Island's End (2 page)

I am about to let go of Tawai when I hear a voice.

“Tawai, did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

I place my finger on his lips to quiet him and listen intently. But it is silent again except for the whisper of the surf.

“Look!” Tawai points to something bobbing on the water far to our right.

His hand reaches for mine. We run along the narrowing stretch of sand to get a better look.

“Maybe evil spirits sent it?” Tawai’s voice trembles.

I pull him down onto the sand with me. We hide behind a tall clump of grass.

Lah-ame, our spiritual guide, has told us about people who live on other islands—giants with brown or white skin who travel in boats made of metal. From our cliff top, I have seen the gleam of these boats. And children are often frightened by the drone of the strangers’ flying boats, which have wings that never flap as they soar above the jungle, straight and fast—the way this thing is moving toward us now.

“It is a boat,” I whisper to Tawai. “Built by strangers from another island.”

A faint growl that is not of our world carries across the water as the boat comes closer. I stare at it in wonder. Sometimes pieces of metal wash up on our shores. The elders of our tribe say the strangers make tools from it, and our hunters put it on the tips of their arrowheads because it is harder and sharper than bone. But although metal is heavy as a rock, some magic keeps this metal boat from sinking.

The growl fades as the boat comes to a stop outside our coral reef. I see three men standing on it. Even the shortest man is at least an elbow-length taller than my father, who is the chief hunter and the strongest of the En-ge men. The strangers wear something that is soft enough to puff up in the wind. It covers their bodies, leaving only their arms and legs bare.

Suddenly, a gray glow lights up around the tallest man’s head. The skin on my arms grows tight and bumpy with horror. In Lah-ame’s stories, a gray aura only surrounds the heads of
lau
: evil white spirits who live in the ocean and bring disease. But as I continue to stare at him, the glow disappears and I wonder if I imagined it.

Together we watch the men lower a small canoe into the water. They climb in and row ashore.

I want to call out to the rest of the tribe and tell them strangers are approaching our island. But the shock of seeing one of Lah-ame’s stories come alive makes my voice stick in my throat.

Two of the men stay by their canoe. But the tall one whose head was surrounded by the gray light walks up the sand. A thick mat of hair grows under his long nose, across his cheeks and over his chin. As he comes closer, I see that his legs and even his arms are hairy.

From Lah-ame’s stories, I know that a stranger arriving on someone else’s shores must shout a request for peace and wait for an answer. But this man is striding up our beach as though it belongs to his people. His rudeness upsets me.

I hear the voice again.
Make him leave.

Leaping out from behind the clump of grass, I shout, “I am the daughter of the chief hunter of the En-ge!”

The man’s jaw drops. I wait for him to ask for peace as he should. Instead, he stares at me.

Holding my digging stick above my head as though it were a spear, I cry, “Go away! Leave our island!”

Following my lead, Tawai jumps up. He pulls an arrow out of his quiver and aims it at the stranger.

The man turns and runs back down to the water. I shake my stick and chase him, shouting our worst insults, “You long-nose! You sunken-eyed one!”

Tawai is close behind, echoing me.
‟Ngig choronga-lanta! Ngig panamaya!”

Together, the three men shove their canoe into the waves. Their oars slap the water as they row across the reef toward their metal boat and climb back on. We hear a faint growl again. But as their boat moves away from our island, the noise quickly fades. I can hardly believe how fast they go—faster than ten strong men paddling a canoe with all their might.

“We must warn the others,” I tell Tawai. But neither he nor I can take our eyes off the strangers’ boat. We stand ankle-deep in water, watching until the boat shrinks to the size of a coconut and the blue waves throw it out of sight.

Yet soon enough, our silence is broken by the sound of distant footsteps. Our cries have woken the sleeping tribe.

T
he first person to reach us is my best friend, Danna, his broad fist clenched around his spear. Seeing him arrive, I feel warm with relief.

“Uido! Tawai! Are you all right?” he asks. His usually smiling mouth is a tense line.

“Giant men were here!” Tawai says.

“Who?” Danna looks up and down the sand.

“We chased them away,” Tawai boasts.

Danna shakes his head and looks at me. “What happened, Uido?”

“Three strangers came here in a metal boat,” I reply. “They were brown as clay and covered with straight black hair.” My voice shakes as I remember the frightening gray aura around the tallest man’s head.

Our parents come rushing down the beach, followed by others of our tribe. Mimi’s long legs carry her slightly ahead of Kara’s short ones.

“We are both all right,” I say to them.

Slowly, Kara lowers his bow and slings it across his back. “What happened?”

“I frightened three strangers off the beach this morning!” Tawai brags. “They were twice my size but scared of me.”

Others of our tribe gather around us. My older brother, Ashu, is at the edge of the crowd, but I can see his neck sticking out far above his shoulders like a heron’s.

Tawai tells the story, only he makes it sound as though the boat’s faint growl woke
him
up and I followed him to the beach. He confuses everyone enough that no one asks me why we were on the beach so early.

Kara addresses the tribe. “Someone must stay here and warn us if the strangers return,” he says. “Our island is too rocky for them to land anywhere else. This is the only place a boat can come ashore.”

“I can keep watch,” Ashu says.

“I will stay and help,” Tawai offers. “I know how to scare them.”

“You are a child,” Ashu says. “Go back to the village and play with the other little boys.”

Mimi glares at Ashu. “Speak kindly to your brother.”

Kara tries to make peace. “Tawai, we have not had lizard meat for a while and you are becoming such a good hunter. Will you come with me?”

“Yes!” Tawai says. “We are going to hunt a lizard, a big monitor lizard. My Kara and I, my Kara and I.” He runs around Kara, twittering like a parakeet.

“Mimi, shall I go gathering now?” I say. I want to leave the beach quickly, before someone asks me awkward questions. She nods and blows her breath across my face in our gesture of parting.

Danna walks back up the beach with me, away from the rest of the tribe. As soon as we are out of earshot, I burst out, “Last night I had the strangest dream. Biliku-waye appeared and ordered me to go to the beach. That is why I was here so early.”

“Biliku-waye?” he says. “Are you certain?”

“Yes. I saw her in both her forms—as a woman and as a spider. Her voice was so powerful it terrified me. And later, on the beach, I heard a voice speaking—as clearly as you are talking to me now—but Tawai could not hear it.”

Danna says nothing.

“Do you not believe me?” I ask.

“Of course I do.” He squeezes my hand gently.

“There is something else I could not say in front of the others,” I continue. “On the beach this morning, I saw an aura shining around the tallest man’s head. Like the one that surrounds evil white lau in Lah-ame’s stories. For a moment I was scared he was a disease-carrying spirit, but the glow faded very quickly. Is it not strange?”

“I think it is important, not strange,” Danna says. “Too important for you to keep your dreams secret any longer. Until now, the spirits only sang to you, and you felt nothing but joy when you were in their world. But last night was different. You must go to Lah-ame at once and tell him you saw Biliku-waye.”

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.

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.”