“… fifty-six… fifty-seven… fifty-eight… fifty-nine… sixty!”

  Adjaash uncovered her eyes and turned away from the folds of the warped mahogany trunk. She let out an amused sigh and took a deep, preparatory breath. Then she cupped her hands.

  “Alright, Ashba! I counted to sixty, not thirty this time – as you requested!”

  Still wearing her coy smirk, she stepped off of the knotted root and ventured farther into the woods, as the rich umber vines and the emerald canopy – toplit by the midday sun – embraced her advance.

  Almost immediately, her eyes caught the tracks. Little nine-year-old feet scampered from the elder tree, and led their eager if ill-prepared master into the verdure. Adjaash smiled and followed the trail.

  The footprints carried on through the red dirt and cinnamon soil – brushing through pockets of leafy grass and flowered thorn bushes. The steps were light and hasty; Adjaash was always impressed by her sister’s pace.

  This time, however, Ashbashenu did not only rely on distance. As Adjaash reached a small clearing, she saw that deception was not beyond her sister.

  Here – in a dirt clearing of burnt brown and crimson, lined by redwoods and ferns and eared colocasia – Ashbashenu had utilized her extra time to her advantage. In the clearing, she had run back and forth – left and right, over and over – stirring up a frenzy of overlapping trails in the freshly sifted softpack. She had intentionally run close to the edge of the clearing, to occlude exit patterns – but Adjaash gladly welcomed the challenge.

  Slowly, carefully, she knelt down and began to study the overlapping trails. Her eyes could see which layers were newer. The first footprints had been matted down by their successors, and while the cross-cuts occluded the prints’ form, Adjaash could distinguish the later impressions. It was a noble effort, but Ashbashenu should’ve known Adjaash had this skill. Adjaash tracked deer and jackrabbits and hogs and foxes in the busy forest. A human was crafty, but it couldn’t blend like they could.

  Adjaash found the freshest set of prints and followed it to the clearing’s edge. She used her hands to part the plants, and there in the soil, she saw the prints carry onward. She bounded ahead.

  Ashbashenu had to have tired out at this point, Adjaash assumed. She’d run back and forth so much in the clearing, she wouldn’t have gone too far after.

  Adjaash’s suspicions were confirmed when she saw the trail end abruptly at the base of a gnarl-rooted sentinel tree. The prints skewed toward the root and disappeared at the monolith’s foot. The trunk’s boiled, rugged texture allowed for easy climbing; Adjaash was almost certain her sister had taken this path.

  She stepped onto the root, and she started to feel for handholds – when her ever-thorough eyes turned back to the forest ground for one last check. And there, not ten feet away, half-hidden in the dirt and greenery, she saw a two-foot imprint where Ashbashenu had landed, after climbing onto the root and jumping away to mislead.

  Adjaash smiled. Her sister was learning.

  Adjaash leapt off the root and followed the trail where it picked up again. It snaked back and forth through the trees until a small opening lingered up ahead. Here, Adjaash stopped again. A plant nestled in between a coil of roots caught her attention.

  It was the tipu whakama – the shy plant. When a person brushed against it, it would fold up its narrow, elliptical leaves close to the stem. Across the path, Adjaash saw another with its crown still proudly unfurled. But here, by the root, it hid its prize against the stalk.

  Ashbashenu’s footprints stopped here. She’d brushed up against the shy plant. And then she’d climbed.

  Smiling wider – smelling the scent of victory – Adjaash grabbed hold of the trunk and began to climb. She lifted toward a low branch and kept ascending – until she was above the first layer of the low canopy. And there, in the glow of the emerald shell, she saw Ashbashenu just ten feet higher – reaching toward a nearby branch from an adjacent tree.

  “Ah-ha!” Adjaash blurted.

  Ashbashenu’s eyes shot downward in shock.

  “No! There’s no way! There’s no way!”

  “You were clever this time, I must admit,” Adjaash offered.

  “You must’ve cheated,” Ashbashenu grumbled, before slyly adding with an eye roll: “It’s in your nature.”

  “I’m simply resourceful,” Adjaash chimed. “You give me too much to work with every time.”

  “Whatever you say, cheater,” Ashbashenu retorted, turning up her nose.

  “But what are you doing?” Adjaash prodded with a grin, nodding to Ashbashenu’s extended hand. “You can’t move once the countdown is up. You have to stay in one place!”

  “I’m… I’m not moving…” Ashbashenu tried and failed to lie.

  The branch she loosely grabbed for now snapped, exposing her dishonesty. She wobbled and swung back to the trunk of the redwood tree, clasping her hands against the swollen bark. Adjaash coughed out a chatter of laughter. A tinge of fear flashed across her face, however, as she saw Ashbashenu’s weak hand slip just a bit.

  Adjaash opened her arm – to catch Ashbashenu if she fell.

  “Come down before you hurt yourself,” the elder sister advised with a chuckle, disguising her concern.

  They descended back to the forest floor, convening upon the crimson dirt. Adjaash helped Ashbashenu to the ground, then gestured across the way.

  “Come here,” Adjaash said. “I’ve got something to show you.”

  Adjaash led Ashbashenu to the shy plant that still stood untouched. She knelt down close to it, and Ashbashenu followed her example. Adjaash held out a finger toward the plant, then glanced to make sure her sister was watching.

  “It’s called the tipu whakama,” Adjaash said. “You can recognize it by the little streaks spreading onto the leaf from the stem. It looks like a normal plant, but… watch this.”

  Adjaash poked the plant’s leaves with her finger. The stem bounced and swayed, and then the plant quickly folded its leaves inward – as if fleeing from the contact. Ashbashenu’s eyes lit up; she gasped in awe.

  “That’s how I found you,” Adjaash informed with a smirk. “The forest gave away your presence.”

  Ashbashenu glared at the shy plant, freely expressing her anger at nature’s betrayal. Adjaash laughed lightly and rose to her feet.

  “But you were also clumsy,” Adjaash added with a shoulder shrug.

  With a heavy sigh, Ashbashenu too stood. They started to walk away.

  “But you’ve got to admit, I’m getting better. Right? I am getting better.”

  Adjaash laughed again, before finally conceding.

  “Yes… yes, you are.”

  The walk back to the village was not necessarily a long one – but Adjaash walked as slow as she could. These were the moments she felt most at peace. Under the sharded light of the sun, adrift in the colors of the wood, listening to the many sounds – with Ashbashenu at her side. But today, at the conclusion of their game, Ashbashenu was silent and tense. Adjaash knew what was on her mind.

  “When you train as a gatherer, that knowledge will be important,” Adjaash told her. “The elders like to see children who take their own initiative. Wemeshin will be impressed with how much you already know.”

  Adjaash tried to give her sister a soft smile, and Ashbashenu tried to share it – but Adjaash could see the reserved sadness behind her amber eyes. Little Ashba’s jovial light was not gone – but a shadow cast upon it.

  The decision had come from the elders and the mothers not long ago. She would not be a forager.

  Still, Ashbashenu was silent. She tucked her hands at her sides, stepping lightly and carefully over roots and shrubs. Her sullen eyes softly traced the ground – as if searching for something to become lost in. Adjaash never wanted to see her sister like this. She scarcely had before.

  “And you know… when you know the ingredients…” Adjaash proposed. “… you can put burping berries in Bagashri’s drinks.”

  This, at least, drew a small, mischievious smile from Ashbashenu. Neither of them liked the mother Bagashri.

  “I know you don’t like the decision,” Adjaash conceded. “But remember what whaea always says.”

  Ashbashenu managed a solemn nod: “From all seeds, a flower can bloom.”

  Adjaash nodded, swallowing her unease. A part of her did not believe her birth mother’s words. Not anymore. But today, for her sister, she had to.

  “From all seeds, a flower can bloom,” Adjaash echoed.

  They returned to the main path, and they were almost back to the village of Shenupuk when Adjaash heard footsteps up ahead. Through the low-lying branches and emerald leaves, a contingent of foragers approached – wearing linen shirts, high-cut breechcloths, and loose linen pants. Tall and resolute Gendehar led the way, bearing a red-and-orange painted sash – bow and arrow equipped over his shoulder alongside his braid. The war chief Darshin traveled alongside him, while a few of the younger foragers followed. At their haste, Adjaash’s brow lowered. Her voice firmed.

  “What’s going on?” Adjaash demanded.

  “Adjaash, come with us,” the leader Gendehar beckoned, sweat shining off his charcoal skin. “To the overlook. The more trained eyes, the better.”

  Adjaash nodded, unnerved by the pace of his voice. As the foragers passed and carried on down the path, Adjaash took Ashbashenu’s shoulders in her hands and knelt down to face her.

  “I’ve got to go, Ashba,” she said. “Go take care of whaea. I’ll see you later.”

  Ashbashenu’s expression melted through a number of understandable emotions – worry, jealousy, frustration – but ultimately settled on love. She hugged her sister tight, and Adjaash shared the embrace. Then Ashbashenu let her go and rushed toward the village. Adjaash watched after her for as long as she could. Then she whisked around and hurried after the others, patterned poncho flowing behind her.

  It wasn’t long before she caught up with them. They cut through the mahogany forest, until the trees thinned and the burgundy soil firmed up, giving way to red rocks. They lashed through the jungle-speckled spires, scaling the rises and falls and root-raggled cliffs as the steady hum of the waves came into earshot.

  As they reached the overlook atop the red ridges on the northern Torwan shore – marked by a stone pyre left by foragers long before them, and shaded by tropical trees – the ocean came into view past the windblown arches’ tops. The azure expanse – the Nebesaea – stretched all the way to the edge of the world, cradling the sky which it mimicked. But on the horizon, an ominous reminder of the world beyond sat atop the churning waves, breaking the embrace of the realm’s two halves.

  “There it is,” Gendehar announced gravely. “It’s still there.”

  Adjaash crested the overlook and stood atop the rusted peak, as the loamy wind licked her face. Following the gaze of Gendehar and the other foragers, her eyes focused on the source of the fear: A large ship – with a hull of dark, gnarled wood, and a shadowy greenish sail made of what appeared to be flayed reptilian skin – shaped as a shark’s fin – that distorted the light of the sun.

  “We first saw it a few hours ago,” the war chief Darshin informed. “It’s gotten closer.”

  Darshin ran a hand over his bald head, and pressed against his heavy, aged brow. Gendehar frowned as he thought – black hair finicking frenetically in the breeze. He pursed his lips – his stoic, rough-lined face not at all hiding his consternation.

  “They haven’t come into shore and anchored yet,” Gendehar thought aloud. “They’re surveying the coast.”

  “This is the closest we’ve seen them come in decades,” Darshin growled. “An invasion must be imminent.”

  “They know they’ll need to be smarter this time,” Gendehar noted, recalling a faint memory.

  After a quick moment of thought, Gendehar turned to face Darshin directly.

  “I need the warriors ready to make rubber tree traps,” Gendehar ordered. “Have them gather the lava rocks and camp near the ridge the next few nights.”

  Now Gendehar turned to Adjaash.

  “Adjaash.”

  The girl nodded.

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  “Go and check the log shots,” Gendehar told her. “Make sure the rubber snares are tight. Make sure the launch paths are clear. Eashav, you go with her.”

  Adjaash glanced at her fellow forager – a young man only a few years older than her, with ashen gray skin, an oval-shaped face with a pronounced brow, and loose black hair that parted in the center.

  He was the one she didn’t mind going with.

  “The rest of you,” Gendehar went on. “Check the archer bluffs. We need clear aim when they come close. Go, quickly now…”

  ~:{~}:~

  The vision rippled away; Adjaash sputtered and coughed awake.

  The snares tugged tight at her wrists and ankles. The bog’s wet embrace weighed her down. Water and shadow lapped at her ears. She heaved her chest. Her frantic eyes scattered left and right, before a slimy vine slithered over her neck. The night sky watched over her peacefully.

  “P-please… don’t…” she croaked.

  The stars taunted her with complicit silence.

  The nymph sang its lonesome, stinging note again, from somewhere unseen.

  Blood oozed from Adjaash’s nose. Lullaby brought her back to sleep.

  ~:{~}:~

  “My father told me stories of when they last came.”

  Eashav dug at the buildup of dirt and soil in front of the log’s head, clearing it with a stone trowel. A four-jeweled pendant dangled from his neck.

  “He said they looked as if demons,” Eashav went on. “With beady dark eyes and the skin of snakes, and they shrieked and shouted in infernal tongues.”

  Adjaash glanced at him as she peeled back the rubber snare, which had since become waterlogged and worn.

  “I finally see where your dramatic flair comes from,” she joked with a shrug.

  “You’re not scared?” Eashav quipped with a smirk. “Your whaea didn’t tell you about it?”

  “I suppose she didn’t feel the need to,” Adjaash replied, peeling fresh rubber from a closeby tree with a knife.

  “I finally see where your dull indifference comes from,” Eashav gibed.

  “Hey,” Adjaash snapped, rolling her tongue as she halted her blade. “I am not dull.”

  Eashav gave her the charming, testing smile that always goaded her on. She dropped her knife to her side and stepped toward the log.

  “I am not dull,” Adjaash countered again.

  Eashav dropped the trowel in the dirt and sat down on the log, as the wind carried over the cliffs. He glanced at Adjaash and mocked her shoulder shrug.

  “Prove it then.”

  The knife suddenly embedded into the log bark, just beyond where Eashav sat. Eashav jumped – just barely – then scoffed out a laugh and grinned again. Adjaash reached the log and sat close to him.

  “I’m not dull.”

  They leaned in closer.

  “No,” Eashav finally agreed, with his ever-so-small smile. “You’re not.”

  They kissed. She felt his arms envelop her. She pulled away just a bit. She ran a hand up his cheek.

  “Since you know so much, why don’t you tell me more…”

  ~:{~}:~

  She saw the mother Bagashri enter whaea’s hut at night.

  A smoke plume lifted from the conal hut’s peak. Firelight shined through the windows. Whaea was still up. Adjaash heard them talking quietly.

  She snuck up to the layered bark wall, just beneath the sloped gold-grass roof. She peeked in through a tiny pinprick in the wood. Sitting in a twined chair, in front of a controlled burn, she saw whaea.

  Her whaea was getting weaker. They didn’t know why. Not even the medicine women nor the kaihori knew for certain. For the past two years, she had declined. She had always been thin, but now, the unforgiving shadows of the flame exposed her shriveled limbs, her ageless wrinkles of wear, her jaundiced color, and her heavy, rickety breaths. The kaihori assumed it was the work of the invasive evil spirit pirinaea – the lump that had long ago formed just below her clavicle, and had since grown.

  Bagashri sat across from whaea, on the other side of the fire. Still, she spoke, her gestures animated. Whaea listened, her emotions uncertain. Adjaash leaned her ear against the wall to hear more clearly, instinctively clutching her shark tooth necklace.

  “… she only talks back to me when I try to speak to her,” Adjaash heard Bagashri say. “The brat has no regard for our sacred customs. She goes off on her own. She hides in the forest. We would approach her to arrange a proposal, but she does not make herself available. You must admit, Ashweban, that she needs correction… before your Ashbashenu too is misled…”

  Adjaash snarled silently. She hated Bagashri.

  “No,” Adjaash heard whaea reply. “I don’t think I must admit that.”

  “This is what we warned of when you spent too much time with your own,” Bagashri scolded. “They become less receptive to the rest of the mothers, whose emotions are not clouded by–”

  “Clouded by what, Bagashri?” Ashweban interjected, a hint of anger in her voice.

  There was a long, thoughtful, and poignant pause.

  “I… I did not intend to turn the blame onto you,” Bagashri clarified. “I simply have… concerns.”

  “So do I,” Ashweban mocked, drawing a more aggressive response from Bagashri.

  “She is almost of age, and bearing a child is the first and foremost duty given to her – given to all of us – by Shenu. Without the fulfillment of this duty, our tribe would not survive. You have the power to convince her. You can convince her to accept an arrangement. And if… if your time is running out, Ashweban… you would have her betray this duty??”

  “I would have her live her life!”

  Now Ashweban hissed, with a venom Adjaash had never heard from her.

  There was another pause – a longer, heavier pause.

  Then Bagashri spoke once more.

  “With respect… Ashweban… it is not your decision alone. Or hers.”

  Adjaash ran to the woods to free her tears.

  ~:{~}:~

  She centered her aim on a black deer – horns sprouting like phoenix wings.

  It was then that she heard Bagashri’s call.

  She ignored it, but the deer disappeared.

  She cursed under her breath. She heard the call again.

  “Adjaash!”

  She lifted her arrow from the bowstring and slid it back into her quiver. She debated wandering in further and waiting until Bagashri gave up.

  “Adjaash!”

  She took a step forward, making her way toward the thick of the weald.

  “Adjaash!!”

  She stopped. Something was different about the call today.

  Something was wrong.

  She turned back toward the village.

  “Adjaash!!”

  When she came to Bagashri, the woman’s eyes weren’t filled with the scorn she’d come to expect. They were frightened. Broken.

  They returned to the village with haste. The kaihori were already at her mother’s hut, uttering their prayers to the sky above in their beaded robes and feathered veils – faces painted with streaks of green. A few other villagers had also gathered; the news traveled quickly. Ashbashenu waited outside for Adjaash, face smothered with snot and wetness. Adjaash dashed to her and hugged her tight. Then they entered.

  Ashweban was supine, lying with her face up and her eyes closed – her neck free from the weight of her pendants, which rested on the ground by her head. A knitted blanket kept her warm, and still she shivered – skin pale and caked in sweat. Two kaihori sat beside her, legs crossed. Incense candles burned in their laps.

  Ashbashenu broke down again the moment she entered, and Adjaash wrapped her arms around her. She tried to steady her as best she could. Ashbashenu succumbed to the wails and trembles. Adjaash fought off her own.

  Ashweban heard the cries of her daughter. Her eyes opened weakly.

  “Adjaash… Ashbashenu…”

  Ashbashenu gasped and scrambled forward at the sound of whaea’s voice. Adjaash followed limply, in a trance. Ashbashenu collapsed by Ashweban and held her whaea’s hair in her hands, sobbing. Adjaash was pulled to their side. She stayed standing.

  She had to stay strong.

  “Adjaash…” Ashweban whispered, her voice so weak. “Come down… it’s… it’s alright…”

  Slowly, Adjaash knelt.

  A frail hand lifted and fell on Ashbashenu’s shoulder. Another drifted to the many pendants that lay on the floor.

  “A… Ashbashenu…”

  Ashbashenu’s sobs faded into shallow breaths. Her black hair shrouded her face. Ashweban wrapped her fingers gently around a beaded necklace with repeating patterns of red, orange, blue, and purple. She brought the necklace up with a shaking grasp and held it to her youngest.

  “Your spirit is strong and free. Fly… always…”

  Ashbashenu took the beads. Her lip quivered. Ashweban turned her head.

  “Ad…”

  She stopped. She heaved a painful breath. The air clattered from her lungs.

  “Adjaash…”

  Adjaash reached and clasped her mother’s hand, then she let it go. Whaea brought her fingers around another necklace – a simple thread necklace, with no adornments but a small red-orange gemstone locked in an intricate rose gold metal casing, shaped like a sphere of branches and leaves.

  “Remember your warmth. It is… even greater than your strength…”

  Adjaash took the necklace and clasped it between her palms.

  “Both of you…” Ashweban pleaded, with urgency; it was almost time.

  The sisters leaned in closer. Ashweban gave a hand to each of them.

  “The love you have… for each other… is special. They will… try to tell you what matters, but… nothing else matters… but love…”

  She said what she’d needed to say. Her duty was done. And at the final word, her eyes drifted closed again. Her breathing started to fade, and the tremors with it.

  “N-no…” Ashbashenu whimpered; Adjaash held her.

  Soon, whaea was gone.

  The kaihori drew streaks of green over her eyes. Then they folded their arms atop one another, signifying the cycle of life. One of them prayed.

  “I roto i te ora, i hoatu e koe. I te mate, ka hoatu e koe. Moe mai e Shenu. I to muri mai, ka ata noho koe.”

  At dusk, they brought her back to the world. A fox observed.

  ~:{~}:~

  When Ashbashenu ran out of tears and slept, Adjaash went to the river.

  She listened to the current and the burbles. Constant, unwavering. Anger fumed inside of her. How could the stream have tears but no grief? How could the stream carry on as if nothing had happened?

  She sniffled and wiped her eyes.

  Eashav found her there.

  In the dark of the night, they sat together.

  She accepted his embrace. She rested her head on his shoulder.

  He went to kiss her. She accepted one.

  He slid his hand down to her waist. She shook her head.

  “No… not now…”

  Still, Eashav pulled. She turned her head away.

  “Not now, Eashav…”

  He pressed. She shoved him away and erupted to her feet.

  “Not now!!” She screamed, fists clenched, eyes flaring.

  Eashav gaped at her. He stood and fled.

  Leaving the ignorant river as her only company.

  She sat again. Now she finally felt the love that was lost.

  Now it was her turn to cry.

  ~:{~}:~

  “She looks happy.”

  Ashbashenu spoke as if she was still there before them. A part of Adjaash wanted to tell Ashbashenu not to speak that way. But as they sat at their whaea’s grave, Adjaash couldn’t deny her sister’s words. The greens looked richer than they had two weeks before. The wind wafted sweet scents. Flowers bloomed.

  Ashbashenu smiled warmly at the sight – an ephemeral smile.

  “Before she got sick…” Ashbashenu started. “I always thought she’d only die when Shenu called her, and told her it was time.”

  “Shenu did,” Adjaash noted quietly.

  “Yes, I suppose…” Ashbashenu whispered. “But I always thought… that she’d live as long as Shenu longed for her to. Because she was always so full of life. Why should anyone like that pass so soon? If Shenu brought the world into being, how would it be better off without her?”

  Adjaash had no answer. She sighed and dropped her eyes.

  “Maybe Shenu wanted to take her back,” Ashbashenu wondered with a curious gaze. “Maybe she belonged with the spirits all along. She never mentioned father. Maybe she was just an angel.”

  Still, Adjaash said nothing.

  “Sometimes I thought she’d live forever,” Ashbashenu admitted with a small laugh. “I thought she’d grow old with us. I thought we’d go down to the ocean shore every other day. We’d swim and laugh and jump off the dunes and roll in the sand. We’d play in the forest and listen to her songs. Her voice was always so calm. So sure. Even when… when she left… that never changed. I remember when she sang, when I was little, I could feel myself lifting off the ground sometimes. I could feel my thoughts just… fluttering away. The world felt so simple in those moments. Maybe she’s right. Maybe… love is all that matters.”

  Ashbashenu blinked. Her lips quivered again. She took a deep, shaky breath.

  “It didn’t last forever,” she lamented, voice wavering.

  Her eyes glistened. She started to lose herself in the flowers.

  Then, inexplicably, she smiled. A sad, but sure smile.

  “Love lasts, at least,” she added faintly.

  Adjaash’s amber eyes fell on her sister. Then they went ahead, to the fieldstone in the shaded flower meadow, carved with their whaea’s name: Ashweban.

  They sat, as the wind whispered.

  As the sun’s light fractured and faded beneath the canopy.

  As the slithering vines crept up the redwood trunks.