by M L Adams
‘Such as?’ Eden pressed, settling down on the ground once more.
‘Momentary lapses of self, sudden rages — like this. You saw what Tami was like just then, and he's the gentlest soul I know.’ Picta sniffed while still trying to appear brave. ‘The winged ones have started circulating a warning to all those who may have been exposed to the red mist, or even those who have had direct contact with the elephants.’
‘But, that's silly!’ Eden scoffed. ‘How is that even possible? And if that were true, if there was some strange mist, or woman, causing havoc amongst us, why hasn't it affected me? I was there. I was covered in her blood.’ Her mind drew her back to the forest floor slick with red. The cooling flesh below her fingers. ‘Oh dear Lord, there was so much blood.’
‘Don't you see?’ Picta pleaded. ‘That is exactly why we decided to ask you to look after him. We need to know that at least one of our young is safe.’
Eden was silent for a moment. She knew the love Picta, and Tamerin held for their children. It was all-encompassing. If it would truly be in Mokoto's interest for her to take care of him, then Eden had to agree. ‘You should know one thing before you ask this of me,’ Eden began, then paused, wondering how much she could say without breaking her and Delilah’s agreement. ‘I'm not planning on going straight home. I have made a promise to someone I care about, and looking after your son won't sway my decision to help them.’
When Picta looked into Eden's eyes, she saw the myriad of emotions that played there. She let out a sigh. ‘He is safer with you. I see you love our son dearly, and he loves you. His eyes have barely left you since we arrived. I know you will make the right decisions by him.’ Picta turned to go after her husband, but stopped at the mouth of the cave. ‘Please be safe, my child. We are counting on you.’
As Eden watched Picta leave, a movement caught the corner of her eye. She looked up in time to see two birds fly past. They were the first birds she’d seen in two days. Their black and white feathers caught the light, sending a kaleidoscope of blues and deep greens radiating from their wings and tail. Maybe, she hoped, they were a sign of better things to come.
Eden remained in the cave for some time to think. She understood that the painted dogs were worried for their son, for all their children, and these appeared to be unprecedented times. This was the only option they had seen available to them. She knew she would have done exactly the same if she was in their position.
After a while, Eden motioned for Mokoto to abandon the puppy pile and join her for a walk back down to the river. Confusion drifted into his sleepy eyes as they focused on her face. Once they had found a secluded spot on the riverbank, Eden sat and patted the grass beside her. The pup eyed her wearily but complied. Eden felt a moment of resentment at being the one to break the news to him. Mokoto had a tough choice to make: would he go with his family or choose to remain with her and journey into the unknown?
In halted words, Eden tried to explain Mokoto’s options to him. ‘Moko, your parents have asked me to look after you for just a little bit longer. But I want to, no, I won’t make a decision until I know how you feel first.’
His little brow furrowed. ‘Why don’t they want me? Did I do something wrong?’
‘No! What? Moko, It’s nothing like that! They are just worried about you, that’s all. Your dad…’ She grasped at words. ‘ Your dad’s been having a very difficult time dealing with the lose of his friend and since we are already so close… they thought it best that we stick together for a little while longer.
The pup stared emptily into space as her words ripped into him. ‘They don’t want me because my dad is sad?’
‘Oh Moko,’ she whispered and drew his small frame to her. ‘I’m saying this all wrong.’ She squeezed him tight. ‘Sometimes, when people are sad it’s easier to be angry. And your father is very very sad.’
Mokoto thought this over for a moment, and Eden watched what remaining innocence he still possessed slip from his eyes.
‘No,’ Mokoto shook his head, ruffling his mane against Eden’s chest. ‘He is not sad or angry. He is something else.’
Eden stiffened. Mokoto was eerily close to the truth and with a flat voice, Mokoto proceeded to break her heart.
‘I had better say my goodbyes.’
A small and selfish part of her, a part Eden never knew she possessed, was glad she didn't have to endure the rest of her journey alone. The thought had both shocked and appalled her. If she could tear a child from its mother, what else was she capable of?
Picta couldn’t help but look back at her son one last time, and it tore her apart. How could they ever expect him to understand that they were doing this for his own safety, that they were not abandoning him? Eden had named him Mokoto, and it suited him beautifully. Wild One. He was so very young, but his spirit shone. It was fierce and brave. He was a survivor. If she didn’t have five more pups to protect she would give in to her grief, but she knew she couldn’t afford those feelings. Her only hope was to foster all of her babies to families unaffected by this unknown plague. When — not if — Tamerin was better, they would be a family again. One day soon, she vowed, her babies would look back and laugh at how overprotective their parents had been. With that thought, Picta pushed on. She knew she would carry the image of Mokoto's little body, black against the burning sunset, forever.
Chapter 6
‘Here is the deepest secret that nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;
which grows higher than soul can hope, and mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)’
— e.e. cummings, I carry your heart (i carry it in my heart).
Micah's head was full of worry. He knew Eden had been hiding something from him, but what? He couldn’t begin to guess. Why hadn’t he confronted her? He’d even packed her extra food for God’s sake! Really, he had thought her incapable of such deception, but it only went to show he should never presume to fully know a person — except for his brother, maybe.
He hoisted his bundle of provisions into a more comfortable position upon his shoulder. He had seen fit to give Eden his portable knapsack, not predicting that he too would be setting out on a quest all of his own. The night had already set in. The pearly iridescence of the waxing moon cast just enough light to dissolve the darkness around him, but Micah treasured the obscurity. He knew the night held no dangers for him.
The heart of the forest had taken up its steady beat after its prolonged stutter three days ago. A lone fox barked as it waited for its lover’s reply. Micah usually took solace in the distant chirping of the mating frogs, with only the occasional flashes of neon eyes for the company. But this night Micah found no peace; his traitorous mind constantly turned to the girl. Every sound outside his house had sent him running to the balcony, hoping for some news of her, a winged one to say she had returned home and was now tucked safely within the protective folds of her family. If it weren't for that brief glint of determination he'd seen in her blue eyes — the dangerous kind — he would be sleeping easily this night.
It had been two days since Eden, and little Mokoto had set out. Micah had never experienced anything like the feeling he’d had watching her head off into the wilderness alone. His shirt on her back, sleeves rolled at the elbows. It had awoken a sense of protectiveness he never knew he could possess. Maybe the residue of his brother’s affections for her was rubbing off on him — a brother who still lay immobile in bed upstairs. Maybe knowing Luca was no longer there to watch over her had stirred this unprecedented feeling within him? Maybe it was because he had undressed her…
It was these feelings of protectiveness and worry that Micah had to thank for ripping him from his brother’s side, sending him careening, like a man possessed, towards the girl’s family home. If he couldn’t get word sent to him, he’d find out himself. He had to know she'd a
rrived with them safely. Then, he told himself repeatedly; he could carry on with his life. Micah would wait for his brother's recovery, and continue to try and keep him out of trouble — however unsuccessful he had been of late.
‘Who? Who? Who are you?’
Micah froze and looked up. A small gap between the trees focused a shaft of moonlight upon the face of a great owl. If it wasn't for the moon’s assistance, Micah doubted he would have noticed her; her sooty grey feathers allowed for excellent camouflage against their monochrome backdrop. He was instantly drawn in by her unflinching gaze, and at that moment he believed her eyes to be the blackest and most fathomless things he had ever seen. A bright orange beak was her only attempt at vanity.
He recalled her words and frowned. It was not like the animals here to question him. ‘I am Micah, brother to Luca. To whom am I speaking?’
‘I am the one named Chiatu, sister to no one.’ The feathers around the owl’s neck ruffled to attention, making her look feral and dark. ‘I come seeking information regarding your presence here.’ Chiatu stared down at him.
‘My agenda?’ Micah was almost rendered speechless. ‘This is ridiculous! Since when do I have to answer to you?’ Annoyed, he made to leave before Chiatu spoke again. This time her words sent a chill down his spine.
‘Answer to me? No. But we are many…’
Micah's annoyance pushed past his momentary shock at her reply. ‘Be gone with you and your cryptic words!’ he snapped. Without looking back, he clutched his bag a little tighter and picked up his pace. Who? Who? Who are you? Her questioning calls followed him into the night.
The further into the forest Micah travelled, the more of an outsider he came to feel. He would be a fool not to admit that the owl's words had not struck a chord within him. He felt as if the trees themselves had begun to press down from both sides, making it harder for his wide frame to pass through. Every unnecessary sound he made set his teeth on edge. He hated it. He hated feeling exposed even when he knew nothing here could possibly pose a threat to him. Just another hour, he told himself. Once he reached their house, Micah would see that Eden was safe and then he could put all this foolishness behind him.
All of a sudden, Micah heard the rustling of a large creature coming from his right. ‘Come out and show yourself!’ he demanded. The rustling stopped before a large and leathery olive-coloured head broke through the thicket. ‘Oh, it’s just you, Bojie!’ He huffed with relief. ‘What are you doing up at this hour?’
He and the monitor lizard went way back. They found their unique blend of friendship suited them very well. Bojie was not one to waste his words, and he didn’t seem to mind Micah not uttering them at all.
‘I would usually ask one of your kind the same thing, but you have always been a night owl,’ Bojie lisped as he worked his four-foot body, not including his thick, tapering tail, out from the surrounding shrubbery. He was squat but powerfully made with thick muscles encased in tough, dry skin.
Micah was often struck by the differences between Bojie's small gecko cousins and him, surely the largest of them all. Bojie’s long tongue forced him to slur his words a little. Micah believed it to be the reason why Bojie spoke so infrequently, as it embarrassed him too much. One of Bojie's back feet became tangled amongst the clinging vines, but one slash of his claws made short work of it.
Micah grunted. ‘Do not speak to me of owls. I have just had the good fortune of running into the one named Chiatu, sister to no one, and what a piece of work she was.’ He set his knapsack down and took a seat on a fallen trunk, next to the monitor lizard. He opened his sack to retrieve a pouch of coarse grain crackers he had baked before setting out. He offered one to Bojie, who accepted it gladly. They sat and ate for a moment, allowing the sounds of the night to wash over them. ‘Chiatu actually had the audacity to seek my agenda!’ Micah growled, grabbing another cracker and biting into it a bit too forcefully, sending crumbs shooting off in all directions.
Bojie was silent for a moment. ‘You know I tell you thiss ass a friend...’ he hesitated. ‘It may not be ssafe for you to be out like thiss — for a while, at least...’
Micah choked on the mouthful of water he had taken to wash the dry cracker down. ‘What do you mean?’ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘The forest is a place of sanctuary. We live in peace — all of us. Who would mean me harm?’
Bojie nodded, causing the rough hanging folds of skin to sway along his neck. ‘And sso it hass alwayss been, and none of uss wishes anyone any harm, but the foresst is waking up… We are no longer the only creaturess that dwell here…’
Micah was silent for a while. Did Bojie mean others like him? Like his brother? But nobody knew what they truly were. He had made sure they concealed their identities well. He waited, hoping for his friend to elaborate.
‘There iss word circulating about a creature who walkss amongsst uss. Ssometimess it comess in the form of a woman. Ssometimess there is only a faint haze of a figure. But alwayss there iss the ssame sscent left in the air, one that tugss at you like a half-remembered dream. It’ss changing uss, Micah, turning uss into animalss of base instinct controlled by hatred and fear.’ Moonlight glinted off his small dark eyes. ‘It’ss not ssafe for you out here anymore… You have no clawss with which to sscratch or teeth with which to bite. You are defenselesss.’
Micah thought it would be in bad taste to remind Bojie what his brother had achieved armed only with a piece of wood. He and Luca were far from defenceless. However, an image of Eden suddenly flashed before him; her only form of defence was a pup who barely reached her calves. ‘Shit,’ he whispered, his face paling. ‘The lady Eden — have you seen her?’ he asked Bojie urgently.
The lizard licked his leathery lips. ‘If I tell you, will you promissse not to do anything rash?’
It took everything Micah had not to shout at his old friend. With calming breaths, he put the remainder of the crackers back into his knapsack and fastened the strings. ‘I am not like my brother, Bojie. Tell me, please.’
Bojie didn't look convinced, but Micah knew he would choose to tell him for their friendship's sake. ‘The winged oness are worried. They have sspread word of her heading towardss the Golden Fieldss. She is being accompanied by a painted dog pup, but nothing more than that iss known.’
Micah cursed again — more forcefully this time. ‘And why hasn't anyone bothered to inform me?’ His harsh tone clashed with the peace of the night, causing him to cringe, but he was too furious to calm down. ‘Don’t you know what lives in those Fields, hunting whoever strays too near? Don’t you know where they lead to?’ Micah saw the look of confusion in Bojie's eyes. No, of course, he didn't know. He wasn’t supposed to. The Golden Fields consisted of a thick band of barley. Not much lived there, and for good reason. It wasn't so much the Fields that held his heart in a vice-like grip, but what lay waiting in and beyond them. Why, in the Adonai's name, was Eden leading them there?
Micah must have asked the last question aloud because Bojie shook his great head again. His long thick tail began to thrash with agitation. ‘I wass on my way to warn you. The otherss do not know you ass I do. They are fearful of your brother and the act he committed. You have been by hiss sside —’
‘You mean how my brother killed Old Mother before she impaled Eden, as well as anyone else who happened to get in the elephant’s way — is that what you’re referring to?’
Bojie shied away from the onslaught of Micah's rage. Micah saw the fear take hold in his friend’s eyes. He realised he had put it there and it pained him. Bojie had never seen Micah like this; he’d always been the quiet, level-headed one.
‘I sshould not have said anything,’ Bojie muttered, almost as confirmation to an earlier conversation.
For the first time ever, Micah experienced shame. He dropped to one knee and looked Bojie in the eyes. ‘Old friend, please do not fear me.’ He laid a hand on Bojie’s back. So rarely did he seek to touch others, the sudden need confused him. Had he not do
ne the same with Eden by the river? His actions beguiled him.
The monitor lizard nudged Micah's shoulder with his head. ‘It’ss okay, Micah. I accept your apology. Eden iss a friend of ours, too. It’ss only right for you to be concerned for her safety. Resst assured that the lady iss being watched over by the best of uss, but once she crosses over to the Golden Fieldss…’
Bojie didn't have to continue; Micah knew the animals picked up on the feelings of turmoil and discord that emanated from the land. Little did they know it was deliberate. It would shock them further to learn that he had helped place it there before he and his brother had chosen to leave that world behind them. What better defence is needed than one that made your very skin want to crawl off your bones?
‘I will come with you if you think I can be of any help,’ Bojie offered.
Micah smiled before rising to his feet. ‘I thank you for your offer, my friend, but your bravery is not needed — not yet, anyway. Instead, you could do me a great favour and ask your friends to keep me updated on Eden's whereabouts from now on? I would be very grateful.’
‘Of coursse.’
Micah hoisted his knapsack up to his shoulder again. ‘I hope, when next we meet, it will be on better times, my old friend.’
Bojie nodded. ‘May Lord Adonai be with you, Micah.’
With that Micah turned and headed east, away from Eden's family and away from the only other person he had in this world, his brother. He prayed Luca would be safe. He hated the thought of leaving him but knew his brother would understand. He also knew Luca would never forgive him if he failed to see this through.