Lalani of the Distant Sea

by Erin Entrada Kelly

  He told them that they would be judged.

  He would watch with a careful eye, and if you faltered, he’d put you in your proper place, just as he’d done with Lalani and the basin.

  But after Drum’s morning announcements, the village quieted and the echoes of the gong faded, mixing into the ordinary sounds of Sanlagita.

  But Hetsbi heard things others did not.

  Clack.

  He had failed as a fisherman.

  Clack.

  He had failed as a shipbuilder.

  Clack.

  He had failed his conscience.

  Clack. Clack.

  These thoughts circled and circled in his mind. They followed him to school, where Taiting pretended it was business as usual, but Hetsbi wondered: Was Taiting judging him or had he imagined it? Did all the boys know he had cast a stone out of fear? How had the others voted?

  When the clacks became too much, Hetsbi decided to find out.

  A Simple Solution

  Taiting had many students, but Hetsbi had only one teacher, so Hetsbi had time and space to collect observations and come to conclusions about what kind of man Taiting was. It hadn’t taken long for Hetsbi to discover that his teacher was a man of integrity and honor. He was fair and just. He preferred not to show favoritism. He tempered criticism with encouragement. He did not use physical intimidation like Drum; there was nothing to fear about him. Did that make Taiting weak? Hetsbi had struggled with this question before the landslide, but now he knew the answer. Taiting had cast his stone for Maddux, and no weak man could do such a thing.

  Hetsbi waited for Cade and the other boys to disappear down the dirt road to the village, then he walked around the building, where Taiting was gathering wood.

  “Taiting?” said Hetsbi.

  Taiting lifted his head over his armful of branches. His face relaxed into a smile. “Hetsbi. Can I help you with something?”

  Hetsbi nibbled his bottom lip.

  “Maybe,” he said. Unfortunately, he hadn’t considered the details. How do you start such a conversation? How do you ask someone to make you a better man?

  Taiting placed the branches onto a carefully stacked pile nearby. Stray branches were everywhere since the landslide. It occurred to Hetsbi that he should help his teacher, but he was too nervous to move or offer.

  Instead, he blurted out: “Why did the menyoro select you to become a teacher?”

  “Well,” Taiting said, brushing his hands. “I suppose I wasn’t good at anything else.”

  “You weren’t good at fishing?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Or shipbuilding?”

  “I know enough of both to start instruction and recognize others who excel at it. I can catch fish and build a boat, but it won’t be the most fish or the best boat.” He brought his arms up, then dropped them to his sides, as if to say that is that. “I suppose the menyoro chose me to teach because I have hope in abundance.”

  “Hope for what?”

  “That my students will become better.”

  Hetsbi looked away. “What if they don’t?”

  “Is there something you want to discuss with me, Hetsbi? Is there something I can help you with?”

  Hetsbi thought of Cade, walking so confidently. The way he expertly baited his fishing hooks and sanded his scouting boat. The way he stood up for Lalani when Hetsbi couldn’t be bothered.

  Why couldn’t everyone get equal doses of confidence to go around?

  “I cast my stone for Drum,” said Hetsbi.

  “Yes.”

  Hetsbi swallowed. “Do you think badly of me?”

  “Of course not. Each man had the right to cast his stone however he chose. I would never expect my students to do everything as I do, or to believe the things that I believe.”

  “But . . .” Hetsbi began. “But what if they do believe the things you believe?”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “I didn’t want to cast my stone that way,” Hetsbi said. Almost a whisper.

  “I see.”

  “I was a coward,” Hetsbi said.

  He raised his eyes to his teacher.

  “We have many opportunities in life to overcome fear and embrace courage,” said Taiting. “Once we seize the first opportunity, it becomes easier to seize the second.” He paused. “But you are not a coward, Hetsbi. I know this to be true.”

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  “If you were a coward, you wouldn’t be standing here,” said Taiting. “Living what you believe can be just as difficult as living in silence. Sometimes even more so.”

  The words were coming easier to Hetsbi now. “I’m tired of thinking myself a coward.”

  “Then there is a simple solution,” Taiting said.

  “What is it?”

  “Seize the next opportunity, of course,” said Taiting.

  Bai-Vinca

  The bird came from nowhere. One moment Lalani was trying to avoid the mounds—they were everywhere now—and quiet the whooshing in her head and the next, a tremendous noise pierced the forest. SQUAWW SQUAWW SQUAWW. Usoa clutched Lalani’s elbow.

  “That’s her,” she said.

  Lalani followed Usoa’s gaze, squinting into a slant of light. Something moved. Glided, really. Huge wings cast an enormous shadow.

  Usoa balled her hands into fists and put them on her hips.

  Lalani’s hair blew in all directions. Leaves lifted and swirled from the ground. Bai-Vinca brought a scent with her. Sweet and earthy. Why aren’t we running? Lalani thought. Her feet itched. Run, run, they said. But Usoa didn’t move, so neither did she.

  The creature landed in front of them more delicately than Lalani would have imagined. Lalani might have said that Bai-Vinca was beautiful, with brilliantly colored feathers of yellow, red, green, and blue. But her eyes, talons, and beak—also sharp, very sharp indeed—made her terrifying.

  Bai-Vinca towered over Lalani and Usoa. She could easily engulf them with her wings. Her eyes were bigger than Lalani’s hands and they were in constant motion, flitting and blinking.

  “What are you doing on the bai’s land?” Bai-Vinca said. Her words sounded diced or chopped as she maneuvered her strange, thick tongue around her beaked mouth.

  “This land no longer belongs to the bai,” said Usoa. “There are no bai. Only you.”

  Bai-Vinca’s gaze fell on Lalani. “What are you?”

  “She’s human,” Usoa replied. “From another place.”

  “Another place,” Bai-Vinca repeated, her eyes softening. She ruffled her feathers. “Do you bring word about my family?”

  Lalani didn’t know what to say. Was this a trick question?

  “No one will ever bring word about your family,” Usoa answered.

  Bai-Vinca’s enormous eyes darted toward her.

  “But I bring word of mine,” Usoa continued.

  Usoa swung a tight fist into Bai-Vinca’s eye, which gleamed like a target, and Bai-Vinca squawked so loudly that Lalani pressed her hands to her ears because the squawking made her head throb so, so badly—it was loud, much too loud—and Bai-Vinca stumbled back, a flurry of color, startled yet again when Usoa kicked her once, twice, three times, but by the fourth swift kick, Bai-Vinca was ready. She spread her wings and it was such a stunning sight that Usoa froze, speechless, and that single moment was all it took. Bai-Vinca raised herself off the ground, hovering, hovering, then threw her feet out and sank her talons into Usoa’s shoulder. Usoa screamed—a mighty, mighty scream.

  “Let her go!” Lalani cried, released at last from her cowering place. She wrapped both hands around Bai-Vinca’s leathery ankles and pulled. “Let her go! Let her go!”

  Usoa and Lalani were both on the ground now. A tree root pushed into Lalani’s back as she and Usoa kicked and screamed and wailed, and when something warm and wet rushed over Lalani’s hands, she realized that it was Usoa’s blood and this made her fight even more fiercely. Bai-Vinca tried to snatch Lalani, b
ut Lalani was small and quick and rolled out of the way, catching dirt in her mouth. She fumbled for the pouch around her neck, searching for the arrowhead, but she wasn’t able to latch onto it as Bai-Vinca aimed her beak at them. She pecked, pecked, pecked the earth around their heads. Her beak cut the dirt. It sliced Lalani’s cheek and ear. But Bai-Vinca’s throat was exposed, a soft and delicate gullet where Lalani sank her teeth and Usoa followed her lead. The girls punched and bit and kicked, and soon Bai-Vinca’s squawks devolved into choked cries as they overpowered her. Bai-Vinca brought her wings back, then pumped them forward in two powerful flaps. The momentum broke the three of them apart. Usoa and Lalani crumpled to the ground in a heap and Bai-Vinca flew up, but not away.

  Blood. Everywhere. Lalani pressed her hands against Usoa’s shoulder. Veyda had once told her that you should put pressure on a bleeding wound to stop the gushing, and that’s just what she did as Bai-Vinca hovered over them. Her wings were so vast that their force rustled their hair, and she was so large and mighty that Lalani felt herself shrinking, and when the talons came charging down again, Lalani rolled out of the way, because when you are small and don’t take up much space, it can be easier to move from here to there, and sometimes moving from here to there is all you need to do to save yourself.

  Bai-Vinca’s talons sank into the earth instead of Lalani, and both girls darted out of the way in the seconds it took for Bai-Vinca to pull them out again.

  Lalani ran. When she zigzagged, Bai-Vinca had trouble keeping up with her. It was tricky for Bai-Vinca to fly this close to the ground, so she glided up, up, up, for a better view. When Lalani saw a big tree with a narrow hollow in the trunk, she raced to it and wiggled her way in. The hole was large enough for Usoa, too, but she barely made it through the opening because of her horns. The girls pushed themselves as far back as they could.

  Bai-Vinca squawked and landed in front of the tree, blocking the light. The little space, which smelled like wet leaves and damp grass, darkened. Usoa’s clipped breathing tangled with the whooshing in Lalani’s head.

  Bai-Vinca peered in at them with one colossal eye.

  “You can’t survive in there forever,” Bai-Vinca said.

  Lalani took stock of what they had to defend themselves with, and it wasn’t much. One human girl, one injured mindoren girl. Four arms, four hands, four legs, four feet, two horns. One small arrowhead.

  Just as Lalani thought it’s not enough, Usoa started yanking and pulling at something overhead. Snap, snap. A piece of the bark broke off; she held it like a weapon.

  Then she used it like one.

  She burst from the tree and ran the sharp end through Bai-Vinca’s belly. Oh, how the creature shrieked. Bai-Vinca staggered backward. Her chest heaved. Blue sprays of blood splashed the tree, splattering Usoa’s and Lalani’s faces. Bai-Vinca lifted one wing then the other. She opened her beak wide. Lalani pressed her hands against her ears, ready for the piercing wail. Her hands were wet with blood. But instead of screaming, Bai-Vinca whispered, “Do you have word about my family?”

  Then, like a great mountain cleaving in half, she fell.

  Bai-Vinca didn’t die right away, but it was clear to Usoa and Lalani that her death was a certainty. Usoa sputtered and moaned, her back against the tree, her face dotted with Bai-Vinca’s blue blood.

  “I need to get help,” Lalani said.

  “The only creatures here are the nunso,” whispered Usoa. Her eyes were barely open now. “Besides, you’re running out of time.”

  “Time for what?” Lalani asked, back to pressing her hands against Usoa’s wound as hard as she could.

  “Tell me a story.”

  “A story? I don’t understand . . .”

  “Something to make me cry,” said Usoa. “There isn’t time. Please.”

  Lalani took Usoa’s hand. She didn’t understand what was happening. This was such a strange place full of strange riddles—Bai-Vinca and her family; trees that spoke, saved, and offered salvation; and now, a story to make a dying mindoren cry.

  Lalani’s Story

  Anya of Arkaley was cursed. It was clear from the moment she was born. She looked like no other infant in the village. Although Anya had two hands, two feet, ten fingers, and ten toes, she had an oddity that no one in Arkaley had ever seen: a small shell. It was on her back. It stretched from her waist to her neck. And there was nothing to be done. The leader of Arkaley told the villagers to avoid Anya at all costs or risk being cursed themselves. To make matters worse, it kept getting bigger. It grew, just like her hair or her fingernails. By the time she was thirteen years old, you could no longer see her back at all. Just the shell. And it was heavy, too. Anya grew weary from carrying all that weight. And her heart grew weary, too, because she had no friends. The other children didn’t understand why she had this shell. It must have been something she’d done, they said. She must be wicked or diseased, they said. It was rumored that if you touched her shell, you would die—though this wasn’t true. Even Anya’s parents were ashamed of her. What had they done to deserve such an absurd child? Didn’t they have enough to worry over?

  What do you think Anya’s shell looked like? Don’t think of it as anything beautiful. It was ragged and lumpy, and there were no brilliant shades of red, blue, or green. Think of the color of dust. Think of the bark of a dead tree. This was Anya’s shell.

  Poor Anya. You can imagine how desperately she wished for her shell to disappear. Every night she fell asleep and wished for her burden to wither away and die. She prayed that she would wake up surrounded by broken pieces, free. But that never happened.

  Time did nothing to comfort Anya. But she never gave up hope that she would be like everyone else one day. She did everything she could to rid herself of that shell. She banged it against the biggest tree in the village. She begged a huntsman to hack it off. She tried to burn it, even. But it was stubborn and sturdy and part of her, so nothing worked. By the time she was twenty, Anya no longer believed in miracles, but then a miracle appeared. A traveler. A man named Zo Zi.

  The people of Arkaley had never seen a foreigner, especially one like Zo Zi. He told them he traveled the world and collected things along the way. One of the things he collected was knowledge, and he offered it to everyone, including Anya. He told her that he could remove her shell for a price, and she promised to give him everything she owned. It wasn’t much. Her parents had died and left behind a small house, but she gladly offered it to Zo Zi. She said she would return to the village as a normal woman, and she would find a new home. Maybe a man would ask for her hand in marriage. Could you imagine?

  Zo Zi put her in a deep, deep sleep. When she awoke, Zo Zi was gone, but he had kept his promise. Her shell lay intact beside her. She looked like everyone else, even if she didn’t understand her new body. She fell over when she walked. But soon, with practice, she carried herself like an everyday Arkaley woman. Her hair brushed the skin between her shoulder blades. It tickled and delighted her. How surprised the town would be! She imagined their faces. The men rushing to marry her, the women rushing to be her friend.

  Anya had nowhere to put her shell. Zo Zi was a man of his word. Every beam of her home was gone and sold. Only a charred pit remained—the place where the hearth had once been.

  Anya found a place to stow the shell so she could walk through Arkaley without it. She couldn’t wait for everyone to see her! The real her.

  But when she arrived, the people of Arkaley didn’t greet her with hugs and hellos. They regarded her as they always did—faces full of shock and disgust.

  What happened to your shell? they asked, their mouths puckered in disapproval.

  I had it removed, she replied.

  The villagers scurried away, frightened by this new Anya. She’d become even more foreign to them than before. Each person she met was afraid. The only thing she heard was Why? Why? Why did you remove your shell? And hidden underneath this was another clear, unspoken question: Why did you think you could be one of us?<
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  They threw her out of the village. It took two men to hoist her shell through the gate. They called her a freak. An animal without a herd.

  “I am a person, and I am here!” cried Anya. She pounded her fists on the gates. Without her shell to weigh her down, she had more power than before. “I am here! I am here!”

  Only one person answered. A man with a heavy voice. “Not anymore,” he yelled.

  Anya carried her shell to the next town. What else could she do? But the people there refused to open their gates.

  By the time she’d reached the fourth town, her body was bruised and weak. She was hungry and thirsty. She still carried her shell. Why? She didn’t know. What was the point? No one wanted it. The shell served no purpose. So she climbed a cliff and threw it off. She watched it plummet to the rocky shore and crack in three pieces, and she’d never felt so triumphant or defiant in her life. As if the shell had its own mind and had dared her to conquer it, which she had. Anya stood on the cliff and thought of going over, too. Instead, she left the broken shell behind and walked ten miles to the next village. It looked much like all the others. She knocked lightly at the gates and asked to be let in. Did they have room for one more? She was lost and lonely, and needed food and water.

  But this village was quite different. When the guard opened the gate, Anya saw that the people here had shells!

  Her heart leaped. She could have wept with joy.

  “My herd!” she cried. “Finally, I have found my herd!”

  But the guard looked at her coldly and asked who she was and where she was from. She explained. She told him about the shell and Zo Zi. The man studied her from head to toe.

  “If you’re one of us, show me your shell. Then you may enter,” he said. “You can live a life of luxury and riches. All will welcome you. You will be loved and adored for everything you are, and you will never worry again. But first you must show me the shell.”

  Anya said, “I threw it off a cliff, and it cracked in three pieces.”

  The man’s face tightened with horror. “Why would you do such a thing? That shell was part of you. It was meant to be revered and celebrated.”