Island's End

by Padma Venkatraman

  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.

  II

  JOURNEY THROUGH THE OTHERWORLD

  12

  Lah-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.

  13

  The 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 drum
beat, 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.

  The drumbeat softens and I hear a whisper coming from near the plant that the spiderweb hangs on. When I bend down close, wanting to hear the voice a little better, I notice how unusual the plant is. It lacks flowers, but its leaves are as brightly colored as flowers’ petals: red mottled with pink. The lower part of each leaf is shaped like the pitchers we use to store water, and the top part looks like a small lid.

  I peer into one of the pitcher-shaped leaves. To my surprise, it is filled with sweet-smelling juice.

  Just then, four sharp drumbeats cut into my mind.

  I obey the call to return and trudge back down the path. A strong wind pushes at me, as though urging me to move faster. As soon as my feet splash into the pool again, all light disappears.

  I open my eyes. It is a shock to find my body lying on the jungle floor, as though I never left.

  “Well done, Uido.” Lah-ame smiles.

  “I saw Biliku-waye as a tiny spider. Why did she appear in such a delicate form?”

  “Whenever your own spirit feels strong, the Otherworldly spirits will not appear large or terrifying.” Lah-ame’s smile widens. “Tell me on what plant Biliku-waye hung her web for you.”

  “The plant’s leaves were shaped like water pitchers and filled with a sweet-smelling juice.”

  “That is the insect-eating plant,” he says. “A creature that looks like a plant but acts like an animal. Its spirit is caught between two ways of living.”

  “How can a plant’s spirit be like an animal’s, Lah-ame? Plants are rooted to one place, while animals move. And there are so many other differences between them.”

  “This plant traps insects. But instead of catching them with a sticky tongue like a frog, the plant has a slippery leaf. Insects are fooled into thinking the brightly colored leaves are flower petals. If they try to land on the pitcher-shaped leaf and sip the juice inside, they slide down and drown in the juice instead. The plant then eats the insects just as an animal might.”

  “How do you know so much about this plant, Lah-ame? Have you seen it in the Otherworld, too?”

  “It grows in this world, Uido.”

  “But where, Lah-ame? I have never heard anyone speak of it, nor have I seen it myself.”

  “One day you will,” Lah-ame says. “If Biliku-waye hung her web on it in your vision, it means this is your special medicine plant. You must seek out this plant and bring its healing waters back to our people.”

  “When?” I ask, eager to see it again.

  “Close to the end of your training.” Lah-ame lays his hand on my shoulder as if he is trying to weigh down my curiosity. “That test is still far away, Uido.”

  I ask no more questions because I sense he will not answer them. But Lah-ame’s refusal to speak about the last part of my training only makes me think all the more about the strange plant until I fall asleep that night.

  14

  From that day on I have hardly any time to wonder about where the insect-eating plant grows or how I must find it someday. Lah-ame keeps me busy learning new skills. I barely even have time to miss being with the rest of the tribe.

  It is only at night, lying on my sleeping platform while rain slides off the banana-leaf roof, that I can think of them. I sometimes dream of being back in my tribe’s circle of warmth. But if I see or hear the strangers’ flying boats during the day, I have a terrible dream at night—of Ragavan visiting the island, cutting down our jungle and taking Tawai away in his boat. Yet when I wake, the steady downpour and the hhhhffff of the stormy wind comforts and reminds me that the strangers cannot land on our shores in the rainy season.

  Most mornings Lah-ame and I gather plant and animal parts that have healing powers. Then we return to the shelter of our banana-leaf huts and roast or squeeze or grind what we collected to make medicines. I enjoy feeling the growing weight of my lizard-skin pouch.

  In the evenings, after our meal of berries and fruit and nuts, my stomach often growls with hunger. But in the darkness, Lah-ame teaches me many things. I learn how to find and chase away the lau that cause disease by entering a person’s body and capturing the spirit; the chants an oko-jumu must say to thank the spirits for fire, good weather, and successful hunts; the rituals that celebrate birth and marriage; and all the tales of our people. He guides me farther and farther into the Otherworld with his rattle and drum. But although I learn to journey there with ease, I never again see the insect-eating plant.

  Then, four moons after we parted from the rest of the tribe, Lah-ame gives me my first test. At dawn he begins to ask me about all he has taught. My voice does not falter once and I answer every question correctly. When the sky beyond the mat of branches above us grows dark, Lah-ame finally stops.

  “I am pleased by how quickly you learned about healing,” he says. “Tomorrow I will teach you how to make fire.”

  His praise lifts my spirit like a breeze, until I feel like I am floating above the treetops with joy. That night I dream of kindling a great orange blaze while my entire tribe watches in admiration.

  The next day, Lah-ame brings me his fire tools. He places a trunk with a small hollow carved in the middle on the ground, under the shelter of his roof. I kneel beside it, as I have seen him do, and place his long fire stick inside the hollow. He helps me run the vine rope across the fire stick and shows me how to balance the stick inside the hollow while churning it with the vine rope. I am surprised how difficult it is. My palms redden and blister as the rope cuts into my skin. It takes me eight days to build up the skill and strengt
h to move the rope fast enough while keeping the fire stick in place. By then the hollow in the trunk is as black as my hair and my palms are rough as bark. On the evening of the eighth day, I finally see a burst of gray smoke. But that is just the first step.

  I learn that I must keep going after the smoke appears, until sparks finally fly, then blow on the sparks to keep them alive and feed them quickly with bark strips before the sparks go out. Next, I must use the strips to light a pile of twigs and leaves. Only when this pile is alight can I feed the blaze with large branches.

  After four more days of trying and failing, Lah-ame says, “Remember, everything has a spirit. To create fire, you must bring together the power of the trees’ spirits and use this along with the strength of your own spirit and body.”

  Before trying again, I pray softly to the trees from which the firewood came. Then I churn the fire stick in the hollow with my vine rope. When I see the first sparks, I reach for a handful of bark strips as usual. But this time, instead of worrying about whether they will catch, I imagine my spirit as a steady light, pulling the sparks toward the bark strips.

  The Otherworld is within everything; as much inside this fire as outside it.

  As soon as the strips are alight, I use them to set fire to a pile of twigs nearby. While I stoke the blaze with more twigs and branches, Lah-ame puts the hollowed-out trunk, vine rope and fire stick away. Soon my fire is not just crackling but roaring.

  As I watch my fire grow larger, my spirit swells with a feeling of triumph. Although my back and arms ache from days of hunching over the fire tools, I wish my tribe were here to dance with me around the flames I built.

  “Have you not forgotten something?” Lah-ame says.

  “Have I?” I ask.

  Lah-ame rises and says a prayer of thanks to Pulug-ame, who gave the gift of fire to our ancestors. Ashamed that I forgot to thank him myself, I bow my head and repeat the words after Lah-ame. We sit on the warm earth, close to the fire.