Island's End (7 page)

A great cheer rises from my people, and I feel their joy surging around me like a great tide. But Natalang says, “How long have you known?” I hear a stiffness in her voice.

“Since the strangers first came,” I reply.

“You said nothing,” she accuses. “Why did you not share this with me?”

“I wanted to,” I say. “But I was afraid you would find me strange and would not want to be my friend anymore.”

She opens her mouth to say something, but snaps it shut again.

“Forgive me.” I reach out to touch her soft shoulder, but Natalang takes a step back.

Before I can say anything else, my family swallows me up. Mimi presses her cheek against mine. Then she lays her head on my shoulder and I feel my skin become wet with her tears. Tawai clings to her, a worried look on his face. But although I am sad to be leaving, I am too excited to weep.

Kara says, “I am honored you have chosen my daughter, Lah-ame.” I see his chest is pushed out with pride.

Then Ashu’s voice rises from the crowd. “Take me instead, Lah-ame. I am the strongest and fastest of anyone. And the best hunter.” His words shock me. I cannot believe he wants to learn about spirits.

Lah-ame’s reply is gentle. “I have no doubt you would work hard and well, Ashu. And you are indeed the best hunter among the boys. But I must be guided by the spirits in this matter.”

“Give me a chance, Lah-ame,” Ashu begs. “I will do anything you ask.”

“I ask you to be a good brother to Uido,” Lah-ame says. “The training is not easy. If she returns, she will need the love of her family.”

Ashu presses his lips together in an angry line.

Mimi lifts her head from my shoulder. “The training, Uido. Will it cause pain? Are you not afraid?”

She looks so upset that I do not admit I am a little scared. Instead, I stroke her cheek and say, “My spirit has seen the Otherworld and it is beautiful, Mimi. So do not worry. I want nothing more than to learn from Lah-ame and would never be happy if you did not allow me to try.”

Mimi holds me against her for a long while, then blows her breath across my cheeks. “Go well and return to us safely.”

“Lah-ame should find someone else. I need you,” Tawai whines. “Stay with us.”

I hug Tawai as tightly as I can. When I let go, he bursts out crying and clings to Mimi again.

Danna comes up to us and pats Tawai’s back. “Do not worry, Uido,” he says to me. “I will take care of Tawai while you are gone.” His face beams as he blows across my cheeks. “My spirit will be with yours until you return.”

Kara hugs me next. “I know you will be successful. May Biliku-waye and Pulug-ame guide your spirit as you travel with Lah-ame.”

Once he lets me go, my family steps aside to let the rest of the tribe say farewell. Women and men and elders and children and ra-gumul boys and girls all mix together like waves tumbling around me. People crowd in to breathe on my face and wish me safety and triumph on my journeys in the Otherworld.

But although I hear admiration in their voices and feel a comforting warmth in their breath, everyone seems to look at me differently now—almost as if I have suddenly turned into a stranger.

L
ah-ame is silent as he leads me south. It is the same direction as the tribe’s rainy season camp, but we take a different path through a part of the jungle where the undergrowth is so thick that I am sure no En-ge ever cut a trail. Lah-ame’s feet move as easily as the wind over the spiky plants and thorny bushes. It is hard for me to keep up, although I carry nothing and Lah-ame carries a boar-skin water bag slung across his chest, a huge reed basket on his back and, as usual, his bulging medicine pouch, which dangles from his belt. Seeing Lah-ame always a few steps ahead, I feel nervous that I may never grow as strong as he is.

We walk all day, sipping frequently from Lah-ame’s water bag, resting only for a short while when the sun is at its highest in the sky. At dusk we arrive near a small pool where Lah-ame tells me we will stop for the night. Lah-ame refills his water bag and gives me a few handfuls of nuts from his basket. I gulp them down, but when they are gone my stomach still feels empty.

“Hunger sharpens the senses,” Lah-ame says, unfolding a leaf from his medicine bag. Inside is a greenish brown powder. “Do you know what this is, Uido?” he asks.

I guess it must be a curing powder of some kind, though I cannot tell by looking or sniffing at it. “May I taste it?”

Lah-ame taps out some powder onto my outstretched palm and mixes in a drop of water.

I rub the paste between my fingers, then lick it off. “It tastes like the drink you gave me for a stomachache once.”

“You have a good memory.” He points to a tree nearby that has a gray bark and pink flowers. “The stomach cure I gave you came from that beech tree’s leaves. The juice of its stem will chase away pain in the joints. And the beech tree’s leaves and bark can be made into poultices and splints to reduce swelling and cure broken bones.”

Excitement washes away my hunger as I realize this is my first lesson.

Lah-ame reaches into his basket and hands me an empty lizard-skin bag. “Are you ready to start filling your pouch with medicine?”

My own medicine bag! I run the tips of my fingers over the scaly outside. Lah-ame waits patiently while I tie it to my waist belt, making four knots to be very certain it will not fall off.

“Now, Uido, bring me a handful of beech leaves.” He lays two flat stones on the ground—the kind Mimi uses to grind ash and beeswax together to make glue.

It takes me a long time to grind the leaves into a paste smooth enough to satisfy Lah-ame. When I am finally done, he packs the medicine into a leaf and places it in my new medicine bag. I wonder what else it will hold and how soon it will be as full as Lah-ame’s.

“Each oko-jumu’s medicine bag is a little different, Uido,” Lah-ame says as though he can hear my thoughts. He unties the pouch at his belt and hands it to me.

My fingers tingle with eagerness as I take the bag from him. Holding it as carefully as a bird’s egg, I pull open the drawstring that holds the top closed. Inside, I glimpse healing objects and medicines: two pebbles, a few withered leaves and petals, many dried roots and many more leaf packets, bright purple seeds, several tiny pitchers covered with lids, and four white feathers from a sea eagle’s belly. It delights me to think I will learn how to use all these cures.

Lah-ame lowers himself onto the uneven ground. Nearby, I stretch out my tired limbs. The soles of my feet hurt so much that I barely feel a thorn that pokes into the back of my thigh. My arms ache, too, from pounding and grinding my first medicine paste. Almost immediately I fall asleep.

For the next three days, we walk inland just as the tribe must be doing. On the way, Lah-ame sometimes points out a special plant or tree whose spirit can cure sickness. More often the medicines come from trees I already know but whose healing secrets were hidden from me.

At dusk on the fourth day, Lah-ame leads me to two leaf huts that sit under a laurel tree bursting with white flowers, just like the one behind his hut in our dry-season village. But these leaf huts have no walls—only rounded roofs that slope low to the ground—and they are made entirely of banana leaves, which are waxy enough to keep out the rain. Inside each hut is a bamboo sleeping platform, raised off the ground to keep us dry. Not far away, I hear a stream rumbling like my hungry stomach.

Our evening meal is a few handfuls of nuts and fruit, the same as the last three nights. I chew slowly, wondering what food the tribe is sharing tonight. By now the married women must be preparing a tasty meat stew, laughing and chattering as they cook.

Suddenly I miss everyone. Loneliness grips me by the throat so tightly that I cannot speak.

We sit together quietly, watching Pulug-ame hide the moon and stars behind the clouds he blows across the sky. After a while, Lah-ame points to one of the huts. “It is time to rest. Tomorrow I will help you travel to the Otherworld again.”

A gentle drizzle begins to fall, wetting my skin. So I leave for the shelter of my new home. Soon after I lie on the sleeping platform, thunder booms through the dark night, making me wonder how Pulug-ame’s voice sounds in the Otherworld.

I run my fingers across the smooth bones of my chauga-ta, imagining what it might feel like to hold hands with the spirits of my ancestors. Raindrops of excitement seem to leap within my belly just as they patter outside on the jungle floor.

T
he harsh cry of a sea eagle pulls me out of my night dream. I open my eyes and gaze at the banana-leaf roof. It takes a few moments to remember where I am.

“Uido,” Lah-ame calls. I jump off the sleeping platform and rush to join him. A small drum is strapped to Lah-ame’s chest and a bone rattle is knotted onto his chauga-ta.

“Follow me,” is all he says as he strides toward the trees. The jungle is noisy with the songs of frogs celebrating the change of season. Thick knots of grass lick my feet,
whish, whish, whish, whish,
as I try to keep up with Lah-ame, wondering what he expects of me this morning.

We reach a part of the jungle where the air is heavy with the scent of ripe fruit. Lah-ame draws a circle on the ground with a twig.

“Lie down with your feet facing east and listen to my rattle and drum,” he says. “Their sound will guide your spirit deeper into the Otherworld than it has gone before. After you have been there for a while, I will call you back with four sharp drumbeats.”

I sink onto the mossy ground. The rattle sounds, followed by the drumbeat, but I am too excited to concentrate. I feel an ant’s hair-thin legs tickling my skin and distracting me further. It wanders across the side of my neck, toward my earlobe. Afraid that it is a fire ant, I sit up and flick it off. My eyes meet Lah-ame’s stern gaze.

“You did not even try!” he says.

“I am sorry,” I mumble. “A
konoro-ta
was crawling up my face.”

“Be attentive to your spirit, Uido. Leave your body here on the jungle floor.”

I lie down again. The rattle begins—
tshh-tshh-tshh-tshh
—like falling leaves. The drum follows—
dha-dha-dha-dha
.
Tshh-tshh-tshh-tshh, dha-dha-dha-dha
. I try to make words out of the sounds. But the more I think, the darker my mind becomes. I count hundreds of drumbeats before giving up. I sit, pull my knees to my chest and hang my head in shame. “Why is it so hard today? I entered the Otherworld so easily on the cliff top and even forced my way in when I fought with Ashu.”

Lah-ame sits on his haunches beside me. “The Otherworld is not a faraway place; it is just a different way to sense this world around us.” He strokes my cheek. “Do not worry about how long it is taking. Allow your ear to drink in the sound of the rattle and the drum; use your spirit, not your body, to sense and feel.”

Once more I lie back. The rattle begins again. This time I hear it say
shhhh
to the thoughts in my mind. Slowly my mind becomes still. Matching the drum’s rhythm, I breathe deeply in and out. Then, all of a sudden, a bright light spreads behind my closed eyes.

The jungle disappears. I am standing by the edge of a pool. Warm sunshine pours across my shoulders and cool water slurps at my toes.

Welcome
.

I spot a path leading away from the pool, with shoulder-high grasses on either side that seem to beckon me. I can still hear the drum as clearly as when I was in the jungle. So I dance along the path, keeping time with my feet. The tall grasses bend in and stroke me, like members of the tribe greeting a boy returning from his first hunt.

As I move farther away from the pool, the grass becomes shorter and the scent of vanilla flowers thickens the air. On the stem of a strange red-leafed plant, I see a large web hung with dew. It looks as though it were woven from strings of light. The spider at its center is no more than a black dot. In awe that such a little creature could create something so beautiful, I tremble. My spirit senses that I am in Biliku-waye’s presence again. But this time she remains tiny, as though the slightest breath of wind could blow her away and destroy her web.