Chapter 12: Then, Koa
Koa returns home to try to find answers about Mama and her own origins
Aloha dear reader friends!
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Without further cafuffle, let’s get into this week’s chapter:
WILD GIRL
Chapter 12: Then, Koa:
Koa patted Star’s haunch goodbye the next morning. “See you again soon, girl.” The mare snorted and ambled away, headed back to rejoin her band in the direction of the valley’s mouth.
Koa adjusted the straps of her backpack and strode out, moving down the familiar path toward the shack. Ella had offered her shoes or a pair of rubber slippers just that morning, but Koa’s feet were toughened by walking barefoot. She liked the different sensations her soles transmitted. Shoes deadened her connection to the world.
Koa increased her pace to a jog, her gaze moving over the lush terrain, her ears tuned to the early morning sounds of the many birds that called Waimalia home: cardinals, mynahs, little green white-eyes, ring-necked doves, the occasional rare thrush.
She was energized: belly full, clothes clean, and she had slept well in spite of the strange visions brought on by the magazine.
Ella, in contrast, was ill. Koa had woken to the sound of her friend throwing up in the bathroom. “Morning sickness,” Ella had told her, listlessly nibbling a saltine cracker when they met in the kitchen. “It’s normal.”
Koa had asked to keep the Parents magazine. “I’d like to learn more about pregnancy and babies so I can help you.”
“I know you’re worried about all this, but it means a lot that you want to know more,” Ella had said. “Of course you can have it.”
Koa did want to know more about what her friend would be experiencing, but that wasn’t the only reason she wanted that magazine. The pictures in it seemed to be some kind of key. What else might she experience looking at them?
Soon Koa was really moving, running along the path, enjoying the challenge of keeping her pace even while ducking under low branches or leaping over stray boulders in the path. She wasn’t usually in such a hurry to get home, but the questions the dreams? the memories? about the strange baby on the cover felt urgent.
She measured time by the position of the sun, and today that was easy to track as the clouds that often filled the multi-pronged back of the valley were gone today. Light rain had fallen overnight, as it often did, and every spiderweb and leaf glittered with droplets that were evaporating even as she ran past them.
Time flowed slowly in the back of Waimalia, measured in the growth of trees, fledging of chicks, maturing of seeds and fruit… And a subtle change of seasons from long sunny days with rain at night, to shorter ones that were rainy with sun.
As Koa reached the edge of the kukui nut grove past the bamboo forest, slowing to make her way off the trail known to others, she listened for any unusual sounds. Even here, danger could find her at any time.
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