Halliodera Falls

3: Missing

I wake up with a jolt, heart racing in my ears.

It's still dark outside my cave, and a pleasantly cool breeze is blowing through the fishnet-draped door.  But my mind is elsewhere.

Arum.

I slide out of my soft lacrye-feather hammock and pad to the entrance of my grotto.  Haetak, my lacrye, lifts her fuzzy head from her back to survey me with bright golden eyes.  Her long feather strands flutter in the breeze.

I push the fishnets aside and let the full force of the wind hit me.  Trees sway and toss their shiny heads, and the grasses alternately flatten and rise in waves.  That gentle breeze was but a shadow of the gale outside.

I shudder involuntarily.  But not because of the cold.

It's a shadow.  Just a little smudge on the lake.

But it could be a boat.

I tell myself it's Krion, the old medicine man who is gifted, like my mother was, with the Chwai of healing.  He goes out at night sometimes to search for herbs on bright nights, away from the intruding eyes of others.

Or maybe Runye.  She has spoken of a hole in the water that she says appears on full moons, where she can paddle her coracle down to the bottom of the lake, to a glowing cavern-river.  But Runye doesn't have a Chwai.  She has a habit of eating strange fungi, and I usually don't believe her tales.

And the moon's just a sliver.

I see the little smudge wink out, then appear again much farther away.  I squint and rub my eyes.  

Just a trick of the light.  Arum is in his dwelling. 

I worry too much.

There's still a prick out doubt in my gut.  And suddenly, it feels like that little prick is moving about; but far away.  He is far away.  And that little prick is taking a bit of my heart with it.

I feel like a child with a new lacrye chick.  Afraid of the intangible fate of another.

Arum is in the village.  He has to be.  He's sick.

I let the fishnets fall back over the chiseled round entrance and return to my hammock.  Haetak, sensing my unease, gets up from her little bed of straw and hops onto the hammock.  Her feet are hard and cold, but her fluffy body warms my cold legs.

I lay there, staring at the half-chiseled wall, until morning light seeps into my dwelling.

I'm not hungry when I get up, even though I've been laying awake for half the night.  My gut is too full of worry.

There is only one thing to ease that worry.  I need to see Arum.

His mother meets me at the door when I come to his dwelling, holding a baby with one arm and a child's hand with the other.  "Dera?"

I try to sneak a look past her, but Arum's father is there.  He whispers something into his wife's ear. After a momentary look of surprise, she disappears into the depths of their beautifully chiseled dwelling.

I do not hear his words.  But I know what he said.

Arum is gone.