OUTPOURING: Typhoon Yolanda Relief Anthology Read online

  Afterwards, it seemed inevitable that they two would wed each other, what with neither of them being from the island. The mayor’s daughter had brought Father home, already betrothed, after a trip to the mainland. (Thus, the disinheritance.) The fisherman said he found Mother half-drowned on the skerries, clinging to ship’s spars. (She certainly sounded foreign, to the few who heard her talk.) But at the time, it was quite the scandal for my parents to be living together—now on the strand, now by the shore—after their spouses were consumed in the winter.

  She was pregnant when her first husband died—had been since spring. And after the mayor’s daughter died, Father was one of the few villagers who checked on her health, fetched the midwife, harrassed the doctor, held her hands through each contraction—as if I was his own. Nine days I was, being born. Nine days of contractions drawing nearer and nearer, and then gone. It wasn’t only the midwife who noticed they came strongest during high tide. But no one dared comment on it.

  Mother and Father were both small and slender. In the years after, while I grew up rambling the stony shore and the heathered hills, the villagers would remark how the two of them were made for one another. He was slight of build, wiry, and well-muscled. She was fragile-looking, with delicate bones and long fingers. Her hair feathered golden in the wind.

  Often, they would stand holding each other and gaze into one another’s eyes like new lovers. I asked them once what they were looking at. Mother said she saw in Father’s eyes the rolling sea foam and clouds scudding over a slate sea. Father said that, when he gazed into hers, he heard the sigh of the wind and the ripple of lake waves on the shingled shore.

  After the ill winter of my birth, he kept a few sheep but gave the rest of the stock back to his father-in-law (who was now unconsolable, blaming himself for his daughter’s fate). Mother took up spinning and weaving (but refused to help make nets). They traded cloth for what goods they could not make themselves. It was simple stuff: homespun, plain and unadorned. But the women of the village said that no cloth was softer than what Mother made from Father’s sheep.

  So the story goes, as I know it now, told and retold by hearths and over ale, embellished by my own memories—though I keep most of those to myself. Only weavers understand the texture of fibers in cloth. To others, it is only softness or roughness, or the play of light along the folding of thread under thread under thread.

  I don’t think either of them realized it until the end: how their strangeness drew them together, why the sea and the sky clung to each of them like the finest of fabled cloth. It was when they moved house that everything changed. They built a modest cottage on a high bluff by the western shore, having purchased the land from a widow who was happy to take both of their holdings in (unfair) exchange.

  I remember their discoveries as clear and sharp as the day they left. Father dropped a locked chest while carrying it to the cart, to haul Mother’s belonging’s to their new home. The wood around the hinges broke, and the lid fell open, spilling the contents. I went to help him and found feathers: firm, white feathers, soft and strong. They held together and turned as one, as if they formed a bolt of cloth. I opened my mouth to tell him how beautiful it was, and his finger touched my lips, stilling me. I looked in his eyes. “Not a word, young one,” he said and quietly put it all away. I didn’t say anything about it again, not to him or Mother, not even when I saw him hide the chest under bales of cloth in our new home. His eyes had been so sad, all rain and mist and the weeping of cold stones.

  The next day, I helped Mother clean his house. She found it while sweeping away cobwebs from the rafters: a handsome velvety thing, slippery as wet shale, supple as seal skin—for that is what it was, though I did not know it then. She cried, clutching the scent of it to her cheek. I touched her shoulder and smelled Father’s gentle musk, just like when he would hold me close after a nightmare. I knew not to speak, then or later. Mother’s eyes rang bleak as summer skies when the sun never sets but the air is cold as a winter’s noon.

  They quarrelled. Spilt milk, neglected chores, who was in whose way—it hardly mattered, but that they inflict their heartbreak on each other. As if they said and did anything to keep each other close, yet just far enough away, that neither must admit the truth they both now knew.

  I didn’t understand then, though I do now. I just wanted them to be happy, to see them smile and hold hands and watch each other by moonlight in the doorway, like they used to do when they thought I was sleeping. I loved them so much—love them, even now—and I wanted them to love each other again.

  On a day when Mother was gone to market and Father went to bring down the sheep, I stole into our cottage. I moved all the cloth from the corner, opened the chest and set the feathered cloak aside. I put the chest back where it had been and piled the cloth back on. I fetched the sealskin from the highest rafter where Mother had asked me to tuck it. And I left them both draped on the table, folded one on top the other like interlaced hands. I hid in the thorn bush on the edge of our land, where I could see both the cottage door and the path down towards the village. And I waited, quivering with excitement, imagining how the light would sparkle in their eyes, how they would kiss in the moonlight, how they would be my Mother and Father again, so gentle, so loving, so wise.

  They met in the yard: Father stiff as he had been the past few weeks; Mother cold as silk. She went to the cottage first. Then he followed, drawn by her cry. I didn’t see them there together, by the table. I do not know what they thought or said. But they were there inside a long, long while, and I imagined them turning one to the other, all secrets forgiven, all sorrows mended, making love like they used to, softly entwined beneath their handspun bedclothes. It made me happy, dreaming of it.

  My heart leapt in my throat when they stepped out together at sunset, holding hands. They stood in the yard, facing east towards the new risen moon behind me. I almost ran to them then. They were looking my way. But I stayed hidden and watched as they walked away north, to the path that led to the sea. I’ve never been happier than in that moment, seeing them there together, like always.

  The last light of day hung from the clouds as they reached the edge of the bluff. I still wonder if they turned round then, if they hesitated. I wonder now what they truly thought, what feelings coursed through them in that last moment before they disappeared, one following the other to where their hearts belong.

  I returned to the cottage, built up the fire, set the table, and prepared a simple meal of bread and cheese and dried fruit from last summer’s harvest. I was sure they’d be back, hungry after the long day but smiling and laughing like they used to in the evenings.

  I ate dinner alone when I couldn’t stand the hunger any longer. I fell asleep by the fire when I couldn’t keep my eyes open one moment more. In the morning, I knew I was alone.

  I made do. I was just old enough to start keeping the house on my own: herding the sheep, spinning the wool, weaving by touch as much as candlelight. I still keep to myself, as my parents did: selling homespun, mending worn clothes, and making cheese to offer guests when they come to buy my family’s fabled cloth.

  Now and again, at market or in the ale house, I hear whisperings of omens, of selkies and swan wives, of ill luck on a long winter—all the wary wisdom of those who live surrounded by the sea. Their voices hush when I approach, and gentle smiles cover their gossip, but their gaze shifts away from mine. It’s then that I take long, long walks: on the strand between the lochs or along the shingle by the washing deeps.

  That morning, when I woke alone for the first time, I found one swan’s feather on the path down from the bluff. It smelled like my father and mother both: the musk of the summer wind, blowing in from the sea and rushing tiny waves to the lake shore.

  Arrow

  by Barry King

  The day I was chosen by Fletcher, I had killed Civet. Sango and Chelo and I were playing with our barbañas—the small bows given to boys to play at hunting. Papa had been unhappy with me
for killing the small sparrows that cluster like mice on thin branches. Like mice, they have no wisdom, no breath-spirit, he told me.

  That day, I was leader of our little hunting-party. I wanted to take away the shame I felt, so I called the hunt in the early hours, and we went, barefoot in the cool damp of early morning. I remember us being very serious, as only boys can be when they play at being men.

  Civet was coming home to sleep. We smelled him first. We trod the path lightly, the swish and crackle of leaves under our feet quieter than Leopard-Cat’s wake. Pulsing choruses of shrieking birds and hissing beetles masked our breathing. We were dark and invisible in the canopy-gloom, where dawn comes late in broken blue fragments from above. I took care to keep the clearing behind me, and well that I did, because when Civet returned to his home, dawn light filled his eyes with a blue-green glow and I saw him.

  I think it was because of that meeting that Fletcher chose me. There, beneath the slender bone-arms of the Batam-bush, Civet and I met for the first time as equals. I could see his shape against the broken sky above. One hand was raised, poised to take another step along the branch, and that’s when our eyes met, and he knew me and I knew him. He stopped for me and offered his breath-spirit to me like a mother gives her child nutmeats she has chewed herself. The spindly shaft, iron-tipped, sped true from the rickety little barbaña and caught him just below his chin, but he was already dead, having given his spirit to me with his eyes.

  I picked up the shaft, and Civet hung from the end. That is how I carried him back to our longhouse, holding him by the arrow buried in his neck, an ugly gap of red around the wound marring the pattern of his coat. His smell was strong like smoke, but animal and potent, and it surrounded us like the morning chorus, giving us the strength of his blessing. I was thrilled at my first real kill, and was looking forward to Papa’s praise, mother’s stew, and basking in the respectful gaze of Sango and Chelo, who were already looking to me as if I was Headman.

  Fletcher was waiting. We did not see him until he was right there in front of us. He was sitting on a rock in the clearing, his knees up under his chin, his old, creased face the skull of Death himself. Like Death, he watched me with cold, dark, patient eyes, and for a space of a few breaths, I felt apart in the world from the others. Only Civet, myself, and the arrow that joined us were real beneath the gaze of Fletcher. He stood slowly, unfolding from his seated position until he stood above us, looking down from the rock. He stepped down lightly and made a brief gesture to the others. Sango and Chelo ran back to the longhouse without a word.

  Fletcher looked at me, his head bent down, studying me and Civet. He paced around me, and I felt his eyes all over. I didn’t dare move. Then he squatted down before us and examined the arrow, running his finger along the shaft and touching Civet where the arrow pierced his coat. He ran his finger through the blood. Then he looked up and asked me, “did you make this?”

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  He touched me, then, right at the breastbone, where Civet had been pierced, making a small circle. I had never seen Fletcher this close. I looked into his headdress, which swept up over his head. His hair had been woven with feathers from the Red Macaw and the Orange Pangpang. His brow was bound by a bright cloth into which thin wires of gold had been woven. They shone in the pale light coming through the mist above the canopy.

  He led me back, behind the thick stilts of the longhouse, to the small hut outside where he lived apart from the clan. His two wives were outside the hut, coaxing the fire back to life from the embers. He waved them away and then told me to take the arrow out of Civet while holding him over the fire. I did. The arrow was barbed and did not come out cleanly. A trickle of blood fell from the wound and hissed on the hot coals. The smell of cooking mixed with the musky smell of the animal, mixed with the smoke from the fire. He took Civet from my hands and gave him to his older wife, a woman almost as ancient as himself, telling her to prepare a feast with her own hands and her hands alone.

  Then he broke my arrow. He did it quickly, snapping it like a twig and throwing it into the fire. I wanted to stop him, but I knew I should not. Fletcher is the master of arrows, and all arrows are his, even the ones I make for myself.

  #

  I wake up in darkness. The low hum of the air conditioner dampens any sound from outside. My nose is dry, cracking inside, and my head hurts. I spin in the darkness and remember that I have drunk too much of the black rum. I feel the sadness and sickness that comes from the liquor. I listen, as I always do in the night. Maybe the liquor hides the Little-Men from me. Maybe there are no Little-Men. But I am still afraid in this mill-house. I feel them, I think, sometimes. I feel they are angry with me. Or maybe they are just angry.

  Someone is crying. It is Chelo. He cries because his mother is dying. The missionary said it is because she lived a bad life, and she must accept it. He must accept it. But it is the old logger that is to blame, I think. He put his death into her before it killed him. A woman should not outlive two husbands.

  It only takes a day, now, to reach the village. With five days off from work, we decided to stay two days. Now I wish we had not gone. Yalai was there, still, with her shop. She will not speak to me anymore. But she will sell me rum. She is still cold in her eyes, as before. Cold and strong like the river. She will outlive me. She will outlive all of us.

  I don’t remember coming in last night. Chelo and I started drinking before we reached the logging-camp. He is mourning his mother. I can’t say what I’m mourning. But it was I who bought the rum.

  I raise myself on my elbows. “Chelo,” I tell him in our own tongue, “be strong. She will live. You’ll see. You’ll be paid again next month, and then we can buy her more medicine.”

  “The medicine doesn’t work. The Murphy said so.”

  The Murphy—the missionary in the village—would know. He is a healer, one of theirs they call “Doctor”. He knows about their illnesses.

  I roll over, facing away from him. He still follows me, like he did years ago. Maybe there is a Little-Man in him that wants to remind me how I have failed. Maybe it is Fletcher’s death that waits in Chelo. Waiting for his time to strike me from behind, like the arrow you never see, never hear.

  #

  Fletcher never taught me to make arrows. But he showed me how to make the hunter’s bow. While his wife was preparing Civet for the feast, he took me to the longhouse. Mama was weaving on the boards of the high room where the morning sun came in. She was sitting in the sunlight, the weaving stick between her feet, humming a weaving-song. She did not see me enter with Fletcher, but kept pulling the cords and knotting them back and forth. Fletcher touched my shoulder and nodded his head at her, so I went to her to show her I had come back from the forest. First she touched the spot on my neck.

  “Did you cut yourself?” she asked me.

  “No.”

  “It looks like blood.”

  “He put it on me,” I said, and pointed to Fletcher.

  She squinted at the shadow behind me. Fletcher was quiet. Mama was quiet, too. She stood up and rolled her unfinished cloth around the weaving stick. She did not look at Fletcher.

  “Where is your Husband, Ayani?” Fletcher asked.

  She would not speak to him. Instead, she thrust an arm towards the hills.

  “Tell him I will take the boy to the mountain. He will go to the tree now.”

  She looked down at her feet and said nothing. Then she turned away from us and disappeared into the gloom of the rear.

  “Mama?” I called for her, but she did not answer. I went to follow, but he stopped me with a touch on my shoulder.

  “Come. You must come with me now. We have a thing we must do before you can return.”

  I was too scared of him to say no. We walked a long way, along the ridge towards the high lauan trees. I watched his feet as he led the way. This I learned about Fletcher from walking with him that first time: when he walked, he moved with perfect precision. His feet thought
for themselves, like the feet of Leopard-Cat. His legs placed every footfall exactly where it was best to step, like the legs of Mouse-Deer. His arms swam through the underbrush, gliding smoothly through the thicket like long-tailed Macaque goes through the branches above. His head scanned the forest, taking in all sights and sounds like wide-eyed Tarsier. But his body he held like a man, his torso and his chest never rising or falling, never tilting this way or that, always in balance. He must have been older than any man of the village, but he moved like a man half his age and twice as strong. I began to understand the honor I was receiving.

  He took me to the highest lauan tree that stood on the top of the hill above the longhouse, and had me sit. He gave me water from a gourd at his belt, and he gave me a leaf to chew. He called it kampar. It was strong-tasting and made me gag, but he had me swallow it all with small sips from his gourd. I coughed many times, and my nose began to run and my lungs hurt like I had breathed in smoke. My eyes burned and I squeezed them shut to stop the burning.

  Then he showed me how to make the Little-Man. He began to tap me on the chest where the blood was. He was singing, and my ears were ringing from the coughing. I thought I was coughing up a bit of stuff from my lungs, trying to clear them, but it fluttered in my chest like a live thing. Like a butterfly.

  When his song ended, he whispered in my ear. “Let the Little-Man out. The Little-Man that you trapped today.”

  I tried to cough it up, but it wasn’t in my lungs. It was in my chest somewhere, and just as I felt I couldn’t gasp another breath, something came out of me. It seemed to come out of my chest, not out of my mouth, but in my mouth there was a taste like blood.

  “Good, good,” he said, and massaged my back until I could breathe again. My eyes stopped stinging, and I felt a calm come with the end of my coughing, like falling into your hammock after you have walked all day, toe-to-heel, on the forest-tracks. He made me sit on a root of the tree and rest.