Danna’s words disturb me. “What if Lah-ame thinks it is bad for me to see the spirits? Maybe he has the power to stop the spirits from ever visiting my dreams again.” I shiver despite the growing warmth of the day.
“Even if Lah-ame could use his power to keep you from entering the Otherworld while you sleep, do you really think he would?” Danna gives me a quick hug. “Go now.”
He breathes on my face and turns back to the crowd on the beach.
3
I stare at the brown slope of the cliffs lining the northern end of our island where Lah-ame goes to pray every morning during the dry season.
Then I run along the water’s edge and plunge into the shadow of the jungle below the cliffs. The earth hardens as the path climbs upward. I splash across a stream that runs downhill. Moments later the jungle is behind me. I run across the dry ground until I reach the tall rock at the tip of our island.
Upon the rock, facing the sun, stands Lah-ame. His black skin gleams like the midnight sky, his hair is as white as a moonlit cloud. The salty breeze carries his deep voice into my ears.
“Biliku-waye, Pulug-ame, spirits of the Otherworld, you decide whether dawn clouds should cover the sky or whether the sun’s arrows of light must shoot through the water to wake our reef. You decide if the ocean should rise up tall or send waves that guide our boats carefully through the coral. All-powerful spirits, hear my prayer. Protect us and our island home. Keep our reef sharp. Give strength to the untiring sea so that it batters back all evil creatures.”
Still catching my breath, I wait for Lah-ame to sense my presence. This morning the sky looks like the inside of a pearl shell with bands of pink and white shining against the blue. I feel I could almost touch it with my outstretched hand. It seems to hang down low, as close to the earth as in the days of our ancestors, before Biliku-waye’s husband, Pulug-ame, shot the arrow that carried the sky out of our reach.
His prayer ended, Lah-ame climbs down from the tall rock and blows his breath across my face in greeting. As always, four feathers from the wings of a sea eagle are tucked into his beaded headband.
“Welcome, Uido,” he says. “Are you here to speak with me about your dreams at last?”
His question surprises me so much that I am not sure what to say.
“Yes, Uido.” Lah-ame’s smile deepens the nest of wrinkles on his face. “I know the spirits visit you.”
“But then, why have you never asked me about my dreams before?”
“I have been waiting for you to share your secret with me. Such things must not be hurried.” He perches on a nearby stone and motions for me to sit next to him.
I take a deep breath. “Biliku-waye told me to go to the beach this morning. Brown strangers were there. I saw a gray light around one of the stranger’s heads and twice I heard a voice speak, though Tawai could not.”
“Thank you for trusting me, Uido. And do not worry. I would never tell the spirits to stop speaking to you.”
At his words, I am flooded with relief. But a quick shudder runs through me too. How does Lah-ame know everything that is in my mind?
Lah-ame lays his hands on my head. The warmth of his touch comforts me.
Questions roll off my tongue. “How far away do the strangers live? Why did they come here this morning? What magic helps their boats go so fast?”
“The strangers have more things than we can imagine. Huts made of stone. Boats that fly across the ocean and the sky. I was once as young as you are now and just as fascinated by the strangers’ magic.” Lah-ame pauses. “But we have magic of our own. I found my way into a world that is more beautiful than theirs.”
“You mean the Otherworld?”
He nods.
“Can we only travel there in dreams, Lah-ame?”
Lah-ame taps at the side of his head and the feathers in his headband sway. “The Otherworld is inside us and all around us. We may enter it while we are awake as well as when we sleep.”
He points at the water. “Look there, Uido. Tell me what you see.”
“I see waves chasing each other,” I say.
“Look deeper, Uido.”
Wondering what Lah-ame wants me to see, I gaze at the bright ocean. It glares back, making my eyes water. But I see nothing unusual.
“Uido, last night, in your dream, you saw with your eyes closed. Try that again.”
He rests both his hands on the top of my head again. They grow heavy, weighing down my thoughts until I feel like I am falling asleep on my feet. Slowly, my mind becomes as calm as a pool of water on a still day.
Lah-ame’s voice is gentle. “Follow your spirit across the ocean as far as you can.”
I am still not sure what he wants me to do, but I imagine my spirit as a circle of light, floating farther and farther away from our island. Suddenly, an image enters my mind of a person standing on a beach. At first the picture is murky but it sharpens as I concentrate. As the vision brightens, my skin tingles and my spirit fills with the same awe as when I dream of the Otherworld.
“I see a beach four times as long as ours!” I say. “I hear the rattling leaves of a coconut palm. A man is standing under the tree and holding his arms out in welcome.”
When I finish speaking, the image grows dim. I open my eyes.
He pats my hand. His touch feels as reassuring as Danna’s. “I was born on the island you saw, Uido. And the man is my friend.”
“Your friend?” I know Lah-ame and the other elders in our tribe were born on another island and that they came here to get away from the strangers. But I do not remember Lah-ame ever saying he had a friend among them. “How could I see him from so far away?”
“The spirits have chosen you to be their messenger because your own spirit has the power to travel deep into the Otherworld. Perhaps you will become the next oko-jumu. Would you like to be the tribe’s spiritual guide one day? Do you wish to become my apprentice?”
4
Lah-ame’s question astonishes me.
“Learn the ways of an oko-jumu?” I whisper. “Me?”
“It is not easy to train as a spiritual guide,” Lah-ame continues. “For every ten men who try, nine of them fail.”
“But—but”—I stutter, hardly daring to imagine I could someday lead the tribe as Lah-ame now does—“I am a girl.”
“Do you not remember the stories I have told about Nimi-waye, Riela-waye, Cormila-waye and Chanelewadiwaye? Those women oko-jumu were also girls once.”
“But have you known any woman who became a spiritual guide, Lah-ame?” I ask.
“It is rare,” Lah-ame admits. “Still, there is no reason why a girl should find it harder to train in the way of the oko-jumu than a boy.”
My breath quickens with excitement. “I want to learn everything about the Otherworld.”
Lah-ame runs his gnarled fingers over the medicine bag that hangs from his bark belt. “No one can teach you everything. Myself least of all. I only know enough to guide you, if you truly wish to learn.”
“I do, Lah-ame.”
“This is not a choice to make lightly.”
“I feel so alive whenever my spirit dreams of the Otherworld. Even seeing Biliku-waye and hearing the voice on the beach filled me with wonder, not just fear. I want to feel that way again.”
“Curiosity to explore the Otherworld is good, but not enough. You will need more than curiosity to survive the training. Every apprentice faces tests that threaten their lives. Think it over, Uido. Carefully.”
Lah-ame blows his breath on my cheeks, signaling that our talk is at an end.
I linger on the cliff, hoping he will let me stay a little longer. I have so many questions about the Otherworld and training and spirits that no one but Lah-ame can answer.
“You must return to the village now,” Lah-ame says.
“But Lah-ame,” I say, reluctant to leave his side. “Will you not come with me? Our people will be anxious for your advice about the strangers.”
“I will follo
w you soon enough, Uido.”
I sigh and walk carelessly downhill, distracted by the possibilities open before me. A twig snaps underfoot as I enter the jungle, frightening a group of butterflies off a hibiscus flower. As they rise into the air like tiny rainbows, my thoughts soar up with them. I imagine carrying a pouch full of healing pastes and powders—just like the one that dangles from Lah-ame’s belt.
5
I approach the village, my mind overflowing with questions about the oko-jumu life. When I enter the clearing, a drongo bird flies down from the laurel tree behind Lah-ame’s hut. Tseep-tseep-tseep-tseep, it whistles, its forked black tail bobbing over my head as if it senses my excitement.
I look for my friend Natalang, with whom I go to gather food from the jungle every morning. The clearing is filled with babies’ cries and women’s laughter. Mimi kneels outside her youngest sister’s hut, combing my little cousin’s hair. My aunt sits nearby, suckling her baby. I greet them and ask if they have seen Natalang. They shake their heads.
Natalang’s mimi spots me from across the clearing and calls out, “Come and wake my girl, Uido. She is still asleep.” Natalang has three older sisters. As the youngest girl in her family, she has very little work.
I go over to her family’s hut, opposite ours. Natalang’s mimi is rolling wet clay between her fingers and stacking the coils one on top of another to shape a pitcher. “It is good you are Natalang’s friend,” she says. “If not, that last girl of mine would sleep all day.”
I laugh and peer inside their hut. Natalang is sprawled out on her reed mat. Even with her mouth wide open, she is beautiful. Natalang’s cheeks are plump as a ripe fruit and every part of her body is round, while my cheekbones are too high and Ashu says I look like a skeleton with skin wrapped around it.
“Wake up.” I poke Natalang’s soft arm.
She rolls onto her side, knocking over one of the shell plates stacked beside the round wall. Her long eyelashes flutter and she yawns. “It is so early, Uido,” she complains, although it is not. “Why are you awake already?”
“Something happened this morning,” I tell her.
“Did Danna kiss you at last?” Her eyes widen with excitement.
“Danna is only a friend,” I say.
“Then why are you always in such a hurry to finish gathering?” She rolls up her mat and leans it against the curved wall. “We used to be together all the time. But now you want to be with him as much as possible.”
Natalang hands me a bark bag for collecting food, picks up her family’s wooden water bucket and follows me out of the hut. I know she likes to circle around the clearing, gossiping with the married women and playing with their babies. But I pull at her arm and lead her straight toward the jungle.
Natalang drags her feet, glancing back at the bachelor hut where young men live together when they are ra-gumul: the time that comes after they scar themselves with tattoos to prove their manhood but before they marry. It is the only hut without walls and we can see a few boys still preparing to hunt or fish, although most have already left.
“So what is it?” Natalang asks when we are inside the jungle.
I want to tell her about Lah-ame’s offer to take me on as his apprentice. But now that we are alone, I feel too worried to speak of it directly. Natalang and I have been friends since we were children. Now we are both ra-gumul girls—our blood has come but we are not yet married. Although her chatter still lightens my spirit, these days she thinks of boys far more often than I like. Natalang finds it strange that I am not as interested in men or babies, and I do not want her to think me even stranger.
Cautiously, I ask, “Natalang, have you ever wondered how the oko-jumu train?”
She stops walking. “What?”
“Do you ever wonder about Lah-ame’s life?”
“Lah-ame’s life.” She rolls my words slowly in her mouth as if they are berries she is tasting for the first time. "No.”
Her simple denial upsets me, because it forces me to see that my interests are drifting even further away from hers. “Why not?” I ask, hoping her answer will somehow make me feel better.
“Probably because he has no wife and no children. I might think of him more often if he had a ra-gumul son.”
“But Lah-ame does so much for the tribe, Natalang. He starts our fires, he warns us about bad weather, he heals us and keeps us safe.”
“I never said I do not respect him, but even in the dry season when he is in our village nearly every day, his own spirit seems to be in another world.”
“Do you ever think about the spirits?” I ask.
“Why would I? Do you?”
“Sometimes.” I dig a hole into the ground with my big toe.
“Oh look!” Natalang points by my feet at a tasty konmo-ta root. “Help me dig it out.”
With my digging stick, I loosen the ground around the fleshy root, and Natalang pulls at it until we work it free. Then she sits back on her haunches and wipes the sweat from her forehead. “So, what was the exciting thing that happened this morning?”
“Strangers came to our island,” I say.
“Is that why everyone was shouting? My sisters tried to get me up but I would not open my eyes.”
“Only you could sleep through something like that,” I tease.
“Did anyone see them up close?” she asks.
“Only Tawai and I. We chased them off the beach. They are much taller than our men, like in Lah-ame’s stories.”
She giggles. “So are they fatter and handsomer than our men, too? I would like to see these men!”
“Do you think of nothing but men and boys, Natalang?”
“Do you never think of them, Uido?”
I sigh and poke at the ground with my digging stick. The earth feels harder than usual. “Pulug-ame has forgotten to send the rains,” I say. “The earth mother is so dry—I am sure Tarai-mimi is ready to quench her thirst.”
“You worry too much, Uido,” Natalang says. “It is Lah-ame’s work to remind Pulug-ame that Tarai-mimi needs a good rain.”
One day that might be my work, I think.
Natalang is always happiest in the rainy season, when we move deep into the jungle to the south. There, except for Lah-ame, the whole tribe stays in one communal hut, until the moon has grown into a perfect circle six times and Pulug-ame tires of sending the rain. I enjoy it, but I also miss seeing Lah-ame, who spends most of the rainy season alone, somewhere else.
The rest of the morning we keep busy gathering food. Natalang tells me funny stories, and listening to her cheerful voice, I keep from worrying about the oko-jumu life and the strangers.
A little after midday, we make our way to the pool near the village to fill Natalang’s bucket. She dips her finger into the water.
“It is cold!” she shrieks, but she jumps in, startling a nearby frog that leaps away croaking rrrrrgup, rrrrrgup. I wade in after her.
“A crocodile!” she whispers, pointing at something behind me.
I whirl around. “What? Where?”
“You believed me.” She laughs. “I never thought you would.”
I shake my head at my own foolishness. We all know crocodiles live far away in the swamp that we avoid. I snatch her bucket, half fill it with water and empty it over her shoulder. She squeals and splashes me back, spraying water into my face.
For a while, we laugh and play like when we were little children. But as we clamber up the bank again, a drumbeat booms through the jungle from the direction of the village: Come, En-ge, come.
Lah-ame uses this signal to gather the tribe together when he has something important to say.
6
We return to the village. Natalang sways gracefully, balancing the bucket of water on her head, while our bag full of roots bounces against my hip. We part ways as I run into the clearing a few steps ahead of her, eager to hear what Lah-ame has to say.
Mimi takes our heavy bag of food from me. A few moments later, I see Kara emerge from th
e jungle with a small group of men. A freshly killed monitor lizard dangles from his shoulder. The petie-ta is nearly as long as Tawai, who comes running toward me waving his spear and looking as proud as if he hunted the lizard all on his own.
I watch other families knotting together: men bringing fish or animals for the tribe, girls with gathering baskets or bags, married women carrying babies on their hips or holding children by the hand, elders looking as wide-eyed and curious as the children. Only the ra-gumul boys from the bachelor hut sit in a group by themselves rather than with their families.
Lah-ame faces us, standing in front of his hut. The laurel tree behind it casts a long shadow on the ground before him. His palms fly across the boar-skin mouth of his waist-high drum.
I hear the drumbeat soften. “Is anyone missing?” Lah-ame asks.
The married men in each family answer this question in turn. Satisfied that all forty families are present, Lah-ame says, “You must have questions about the strangers who came to our island this morning. As some of you know, I have a friend among them. But most strangers are not to be trusted. So be wary of them.”
The elders nod to show they agree with Lah-ame. But the children look confused and a few men shout questions: “Why did they come?” “When will they come again?”
“One of us must keep watch for the strangers during the day to find out why they want to come ashore,” Lah-ame answers. “We need not keep watch at night. I know they will not come after dark.”
“Why are they as hairy as rats?” Tawai asks.
A ripple of laughter spreads through the tribe.
Lah-ame holds up his hand for silence. “I will answer your questions with a story. But first, we will have our evening meal. I see our chief hunter has brought us a fat lizard.”
“Thanks to the help of many,” Kara says. He places the dead lizard on the ground at the center of the clearing. Kara and his group of hunters dance out the story of the hunt to honor the animal’s spirit. Other groups of men follow.
Island's End Page 2
