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  Copyright 2014 by Trevor Leyenhorst

  This free ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted, and shared, provided it appears without alteration and the reader is not charged to access it.

  Contents

  Map of Lurruna

  Chapter One: Penemua

  Chapter Two: Sagra

  Chapter Three: Mandiri Kenaikan

  Chapter Four: Bhula Susthatara

  Chapter Five: Mati

  Chapter Six: Penemua Kembali

  Chapter Seven: Santulita

  Glossary

  About the Author

  Map of Lurruna

  To those who have yet to be born

  please forgive us for raping your future

  1/ penemua

  A switch on the boto with the mysterious black crows

  ‘Flowers and bees and beautiful weeds

  Cinnamon cardamom celery sours

  The sitka spruce and magnolias too

  More than enough on this island of ours.’

  As she sang her nymphic rhyme, Temperance floated in front of her mat on dandelion dust and the wings of fairies. In her hand hung a yellow flower, crushed and wilted, that never stopped swinging like kelp in a current.

  ‘Mat, quick, we don’t want to miss the boto.’ Her grin wore a smudge from an earlier meal and her heart wore a grin that the sun couldn’t steal. Helena strode quickly behind her laughing daughter and loved how the world looked through her eyes. No batsu omhaals or Groups of Eleven or struggling to understand what her maite was thinking, just moon shovels in the sky and cherry blossoms between her toes. She followed Temperance into the boto at the end of the dock on the Duat Canal.

  Temperance went straight to the passenger paddles that were left along the sides of the boto. She loved helping the fore and aft grebets as they rowed between stops through the ocean water canals. Helena stayed close behind to see the paddle didn’t slip from her daughter’s hands into the weak, salty tide. Just then an older man with wavy crow-black hair hurried down the stone steps to the dock and into the bow. Close behind him a young man sped the steps two and three at a time with his hair crushed and shooting to the right like ocean spray. He hopped into the stern and stood facing forward as the navita called the grebets to push off.

  Helena saw that it was Ravno the moment he and his ocean spray crumpled to the deck. It was like his brain stopped and his legs followed suit. She momentarily forgot about Temperance and her dabbling paddle and dashed through the other passengers to get to her saudara.

  ‘Ravno what’s happened?’ She grabbed his arm and rolled him to his back. His eyes were briefly caught in the distance then focused on her curls. The concern slid off his face and his small smile turned into a laugh. His raised brows highlighted his forehead crease—like a hinge where the top of his head could be opened and shut again.

  ‘Well it’s good to see you Hel, did you just get on? Where’s that little rascal?’ He looked over her shoulder but saw only curious scrutiny from people he recognized but did not know. He saw an older woman with a thick capa on thin shoulders and small pupils on a thick nose, a younger woman pronounced with rushes of black hair round lips of silk, and two older men that sat uncomfortably. But the people were nothing—Helena was almost nothing. Ravno focused on the man across the boto with crows in his hair, the man facing aft.

  He’s looking at me with a certain dartle of light in his eyes, Ravno thought. He couldn’t believe it. The accidental switch first happened the beginning of the quarter of the new moon of bulaniru—six days prior with a different man on the path to the garden.

  Ravno rose to his feet. He laughed off Helena’s fussing hands but loved her mothering heart.

  ‘I’m fine, honest. Let’s keep this thing moving.’ He motioned to the grebets who had stopped rowing with the upset on board. They dipped their oars in and pulled the boto forward.

  Temperance noticed the change only then, so engulfed was she in the swirling and splashing of the sea on her paddle. She looked up and saw Ravno. She yelped her delight and scuttled to his side, still clutching the oar possessively.

  ‘Are you going to help me paddle Ra? I’m getting better did you see how fast we were going?’

  ‘Temperance, don’t shorten his short name,’ Helena said.

  ‘It’s fine Hel,’ Ravno said. ‘You’re a strong grebet, Temper, I bet they’ll want you on their crew soon. Did you see Jamal? He’s the crew navita in the port quarter. I worked with him in transport for a while,’ he added in a whisper, ‘I’ll put in a good word for you.’ He took her outstretched second hand in his, and placed his first hand on his own heart.

  ‘Cahaya, Temperance,’ he greeted through his smile.

  ‘Haya, Ravno,’ she whispered back.

  Helena knelt beside her daughter. ‘It’s your other hand, truffle. Put down the paddle and place your first in his and your second on your heart, like this.’ Ravno took Helena’s first hand and they acknowledged each other, the proper Wawasen way.

  ‘What’s the matter Rav, are you feeling okay?’

  ‘I’m fine, seriously. I just ran to get here. I knew the boto’d be leaving around now. I must’ve tripped or something.’

  ‘But you collapsed, like you fainted.’ Helena let go of his hand and took a seat beside Temperance. Ravno sat on the other side of his niece. He adjusted his purple capa around his shoulders and asked if she wanted to sit on his lap. Her wavy black hair shook ‘no’ while she continued humming her song of cinnamon cardamom celery sours and played with the paddle on the deck with her feet. Ravno glanced up to find the man across the boto looking at him. As their eyes met, the man’s gaze fell upon the water and watched the cordgrass and foxglove on the opposite bank.

  Ravno recounted: I was riding backwards with him for a bit, I could see myself standing there—or, here. Then he looked at something on his wrist and then watched me fall, and I watched with him. I could feel that cold pinch…. Ravno’s hand lingered on the back of his neck. He felt the contours and heard the crinkle of hair under his fingers.

  ‘Ravno, really, you should go to the Ishi straight away. If you get off with us on the Sunberry we’ll go with you.’

  ‘Helena, I’m feeling perfectly fine. I don’t want to mess up your plans with little Temper. Where are you going?’

  Temperance piped in, ‘We’re going exploring and look for new flowers.’ The sun still couldn’t sap her grin off and the poor dandelion in her hand was on its last leg.

  ‘Looking for flowers, truffle. We were going to take the Indago Arm down to Notou and take a look around.’ Helena put her hand on Temperance and gently rubbed her back. ‘But we can easily go with you to visit Vesta and make sure everything is all right.’

  Ravno once again looked at the man and tried to define his expression. Does he know what happened? Ravno wondered. He’s been eyeing me, with his round face and black stubble, like he knows I was in his head.

  The man’s nose widened as he inhaled the scents of the seawater and cedar and sweat and sunshine. He looked carefully at Ravno and glanced briefly at the pregnant woman and child beside the boy. He looked back down at the archaic watch on his wrist and smiled, thinking to himself how intriguing the day’s session would be, as it always was starting with a new group and getting lost in the past.

  ‘Will you come with us, Ravno?

  ‘All right Helena, I’ll go to the Ishi but don’t worry, I’ll go myself. I’m heading to Pelajaran right now and you’re going to Notou so I’ll go on my way back.’

  ‘Oh, Pelajaran? What subject?’

  ‘I’m joining the historia forum like Surya suggested. She’s one of the girls I work with at the garden.’

  Helena looked up at him after she planted a kiss on Temperance. ‘Oh, the
n you’ll be in the same place as Aron, one of Sebastian’s friends from the pottery.’ Sebastian and Helena were maite and maitatu, which made Ravno Sebastian’s jodoh-saudara, or love-brother. ‘Aron used to help around the grounds of the Ishi in this area so he knows exactly how to get there. Will you go with him then, Ravno, please?’

  Ravno drew in a short breath of air through his mouth and exhaled through his nose. He needed Helena to quit talking so he could think more about this boto, about this man, and how he saw through his eyes. He had seen that thing on the man’s wrist, when the man had looked down at it, like a clamp on a weak tomato plant’s stem.

  ‘Okay sure, Hel. I’ll find Aron at the forum and ask him where to go.’

  ‘Aron’s such a kind boy, so I hear from Sebastian. I think he’ll be pleased to go with you the whole way to Vesta.’

  ‘All right, good, I’ll go with Aron to the Ishi and make sure I’m not dying.’ Ravno laughed at Helena’s chagrin and fondly put his hand on her arm. The boto pulled up to the stop where Duat Canal meets the Sunberry Trench, intersecting the geographical center of the island. ‘Bye Temper, take care of your mom and the littlest one, and I hope you find some new flowers.’

  ‘Thanks Ra, don’t forget to help them row for the next part. The grebets love when we help them.’ Ravno laughed again as Temperance’s little, running feet took her onto the spruce planks and up the black basalt stones and over the grassy bank. Since they would be taking the next boto down the Indago Arm, Helena called after her to