The Foragers

by Katherine Nader

  I brushed an arrow past Eli’s chestnut hair. She heard it click into place through the cut notch in a paintbrush.

  “It’s amazing what you can do with a spoon and a rock,” I said, looking over my empty kit. It didn’t take me long to file the spoon they had given me into a sharp metal broadhead. All I needed was a slingshot and paintbrush to make the bow.

  “You can’t!” Eli covered the arrow with her hand.

  “But we have to eat.” I pinched the arrow nock in the slingshot pouch, pulled back, and aimed it again towards the serow.

  “The Kuma Hunters said we can only hunt bears!” Eli stood up. The serow leaped past the white tree, over the bushes and into the green beech trees.

  “No!” I jumped out from our hideout and sprinted after the animal. Bushes rustled, leaves fell and the serow vanished. I turned back to Eli. “See what you’ve done?”

  “But we can only hunt b—”

  “Who cares? We can just say a bear ate it, Dios mío, Eli.” I packed the bow and three arrows into the kit. “How are we going to eat now? That serow could’ve lasted us till the next round.”

  Eli crouched over the arched roots of a dead white tree and tugged on mushrooms from its moist shade.

  “Why don’t we try those? They look like the Shiitake mushrooms Mom used to make.”

  “Are you listening to me?” I slapped the mushrooms from Eli’s hand. “They could be poisonous.”

  “But the serow was eating from—”

  “I don’t care what the serow was eating! I want meat.” I stomped on the mushrooms.

  Eli’s face turned red. She looked down at the petals in her hand and tears quivered in her eyes.

  “Winning is what will guarantee our survival,” I said. “There’s no life for us in Italy, not after the fire that killed our parents. Perdonami.” I patted Eli’s head. I released my foothold on the mushrooms and picked them up for her. “Forget the serow. We’ll find something else to eat.”

  Eli’s wrist brushed against her eyes and her sleeve pulled back to reveal thin streaks of burns. “Okay.” Eli looked back at the white tree behind her. “Why is the tree white, Celio?”

  “Because it’s dead. Now come on, let’s go.” I hauled the straps of the bag over my shoulder and hung a water pouch from my neck.

  Eli approached the fallen white branches of the tree and scattered the blue flower petals across it. “It doesn’t look dead anymore.” Eli stepped backwards. Her eyes never left the life she created.

  My ears picked up the sound of a stream. “Eli, give me the compass…The compass, Eli! If you paid more attention you wouldn’t have lost the map I made.” I snatched Eli’s red bag, dug my hand through it, and felt the coolness of the metal. I pulled back the compass hanging from a chain. Its gold glinted in the light. I turned it to find an inscription on the back.

  “To the finest forager…”

  The needle pointed north. I picked up my pace, unscrewing the cap on my water pouch and running down the hill. Eli caught up behind me. A two meter high waterfall rumbled beside me. A sign towered on top of a rocky ridge.

  Anmon no Taki (Shadow Gate Falls).

  I dropped to my knees, plunged my face into the water and drank as much as I possibly could. I gasped as my head broke the surface. “Phew! Thank god we made it.” I filled the water pouch and tossed it to Eli. She drank it as she sat on the rocks. I unzipped my light rain jacket and dropped it on the wooden chips and autumn leaves of the wet soil.

  “What are you doing?” Eli tied the water pouch to her bag.

  I kicked off my muddy boots. My belt clanked against the ground when I dropped my trousers. I tightened the red band of the kunai around my thigh, a few inches below my drawers. Eli stared at the spider symbol on my blade. It looked just like the one from the storybook.

  “We fought the Kan for them,” mother, with long chestnut hair read from it one night. It had a spider symbol on its cover.

  “And what’s this?” Eli, nine at the time, pulled back her blanket and pointed to a picture of a bald man with a katana in a wheel chair surrounded by parents and their children.

  “The Mori Family.” The woman smiled, tucking Eli back in bed. “They are descendants of the royal samurai clan, remember? The one who fought the assassins to protect Japan’s seventy-seventh Emperor?”

  Eli yawned.

  “But, that’s a story for another time.” The woman closed the story book and kissed Eli’s forehead. “Goodnight, my sweet child.”

  “Mom,” I said, climbing into the bed across from Eli’s. “What if the assassins were to come back?”

  Mom’s concern diminished with a smile. “The Mori owe us their lives. They will be there to protect us.”

  “But, what if—”

  “Celio,” Mom sighed. “It’s your first day of Middle School tomorrow. Shouldn’t you be in your own bed?”

  “I know.” I rolled my eyes. “But, there’s like twenty other bedrooms! Can’t I just sleep in this one? Eli would like that. Besides, if she has any more nightmares, I can be here for her.”

  “All right, Celio.” Mom kissed my forehead. “Just this once.” She kindled the fire in the fireplace and dimmed the lights in our room.

  The burns on my back tingled as I remembered the fire burning Eli’s bedroom. The storybook was gone, along with everything and everyone else we ever cared about. I ran up the rocks behind Eli, clapped my hands above my head and dove into the water.

  “I want to swim!” Eli bent down to unlace her pink boots.

  “It’s too deep. You can’t swim,” I warned her as I swam farther away. “Besides, what will you do if people see you? It’s not like you have another set of clothes.”

  Eli pouted. She brushed the leaves off my jacket, and clasped it tight against her chest. We had used the last of our money to forge Eli’s ID and fly over here.

  “I’ll be back soon. I promise.” I ducked my head under the water, swam towards the falls and climbed on top of a green algae rock. Fish nibbled at the algae, while others wiggled away. I ran my fingers through my long chestnut hair, opened my arms wide to the water shower, tip toed around in a circle and back flipped into the water. Kinko fish sucked at the dead skin on my feet. It tickled.

  “Get away from me!” I splashed them away, kicking and swirling at the water until someone laughed.

  “Who’s there?” I stood up. The water leveled up to my waist. I turned left and right of the falls. A pebble hissed through the air and splashed into the water in front of me. I looked up. A girl with a ponytail leaned her head over the rocks at the top of the falls. She stood over the ridge, staring down at me with green snake eyes. My back burned, my face turned red and I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “It’s very rude to spy on people. Who are you?” I lowered myself back into the water until it reached my neck.

  “Elinka.”

  “What? How do you know that name?”

  The girl’s moon-shaped eyes reflected a red-orange flame. She pointed beyond the falls, the red marks of an hourglass on her wrist. I peered over to the right end of the river and saw my jacket hanging over the rock. “Eli?”

  I looked back up at the ridge. It was deserted. I scrambled out of the water and towards the rock where my jacket lay. Eli’s footprints were near my boots and pants, but our bags were gone. “Eli?!” My voice echoed in the forest. I unstrapped the kunai and dressed myself again. Heading down the side of the river, I stabbed the blade in between the shadow gate rocks, climbed the slope of the hill, grabbed onto roots and branches, and pulled myself up to the top. My vision suddenly spinning, I closed my eyes and continued up the stream.

  I found no traces of the ponytailed girl—not even footprints. Everything remained still until a shadow stirred in the corner of my eye. I aimed my kunai at it. It cut through the air till it hit the trunk of a tree. Leaves fell at the impact. I approached the wriggling, camouflaged viper trapped by my blade, released my weapon from the bark and watched the t
rue yellow and brown-striped colors of the snake return as it suffered a seizure from the wound behind its eyes. White fluid from the glands behind its eyes engulfed the blade. It steamed. The blade turned black.

  A mamushi?! I gasped.

  I shoved the dead snake away with my left hand and loosened the kunai from it. The transparent fluid dried up. Only rat snakes had brown stripes, but could the mamushi camouflage into this color too? Rat snakes in beech forests were non-venomous, but what if this one was?

  I gnawed at the snake’s rough neck and chewed slowly.

  Yuck! I spat it out. This is not meat.

  I wiped my drooling lips with the sleeve of my jacket and continued to march. A scream ushered me into the right direction.

  “So, little girl,” a woman’s voice ricocheted from the wall of orange and grey rocks behind her. A white scarf dangled from her neck and over her black leather jacket. She wore heeled boots and had a camera with a plastic bag around the lens pointed at them. “Where are the badge numbers?”

  A man pulled on Eli’s hair and seized her hands behind her back. A cemented path spread under their feet where the bags were emptied.

  The woman sighed. She turned off her camera.

  “Speak!” The woman slapped Eli’s cheek. Her long red nails carved bloody trails through Eli’s skin.

  “Don’t touch her!” I threw my blade at the woman. It slashed her palm, clattered against the cold stone behind her and clanked onto the cold-footed ground.

  The woman’s head snapped towards me ten feet away. She sucked the blood from the side of her palm and licked her lips.

  “Celio, I didn’t tell them anythi—” Eli shrieked, as the man pulled on her hair tighter.

  “Let my sister go.”

  “Ho ho, Juro.” The woman smirked at the man. “The boy has the courage to tell me what to do…tfeh!” She spat. Her tanned features and semi-circled eyes revealed that she wasn’t a local. “Nani o mite, boya?”

  I cursed under my breath and dug my hand into my jacket pocket.

  “Looks like you’re running out of weapons!” The woman kicked my kunai into the stream.

  “No!” My body quivered.

  “It’s…simple. You give me your badges and I…I I-let the girl go.”

  I crept towards the black-haired woman. She was just like me: scared. Sweat tickled down her forehead. She loosened the scarf and scratched her swelling neck.

  “W-what’s happening to…me…” The woman’s eyes rolled to the back of her head, her legs wobbled and she fainted. I caught her and lowered her to the ground. The man had his arms around Eli, holding the bow I had made.

  “Stay back.” I picked up one of my arrows on the ground and held it tight against the woman’s neck. “The blade was poisoned by a viper’s venom,” I explained. “I don’t know how much time your, uh, friend has.”

  The shocked man staggered. His cheeks whitened. “Ojosama hanashite gure!” The man gestured with his hands repeatedly to explain his language.

  “My sister,” I stated. “Release.” I gestured back.

  “Ojosama.” The man pointed to the girl in my arms. “Tasukete.” He pushed Eli towards me.

  “Eli, it’s okay, just pick up the bag and come here.” I watched Eli’s tears trickle down her face and onto her hands. The strap of a bag slipped twice from her trembling hands. The man continued to point the bow at me. I gestured for both of us to drop our weapons at the same time. “At the count of three, Eli…”

  Eli nodded.

  “Itchi…ni…” the man counted when I raised two of my fingers. “San.”

  “Run!” I backed away from the woman. The man dropped my bow and rushed to her side. I latched the arrow into the bow on the ground and aimed it at the man’s back.

  “Stop!” Eli threw herself in front of my poised bow. She stretched her arms out to block my aim. “He’s more worried about the girl than his own life.”

  I peered over Eli’s shoulder and at the two people on the ground. The girl shivered with cold sweats. Her pupils rolled to the back of her head and the red veins in her white sockets bulged. “I don’t care.” I shoved past Eli. “They could’ve killed you.”

  “But they didn’t!” Eli’s tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Ojosama tasukete!” the man begged.

  “I…I can’t help you.” I shook my head. “I don’t even know what poison or what snake did that. Let’s go, Eli, before he calls attention to more of his men.” I grabbed Eli’s wrist.

  “No!” She snatched her arm away. “There’s no one else; it’s just them.”

  A cold hand pulled on my trousers. “Puh-puleezu.” The man was crawling on his knees, his hands clasped together in prayer.

  “That’s the first English word you’ve said.” I lowered my bow. “We need to make a fire.”

  ***

  Cold water squeezed out of a white sheet over the sickly Ojosama. Eli felt the girl’s forehead with her hand. The man tightened his grasp around Ojosama’s hand and stared into the evening sky every few moments to pray.

  “What is he saying?” Eli toasted the skewered mushrooms over the fire. “He keeps calling her Ojosama. That doesn’t sound like a name. Maybe he’s her bodyguard? Do you think he likes her?”

  “He looks old enough to be her dad.” I took the girl’s camera apart and angled the camera lens towards a pile of wood. After a few moments, the light piercing through it ignited a fire. I lowered an arrow into the flames.

  “Okay, move.” I pushed Eli aside and carried the arrow over to Ojosama’s swollen hand where the blue gash spread open. The dried blood crisped on the edges of the skin. “Hold her still,” I told the man, and applied weight over Ojosama’s arms. I pressed the side of the arrow into the gash.

  Ojosama’s eyes flew open and she screamed. Smoke rose from her wound. The flesh melted together and the dried blood oozed from the heat.

  “She swallowed some of the poison too.” I loosened the scarf around the girl’s neck. “That’s strange.”

  “What?” Eli asked.

  “The rash, it’s gone.”

  I eyed the man watching over the girl and cupped my mouth. “When I was looking for you,” I whispered to Eli, “I saw a mamushi…”

  Eli gasped. “Like the one from the storybook?”

  “Yes, the Kan did a lot of research on them. Either Ojosama is immune, or I killed a rat snake that looked like a mamushi.”

  I wrapped the scarf tightly around Ojosama’s hand. Her face dampened with tears and sweat. I stood up and walked over to the river.

  “Celio doesn’t like to see people cry,” Eli explained.

  “You can let go of her hand now,” I called to the man. “Come over here and help me find my kunai.”

  I untied my boots and rolled up my pants. The water reached my knees at the slope before the waterfall. The low current had slowed down after sunset and settled below the wall of rocks that barricaded the waterfall. I left my rain jacket with Eli, kept my white collared shirt on and hoped to find the blade before the last rays of sun died out. The man jumped into the water and swam downstream.

  “Oi!” The man waved for me to come.

  I squinted through the water to see what he was pointing at. Red fish swam up, their tails wagging behind them. A red band floated through the rocks at the bottom. I clasped my fingers around the band and pulled. A ball of slime came loose in my hand. It was a red slippery fish. I turned to the fire and drooled.

  “Oww…” I pulled my leg away from another red fish that pinched me, bent down into the water and the fish wriggled out of my clasp. It followed a smaller red fish near my leg and swam away. I wondered if they were related, like Eli and I.

  I laughed.

  The man scooted over to me and peered into the water.

  “I think these fish hate me.” I reached for the red band again and pulled. “It’s not coming out. The blade is trapped.”

  The man gestured for me to move. He lowered his hand deep i
nto the water, straightened back up, raised a finger, as though to give him a minute, and swam to the fire. He searched through his kit behind the rocks, brought back a screw and a rock with him and motioned for me to take care of Ojosama. When I arrived at the fire, I turned back. The man hammered at the rocks.

  Eli slept with her head over her bag. She lay flat on her back near Ojosama and held a bitten mushroom in her hand. I nibbled at it and froze. I grabbed some more from the skewer and felt nourished.

  “I guess mushrooms do taste beefy. It’ll do.” I patted Eli’s head. The fire reminded me of home.

  “Run!” a ponytailed girl yelled as the flames burned down our library.

  A pillar had broken loose from the roof and the girl shoved me and Eli out of the way. “Get out of here!” She screamed as the fire engulfed her.

  “W-what about you?” I yelled back. “Our parents?”

  “I’m sorry…” A tear rolled down the side of her face. A man with long black hair wrapped his arm around her neck as they both disappeared into the fire.

  A shiver ran down my back. I wondered if the girl from the fire and the girl from the waterfall were one and the same. I dried myself up, put on my jacket and took Eli’s bag. If the Mori Clan really did abandon us in that fire, at least there was one person who had fought for us. I snuck behind the rocks to search the man and Ojosama’s bags, keeping an eye on the man hammering away at the rocks. I found badge seven next to a yellow note, like the one we had, and flipped it over. It had the number fifteen in its center: Eli’s badge. I rummaged through the man’s bag even further and found no other badges. I slipped everything else in the false bottom of Eli’s bag and returned to the fir, slinging our bags over Eli’s shoulder.

  A hand wrapped around my ankle.

  I turned to Ojosama on the ground.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  I freed my leg. “I didn’t do it for you.” I lifted Eli’s arms, placed them around my neck, and carried her up on my back. The man’s hammering stopped. He paused to look at me and swam towards us. I ran to the bushes.

  “Wait,” Ojosama’s weak voice called after me. “How did you find us?”