Mad Sisters of Esi, page 14
No one knows where these structures came from. No one builds in stone anymore and no one can remember a time when they did. The ruins remain a mystery, long and square and oblong shapes now eaten over by nature. The children don’t know the stories. To the children of the luddite colony, the stone structure in their jungle is special for different reasons. It transforms at night. Clashing leafage dissolves into shadow; dark things scuttle with sudden yellow eyes. Sound presses into you: the brrrrr of an insect’s wings, the soft squelch of an animal’s paw. There is ripeness to the night; we shiver with the taste of the forbidden.
And then we are here. Before a mango tree erupting from a stone wall, roots dripping to the ground, branches silver in moonlight. Children swarming into the ruins. Lamps going off, only a few left lit to create a soft glow. Breathing. Animal sounds, melting and breaking into recognition. We spot Magali, lifting her lamp, looking for Wisa—although she does not want to be seen looking. Wisa moves in the corner of the frame, pushing to the center; Magali looks away before they catch eyes.
We are confused. This sisterhood is strange and half-formed. It is almost . . . absent.
A boy walks to the wall, bony as a hatchling. There is magic in him; it pulls at the frame, centers it. Beyond our vision, we can taste Wisa’s eagerness; she hasn’t played this game before. The boy is rolling his shoulders, eyeing the wall and mango tree. A wineskin bounces at his hip. A few children call out—whoops, goads, incomprehensible sounds. The boy grins.
It is Jinn.
He leaps and climbs.
It is like watching water. He flows up, up, up, quick ascent, flawless grip, disappearing into clusters of taro vines and emerging again. No one cheers now. They are holding hands, holding their breath, and still Jinn climbs higher. He’s at the roots now and his ascent is slower; the mango tree is a tricky goddess; she is not to be trusted. Still, he climbs. Higher and higher, up the last cluster of roots and to the sweeping bark. Here he hangs, swinging as a monkey from the trunk, and the children go wild.
We are breathless, caught in a spell. The world has shrunk to us and Jinn.
He makes it a bit farther, then finds a good perch to paint a branch with color from his wineskin. When he holds his hands up, he is different—cheeky, triumphant, bathing in the whistles and whoops from the pack.
Lazy. He could have gone farther.
Then Magali’s hand is on our shoulder and she is turning Wisa away from the spectacle, whispering, and it is clear now—these women are strangers.
• • •
The memory still
The memory opens wider; we lose footing, tumble deeper.
Grandpa brings Wisa home one evening. He leaves in the morning for the bazaar and returns with this, a lost and hungry thing. This is what he claims; Wisa seems neither. She seems unwavering, sitting on the kitchen table wrapped in a blanket, consuming everything with her large eyes. When Grandpa is not looking, she pulls Magali’s hair and Magali pinches her viciously.
Magali hates her.
After that, Wisa’s strangeness only becomes more apparent. Ask her what she did for the first eleven years of her life, and Wisa says she was a “skywalker,” a person who walks on sticks and dances on threads in the sky. Then she’ll follow you around and keep talking, even after you have stopped talking, even after you have tried to get away. Magali cannot get rid of her.
I was good, Wisa says to Magali in the kitchen, a lot better than they thought a child could be. Of course, some of the travelers wanted me to fall to my death, at least break a limb, you know, for a show—so I had to pretend to wobble but I never did really because I am very good with my feet. I was light too, she says outside the fields as Magali tries to lose her in the tall grass, and you couldn’t see me; sometimes I was here, then there, like a red lizard, and so the merchants could never catch me. Sometimes they caught me, she says during a game of hide-and-seek when she is meant to be counting, but I always ran away and anyway I only took what I needed as one person to eat and that’s not wrong, not when people can’t see you or know you’re there, so I was saying hello!—Magali jumps from behind the door—I’m here, look at me.
News of Wisa’s arrival spreads quickly through the colony. At first, neighbors bring food, herbal tea, fermented beer, even an oddly shaped rock—reminds me of the child, Haza says gruffly, trying to elbow his way through the door—anything to get into Kua’s house and see the girl. Wisa says nothing to these visitors. She watches them with large eyes until they look away. She’s unnerving, the colony decides. Strange. Voiceless as well, most likely. But they bring gifts and wonder about where Kua will take her.
Give her to drifters, Lira says. That’s what he’ll do. They’ll find a home for her.
No one has heard of drifters carrying a child with them, so they look forward to the possibilities. Drifters travel alone; how would they feel about a strange little one towing along? And where would they settle her? So many delicious questions. For weeks the colony hums with anticipation, waiting for the first drifter to arrive.
But the first drifter comes and goes, and Wisa is still here. Then the second one comes, and the third, and still people can see Wisa sitting on the steps of Kua’s cottage, staring listlessly at the plants or dancing by herself. She still won’t speak, not to anyone who is not a Kilta.
He’s planning on keeping her, they whisper. She’s going to stay.
The colony doesn’t know what to do with this information. Keep her? Kua is the most respected member of the colony; he is their memory keeper and their conscience. They cannot dream of criticizing him. How can you criticize Kua with the life he has had? Lost both his son and his daughter-in-law to an illness no one could cure. Oh, the craftsmen could have cured them, but Kua refused to betray his principles like that. His son didn’t want to be saved like that. And little Magali, left behind in his care, raised to be such a wonderful girl.
The colony adores Magali Kilta. They adore how she smiles at them, moon-faced and cheeky, promising you the world. They adore how she laughs despite the sorrows she has been dealt, how she is growing up to be a beautiful woman with her own reserves of conviction and strength. She is a smart one, they say and tap their noses.
But most importantly, she is a good one. Good in the way only Kiltas can be: inside out, with no questions or agonizing. Her father was like that, Kua is like that too, and Magali will continue this tradition. More than one mother has wished their child was like Magali Kilta.
But keep Wisa? Wisa who is definitely not a Kilta, and who doesn’t look like she will become one anytime soon. What is Kua thinking? He is kind-hearted, of course, and he is known for the animals he has saved and his intricate understanding of the land. But this is the first time he has brought a child home. And keeping her? What does Magali think of it?
Forced to have a sister, Caqn says to his neighbor while harvesting purple yams in his garden. And that too a strange one. Not cheerful, no smiles. Just dances and stares all day. Follows Magali around too. I wouldn’t like it if I were Magali. Not one bit.
But no one knows what Magali thinks. If you catch her alone for a moment, without Kua or Wisa—who has taken to following her like a shadow—if you lean conspiratorially over bread baskets and collections of wax candles, and whisper to her that you are on her side, always, and that she can come over anytime if she wants food or tea or if she needs a place to escape, Magali will only smile. It is a reserved smile. Kind, but not forthcoming. You lean back, feeling your duty done but unsure if Magali heard you. Or if she will ever take you up on your offer.
Then Wisa will appear, right at Magali’s shoulder, and stare at you until you hasten away.
Strange child.
The children also agree that Wisa is strange. They gather beneath the old jackfruit tree, their favorite meeting place, and discuss her with relish. Where did Kua find her? Do you see how she stares?
Maybe she’s mad, Ava says and feels brave saying it.
Mad. The children consider it.
You should make notes, Jinn tells Magali. See if you can spot the signs.
The children nod. You can’t have madness—not in a luddite colony, not with the festival approaching.
Look for chanting, Ava tells Magali.
And animal baying, Jinn adds.
Magali doesn’t take notes but only because she is fighting with idiot Jinn, not because she does not think Wisa is mad. Oh, Wisa is unhinged. Just look at the time she spends looking intensely at trees. Patting flowers. Talking—talking!—to a lizard.
She’s my friend, Wisa says when Magali mentions the lizard. She looks surprised, as if it is obvious. I’ve called her Gul.
Carefully, Magali considers her way forward. Grandpa is large-hearted, stubborn when it comes to his bad judgments. Still, Magali has righteousness on her side. You cannot let a mad person into the colony. What’s next, craft?
Maybe give her back, Magali suggests to her grandfather one day, when Wisa is wandering somewhere. We won’t abandon her, she says hurriedly. We can give her food, enough to survive many seasons. I can give her all the ripe mangoes Lira has been saving for me. And a blanket. It is only, she continues, some people—not me—have been saying that she’s . . . you know . . . strange.
Grandpa says nothing. He simply stares at her, disappointed. Magali shrinks into herself. She adds miserably: Jinn said it, not me.
Grandpa stands and tucks a strand of Magali’s hair behind her ear. He says kindly, Magali, and the word goes straight through his granddaughter, making her feel small and twisted. He says: Wisa has no one to go back to.
Next time she sees Wisa in the garden, balancing on one leg to show her lizard a pose, Magali buries her face in her hands. When she parts her fingers and peeks through, Wisa has not disappeared like she hoped. Magali puts her hands down, leaves the window, makes it all the way to the kitchen door. Turns back.
Don’t do it, she tells herself as she steps out into the garden. It’s a bad idea, she says as she walks across the flowers toward Wisa. Turn back now, she thinks as her shadow drapes over Wisa, who looks up with eyes wide and curious.
Can you climb as well as you talk? Magali says.
Wisa nods.
Tonight, Magali says. After they put the candles out in the great hall. Don’t tell Grandpa.
• • •
The memory again
We are back in the stone structure. Magali is whispering to Wisa in a low, urgent murmur. Only go as far as you can. Don’t show off. Most children don’t get beyond the first third of the wall, so if you go higher you will earn their respect. You have to come down, don’t forget that. No tricks, this isn’t a skywalker performance. Be—
Ah, Wisa is not listening. She is looking over Magali’s shoulder, at the children staring at her. One of them sticks out her tongue. Wisa hisses; the girl scampers.
Wisa, Magali says, furious. Listen to me!
She won’t but she nods anyway. She is occupied with something, something we have not yet seen. And now Magali is uneasy; we sense it. Is Wisa nervous? Surely not. She has performed more daring feats at the market; she’s walked across threads fifty people high, jumped from trapezes at the top of thin bamboo poles . . .
The other children are not as good as Jinn. Some reach the main root cluster but give up soon after. Others fumble in the beginning itself, mistaking shadows for crevices, placing their weight in unreliable holds. Only one falls—from not too high but his ankle is beneath him and you can hear the crunch in the hush. He cries into his friend’s shoulder as they carry him out.
Then it is Wisa’s turn, and she walks to the wall in a collective hush. She looks up but doesn’t climb. One second. Two. The children don’t say anything; you give the climber their space. Ten seconds, eleven. A murmur. Thirteen seconds, fourteen, and Wisa glances back toward Magali, quickly, involuntarily, and then it is so obvious Magali cannot believe her stupidity.
Wisa has been lying. No one has actually seen her perform skywalker tricks in the colony, not even by accident. Grandpa never speaks about Wisa’s skywalker life; the only witness is Wisa herself. Crazy, strange, talkative Wisa. And now she is looking at Magali panicked, who jolts forward, without thinking, to get between Wisa and the wall. She is filled with a protectiveness she cannot understand; it is a desperate urge to keep this ridiculous girl safe.
But Wisa is already climbing.
She is terrible. Her feet don’t synchronize with her hands and she places her toes in all the wrong places. Thrice she falls, saving herself by scrambling for a protruding weed or raking her fingers along the stone until she finds a hold. In the beginning, the children murmur but as she keeps climbing, the murmurs change to jeers. By the time she is one third up the wall, the children are laughing among themselves. So this is the famous Wisa, skywalker extraordinaire. Magali shrinks into herself.
Wisa keeps going. Up, past the one-third point, slowly, carefully, now touching the cluster of roots. The children have quietened. The game has changed. Jinn is whispering in Magali’s ear—get her down; she’ll kill herself—but Magali is poised with tension, terrified anything she says will disrupt Wisa’s concentration and cause her to fall. When Wisa grips a wet root and transfers her weight to that hand, the crowd inhales as one. When that grip begins to slip—Wisa’s legs still swimming in the air, trying to find purchase—some children look away; others bury their nails into skin. Magali doesn’t look away. Wisa’s toes find a crevice just as her hand slips off the root, and she is saved but barely.
She keeps going.
No one is laughing now. Madness scents the air, and the children are drunk on it. She is high, higher than most of the others now, this awkward, fumbling child. In fact, she is only a few feet away from Jinn’s colored mark—it is there, in front of her, so close.
Wisa pauses at the start of the branch, wiping the sweat from her eyes. She is shaking, the involuntary shudders of a fearful body.
Just a bit farther, Wisa!
It is only a voice at first, but it becomes a crescendo—each child is suddenly Wisa, staring at something impossible that is now within reach, and they shout for her to seize it. Come on, Wisa, almost there, reach! Wisa is inching slowly along the branch, reaching out her fingers and she has done it; she is at Jinn’s mark on her first try, this mad girl with golden courage. Jinn looks like he has swallowed lemons. And in the whooping and the hysteria and Magali’s crumbling relief—she’s alive, sing to Esi!—they don’t notice something.
Wisa is still going.
She is crawling past the mark, toward the end of the branch, following offshoots slowly, so slowly, to get to other branches and climb higher.
Wisa! Magali says, her voice firm and urgent. That’s far enough. Come down!
Wisa ignores her. Up, up, beyond what any child would sensibly reach for, and no one is cheering now; the madness has fermented and danger is all anyone can taste. Fall now and she dies.
Wisa stops. She is at a branch with no offshoots—the only way to climb higher is to jump from this one to another branch. It is ridiculous. She would need to stand, balance, cover the gap. She won’t dare, Magali tells herself. She won’t dare. But Wisa is putting her feet on the branch and trying to stand, wobbling as she does so.
Wisa Kilta! Magali shouts.
Wisa looks down. Magali has lifted the lamp to her face so that Wisa can see her clearly. She is furious and utterly, utterly terrified. Wisa smiles.
Magali says, Don’t you dare—
Wisa jumps.
She falls, of course. Doesn’t die, lucky girl. Catches another branch with the tips of her fingers, pulls herself up and clambers farther along another branch, lip bleeding, the children silent as the cold sleep now, and she wants to touch the leaves that cut into the night sky but she won’t make it that far, not tonight, she’s not that good, so she stops astride an offshoot, legs swinging, and marks a soft line with her dye as a gentle afterthought.
She looks down, and we see it—what Magali’s been lying about.
• • •
Wisa is caught in the branches of her moonlit tree as the leaves open into whispers. They are speaking of a soft desire she hasn’t told anyone, a want they know how to fulfill. She reaches for it, eager, but it eludes her.
When she looks down, it is into Magali’s startled eyes. For a moment, we see Magali as the world does: orphan, granddaughter of Kua, beloved of the luddite colony, the girl with a half-smile that says she can do anything. Then we fall into her perspective and the ruins transform.
Chaos. The whispers are now an ocean, drowning us. Blajine is here, Myung, Laleh, Magali as a ghost on Ojda, behind her Wisa but a different one that is dressed strangely—all of them staring at young luddite Magali. Trees move between them, stretching, walking, talking. We smell smoke, hear the bubble and hiss of metal as it melts, feel the tightening as it forms into gold.
Then the world goes still.
Wisa is gleeful. Magali Kilta, the good luddite girl who is craftless and pure, has the first sign of madness: double sight.
Magali-Wisa-Jinn
I
If you come to Esi with what they call “stone eyes”—eyes that notice as little as stones—you will see the craft that Esites show you, but nothing else. You will leave talking of the simplest glamours; for years afterward, you will remain amazed.
If you come with a traveler’s eye, sharp like that of a bird of prey, then you will see the stone structures. If you are very good, maybe you will even spot the gold-patterned caves. You will think: Isn’t it surprising that an island that possesses secret knowledge cannot remember these stone structures? That the people have forgotten their own history?
So you will ask an Esite and they will say:
These?! They will slap their bellies and laugh. These ruins? They’re just stones, geometrical formations of rock. You can write about them if you like, traveler. But consider—who wants to read about rocks?
It is a good question, so good it fills you with doubt. Who does want to read about rocks? No one, you decide. You cancel out your pages of structural theories. Fill them with tales of craft. Wander back to your ship pleased by the coin you will make once these pages are stitched into chronicles. You fail to hear the soft murmur on the wind, of how these stones may be connected to Esi’s greatest festival.
