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gradually drew images from the pockets of night and he saw a boto there—and maybe there.
But of course the Botorang were masters of the night sea and Ravno couldn’t see them—Wawasens could never see them. But Wawasens didn’t know they were there. I know they’re here, their eyes are watching me now, he thought with excitement. I can prove it.
Both Ravno’s hands were planted on the marine sandstone and both his eyes watched, as he switched to the boy in the boto, his own silhouette on the black trees. Was it still a standoff if both people were watching the same person? Everything changes with a slight shift of perspective.
The woman’s arms and oars worked as one to whisk the small craft south. The chert-filled sandstone met the ocean abruptly where the spruce and ash crowded small patches of foxglove, and the boto slipped around the corner. But Ravno maintained the switch. He mocked the coastal cold that crept up his back and neck; the pinch that sent his mind reeling was colder. His fingers still braced the rock and his eyes blended with the boy’s eyes in the boto. The fingers at the top of his spine braced and squeezed and pulled as he watched the sandstone come close to the boto. Through the boy, Ravno glanced back at the oar-woman then up at his hands and thick fingers as they grabbed and pulled at the rock. Up, up his body went and in the trees; the branches seemed to bow to create a path for him.
Ravno stayed on his rock in a yogic sea pose with his eyes closed. The boy from the boto came through the forest as a flea through the fur on a feline—nimble and deft, though small, in the great woods. The boy approached with no sound, effortlessly. Ravno turned to face the boy’s direction and the lightless tree line, though he still watched through the boy’s eyes. Only the boy’s insides moved. His heart pumped blood around his limbs and his lungs pulsed with air. His nostrils flared and his eyes trained forward. Ravno disconnected their sight web and looked at the boy through his own eyes. The boy looked right back. Though the darkness limited visibility, Ravno and the boy saw each other. Many year’s worth of questions filled the ten-paced gap between them. Fear, suspicion, gravity, love and even curiosity suspended to leave only recognition. This basic discovery left them both silent and peaceful. Ravno let the boy’s shape dissolve into the trees.
So the Botorang are out there, Ravno acknowledged. I’ve seen them and they’ve seen me and we’re both here.
Ravno breathed in and out and became aware of the blanket of cold around his body. Even so, he stripped and walked up to his waist in the sea. After a quick dive, he took his clothes to return through the night to his pack.
4/ bhula susthatara
The twins are discovered
Temperance hung and swung on the balance beams while her mat met the Ishi lady in the large central hut. Great furry clouds cruised the high seas of the sky. Miniature people formed never-ending lines through the grass and sand and up the trees and out of sight. Temperance never let the flower of the day far from reach—a marigold, pale orange with yellow edges and white puddles with black spots inside. The black spots in the flower were like eyes that Ra could switch with. They were like stars with an embryo within, like pregnant stars that rested inside the folds of delicate flower skin, so soft to the touch.
Inside the main hut, Helena lay on her back and rolled her head to the Ishi, whose hands rubbed slowly against a rough hemp cloth.
‘What is it Vesta? Is my child healthy and getting ready to come out?’ She caught her breath as she felt a strong jostle and turn from inside her round belly.
‘Both of your unborn children are doing wonderfully, Helena.’
Stars and nebulas explode without a sound, deep in the universe. Snails dry up in the summer heat and cry soundless tears. Similarly, Helena’s heart quietly weakened; her eyes filled like spring pools. The women could hear Temperance hum and patter around in the diffused sunlight. Vesta lay her strong hands on Helena’s naked belly and said, ‘They will both grow up to be strong and capable and full of life. You and Sebastian will give them the best of environments, along with our community.’
Helena couldn’t keep Vesta’s steady gaze. She let her eyes spill the spring pools through her curls to the stage on which she lay. She swallowed and noisily took in air through her wet nostrils.
‘Is… You saw my saudara, Ravno. Is he doing all right?’ Helena asked.
The Ishi deliberated at her side then brought her arms away from the pregnant woman.
‘Ravno is doing all right. In fact, he is healthy and strong and full of life.’
Helena felt uncomfortable in her own smile, though it was genuine. She kept her smile but let the positive emotion drain away behind it. I bear two more, growing quickly within me. They’re getting ready to enter our world no matter what is out here. They are so small and young and full of life….
Vesta went to Temperance outside and Helena mourned in silence. Helena felt no regret, no disappointment, not even fear—just sadness. A helpless flavor of sadness, sticky inside her bones.
A sterile conversation between lovers
Rain fell as dust and filled the spaces between sea rocks and arbutus trees. The spinach darkened where Ravno’s fingers held it against smoked halibut as he placed it in Keba’s mouth. She chewed slowly, her teeth broke the fresh vegetable and mashed it with saliva, and the halibut sheaves busted in fibrous folds. Her teeth and tongue and glands all massaged the food into rich, digestible nourishment. The smoky fish and bitter spinach became her island, for moments. Keba rolled some halibut into a larger leaf and brought it to Ravno to bite in half. She finished the last of it. Her communion shocked him, as he felt considerably untrustworthy. Yet she sat in front of him, each moment between them like learning the beginning steps of a dance.
‘So, how is Jasmin? You’ve been working over there, right?’ Ravno asked, but looked only at the coconut halves that held the spinach and halibut. He waited for her response before he glanced up to meet her fiery eyes.
‘Mhmm, I’ve been there working on the drapes. Most of them have worn-out hemp rings.’ Keba broke their gaze to briefly inspect the black smudges at his hairline below the ocean spray atop his head. The smudges were less black than the kuro verve on his large earlobes. She looked at his black earlobes, black forehead and huge black pupils that supplicated her heart. She added, ‘Jasmin is all right now that Dabi shared with her the real reason why she went to Santulita.’
Ravno had been looking again at the small shreds of spinach that clung helplessly at the smooth coconut bowl’s edge, while he waited for the next step in the dance. But with that comment he found her eyes again. His lips began to form a question but it didn’t come out.
Keba said, ‘Dabi didn’t go to abandon the Bhavata House or to conspire against us with the Eleven. She only met with Yerek and Yerku to help them understand why we are so opposed to batsu omhaals and to begin a process of transformation—or at least that’s how Dabi sees it—into effective ways of managing our numbers.’
‘But, really? It seemed obvious in the letter…,’ Ravno said, sure of what he saw when he had switched with Dabi that morning. But even as he tried to excuse the error, he remembered having been stuck with Dabi’s reading direction, as he had followed her eyes at the bottom of the letter, Dari candras amaiera fasea kami avasini atton. He had been unable to force her eyes back to the top to read the full context.
‘You were wrong about Dabi, Ravno. Obviously you saw something but it made Jasmin and I work against her. It made an unnecessary obstacle in front of us.’ Keba felt empowered as she echoed the points of discussion the women had yesterday, though the words still felt contrived.
‘What do you believe, are you against us?’ Keba said.
Again Ravno’s gut was empty and pulled at his heart. He wanted to react with profound and convincing parlance to show her his worth. But the emptiness prompted his mind river to pour continuously and haphazardly. Somewhere under all the swirling and crashing, the point about Dabi and Jasmin Sanjukta realigning held its ground. That point almost cleared
to the surface of his mind to tell him what to do. But it did not. He was distracted with her eyes and the thick but light rain and the shared meal and the emptiness in his gut and everything else that helped him stubbornly avoid restitution. He sat silently. The dance between them paused awkwardly and the roots of her disappointment spread further through the ground. It became a rancor tree that grew up into the clouds.
Ravno moped. I switched with Dabi and saw what I could see but the timing was off and I misunderstood the point. Useless. He wondered why the peculiarity happened to him in the first place. It felt like a mockery developing inside him to push him off the island. He had already pushed Keba away on the dock, and had forced her further away with Sircy. He couldn’t handle it. He didn’t know what to do.
Keba watched his fingers flicking—forefinger, thumb, and forefinger again. She wondered why he didn’t apologize. She judged him to be like a baby crow thrown down from the nest by the parents. She knew she was like that crow too, in her situation, but at least she kept her composure.
After Ravno left, Keba was the crow without the composure. The aching moment automatically made her think of her parents. Where were they now? Almost three years ago, Keba and her saudara had gone south from Pangsi and followed the