Strength

by Angela B. Macala-Guajardo

  “Oh well, what?”

  “Nothing.”

  She’d been following Aerigo’s lead between tightly packed trees for an hour or more. The ground was squishy and the musty air smelled like it was going to rain. The trees were thin, with branches that didn’t sprout until three-quarters of the way up. Barely any light lanced through the canopy, giving the swamp a haunted look and making it impossible to tell time by the sun. The shin-high grass was thick and healthy, and tried to tangle their boots with every step. Gnarled roots poked out frequently, as if trying desperately to trip anyone who dared travel through the swamp, and one finally succeeded in felling Roxie.

  Despite her strength, the root didn’t snap. When she tried to catch herself, the same root caught both feet, propelling her forward. In a final effort to right herself she grabbed at Aerigo’s shoulders, missed, and caught his ankle instead. Since the ground might as well have been covered in grease, Aerigo fell with her, face-first, into the swamp.

  There was a watery squish when they hit the grass and their fronts got soaked with brown water, which felt quite cold. Roxie wiped her mouth on a soaked shoulder, and lifted her hands out of the water in disgust. Aerigo was on his knees, wearing a scowl.

  Streams of brackish water dribbled down his face and bare arms and his scowl made her choke back a laugh. He took a deep breath, shaking his head as he stood and wiped off what he could.

  “I didn’t fall on purpose!” she said defensively as she pushed to her feet.

  “You didn’t have to take me down with you.”

  “I didn’t think you’d fall.”

  Aerigo stared at her, his face a grim mask, then resumed trudging. “Please be more careful from now on.”

  Head bowed, Roxie stretched her stride to step in the same exact spots as Aerigo, and they took no more than a dozen steps when they heard a whisper of laughter nearby. Roxie darted her gaze to all the gaps in the trees but couldn’t pinpoint the sound. The thought of getting ambushed sent her heart racing.

  Aerigo snapped his head to the left.

  Something blurred past them, followed by a gush of air, and this time Roxie heard laughter behind her. She wheeled around and saw a man in strange clothes standing almost face-to-face with her, and she sloshed a step back, holding up her fists.

  “Hello,” the man said to her, as quick as thought. He looked to be in his early twenties, had the lean build of a long-distance runner, and red hair that stood up like flames. Physically he seemed to be an ordinary human, according to Roxie’s increasingly flexible standards, except for his feet. They were much longer than normal and he stood on the balls of his feet, catlike. He also had a line of small, pale feathers running up the side of his legs, ending at the knee with a flare. And his eyes! It was like looking at the sky. They appeared to be blue, white and grey all at the same time, and the colors moved as clouds on a windy day. Weird, she thought, almost saying it aloud.

  “Hi,” Roxie breathed, unable to tear her eyes from his.

  “The name’s Yayu. What would yours be?” He sounded Irish-Canadian.

  “Roxie.”

  “Nice name, but I think I’ll give you a different one later.” He flicked his airy gaze to Aerigo. “I know your friend here,” he said, speaking to Roxie. “I wonder what Aerigo’s here for this time.” Yayu traced a circle once around Roxie with ease, examining her for all she was worth, then smiled contemptuously. “Time for talk later. The three of us best be headin’ off.”

  Aerigo stood with his arms poised at his sides and a faint grin on his face, caked in drying mud. “What took you so long to find us?”

  Yayu cocked his head, narrowing his eyes. A corner of his mouth twitched into the quickest of smiles and he sped off in a blur of cloth, skin and flaming hair.

  Roxie wanted to yell for Yayu to wait, but he left her staring at the empty patch of air. “Great!” she said to Aerigo. “You just insulted the only sign of intelligent life on this planet.”

  She turned to scowl at him, but instead her eyes widened. Aerigo was tightening the strap to his backpack, and before Roxie could say another word, Aerigo sped off after Yayu. She stared in disbelief, then laughed. Lesson number five, or whatever... She tightened the straps to her own pack and started running. “Hey, Aerigo! Wait a sec! I don’t even know where you’re going!” Roxie splashed through the treacherous terrain, dodging trees, getting her toes snagged by the grass, and tripping over roots.

  Roxie was carrying half of the swamp’s water in her boots by the time she found the end of the tree line, which edged an open spongy field of more grass. She slowed to a walk and took in her new surroundings under the evening sky. The air smelled sweet, the grass rose to her knees, and the forest continued off to her side, ending at a cliff, complete with its own waterfall. Ahead lay a river fed by the waterfall and beyond the river rolled open land that blended into the sky. She stopped walking.

  Aerigo and Yayu were nowhere to be seen.

  It should’ve been impossible for anyone to navigate the swamp that fast, leastwise no one as clumsy as she, yet two pairs of tracks in the grass bowed towards the waterfall. That had to be them.

  Before Roxie could stretch into a run, figures blurred by and began circling her, laughing just as Yayu had, except this time girlishly. They slowed enough to be seen, but were still too fast for her to count how many were there. She stopped, trying to follow their movements, but only succeeded in getting a sore neck. It was great to be found, but not to be toyed with like this after being abandoned. She threw her arms out. “Stop!” Someone bowled into her left arm. Roxie let out a yelp, spun around and fell, crushing everything in her pack.

  After absorbing the fact that she was now staring at the sky, she sat up, no worse for wear, then noticed a girl lying on the ground next to her, clutching her sternum.

  Three more ladies drew into a semicircle around Roxie and their injured friend. All of them were female and had the same flaming hair as Yayu, though much longer. They all shared the same eyes, lean frame, and line of feathers on their legs. They also had more feathers on their forearms, and their skin looked scaly where the feathers sprouted. The women wore what looked like spandex shorts with straight-lined patterns on them, shirts resembling sports bras, and a dozen wood and glass bead necklaces apiece.

  One girl said something in a language Roxie didn’t understand, and the girl on the ground moaned and said something in response.

  Roxie rolled to her knees, shrugged off her pack, and knelt closer to the injured person. “Are you okay?”

  The girl gave her a blank stare through tear-filled eyes, then someone said in a halting voice, “We don’t talk non-Scondish.”

  Roxie looked up at the speaker. “Oh.” Now what? She put on a friendly smile and extended a gentle hand, palm up, hoping the girl would understand she wanted to help.

  The girl sat up and wiped the tears from her eyes. She gave Roxie the briefest of nods, took her hand and used it to help herself up. The two exchanged a shy smile, and the girl said one word in a grateful tone. “Koshan.”

  “Huh?”

  Roxie’s new friend pointed to herself. “Koshan.” And then to her. “Eta.” Then back to herself. “Koshan,” she said again, and then pointed and looked at Roxie expectantly.

  “...Eta?”

  “Haz,” the girl said with a grin, while the others giggled and began flitting around.

  “Oh, I get it! You’re trying to teach me ‘thank you’ and ‘you’re welcome.’”

  The four girls gave Roxie blank stares.

  “Never mind.” She picked up her pack and slung it over her shoulders, and scanned the scenery for signs of Aerigo and Yayu, hoping they’d realized they’d left her behind, but it was just her and her four nameless acquaintances. Two girls tried to figure out how to carry the injured girl, but none of them were strong enough. Seeing this as an opportunity to apologize, Roxie hung her backpack in front of her and kneeled down, offering her back.

  Looking over o
ne shoulder, she watched as they spoke to each other, glancing her way every few seconds. She patted her back with both hands, “I’ll carry her,” she said, despite knowing they couldn’t understand her. It just made her feel better to speak. They spoke some more, seemed to reach an agreement, and helped their friend onto Roxie’s back.

  Roxie stood, bent slightly forward to keep her balance, and it felt like she was holding up someone who weighed no more than a stuffed animal, and the other three girls began leading her towards the waterfall.

  These strange people’s muscles had to be built solely for speed. Roxie had a hard time keeping up—not because of the featherweight she carried and the lack of use of her arms, but because they were so damn fast. It was like trying to keep up with a plane.

  “Hemet contwa!” One of the women shouted from afar, having paused to face Roxie. She shouted the same words again, and the other two joined in like a bunch of chirping birds, then resumed running.

  Roxie slowed to a jog. “What are they trying to tell me?” she said to her living luggage. The girl pointed towards the waterfall, just as the three others vanished behind it. “Okay then.” Roxie ran onwards and was sucking wind by the time she got there. She slowed to a speed-walk. Don’t these people ever run out of energy? She wanted to plop the girl on the ground, along with her backpack, and jump in the water to cool off in the humid evening air. However, she plodded over to the rocky base and stopped, seeing nothing but water, moss and rocks.

  “Tenaha,” the girl said, pointing to the gap between the rocks and the cascade. “Hemet contwa!”

  “Aha.” Roxie strode forward a few steps and stopped again. “Uh, it looks rather dark. Is there some other way we can go?” She turned from the cave.

  “Nyet, nyet!” the girl yelled, nudging Roxie like a horse towards the dark cave. “Tenaha.” It sounded like the girl was urging her onward.

  Roxie faced the cave again. “Fine! But if we die in there, it’s all your fault.” She marched up to the mouth and halted, unable to push herself any farther. It felt like she was looking down the throat of some giant monster. She could feel it breathing on her. Roxie’s eyes began to glow as she forced herself to take her first step into the mouth of the earthen beast.

  The girl started whispering a chant that reverberated off the uneven walls. “Arunas… ferulae… emanon.” After the third repetition, it sounded like a group of ladies were chanting in unison, filling the cave with a sense of peace. Roxie calmed down as she felt her way along a narrow passage lit by just enough glowworms to show the ceiling. Whenever the trail of glowworms split in two or more directions, the native girl would point in a direction and say something, and they continued forward.

  It felt like an eternity in that cave. Roxie smacked her head on a low-hanging stalagmite, tripped over loose rocks that threatened to break an ankle, and got dripped on by cave sweat, and probably glowworm pee. Despite the calming chant in the air, Roxie started feeling grumpy.

  Roxie turn a tight corner and they found themselves under the evening sky again. Final frickin’-lee. Judging by the twilight, they had spent no longer than five minutes in that stupid place. Not only was she caked in dried swamp mud, but smeared with dirt all over her arms, clothes, boots, the front of her backpack, and probably her face. And on top of that, Aerigo still needed finding. This wasn’t how she’d envisioned ending her day.

  The girl pointed straight ahead and spoke urgently. Like an obedient horse, Roxie panted along at a fast jog among the trees and soon found the edge of a forest. There she came to a halt to take in the sight of a large village with a river running alongside it. The loosely packed houses were round and made of a material that looked like a cross between hay and bamboo. The nearest ones were squat, single-story homes, and got taller and broader deeper into the village. The housing looked, from where they stood, like a flight of stairs made out of thatch and bamboo.

  The girl hopped nimbly off Roxie’s back and motioned for her to follow. Roxie humored her, since she had no idea where Aerigo was, and switched her pack from front to back and let her acquaintance lead the way into the bustling village.

  A lot of detail and hard work had been put into the making of each individual home. Intricate weaving patterns, wood carvings, jewelry decorations and hangings, and the precise placement of each stick characterized every home. The community rang with airy voices, the sounds of hammering, and bare feet padding along the grass. Smells of food, flowers and fresh-cut grass wafted everywhere, and the natives never commuted any slower than a jog. Before long, Roxie’s guide stopped and pointed again. Her eyes followed the outstretched finger and saw…

  Yayu and Aerigo.

  They were the only two people sitting in the entire village, and were deep in conversation in the local language. Yayu wore a broad grin and Aerigo a faint smile, but both looked equally content. “Kosh—” Roxie started to say to the girl, but realized she’d started thanking only air. She turned full-circle, but the girl was gone. She shrugged, took hold of her pack and marched towards the two men, her anger growing. She stopped before them with her arms folded and feet planted apart, and put on a glare she hoped would wipe away their smiles. “How dare you leave me behind!”

  The two men looked up at her in bemusement. “Well, it’s about time!” Yayu said.

  “What’re you talking about?” she said angrily. “First—” She unfolded one hand and pointed at Yayu. “—you show up and scare the crap out of me.” She rounded on Aerigo. “And then you just run after him! Leaving me behind in some alien place with no clue as to where to go. So there I am, running around like an insane moron, when these four girls show up. I end up having to carry one of them all the way up here, and the others run so far ahead I can’t keep up. The next thing I know, I’m walking around in this creepy cave that I am never going near again. And then I find you two! Just sitting there and talking like you forgot all about me. And you know what? I need a shower.” That said, she folded her icky arms.

  Yayu started laughing, throwing his elongated feet in the air and clutching his sides. “Well done!” he said, wiping tears from his sky eyes.

  Roxie rolled her own and sighed. “I give up!” She shrugged off her pack and dropped it carelessly to the ground, then plopped onto the grass, leaning back on her hands.

  “I wouldn’t give up just yet,” Aerigo said. “That was only a test.”

  She sighed again and flopped down into a spread-eagle, staring at the sky. “Let me guess: I failed miserably.”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.”

  “Relax,” Aerigo said. “Let me explain.”

  Roxie folded her hands behind her head and crossed her ankles.

  “I wasn’t testing your speed, but rather your ability to sense people. However, I didn’t realize until just now that you might not know you can do that. On the other hand, you proved yet again that you can keep your head on straight in a stressful situation, which is very good. And another thing: you found me.”

  Roxie sat up, still frowning. “Can my reward be a shower?”

  Yayu doubled over with laughter again. “She’s a funny one, isn’t she? I’ll find a good name for you, yet!” He took a revitalizing breath and spoke to Roxie. “If you want a shower that bad, I’ll take the two of you to my home. Both of you do look like you fell face-first in dragon dung.”

  “Dragon dung?” Roxie said. “You have dragons?”

  “Not around here, thankfully.”

  ***

  Yayu’s home was beautiful. Located near the village center, it was connected to a smooth dirt path that skirted the circumference of the inner community. His home stood twice as tall as the outer homes, and twice as wide. The doorway was filled with strands of carved wooden beads, and a dyed cloth draped behind and split down the middle. Inside, the house gave an impression of spacious grandeur. Its ceiling vaulted into a pointed dome, with strong wood beams supporting the thatched roof. At its far end stood a raised
platform that served as a second floor. There were no walls above or below it; just a bunch of arching beams hung with draperies tied back loosely like curtains.

  “This way, please,” Yayu said, leading Roxie to the only walled-off part of his lofty dwelling.

  Yayu pulled the beads and cloth aside for Roxie to reveal a big stone tub filled with water in the middle of the room. A rectangular pit beneath it glowed with a layer of live coals, lighting the bottom of the tub with soft shades of red, orange, and yellow. Along the room’s far edge a narrow tiled channel was built into the floor, providing a constant flow of water. There was a square wood toilet, along with a washstand and a few towels. “Here’s your ‘bathroom,’” Yayu said. “Funny word, I’d say, but I didn’t make the language. Feel free to call this room ‘sawarma.’ The Scondish word brings me more comfort than bathroom.

  “Your drying cloth is over there.” He pointed to the side of the tub. “Along with a cleaning stone. You can wash your clothes in the channel.” Yayu drifted over to the bathtub, tested the water, and cringed. He kneeled by the coals, drew half-circles with both hands, then cupped them together, and blew on them. He spread his hands apart and a fire started.

  Roxie gaped as her host stood and made to walk past her. She stopped him with one hand and spoke in a tone full of wonder, “You just did magic—Crea—er, whatever you call it!”

  Yayu smiled at her. “Ambura magic. You’ll be seeing and doing a lot of it soon.”

  “Really?” she said, hopeful.

  “Yes, my Aigis. You’re here to learn. Now go bathe.” He whisked away so quickly, the beads and cloth barely swayed with his passage.

  Roxie sighed and began to undress. Getting all her dirty clothes off brought relief. She picked up the rock that Yayu had called a cleaning stone and hopped in the tub. The stone fit in the palm of her hand and reminded her of sea glass, which Grandma liked to collect.

  Home. Just the thought of her house and her grandmother gave her heart an awful jolt. It had been barely a week since she’d left home, but it was long enough to miss her only family. She felt her eyes begin to glow.