from the History and her people. It seemed an impossible choice, and the indecision made her immobile. “Medicine might help heal you faster,” said Suka.
Yetu turned to them, so deep in her own thoughts that she’d briefly forgotten that they were there. “You have medicine here?”
Suka nodded. “Of course we do.”
“What about venom leaves? They’ll help with the swelling and pain.”
“Let me ask my sister. She’ll know,” said Suka. They left, returning not long after with two others, several pouches, and a bowl. “We don’t have anything called venom leaves, but we brought a couple of things to try.”
“They don’t smell appealing,” said Yetu.
The two-legs laughed. “No, they don’t,” said one called Nura. “But you take it, and you’ll feel better. Promise. They’re powerful pain relievers, and they reduce inflammation and infection, too. Drink. Drink up.” Nura pressed the wooden bowl to Yetu’s lips and poured it down her throat, droplets of rain dotting Yetu’s face.
The scene was so familiar, she could feel herself in Amaba’s embrace, taking medicine after her amaba saved her from the sharks.
Yetu choked more of the medicine down, then waved the two-legs away. Like Nura had said, the herbs and tinctures were powerful. A glorious numbness settled over Yetu. She closed her eyes in bliss, then opened them again to stare at the pleasing dark gray of the sky.
With each passing hour, the world darkened yet more. The ocean smelled bloody. Yetu wanted to dive into it and revel in the coming storm.
She didn’t know where she belonged, if returning to the wajinru would mean the death of her. But she wasn’t suited for life here.
* * *
And where was here?
“What do you mean?” asked Oori.
“Where are we? In the world? If you tell me a name, I might know it,” Yetu explained.
“Why? What does it matter where any place is, unless you are trying to return to it? It’d do you well not to think of here at all. You’re trying to find yourself, aren’t you? To do that you must go. Thinking of this place will only hold you back,” said Oori.
The storm had arrived and hadn’t stopped. It had been raining on and off for two days, and the worst of it was yet to come. Yetu could tell by the look of the waves. She felt… She felt a shadow in the water. Even in the little tidal pool. She could liken it only to the vague whiff on her skin she used to get as a child when there was a shark nearby, hungry for her organs.
“I’m trying to get oriented,” she said. If she knew where she was in relation to everything else, she could better read the sky and the waves. How big was the land mass they were on? She couldn’t get a sense of it locked away in this tiny cage.
“You need to be worrying about out there. Not here. You have healed. Only fear keeps you locked in this thing. What did you tell me before? That you stopped being a historian or whatever it was so you could be free of all that pain. Not so you could waste away your days in a tidal pool,” said Oori, who was sitting in the pool bathing herself. She’d started doing that now. In addition to her morning visits, she came after supper to bathe in the tidal pool.
Yetu wasn’t sure what the etiquette on these kinds of matters were, but she appreciated seeing more and more of Oori’s body. Two-legs covered every part of themselves with clothing, their bodies held in secret from one another. Yetu had wondered at first if it was something like a clam, a defensive casing to protect the soft flesh.
But their clothes were not protective. They were soft. Little more than a bit of woven kelp.
“Stop staring,” said Oori.
Yetu looked down at the water. “Apologies,” she said. She’d only been curious about the differences between two-legs and wajinru. There were so many. “But may I ask you a question about your body? Well, not yours in particular, but two-legs bodies.”
Oori rubbed her body with a mixture of ashes, beef fat, and numerous different flower petals. She scrubbed it all in with a cloth, rubbing till her dark brown skin turned red in places, revealing the blood underneath, the aliveness of her.
“You may ask. But only if I may ask questions of you, too,” said Oori.
Yetu’s heartbeat quickened when she heard Oori’s proposal, but she told herself to remain calm so