The old man watched as Tana rolled, horrified that he’d startled her so badly. Looking back up the slope he wondered how he was going to get such a large woman up to the village to tend to her injuries. He was going to have to go for help.
“She’s so big, none of the women in our village, or other villages are as tall as her, as round. She must be from another village far, far away. Or she’s come from the other side of the vale. I don’t know Kajika; I’ve just never seen a woman so big.”
Tana scrunched up her face and tried to open her eyes, but they were being held down by stones it felt like. Her entire body was screaming at her in pain, her right collarbone, shoulder, and left ankle holding a competition to see which could get her attention first. Finally managing to drag her eyelids open, she looked at the two men staring down at her and decided she’d rather be dead than listen to that old man and what had to be the sexist man alive discussing how large she was. Scrunching up her face, she tried to roll over but stopped immediately as her ankle finally won the screaming competition.
She bit back a scream and a swear word, punching the soft blankets that cushioned the place she was resting instead. Finally, the pain ebbed to low-grade torture, and she opened her eyes again. Yep, the sex god was still there. The man was beautiful with dark-black hair, crystal blue eyes, and a mouth that women would pay for. His body looked like it had been sculpted from marble, and she could see quite a bit of it as it was only covered in a loincloth of some sort at the moment. Who wears loincloths in this day and age, she thought? This must be some really weird cult, just wait until I get back down the mountain and tell them what kind of nutjobs have taken over up here.
“Could one of you stop gawking at me and help me please?” She finally asked with the need for a toilet burning in her lower regions still. She was almost afraid to sit up but she needed to go so bad.
“I can understand her; she must not be from far away then. How long before we can send her packing?” Sex-on-legs asked.
The older man came at her, poking around at the herbs he’d placed on her injuries. He made some low noises, looked at her eyes, and then spoke. “A week at least. Her ankle won’t hold, wait for at least that long.”
“And that’s a lot of weight to be carrying around, Mingan. Fine then, she can stay but you’d best keep her in here; she might accidentally crush one of the women in the village if we let her out.” This from the now not-so-sexy man. In fact, his sex appeal had just dropped 95%. “Do we have enough food to feed such a massive woman or do we need to find another deer? Or two?”
Tana looked at the man in horror and outrage, her mouth gaping open. “You do realize I can hear you, right?” She fired at him with a withering glare.
“No, I didn’t, but it matters not. Please, don’t move, you might break the frame of the pallet and do yourself a further injury. Please, just don’t move.”
“Would it hold your weight Mister High and Mighty?” She asked with a sneer.
“Yes, it would. Why do you ask?” The man asked with a haughty tilt of his sculpted chin.
“Because I doubt I weigh any more than you do. I’m 5 foot 8 and I barely weigh 154 pounds. I’m not a whale. Stop talking about me like I am.” Tana demanded, looking away as tears stung her eyes.
“In this village, as you will see, women rarely reach 5 foot tall. You are a giant. A behemoth. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman as massive as you, in fact. Ever. Excuse me now, I have more important matters to tend to.” With that he slipped out of the doorway, pushing aside the leather strip that served as a door.
Tana looked up to the older man, wondering if she was about to receive more of the same treatment from this one as well. Being insulted by complete nutcases, great. This was a new low in her life. The man that just left had said that this place was a village, and that he’d never seen a woman as tall as she. Either he’d been living under a rock, or he was deluded, there were plenty of women as tall as her in the world, some even taller. But nature called and called with an urgent ring, a pang of imminent embarrassment, or whatever you wanted to call it.
“Is there someone who can help me get to the toilet?” She asked the old man, her cheeks burning red.
“Toilet?” He asked, “What is a toilet?”
“Seriously? Alright, I know you people are up here playing Hiawatha on the mountain but come on now, how else are you going to answer the call of nature? Squat behind a tree?” Tana asked, losing patience and control of her tongue.
“Call of nature?” The man asked uncertainly.
Thinking hard of how to explain to the man the simple concept of “I need to urinate,” Tana scraped her brain looking for other ways of saying it.
“Yes, I need to wee, have a pee, tinkle, go to the bathroom, potty, make water…” Tana stopped as the man interrupted her.
“Ah, make water, yes, I will send in my daughter, Allana; she can help you.” The man left quickly, a woman soon making her way into the room. The woman was beautiful; brown haired with large brown eyes and a tiny physique. She had a sweet shy smile that faltered as she saw Tana.
“Heavens!” The woman exclaimed.
Tana had an idea of what had caused the woman’s reaction. “Yes, I know; I’m big and you’ve never seen a giant like me. All of you women could take starring roles in any film starring munchkins or pixies, maybe even fairies and brownies. I have no idea but you’re all delicate little flowers and I’m a cyclops with two eyes. I get it. Can you help me please before I end up with wet pants?”
“Cyclops?” The woman, little more than a teenager really, asked timidly.
“Never mind. So what serves as a toilet around here? How do I relieve myself?” She asked, on the verge of tears but trying to maintain an air of bravery and nonchalance. These people were all insane, they just had to be.
“Papa says you need to make water?” She asked.
“Yes, desperately.” Tana replied with a wan smile.
“I can help you, first we should, um, remove these strange pants you are wearing. Oh, how do they come apart?” Tana undid her pants, and Allana helped her to pull them down before sliding the bowl she’d been carrying with her underneath Tana.
“This won’t work. I can’t do this laying down.” Allana helped Tana to shift around and finally her bladder was empty, gloriously empty! Relief was simply not the word for it. She’d write letters home about it if anyone there cared.
“Thank you, Allana; I know you didn’t have to do that.”
“You are welcome. What is your name?” Allana asked with curiosity lighting up her delicately fine-boned face.
“My name is Tana Jackson. Is there a doctor here?” Seeing the confusion return, Tana sifted through words that might make sense to the woman. “Um, healer?”
“Ah yes, healer, that would be my father Mingan, who was with you earlier. He says you need to rest for a few days at least.”
“What about the colossal jerk with your father? I hope he’s the village idiot.” Tana asked sitting back on her pallet; a blanket rolled up to act as a pillow.
“Kajika? He is our Great Father, what is a village idiot?” Allana asked, starting a fire in a stone circle on the floor.
“Um, never mind, what’s a great father?” Tana asked, wondering if the man was a massive perv out impregnating all the delicate flowers in the village.
“Our leader? Yes, leader would be close to what it means. He runs the village, administers the laws, settles disputes, talks to the other villages and procures trade with them.”
Allana had the fire going now and put an iron kettle on top of a structure she’d placed over the fire. When the water boiled she put some herbs in the water and let them boil.
Tana wasn’t happy to learn that the rather rude, ugly as sin man that had insulted her so rudely was the leader of the village, but she wasn’t surprised. Women went stupid over the strangest things. Still no answer on whether he was the chief impregnator of the cult but she didn’t really car
e; she just wanted to get out of the village, she wasn’t spending two days up here.
“Where’s my phone? Have you seen it?” Tana looked around for her bag but didn’t see it.
“What is a phone?” Allana asked, bringing Tana a cup of whatever concoction she’d mixed up. Tana took the mug, but didn’t drink.
“It will ease your pain. You’ll rest then we can talk more, if you choose. Drink up now.” Allana said with an encouraging smile. Tana took a sip and found it tasted rather pleasant. She sipped at it some more and soon started to feel all of the aches and pains easing. Sometimes you had no idea just how badly you hurt until you stopped hurting.
Chapter 2
Tana was still at the village a week later. Her belongings could not be found anywhere and she was starting to think someone had taken her things. She’d had all of her gear on her back when she climbed up the mountain. At the very least, she may have set it down but that was all. Nobody knew what she was talking about, however; and even she was starting to doubt herself by the end of the week.
Without her phone she couldn’t call for help and she certainly wasn’t going to be walking out, not with an ankle as badly sprained as hers was. Nope, no walking for her, though she had started to hobble around the village a bit. Kajika may have been cruel but he was right, she was a giant compared to the other women in the village. She stood over a foot taller than most of them; none were overweight, and they were all beautiful. She’d hate them all if they weren’t such kind, accepting people. Each had offered something to Tana, a bite of food, a cool drink, an extra blanket, and she felt grateful, even if they were a cult.
After many talks with Mingan and observing the people of the village, Tana figured out these people thought they were a part of some kind of spirit world. Mingan believed she was a shaman and that’s why she could cross over from the land of the living to the spirit world. They really believed that gods, ghosts, and other supernatural beings came from their “land”. Tana hadn’t seen anything yet to prove them right. For that matter, she hadn’t seen anything to prove them wrong.
She had an idea one evening and went out with Allana’s help to the highest part of the village and looked out at the mountains in the distance, looking for other lights, for towers, airplanes, anything from the modern world to prove them wrong but couldn’t see anything. She should at least see ranger stations from up here but she didn’t see any of those either. There simply wasn’t anything but the lights of fires from another village that Allana pointed out to her. No streetlights, no home lights, no blinking airplane lights, nothing.
The next morning she watched for contrails from a plane but didn’t see any all day. Not even a helicopter going to the resort that had a helipad 5 miles from the office she’d signed into earlier in the week. Something was wrong.
Tana started to accept that something strange was definitely happening. From her talks with Mingan and the stories the elders told the children around a fire each night, Tana learned about the people of the spirit world. They thought they were actually the ghosts of people that had lived in the land of the living. When someone passed in the land of the living they came here, forgetting who they were. When a woman became pregnant in the spirit world, the elders said, this was the entry of a spirit from the land of the living to the spirit world. The child would not remember who they were in their previous life; they would only know this life. Occasionally someone from the land of the living would be able to see people from the spirit world, but not often.
Tana cornered Mingan that evening and questioned the logic. “How do you explain my presence, Mingan? I’m here, fully formed. I wasn’t born here but I’m from your land of the living.”
“Shaman’s are powerful, Tana, you are a shaman. I can sense that in you. Somehow you have the magic to be in either place. You could return to your land if you chose to.” Mingan replied in an almost off-hand way.
“I could just…what, just blink myself back?” Tana spluttered. “I want to go back to my world desperately, I’m blinking like mad here, and I’m still here!”
“You’ll go when you have completed the task you came for. Not before.”
“What task is that?” Tana asked briskly, stamping her foot. Mingan was becoming used to her moods and smiled at her serenely, placing a hand on Tana’s shoulder.
“The task you were sent for. Only you can find out what that task is.”
“Maybe her task is to eat all of the deer in the forest, or to turn all of our women into slaves waiting on her immense form.”
Tana heard the words and knew who was behind her, snorting in laughter. “How about you just take a long walk off a short pier there super stud?”
“What is a pier?” Kajika asked, not understanding.
“Get lost, in other words.” Tana retorted.
“Why would I want to lose myself? I like where I live.” Kajika asked, frustrating Tana even more.
“Forget it, I’ll do the getting lost part, again.” Tana stalked off to her wigwam, slapping the hide aside to slip in and plop down on her pallet. As if to torment her even more, the pallet creaked and almost turned over.
“I hate this place,” Tana said to herself before punching her blankets and going to sleep.
Kajika seemed to be everywhere she went over the next week, constantly taunting, constantly determined to bring tears to her eyes. She knew he wanted her gone, that was blatantly obvious. She’d managed to keep her boots and clothes but over the days her clothes had become filthy so she’d started to wear the clothing of the men and that brought a tong of ridicule down on her head. Luckily the village didn’t follow their ‘Great Father’s’ lead and do the same. Many pitied her, mainly the women, and a couple of the men her age actually gave her interested looks once they saw her body garbed in the tight buckskin.
By the end of the second week her ankle was healing and Tana started to test it, taking longer and longer walks each day. There was still a twinge after she walked on it for an hour but she’d swallow the pain if it meant getting back to reality. She couldn’t stand the torment anymore.
She spoke with Mingan and told him she didn’t see any job she was supposed to be doing and she wanted to go home.
“You don’t see that there’s a job for you here?” Mingan questioned.
“No, and I’m starting to think if I stay here much longer I’ll be stuck here. Somebody must be looking for me. My family may not be but someone at the office will be. Or my employer will be by Monday when I don’t show up for work. Security officers tend to be missed.”
“What is a security officer?” Mingan asked, seeming to let the question about her job in the spirit world go.
“I guard a bank at night; make sure people don’t break in and steal the valuables inside.” Tana had learned by now to put things as plainly as she could. The practice saved time and frustration for all parties.
“So you have the job of a man in the LOL?” Tana had all of the village calling the land of the living that now. She thought it was funny, anyway.
“No, women and men can do a variety of jobs in the LOL. There aren’t male jobs and female jobs; we share burdens and base employment on ability, not gender. Some women are better at guarding than they are sewing, you know?” Tana couldn’t sew a straight line if it meant saving her own life. She hated it and always stabbed herself more than she did the cloth she was trying to sew.
“Well, I guess if you’re ready to go then you must go. I cannot stop you. When do you plan to leave?” He asked, handing her a plate of food he’d prepared for the evening meal.
“This is really good, Mingan, I will miss your food. I guess I’ll give my ankle one more day then I have to go.”
“We will feast tomorrow night then, to wish you well on your journey. Do you want me to get someone to help you down the mountain?”
“No, I should be fine. I’ll stop halfway down and then finish on the next day. I’ll be late getting back to work but if I get stuck, then at least
maybe someone will come looking for me.” She said, scraping up the last of the food with a flat bread made by the village women.
“The people of your world cannot find you here, Tana; they will never find you here no matter how long they search for you.” Mingan said as he carried a plate of food to another villager.
The next night Tana settled onto a pile of buckskin blankets with some of the village women she’d built friendships with and watched as the villagers performed dances for her. She was the guest of honour and felt like it as the ladies decorated her hair with late-summer flowers and brought her the best plates of food. She’d become accustomed to the slate slabs used as plates and was careful to make sure she didn’t cut her hands on the sometimes sharp rock. She was enjoying the evening and felt sadness at the idea of leaving the people. It was time to go back to her world though.
Tana had thought them all mad when she first came to the village, a cult with very strange ideas but she’d come to respect their ways over time, even if she still wasn’t certain if they were truly of the spirit world or just a bunch of lunatics. They were living with what nature provided them, making everything from the food they ate, to the soap they used for cleaning, eating utensils, and clothing. Everything else was gathered from the woods and they were thankful for every bit of it. There was no electricity, no running water, any of it. Just a communal life of hunting and gathering that Tana thought left the people far happier than the modern conveniences of her world provided. All that mattered was the village and the people in it.
Tana’s thoughts soured as she spotted Kajika heading in her direction. Here it comes, more insults.
“Ah, please, do not fall asleep and roll over or you will crush our women.” He looked down at her with a snide grin then walked away, seeking out Mingan.
Kane (Alexander Shifter Brothers Book 1) Page 103
