita noticed by viewing more closely that it was hollow and had holes along one side. Dakarai brought the thing to his mouth and blew into it, producing one long and clear note.

  Ayita smiled. “Yes,” she said. “That.” She reached out her hand to touch it. He flinched it away, and hesitated before handing it to her. “What is it?” Ayita asked. She turned it over in her hands and studied it, taking in every detail.

  Dakarai frowned. “I don’t remember what it’s called.”

  “Oh.” She sighed.
She rolled her eyes. “I suppose I should know better than to ask you any questions,” she said.

  Dakarai glared at her and snatched the instrument back. “It is mine. That’s what it is.”

  “Dakarai, I’m sorry.” Ayita took a step closer to him. “I’m just not used to…this.”

  “Used to what?”

  “People forgetting things.”

  “How can you not be?”

  “Because I’m not from here. I’m from another planet. People remember things where I’m from.”

  Dakarai considered this awhile before saying, “So you don’t know me any more than I should know you?”

  Ayita shook her head.

  “But you know my name.”

  “Panya told me.”

  “And you remembered?”

  “I always remember.”

  “Then you are lucky,” he said, walking past her and stopping to kneel beside the lake. He picked up a flat, smooth stone and tossed it to the water. The stone skipped off the surface twice before sinking.

  Ayita walked up and sat beside him, hopeful that nothing would inspire him to push her into the water again. They sat silent a while and when again he spoke, the sound of his voice startled her.

  “You are the girl from the water,” he said. “I wanted to see what it was that came from the sky, and I found a girl.” He turned to look at her. “You can’t swim, can you?”

  Ayita shook her head.

  “Why?”

  “I never had the chance to learn. There aren’t any lakes where I’m from.”

  “No lakes?”

  “None. All our water comes from underground and when it rains.”

  Dakarai fell silent again, studying her face for a long time. Ayita found it a bit uncomfortable, but she didn’t say anything about it. Finally, he said, “You look different when your hair is dry.”

  Ayita let out a short laugh to ease her tension. “Doesn’t everyone?” she asked.

  “No,” Dakarai told her. “Some people look the same no matter what condition they’re in.”