Chapter 7
seven
. . .
E’kili
I was eight, kneeling beside the low wooden table in the heat of my hut, watching mutah prepare herbal jars for the sick.
The air was impregnated with an earthy scent of crushed herbs.
Light trickled in from the cracks in the roof.
We had been needing to repair it, but fourteen babies were ready to make their introduction into the world, so Mutah and I had been busy.
Mutah’s skin glowed a radiant gold, her runes sprawled across her like waves from the sea, blocking out most of her skin with yellow light. She was the head healer, and some say, the strongest ever born. I took a look at my runes, how they swirl just like most of the women in my village.
I wished my runes were different. Something that would have made me stand out, but Mutah said I would have time. She said the runes sometimes change during the Fire Dance. But I couldn’t participate until I was twenty-five, and that was forever from now.
She bent over the collection of small glass jars on the table. After crushing roots from the Niykeka tree and several different plants from our forging this morning, she divided the past into their respective jars. The other grounded pieces lay flat on a pan to dry.
“Mutah,” I asked, holding up a misshapen Niykeka root bent like a broken branch. “How does the medicine know where it hurts?”
She tightened the lid on the last jar. “It doesn’t.” She beckoned the last Niykeka root from my hands, and it floated to her. “The medicine flows in your body. Your blood is the sea. It carries the medicine throughout your entire system until it finds the right place to settle.”
I tapped my finger on my chin and watched her crush the root while she imbued the powder with her mana. This one was in preparation to administer to the soon-to-be mothers when it was time for them to give birth.
“Does the Fire Dance work like that?” I asked.
Mutah smiled as she ground the root. “Maybe a little different. We were born with the dragon’s blood already.
It flows in us.” She finished the mixture, then reached for my hand to hold in hers.
Mutah told me the story of U’lalayli Myi and Z’ouchee Minoo.
How the Moon Goddess fell in love with the dragon.
I heard the story a thousand times, and never had I grown tired.
U’lalayli was cold. She had asked the sun for heat, but he refused, only rising after U’lalayli went to sleep.
She asked the stars for warmth, but they had to travel thousands and thousands of years to make it to her, so they were excused.
She asked each planet to share a piece of its core, but they said no, they needed their heat to warm their inhabitants.
Then she asked the galaxies, but none had fire to spare.
Z’ouchee was lonely. She roamed the skies, the seas, leaping from planet to planet in search of someone who wouldn’t be afraid of her flames.
But no matter where she went, she burned everything she touched and was outcast. One day, she overheard the stars talking about U’lalayli and how the moon cried because she was so cold.
Z’ouchee thought, maybe she could help. Immediately, the dragon crossed quasars, pulsars, nebulae, and comets to reach the moon.
But there was a problem; no matter how she tried, she couldn’t cross the barrier to where the moon dwelt.
“U’lalayli, U’lalayli,” she called, hoping her booming voice traveled to the moon’s ears.
“I can give you warmth. Please, meet me where the highest mountain peak kisses the horizon.” The dragon sent the coordinates and waited.
Weeks went by, but no word. The dragon thought her voice wasn’t loud enough, strong enough, powerful enough to get to the moon.
She thought, no matter what, she would never be good enough, and maybe she was destined to be alone.
And then one day, as the dragon was prepared to leave.
A glowing white light descended on the mountain.
When the light disappeared, there walked a woman with red brown locs so long and thick that they covered her naked frame and dragged on the ground behind her.
Her skin, an ash grey black like volcanic rock.
“Dragon?” Her voice was deep yet airy.
“Moon?” the dragon said.
They smiled and ran into each other's arms.
The dragon was so glad that she lit up in excitement. A mini fire burned between them, and U’lalayli whispered, “More, until I say when.”
But U’lalayli never said when. Z’ouchee blazed bright, even brighter than the sun. U’lalayli could handle every part of the dragon. The heat, the fire, the burn.
U’lalayli abandoned the skies, pitching the universe into darkness in order to stay wrapped in the dragon’s arms for a time and a times two until the dragon announced she was with child.
The dragon was worried this meant as the child grew, the dragon would grow weaker. For only one dragon of her kind could exist, or else worlds would be threatened with extinction. The dragon that came before her had sneezed and set an entire world on fire.
It was U’lalayli’s turn to use her cold to quench the dragon’s heat, for the dragon burned so hot while with child, seas boiled, mountains erupted, and islands formed. The very same island Z’ouchee gave birth on.
The child, skin like night, hair red like flames, was the perfect combination of the moon and the dragon.
And as the child grew stronger, Z’ouchee’s days came to an end.
U’lalayli, who loved the dragon with every ounce of her being, took the dragon’s heart before it could stop completely and slowed the beating with ice.
Z’ouchee’s body deteriorated no matter what the moon did.
She could not save her. Eventually, U’lalayli took the heart and buried it into soil.
She allowed her tears to water the burial place and rested a squirming baby, the couple named, Of Ever of Eternal Beam, on top.
U’lalayli sang. She didn’t want her daughter or any daughters that came after to end up like Z’ouchee.
She cried into the soil, onto her daughter, until the very island created by Z’ouchee began to beat.
There, underneath the soil where Z’ouchee’s heart lay, the earth shone gold.
Of Ever of Eternal Beam crawled on top of the spot, her chubby legs, rolly arms, and fat jowls talked to the golden light.
And then, the light wrapped around her daughter as her daughter laughed, lifting the child into the air.
Runes like whirlpools formed on the child’s skin.
Once complete, Of Ever of Eternal Beam was transformed.
She was a tiny walking light. U’lalayli knew then her cries were answered yet again by the woman she loved.
Their daughter will have a chance to find her heart song, a love that will never leave her, that will bond with her, and keep her safe.
She would have children, live a full life, without sacrificing her own body to do so.
That their daughter and all the daughters after, will never be alone again.
The moon waited until her child grew to twenty-five, the age of full maturity, to return to the skies where she could shine light on the island, so her daughter could find her way back home at night after her long voyage across the universe.
After a time times two, Of Ever of Eternal Beam, came home. And in her hands were two daughters with golden runes on their skin. A new fire lit in U’lalayli’s heart, and the moon never was cold again.
“Now, when you turn twenty-five,” Mutah said, booping my nose. “You will dance under moonbeams to celebrate the freedom within you and the love of our sisterhood. The moondance is to remember the sacrifices of Z’ouchee and U’lalayli. And that power within us no one will ever take away.”
She flipped my palm over to trace the swirls on the back of my hand. “Your power will grow, and when you reach the full age of maturity, your mana will shape into the power it has always been,” Mutah said, patting my runes.
I smiled big, waiting for the moment I too could dance under the moon.
A slam came at our front door. Tiny fists beat hard on the wood. Ooki’s voice shouted.
“Kuhm, kas’ a’ shohr!” Ooki threw open the door, running into our hut.
Her words spilled in knots. She paused, took a deep breath, and alerted Mutah to come to the shore.
It was an emergency. Mutah and I glanced at each other, then at Ooki, who had sweat dripping from her brow.
Her onyx skin shimmered as the sun peeked over her back.
With a flick of the wrist, Mutah vanquished the fire from the stove. Then we raced out of the door following Ooki. She was spouting a story about a wooden whale with a great open mouth washed up on land, spilling out what the elders called man.
The closer we got to the shore, a thick, gray fog rolled in from the horizon, swallowing the sun. The scent of saltwater mixed with a bitter tang of diseased flesh carried on the wind. I’ve never known such a strong scent. The smell caused tears to well in my eyes.
Ahead, a great wooden whale was slanted over, spilling its guts. Littering the shore with limp bodies, blood, and barrels.
My sisters worked diligently, searching this great whale, pulling more lifeless people from its maw. The sea had turned angry. The waves crashed into the rear of the whale as if it were attempting to thrust it back into the sea and force it out into the great beyond.
The elders whispered stories of people who came from the sea and chose to settle on our island. Many say those who were born without the runes are descendants of such people. There were only four documented cases out of thousands of us.
I approached cautiously, examining these strange creatures. Pale skin stretched tight over bones, their eyes hollow. I was sure they were dead even before they touched our land.