“Who else survived?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long were you at sea?”
“I don’t know.”
I was getting frustrated. She didn’t seem to know much of anything. “How many days? Didn’t you count the days?” It seemed like such a simple question. “Didn’t you see if anyone else survived? Didn’t you see anything?”
“Enough!” I turned around and Herthe was standing in the doorway. “You know you shouldn’t be in here.” She took a few steps toward me.
“I don’t understand why I can’t be in here when Variel is here several times a day.”
“Variel is not a troublemaker.”
“Variel is a sheep.”
“I am not.”
“Variel is obedient. Too bad we can’t say the same for you. Eilim has tried so hard with you and still you want to act like the laws of the universe don’t apply to you.” She walked up to me and grabbed my arm, pulling me upward. “Get up. It is time for you to leave.”
“You’re hurting me,” I squealed as I rose to my feet.
Herthe pulled me to the door.
“I can walk myself.” I yanked my arm away from her before pushing the boar hide flap open and leaving the hut. My heart thundered in my chest as I stepped outside. I’d disobeyed before and though I always said that I didn’t care if I got caught the truth was that the idea of punishment sent a ripple of fear through me. There were a few other souls standing outside of the hut talking, but I swore they all stopped what they were doing to look at me as I walked across the clearing. I knew Herthe and Father would level some type of punishment against me, but didn’t know what. No one had ever been punished on the island before. I could only wait to see what fate might befall me.
Chapter 8
I skipped the evening meal, choosing instead to sit alone in my hut. I’d waited there all afternoon for Herthe or Father to show up to announce my punishment. They never did and as darkness fell I wondered if they ever would. Just when I was thinking that I must have been right in telling Variel that there would be no punishment for my disobedience Father came to my door.
“I’ve brought you some food,” he called.
My stomach growled. “Come in.” I needed to eat and I knew couldn’t avoid Father forever.
I expected his face to be tight with anger as he stepped into my hut. It was not. He looked no different than usual. He handed me a plate of roasted vegetables mixed with bits of boar. “We wanted to make sure you ate,” he said, lowering himself to the floor beside me.
I took the plate eagerly and started eating. The warm golden tubers and dark green leaves were the perfect combination of sweet and bitter and the boar gave the dish a satisfying chewiness. Looking over I saw Father watching me as I shoveled food into my mouth. “Thank you,” I said.
“I know you’re curious about the mortal girl. Everyone here is, but that is no excuse for what you did. When Herthe and I make rules it is for the good of everyone on the island. It is important that you follow them.”
I stopped eating and looked over at him. His face was drawn like he was more disappointed in me than angry. “It’s just that I had a vision and—”
“Enough with the vision, Amara,” he interrupted.
“What are you going to do to me?”
He looked at me for what felt like forever before finally answering. During those moments of silence I could feel the fear rising from my stomach, an acidic dread that chased away my hunger. I lowered my plate and swallowed hard.
“I wanted to banish you to the other side of the island and forbid anyone from having contact with you again.”
“Really?” I said. “Wouldn’t that be a bit too harsh?”
“That’s what Herthe said. She persuaded me to let you get away with a warning for now, but if anything like this happens again you’ll be banished.” His words sounded so final.
“Forever? I didn’t do anything that would harm anyone.”
“Even one incident of disobedience could throw our whole way of life out of balance. I can’t let you get away with that. This hasn’t been the only time. It’s becoming a pattern.”
“It’s not a pattern,” I said. “I won’t do it again.”
“No, you won’t.”
“I was only trying to help.” I wanted to explain myself so badly that I couldn’t resist.
“I know you think what you’re doing is right, but from now on you need to listen to what I tell you. I am the one with stewardship.”
I nodded.
“I think the girl is dangerous.”
Father leaned toward me, his face tense. “The girl is not dangerous. I brought her here.”
“Really? Why?”
“She will be important to us when she grows older. For now we must watch over her.” He stood slowly as if he were ready to leave, but I wasn’t done talking to him.
“How will she be important? How did you bring her here?” My mind was filling up with too many questions to ask.
“That is none of your concern. What you should be concerned about is how you will obey and respect the rules that Herthe and I lay out in the future. You’ve already had your warning.”
I nodded, not knowing whether I was even capable of that kind of blind obedience. I felt as if I were cut from a different cloth than the other souls on the island. I would have to try my best though if I wanted to continue to be a part of the group. Without the group my very life would be torture. I had to teach myself to be quiet and behave. “I will obey,” I said, but even as the words left my mouth I was unsure of how realistic they were. I didn’t want to obey, I only wanted to find out the truth behind what Father had just told me.
It wasn’t long before I saw Twee walking around the island just like she was one of us. Standing, I could tell how small and thin she really was. It’s funny how once someone is vertical you can get a new perspective on them. I expected her to be weak and still recovering, but she ran around the island on willowy legs. In fact the first time I saw her up and about she nearly ran into me as I walked up the path from the beach.
“Excuse me, miss,” she said as if she didn’t remember meeting me just weeks before. Her smile was open mouthed and bright. She did not wait for me to say anything to her before taking off down the path. I wondered if she was escaping. Then I saw Father running after her. He was smiling brightly, more brightly than I’d ever seen him smile before.
He caught my eye as he approached. “We’re racing,” he said. He zipped past me.
“She’s winning,” I called as he passed.
That was the day that things started to change. We’d never had a mortal on the island before nor a child as we came into life as we are. A mortal child sent most everything around us into a spiral of uncertainty. The Elders spoke of their concern constantly. They first expressed their reservations in a council meeting. Sitting at the end of the room in their red robes, the oldest among us spoke up when Father officially announced Twee’s presence. We’d all known she’d been on the island for months now. She’d eaten meals with us. She interrupted conversations to ask questions. She tried to lure us into games; most gave in, covering their eyes while she hid from them or clapping their hands together as she taught them a song. I would sometimes see Variel collecting shells with her at the beach or teaching her how to write with a stick in the dirt.
“That girl doesn’t belong here,” Chatham said to me one day. He sat on a boulder near the edge of our circle of huts stroking his gray beard, his red robe draped casually over his portly form. I quickly looked around to make sure no one was in earshot. “What’s happening here is unacceptable. No good can come of mingling with mortals.”
I took a few steps closer to him so that I could speak in hushed tones. “You are an elder. Can you not do something about her?” I wondered if he knew what Father had told me, that he’d somehow brought her here and that she would be necessary in the future.
“We can vote, but they do no
t have to follow our counsel.”
I was puzzled. I often longed for the authority that being an elder seemed to wield on the island. “But the elders make things happen. I’ve seen it before.”
“We have no real power. This is all a show.” Chatham waved his hand dismissively.
“A show for who?”
“Everyone.”
“But why?”
Chatham slid down from the rock his rotund belly jiggling as he hit the ground. “Father and Herthe don’t even have any real power here.”
“Then who does?” I asked.
He laughed. “Do you really have to ask? You went on the journeying, did you not?”
I nodded.
“Then you already know.” Chatham walked away leaving me to ponder his words.
Mortal children grow like bamboo. The years wrap around them leaving their marks on their bodies. Ten years is like a flash of lightning for us, but for her it was so much longer. Before anyone on the island knew it she was a woman, though her body was still willowy and thin.
She stayed in Herthe’s hut until she became a teenager. Then we built her a hut near Herthe’s that she slept in alone. I’m not sure when she became one of us. It was something that shouldn’t have happened at all, but slowly she blended into our community and seemed to fill in the gaps that we’d never realized were there before.
Father never ceased to be delighted by Twee’s presence. His smile grew wider each day, something that if you had asked me hundreds of years ago I would’ve said was impossible. Even though she was a mortal woman she continued to act like the child she had been when I found her on the beach, hiding behind trees to startle us on the path, interrupting council meetings with questions that weren’t worth answering, making up songs, drawing flowers in the dirt. Her body grew, but her mind did not.
During these years I spoke to her alone many times. I could see why Father smiled so widely when talking with her. Her airy voice delighted the ears and her words were often punctuated by laughter that floated on the air like a colorful feather. When she walked it was as if her feet did not touch the ground. She seemed to glide around the island. Every movement she made was effortless. I wondered if this was how all mortals were. If that were the case, I was eager to meet more.
I soon realized that she was innocent. If danger were to come to us because of her like my vision suggested it would be through no fault of her own. Father was the one who brought her here and perhaps he was the real danger to us.
One day I was walking up the path from the beach when I heard a curious sound in the trees. It was a high-pitched hiccup that was not the call of any animal on the island. When I went to investigate I saw Twee sitting on a log with her hands cupping her face. Her body quivered in time to the odd sound coming from her. I approached her slowly because even though I believed her to be innocent I still felt the need to be cautious around her.
“Twee,” I said, gently. “What are you doing?”
She looked up, uncovering her face, and water flowed from her eyes down her cheeks. Though I’d never seen them before I knew that this liquid coming from Twee’s face was tears. There was a legend that the older souls sometimes told of Father once crying so much that the tears gathered around the island extinguishing the fire that once surrounded it and making the sea. “I miss my family,” she said.
I knew what it meant to miss someone for Santali was everything to me. “I’m sorry.”
“Do you think I’ll ever see them again?” she asked me.
“I don’t know.”
She sniffled and wiped the tears from her eyes with her hand. “Don’t tell anyone you saw me crying.”
“Why would I tell anyone?”
Twee shrugged. “Just don’t, okay?”
“Okay.” I never told a soul, and from that point on I felt like I had a special connection with Twee that not even Father had.
Chapter 9
Once, I built a raft from tree trunks hollowed out by termites. Their empty middles made them easy to carry down to the water’s edge. I lined them up and lashed them together with flexible vines pulled from the canopy. The idea came to me early one morning and by mid-afternoon I’d constructed a raft wide enough for me to lay on and paddle. We were always told that we could not pass the large boulders that jutted out of the water in the distance on our own. They acted as a barrier keeping us in, but I always wondered if that was true. I had not heard of anyone ever trying to pass them on their own. I wanted to try, but I knew they were much too far out to swim to and my swimming skills were mediocre at best. I knew if I paced myself I could paddle to them though.
I laid my flimsy craft in the surf and walked it out to where the water was about waist deep. It was a bright day with gulls swooping overhead. My bare feet kicked up the sand beneath the water making it too murky to see to the bottom. I jumped up on my raft and lay face down on it, my head pointing in the direction I wanted to go. The waves immediately started pushing me back toward the sand, but I would not cooperate with their wishes. I dug my arms in and began to paddle. I paddled quickly at first, my hands splashing about wildly in the salty water. It didn’t take long before I tired. The boulders were much further away than they seemed.
Even though I was tired I kept my pace slow and steady knowing that in time I would make it there, but no matter how much I paddled the rocks didn’t seem to get any closer. The sun started to sink below the horizon and my body was so fatigued that I considered trying to close my eyes and rest on that raft in the waves, but I knew I’d probably roll off as soon as I went to sleep. I looked back at the beach which after hours of paddling was still only about a mile away. It was getting dark and if I didn’t show my face soon they might start wondering what had become of me. Exhausted, I turned my little raft around and started back to shore. I didn’t have to paddle long before the waves picked me up and carried me safely back to dry land.
I never told anyone about my attempted escape from the island. I kept it a secret, but that didn’t mean I didn’t think about it daily.
Some days I walked out in the water to my neck. I didn’t swim even though I could; I kept my feet firmly on the sea floor. When I got out far enough so the ocean swells rose over my chin and the briny water stung my lips, I felt alive. That’s where I did my best thinking. We didn’t go in the water often because Father and Herthe said it was where evil resided, but I knew that it was my only means of escape and that must not have been that evil at all.
One day as I waded into the water I saw Twee, an adult now, standing on the sand in the same place where I’d found her just ten years ago. She was staring out at the sea with a look of longing that I’d never seen before. My wet clothes hung heavily, wrapping around my legs making it difficult to walk once I was on dry land. Even though she wasn’t looking at me—she was standing more to the east than I had been wading—I walked over to her. “Good day,” I said. She didn’t look at me, but continued to look out at the water, the waves breaking in a steady, predictable cadence. “How are you doing?”
Twee nodded. She carried a straight stick in her hand, the thickness of a finger and the length of an arm. As I approached her, she squatted in the sand and began to draw a series of circles.
I stood there for a moment watching. Convinced that she was unwilling to have a conversation with me I started to walk away.
“Eilim says a new age is coming,” she said.
I turned around. “What does that mean?”
She stopped writing and shrugged. “He saw it in a vision.”
I had a vision that told me the same thing years ago. “How will it happen?”
“He didn’t say.” She bit the corner of her bottom lip and looked up at the sky for a few moments. “He asked me to be a vessel of change.” She started drawing circles again.
I moved closer to her to get a better look at what she was drawing, circles and spirals of all different sizes. She drew lines to connect a few.
“Do you know what th
at means?” She looked up at me.
I shook my head.
“He said that in order for the new age to happen there must be a bridge between the mortal world and the immortal world. I’m that bridge.” She stood, dropping her stick to the ground. “He’s discussed it with the elders already. They’ve all decided. I only need to approve.”
“What would you be approving?”
“In the Book of Gods it says that change will come from the womb of a woman. My mother used to read the book to me when I was young and I remember that. Eilim says that I am that woman.” Twee touched her gaunt belly.
“That can’t be.”
She nodded again and looked back to the water. “There is a council meeting later today.”
“I know,” I said, “I’ve been watching the sun.”
She looked at the sky. “Is it soon then?”
“Yes, very soon.”
“You’ll find out then,” she said.
The moon was not yet full and the number of times we’d had a council meeting when the moon was still a sliver in the sky were few. Still we all arrived on time. The elders sat at the far side of the room together, a cluster of authority in red. I found a place near the door resting my back against the wall. The room was full of chatter, everyone wondering why a council meeting had been called so early in the lunar cycle.
Father stood in the middle of the circle and silently looked around making eye contact with a select few of us. He cleared his throat and raised his hand to his heart then looked at Herthe who nodded as if signaling to him that it was okay to start.
“Thank you for coming to this special council meeting,” he said. “I have had a vision of a new age. A new age for both the mortals and for us.”
Murmurs rose in the crowd circulating through the room as we all speculated to one another about what a new age might possibly mean. He let the noise rise and swirl in the space until it naturally began to die down. “A new age of enlightenment that will bring the chance of better lives to all. A new age that will close the divide between the mortal and the immortal world. We will no longer fear capture. They will no longer fear death.” He stopped speaking for a moment and looked around the room. Having spotted who he was looking for he waved for Twee to join him in the middle of the circle. She scanned the crowd for me and when she found me locked her eyes on mine before getting up and standing next to him. He placed a hand on her shoulder. “But in order for this new age to come to pass, in order to help us cross over into another dimension of consciousness, we need a bridge.” He took his hand off of Twee’s shoulder and turned to face her. “Isn’t that right?”
Isle of Gods II: Amara Page 5