World Whisperer

by Rachel Devenish Ford

  They walked along a road, little more than a path, with red, packed dirt beneath their feet. Trees leaned over them on each side, nearly touching, so that sometimes Jabari had to wait and hold back branches to let the others pass. The three birds flew overhead, stopping to wait in trees, singing as they swooped from branch to branch. Ben's heart rang in response to their singing.

  There were so many trees. Some of them were tall, with white trunks and dark green leaves as big as people. Some trees had dark blue leaves, small and round, the trunks a deep red. There were trees with brilliant purple flowers and trees with white blossoms that gave off a fragrance that trailed after the travelers or beckoned to them around corners. There were fruit trees, and at one point Gavi stopped under a tree and picked five small red fruits. He handed one to each of them. The fruit was round, with tight skin and a pit in the center, tart and sweet on the tongue. It felt like drinking a long drink of water, or like swimming. Ben stood a little straighter. They all did.

  Ben walked with Isika while Ibba ran ahead, pointing at things and and running back to them. She was like a young goat. Ben felt the same way inside. He envied her freedom. He was nearly a man at thirteen years, and he was too old to run and jump and skip. But he walked with long swinging strides. He felt different. He wasn't slipping from shadow to shadow, trying to hide. His bow swung on his back, the satchel Jabari had given him to carry hung at his side, and he looked up, instead of at the ground.

  The sky overhead was a deep, brilliant blue, with flocks of green, chattering birds streaming through the jungle from time to time.

  "It's beautiful," Isika said, and sighed. "I wish there were better words to describe what it is. It's so much more than beautiful." Ben knew what she meant. The surroundings reached deep inside, somehow, like the bird's speech.

  "How are you?" she asked. He looked at her then, walking beside him, and he saw that she carried herself differently. Her strength seemed less like anger and more like grace. She held her head up.

  "I feel more awake than I have in a long time," he answered her. "As though I've been half asleep and I'm only now waking up." He frowned. There was so much more than that, but he had never told her about the torment of oppressive dread he'd lived with in the village, so he didn't know if he could tell her about the way he was sensing things now. It felt like a jungle of music inside him, the world in duplicate, as though he could close his eyes and still see the heart of everything.

  "I know what you mean," Isika said. She sounded surprised. She looked at him. "You don't normally answer when I ask questions like that," she said.

  It was true. For a long time, speaking had seemed as though it was too dangerous, and he often chose not to talk through the voices in his head. No wonder she was surprised. She went on.

  "I feel stronger, taller, happier, younger, and older at once," she said.

  "You look different," he said. Her eyes were clear and dark, more alive. Her whole face was more relaxed and less pinched. The fierce look she always wore had receded, smoothing her forehead, she looked like someone you could approach easily.

  "So do you," she said. They smiled at each other.

  Ben's smile was so unfamiliar that Isika realized that her brother almost never smiled. She felt a sudden flash of grief that made her gasp. It was grief for them, for the small children they had been. They would never get a second chance at being little. And they had lost their sister.

  "Ben?" Isika whispered. "Do you think they have Aria?"

  He frowned and looked at the dirt. "It seems like too much to hope. I can't quite believe that they found everyone."

  Isika agreed. She had thought of her little sister as dead for so long it seemed unbearable to hope that she was alive. They would have to wait and see. Because she was thinking of Aria, the familiar grief washed over her. Sadness felt more real in this land, the same way pleasure and joy seemed to be stronger, and she thought she would crumple under the sadness of loss, but the bird Jabari had called Efir passed overhead, coming so close that her wing brushed Isika's shoulder. Peace wrapped around Isika, entwined with the bird's song. Even after the bird flew off, Isika heard the intriguing song in her head. She decided to ask about the giant birds that Jabari called the Othra. She would find out who and what they were.

  Around the time the sun was getting ready to set, Jabari held a hand up and stopped walking. Isika and Ben stuttered to a stop behind him, and Isika stared at Jabari's shoulders, square and tense. Her clothes were sticking to her. The day was still hot, and she was ready for a little evening coolness. She looked back at the path, at Gavi standing next to Ibba. He was tense as well, and he seemed to be listening to something. Jabari started forward and the others followed, whispering along the path until a house became visible in a little clearing on the right side of the path. There was a short wall around it, half the size of a wall in Isika's village, so that the house could easily be seen behind it. To Isika's eyes, the half wall made the house look unprotected, almost naked.

  "Wait here," Jabari said. "Gavi and I have work to do."

  "Can we help?" Isika asked.

  "You won't be able to help with this," he said.

  The two boys walked ahead until they were beside the house, then put their hands on the wall. Isika took a breath. Touching another person's wall was forbidden. But then she felt a shock that vibrated from her eyes to her toes as the two of them began to pull at the wall. They grasped big chunks of stone, gripping it in their hands. It came away as though it was made of garden dirt. Isika was frozen, horrified. Both Gavi and Jabari broke huge sections of it away until it was open to the ground. She screamed. Beside her, Ibba was crying.

  Jabari looked back at them, a puzzled frown on his face. Isika ran to him. "You cannot!" she cried, breathless. "It's sacred!"

  His face moved into the same angry, hard look he had worn when they spoke of the sending. "It is not sacred here," he said.

  He and Gavi continued breaking large pieces of the wall, walking around the house and tearing every piece away. The others watched in silence. All at once Isika felt stunned and chilled. Too many things had happened in a short time, and she sank to the ground, where she sat, exhausted. All around the house, there was a great cloud of dust from the broken pieces of wall. The birds had flown off somewhere, so Isika couldn't even ask them to explain what was happening. Ben stood beside her, watching, his face set and quiet. Ibba still cried, though now she sounded like she was crying because she was too tired to stop. Isika reached out to squeeze her hand, and Ibba collapsed onto her. Isika adjusted so that Ibba's head was on her lap. She stroked her sister's hair absently, waiting for the wrath of the goddesses to fall on them, looking toward the sky to see if it would come from the open blue. Maybe it would erupt from the ground beneath them. She was momentarily distracted by the color of the sky. She had never seen such a deep blue before. It was so blue it seemed there must be another name for it.

  "Isika!" Ben said suddenly.

  She looked. The dust around the house was clearing. She could see that instead of rubble, there was nothing. The wall had completely disappeared.

  "Where did it go?" Ibba asked, awe in her voice.

  "I don't know," Isika said, shaking her head. Honestly, there were far too many things in the world that she hadn't known about, and it made her angry, but she didn't know who to be angry with.

  Jabari dusted his hands off near the front entrance of the house, and Gavi paused at the doorway to touch the upper mantle with his thumb, before entering.

  "He's intruding on their ground," Isika said dully. She stood and walked to where the wall had been, looking at its absence with a sick feeling in her stomach. She had been taught that the walls were sacred since before she could remember differently. There hadn't been any walls in the desert, but ever since they had come out of the desert to stay with the Workers, they had honored and said the sacred words over the walls every single day. The whole world felt like it had turned on its side, as though so
on they would fall straight out into the brilliant, blue nothingness of the sky. Jabari approached, and as he did, Ben and Ibba moved closer to her, Ibba slipping her hand into Isika's and leaning on her leg, so that the three of them were a unit, facing the strangeness of what the boys had done.

  Gavi came out a few moments later, ahead of a black-skinned woman with a baby on her hip. The woman was crying, but Gavi laid his hand on her forehead and she stopped. She looked at them, standing where the wall had once been. She still had tears on her face.

  "Please come in," she said. "I'll prepare dinner for you."

  Beside Isika, Jabari nodded. "We will come," he said. He turned to Isika and the others. "This part is important," he said, "so don't try to refuse. Gavi has healed her, but in order for her healing to be complete, she needs to offer hospitality. Because the wall hadn't been here long, the poison wasn't too strong and we didn't need a more experienced healer. If the poison had been stronger, she could have gone crazy because we don't have a healer strong enough to heal the deepest wounds." He paused. "We have to leave many walls and come back when a strong healer is available."

  He spoke kindly, as though he was happy to offer some knowledge, like the new fruit Gavi had offered to them only a few hours before, as though there was any way under the four goddess's realms that Isika could understand the words coming out of his mouth. Almost none of what he had said made sense, but she still had a question.

  "Why don't you just travel with an experienced healer, then?"

  His face changed, and his eyes were sad. "We don't have many healers anymore. The gift seems to be disappearing now that we don't have our queen. Gavi is an excellent healer, but he's still just a baby bird, right out of his nest." Gavi was with them again, and he punched Jabari's shoulder lightly.

  Jabari's words had only brought Isika more questions, but there wasn't time for them because they were walking to the woman's front door.

  "We'll sleep here tonight," Jabari said, turning as they walked up the steps. "And continue in the morning. You three look exhausted."

  Isika was surprised again. She didn't feel tired, but when she looked at Ibba, she saw her little sister yawning. Jabari and Gavi, meanwhile, after walking half the day and breaking a sacred wall to the ground, looked the same as they had when they had woken in the morning.

  "But how do you know? How did you know that the wall was small enough for you to break?" It was the only thing she could think to ask, though there were about seventy-six more things she needed to know desperately.

  "I just know. This is my kind of magic. I'm a protector, it's my gift. Gavi has a bit of protection in him as well, though he is mainly gifted with healing."

  Isika stopped and looked at Gavi, who smiled at her and nodded his head. He crinkled his eyes and gestured that she should enter the house.

  They entered the house together to find a clean, well-swept space, which, though small, had a kitchen with bright windows. They sat on mats on the floor and accepted bowls of spicy stew. Isika ate hers so quickly she hardly tasted it, then helped with washing up the dishes. Her last feeling before she fell asleep on her sleeping mat was irritation that Jabari knew so much more than she did. She would force him to explain in the morning.

  CHAPTER 11

  The next day, Isika jumped up as soon as her eyes flew open. Sun streamed through the open doorway and windows of the small cottage. Isika felt incredible. She stretched out her arms and legs, staring at them as though they belonged to someone else. She had so much energy, she thought she could spring out the door and straight into the sky. She looked around the cottage. There was no sign of Jabari or Gavi in the little room, but Ben and Ibba were fast asleep under their blankets. Their host was baking something over the fire, and her baby lay watching Isika from a blanket beside his mother.

  "Good morning," Isika said, crossing the room to stand beside the woman.

  She looked up from the dough she was rolling. "Good morning," she said. "Did you sleep well?"

  "I did," Isika told her. The woman's eyes were brighter than they had been the day before. She hummed a song as she made the bread. The baby cooed from his blanket and Isika held her arms out to him. "Can I hold him?" she asked.

  "Of course," the woman said, smiling at Isika. She looked directly into Isika's eyes, the way Jabari and Gavi did. It still felt strange and exhilarating, all at once.

  Isika brought the baby's little head to her face and breathed in his smell. He reminded her of Kital as a baby, with his nut brown skin and tiny, grasping hands. When she thought of Kital, her heart gave a pang, and once again it was sharp, like a blade. It was as sharp as the energy Isika felt, as strong as the joy she felt at the beauty of the sunny morning. All of her senses were heightened, and all at once her need to see Kital became unbearable. She gave the baby a kiss on his lovely head, then carefully placed him back on the blanket. He watched her with serious eyes as she turned to find the others.

  "Time to go!" she said. Her voice was loud, and Benayeem and Ibba sat up and looked at her sleepily. "Wake up, you two," she said. "We need to get moving."

  Outside, Gavi was packing the kitchen bag with food and Jabari was looking over his arrows, checking each shaft and settling them back in the quiver he usually wore slung over his shoulder.

  "You're finally up," Gavi said, smiling.

  "Well, how long have you two been up?" Isika asked, annoyed.

  "Since the moon was still in the sky," Jabari said. She crossed her arms and frowned at him. He smiled in response, inspecting another arrow carefully before putting it in the quiver.

  "Do you ever use that?" Isika asked, distracted by the soft clink of the arrow settling with the others.

  "When I need to hunt," he said. He nodded toward Gavi. "It's rare when we're seeking, because people feed us, especially if we rid their houses of poison. Our kind host here has given us enough food for two more days."

  "Well," Gavi said. "Maybe one, with the way these three eat."

  Jabari laughed.

  Isika narrowed her eyes. "Are you ready to go?" she asked. "I'm worried about my baby brother. He's probably terrified."

  "Oh, we're ready," Jabari said. "We were waiting for you sleepy heads." He grinned and Gavi laughed as Isika reached out, without thinking, and pushed Jabari, who nearly toppled over and fell off the porch. For a moment she stood frozen, shocked at herself. What an intrusion on his person, and he her elder. But then the sound of Gavi's laughter reached her and she couldn't help joining in when she saw the look on Jabari's face as he regained his balance. Isika was startled by the pleasure that spread through her. She was becoming a new person, someone who was strong, someone who laughed loudly and pushed boys who teased her. One thing was sure; she was never going to be able to return to life as a Worker.

  They left the house with their hands full of biscuits to eat while they walked. The warm biscuits were made of toasted grain, honey, and cinnamon. They smelled glorious and tasted better, melting in Isika's mouth. She was still adjusting to eating so many times a day, but the taste of the food in this land! The idea that food could be plentiful and taste so good was new to her. She could get used to it.

  She was trying to find the courage to demand the answers she wanted from Jabari, but she didn't have to, because he came to her first. He fell into step beside her.

  "I think you and I should walk together today," he said. "I can see you have burning questions for me. They look like they'll shoot out of your skull if you don't ask them soon, and I, for one, don't want any people explosions on this journey."

  Heat rushed into Isika's face. It annoyed her that Jabari could read her like that. But he was right, and this morning not only did she feel as though she could run all day, her thoughts were also ordered in nice rows in her brain. Instead of having a tangle of unknowing in her mind, she knew which questions to ask and in which order. She would be stupid not to take him up on his offer to answer her.

  Behind them, Gavi walked with Benayeem a
nd Ibba on either side of him, three abreast on the wide path. Ibba skipped and waved her arms on every other step, while Ben had a grin on his face from something Gavi had said. Honestly, Isika barely recognized her family. They were far from the overworked, hungry, grief-stricken people they had been two days ago.

  The Othra had rejoined them. The huge birds flew overhead, landing in branches, singing to one another, then launching out of the trees in a storm of leaves and feathers. It seemed they could barely stay still. The leader, the one called Nirral, was the largest of the birds, over half as tall as Isika, and he had the most colors glimmering in his black feathers. The one called Efir was smaller than Nirral, and when the light hit her, she was mainly red and purple, though she still looked black in a direct light. Isika had never heard the third speak. She seemed older somehow, with shades of deep blue glittering from her black feathers as she flew in the sunlight. Of the three, she sang the most, lighting on branches just before the travelers, trilling open notes into the forest.

  "Who are they?" Isika asked, pointing at the birds. It wasn't necessarily the most important of her many questions, but she had to start somewhere and she knew this was the right place.

  "The Othra?" Jabari asked. When she looked up at him, he was staring back at her, his face surprised. "You've never seen them before?"

  Isika had to smile. "Of course not. Did you think we had Othra in the Worker village? You have to understand, I've never seen any of this. Not the plants, not the blue sea we can swim in, not the sacred walls being torn down like paper, nothing…" She felt defensive, suddenly, and scowled. "You're going to have to explain it all."

  Jabari looked thoughtful. "I'm sorry, I see now. It's just that I've grown up with the Othra. I can't remember ever not knowing them. They are ancient and special. They're guardians of a sort, caretakers of all that we are charged to protect and heal. The big one is Nirral. I think he's been around for centuries. His mate is Efir. Efir's mother, Eemia is even older." He frowned, his voice trailing off as he watched Eemia trilling a song from a high branch. "They don't usually spend this much time with us. They often watch from afar, but…"