Captive Spirit

by Liz Fichera

  “It’s not your fault, Aiyana.”

  In a smaller voice, I said, “Why couldn’t they have just taken me and left everyone else alone?”

  Honovi pulled my shoulders back, his eyes widened. Then he shook me, hard. “Don’t ever say that. Don’t even think it.” He pulled me close. “This is not your fault.”

  I choked back a sob.

  He rested his chin on top of my head. He held me tight until my sobs subsided. “How’s your foot?” he said when my breathing grew more even.

  “Better,” I said. It was mostly true.

  “Here,” he said, pulling me back again. “Let me look.”

  I extended my leg and he untied the cord that wrapped the skins around my foot. His fingers gently pressed my ankle as his eyes focused on my face, waiting for my reaction. I bit the inside of my lip and fought back a grimace. I didn’t care to be the reason we delayed our journey home. I couldn’t stand to stay in the World Beyond another sun.

  “Just as I thought,” he said, smirking. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I’ll be ready enough to travel as soon as Sinopa returns.”

  The corners of his mouth turned up into a smile and I couldn’t help smiling back, despite the tears that still clouded my eyes.

  His hand reached for a strand of my hair that fell over my forehead. “Aiyana,” he said, pushing it back behind my ear. His voice trailed off.

  “Yes?” I prodded. There was something behind his eyes and his voice that told me he still carried a secret. “What is it? What do you keep from me now?”

  “No,” he sighed dropped his hand to his lap. “It’s not that.” He sucked back a breath and said, “It’s just…” He let his voice trail off again.

  “What, then?” I started to grow impatient. This wasn’t like Honovi. This wasn’t like us. We could share anything.

  But his eyes squeezed shut like he had to search for the right words.

  And that’s when it hit me: He needed to talk about Alfonso. He needed to talk about killing him. “Is it Alfonso?” I said but that only made Honovi’s eyes widen. The reflection from the fire filled both of his eyes.

  “No,” he blurted but then he stopped himself. “It’s not that. Not at all. Let’s never speak their names again.”

  I shook my head. “What, then?”

  Then he said, “Don’t you remember when we last talked?”

  I nodded. “You mean, before you went back to find Diego?”

  His shoulders dropped forward. “No, not then.” Another heavy impatient sigh.

  I shook my head, confused.

  He inhaled and then said, “After the ceremony. Right before the fire.”

  My neck pulled back. “Please don’t talk about Pakuna. I can’t bare it—”

  Honovi raised his hand, stopping me. His eyes grew large again, pained. “This has nothing to do with Pakuna.” He paused and my throat turned dry, instinctively. “This has everything to do with you. And me.”

  My eyes, like my throat, had turned dry. There were no tears left. Finally, I blinked, just as a pair of long legs leapt onto the ledge, startling us both.

  Honovi stood immediately, standing in front of me, his arms extended and his dagger drawn.

  “Sinopa!” I said from behind Honovi’s shoulder, relieved to see him. Relieved, even, for the interruption. There was something about the new easy closeness with Honovi that felt clumsy and uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Or about him. I didn’t need any more change. Or did I?

  Sinopa jumped backwards, instinctively, when he spotted Honovi’s dagger. Honovi was ready to thrust it into his chest. Sinopa teetered dangerously close to the edge. Another step and he would have fallen onto the treetops below.

  “It’s just me!” Sinopa yelled, throwing up his hands.

  Honovi lowered his dagger and I stepped around him.

  Honovi asked what we both needed to know. “Did you kill Diego?” he said, his voice urgent. “Did you find him?”

  Sinopa’s eyes dropped. “I couldn’t find him.” His tone was disappointed. “Too fast.” His words slurred strangely. But then a smile returned to his face, a tired one, as if he didn’t really know where he was. He wobbled toward the fire just as his eyes rolled backwards.

  “Sinopa…” I said, reaching for him. My eyes traveled to his stomach. The blood on his deerskin was fire red. “What’s on your chest?” A shiny circle of red grew underneath his arm.

  Then Sinopa’s head began to bob. He looked down at his chest and lifted his arm for a better look, his eyes blinking, struggling to focus. Then he looked at me and then Honovi. Without another word, he fell into our arms before he could crash to the ground.

  When we reached for him, my hand felt the spot on his shirt as Honovi draped Sinopa’s arm across his shoulders. He dragged him inside the cave. The spot was wet and coated my palm like muddy water. It wasn’t Jorge’s blood that drenched his shirt. It was Sinopa’s.

  “Oh, no,” I murmured, studying my hand, wrinkling from the smell.

  Sinopa had been injured. And he’d been too crazed with rage to notice.

  ***

  Honovi and I sat huddled next to the fire, Sinopa wedged between us, shivering.

  I wrapped my arm around Sinopa’s shoulder; my other hand pressed against his stomach. Honovi applied the same pressure but from the other side. No matter how hard we pressed, the blood flowed anyway.

  Then a grey sheen began to take over his face. His deerskins and our hands were soaked in so much blood that I wondered if Sinopa had any left.

  And so we held him, helplessly, as he begged us to talk about our village. His eyes struggled to stay open but his lips curled up in a tiny smile as we talked.

  We talked about ball court and beating the Red Ant Clan; we talked about swimming in the river and chasing rabbits and hunting deer. But mostly we talked about Chenoa, even though we knew we shouldn’t. But it was all Sinopa wanted to hear. It was all that mattered.

  So I told him all about the wedding preparations, even though he’d already heard them over and over from Chenoa. But this time I didn’t leave out a single detail. I described the fine sleeping mats Chenoa had woven with Gaho’s cholla needles and the red water jars she’d shaped from river sand. I told him of the animal figurines—quail, deer, and rabbit—that Onawa had carved from rock and wood, just for them, including a special one sewn into the corner of their wedding mat for plenty of sons. That made Sinopa smile.

  When the moon disappeared from the sky, Sinopa tilted his head back and called me Chenoa. His brown eyes had begun to lose the light they always held. They didn’t look at me as much as beyond me, as if he was trying to focus on something over my head. I didn’t correct him either; I didn’t say that I was Aiyana. Instead, I squeezed his hand tighter and he managed a weak smile. That’s because it was as if Chenoa was seated right beside us, listening to our stories, reveling in the detail, sharing in our quiet memories.

  But then Sinopa’s cheeks turned a silvery blue and his breathing grew more ragged. In that moment, I felt my sister’s warmth wrap around us even as Sinopa’s fingers turned cold threaded through mine. I felt her beside me. I was sure of it.

  And when the Sun’s first golden rays peaked through the treetops below us, Sinopa’s body lay between Honovi and me, motionless.

  We watched our friend till the last of our tears sprinkled down upon his peaceful face.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Honovi and I found a tall tree above the cave that had ample shade and a perfect view of the ridge of mountains below us. “A fine spot,” Honovi called it. “Worthy of warrior,” he added, for that’s what he and Sinopa had become.

  We left Sinopa underneath the tree, covered in rich black dirt and as many orange and purple wildflowers from the clearing as my arms could hold.

  “Chenoa would have wanted Sinopa covered with flowers. She would have insisted upon it,” I said and Honovi nodded. It was hard enough leaving him
under a pile of dirt, so far from our village, especially when I half-expected—half-hoped—that he’d simply wake up from what I hoped was a deep sleep. But his eyes never opened.

  “He’s with Chenoa now,” Honovi said as he helped me to spread the soft flower petals.

  “Yes,” I said. “He must be.” I tried to smile because I knew that he was only trying to make us feel better. It seemed impossible.

  We spread the wildflowers over Sinopa’s grave. We did it as much for Sinopa as we did for Chenoa. Then we stood and Honovi took my hand in his. Our hands and fingernails were warm from digging and black from the dirt. We said silent goodbyes to our friend underneath a cloudless sky. I kept a single purple flower inside my belt for Sinopa’s parents.

  “Goodbye, Sinopa. Goodbye, Chenoa,” I said. I knew that once we left Sinopa and his wildflowers, we wouldn’t utter their names aloud again. I squeezed my eyes shut and pictured my sister’s face, smiling and smirking at me, teasing me. I tried to remember the sound of her voice, calm and lilting, and told myself I’d never forget.

  And then with a heavy mixture of loss and relief, Honovi and I began our long journey across the World Beyond and back to our home.

  ***

  The sun followed over us like a relentless shadow.

  We were hungry and tired but too anxious to sleep. Honovi insisted that we reach the bottom of the first mountain, the tallest one, before the sky turned black. I didn’t care what we reached, as long as we reached it together.

  As we trudged downhill, sometimes running in places where the mountain got too steep, we found thickets with blue berries where the sun managed to creep through the trees. We grabbed handfuls and stuffed them in our mouths to silence the growls inside our empty stomachs. Blue juices dribbled down the corners of our mouths but we were too hungry to care.

  As we neared the bottom, my eyelids became as heavy as my legs. And yet they refused to close even though I was fairly certain that I could sleep standing upright if given the chance.

  Honovi felt the same, I was sure, given the dark circles dotting his eyes. But beneath his furrowed brow his eyes never stopped scanning the trees and tall grasses that enveloped us. With his dagger clutched in one hand and bow in the other, he remained as cautious as a bear.

  While he scanned for danger, I pretended that the sun had become brighter, hotter—like the way it warmed our village and fed our fields. How I longed to see trees that weren’t blindingly green and soft dirt that was as red as it was black. I craved heavy air filled with the smell of creosote and mesquite, not thin cold air that burned the inside of my nose.

  “Do you suppose it’s rained at home?” I asked Honovi as I wrapped my arms across my chest to silence my stomach. Fortunately, my injured foot bothered me less and for that I was grateful.

  Honovi didn’t answer.

  I stopped. “Honovi?”

  “Shh,” he said, low and deep like a snake. He crouched lower and tilted his head to one side. Instinctively, I did the same. “Hear that?” he said.

  I turned against the wind. “Hear what?” I whispered. The only thing I heard since we started our journey was the dueling grumbles from inside our stomachs.

  “That,” Honovi said again. His face turned to another ridge of trees and I followed his gaze. The trees were just as tall and thick as all the others except there was a clearing that peeked beyond it.

  And that’s when I heard it.

  I turned to Honovi and looked up at him. And then I inhaled.

  “Water,” I said, lifting my chin, tasting the faintest whiff of moisture.

  Honovi smiled.

  Energized, we ran to the edge of the forest, thrashing through the tall grasses that grabbed for our knees. We finally broke through the last ridge of trees. We’d made it to the bottom of the mountain and there waiting was a stream that snaked along its side, hidden by a thin line of wispy trees.

  Water splashed down the sound of the mountain in a white narrow line, emptying directly into the stream below.

  “It’s going to be cold,” Honovi said, shaking his head.

  “I don’t care.” I untied the rabbit skins around my feet. “We both need to bathe. Badly.”

  “You first,” Honovi said. “I’ll be up there.” He nodded to a flat red boulder above the waterfall. “Wave when you’re done.”

  “I won’t be too long,” I said, dragging my tongue across my lips. I could already taste the cool water inside my dry mouth. We’d only had a few drops from the pouch since we left Sinopa.

  “Here,” he said. “Fill this.” Honovi untied the empty deerskin pouch around his waist just before I ran barefoot all the way to the water’s edge.

  I shivered as soon as my toes touched the water. Shifting from one foot to the other, I removed my belt, the flower petals, my necklace, and carefully laid them on a flat rock at the water’s edge, along with the deerskin pouch. I pulled a strand of my hair across my nose and frowned. My hair reeked of smoke and dried sweat.

  Even though my teeth chattered, I waded into the clear water, carefully stepping across slippery rocks, until the water covered my shoulders. I tilted my head back, letting the current comb the knots from my hair. My scalp tingled and I closed my eyes as the sun warmed my cheeks.

  The stream was colder than our river at home. It wasn’t as deep but it was filled with fish. My stomach growled unapologetically when I imagined the feast we’d enjoy after our swim. We’d eat as many fish as our bellies could hold.

  I crouched lower in the water, my teeth chattering, looking to the top of the boulder for Honovi. He sat cross-legged, facing the forest, the furthest he’d been from my side since he left to battle my captors. When he caught me watching him, he raised his long arm and waved. His hair blew behind his shoulders with the wind.

  I smiled and waved back and then I removed my dress underneath the water.

  I swam to a calm spot at the bottom of a boulder where the clear water barely moved. Partly shadowed by the rock, the water was warmer and not as deep. That’s where I scrubbed every part of my deerskin and my body. It was my first bath since the morning of the Rain Ceremony. And if the water hadn’t been so cold, I could have swum until the sun disappeared from the sky.

  When I finished, I waded back to the edge, filled the deerskin pouch and called for Honovi.

  “Your turn!” I said but he had already scaled down the jagged boulder, leaping like a bobcat. He’d removed his deerskin, and his skin glistened in the sun. For a moment, my chest tightened and I couldn’t look away. Honovi had changed since the last harvest. His chest had become broader; his arms, thicker and more muscled. Why hadn’t I noticed?

  While I lay on a flat rock in the sun, Honovi dove into the water, yelping from the cold. His voice echoed all around us and for a moment it felt like we were back at home, swimming in our river, plotting ways to tease each other. I smiled to myself, studying him. Watching him dive and surface in the water like a fish. In a way, it was as if I was looking at Honovi for the first time.

  “Baby!” I teased him as he continued to yelp from the cold. After wringing the water from my hair and deerskins, I lay flat on the warm rock, content, and fell fast asleep, dreaming of the desert and Gaho’s corn dumplings roasting in the courtyard.

  When I awoke, the sun had moved below the trees, streaking the sky with thick lines of purple and orange. My head lifted abruptly from the cold rock. I’d forgotten where I was.

  “S’okay, Aiyana,” Honovi said beside me. His hand pressed against my shoulder. His voice was quiet and low. “It’s only me.”

  Still, I narrowed my eyes and studied Honovi, as yet unsure whether I was awake or dreaming. Honovi had been in my dreams as I slept. Whenever I ran, he ran in front of me. When I reached the edge of a forest, he waited for me in the clearing, always with his hand extended, reaching for me. Now his hair and clothes were dry like mine, his hair loose behind his back, the ends gently lifting in the breeze.

  “You make a lot of nois
e when you sleep,” he said. “I never noticed that before.”

  “How could you have noticed? You’ve never seen me sleep,” I said, sitting up. I rubbed the dryness from my eyes.

  “Not true,” he said, arching an eyebrow. He continued to stoke a fire in the sand beside our flat rock. It was filled with driftwood and dried twigs. Next to the fire sat two round silver fish, sliced open and ready to be cooked.

  My mouth watered, imaging the sweet meat. I inhaled deeply. “When, then?” I said, still curious.

  He sniffed. “One time I watched you sleeping inside your house. I happened to be walking by your window when I saw you.”

  I chuckled. “Happened to be walking by?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Good thing Eyota didn’t catch you.” I laughed, but Honovi’s face turned serious.

  “You’re beautiful when you sleep,” he said, surprising me.

  Beautiful?

  My eyes widened and then lowered. “Stop it, Honovi,” I said. “You’re just saying that.”

  He sighed. “I’m not just saying anything, Aiyana.” He lifted my chin with his hand. “I don’t just say things. You know that. I’m telling you the truth.” His voice got louder. “I’ve been trying to tell you this for many moons but you don’t give me a chance.”

  My eyes lowered, confused. “But I always listen to you. Mostly.”

  “You must listen harder.” Honovi dropped his hand from my chin and reached instead for my hand. My hand trembled inside his. What was happening?

  “Pakuna doesn’t love you, Aiyana. I do,” he said. “I’ve always loved you.”

  Pakuna. Pakuna. How can he talk about Pakuna? “But I don’t love Pakuna. I never have.”

  Honovi’s expression changed. The tightness in his lips softened.

  “Wait.” My eyes narrowed. “You thought I loved Pakuna? How could you?”

  Honovi’s shoulders shrugged. “You could do worse marrying a tribal leader’s son.”

  Then I shook my head. How could Honovi think that? “I barely know Pakuna. I care nothing about marrying a tribal leader’s son. You, of all people, should know that.” Other than seeing Pakuna at ceremonies and ball court, we barely passed each other in the village. I was still surprised, frankly, that he even knew who I was.