temple. Everyone scattered … ” “Did you see my mom and brother?” He paused again, though this time his expression seemed almost sympathetic. “Liwen … your mother returned to the jungle months ago.” She could not say anything. It was as if someone had suddenly sucked all the wind from her lungs. That can’t be true … Before she had a second more to think, the corrugated metal door swung open. Liwen spun to see a poacher standing in the entryway, both of them momentarily frozen in place. The poacher reached for the gun slung around his shoulder just as Liwen lunged instinctively at him. He clumsily fired three rounds into the floor before Liwen threw her full weight into him and the two of them fell backward, crashing into the earth. The poacher gasped for breath, the air knocked out of him. Liwen reached down for her knife, slipping it from its pocket — but the man slammed his fist into the side of her head, knocking her off of him. Dazed, she found herself beneath his weight, his arms suddenly around her throat. Her hands clasped madly, gripping nothing but fistfuls of dirt as she felt desperately for her knife. Her lungs ached. She swung her hands at his face, trying to push him off, but she could feel her vision constricting. She wondered distantly if this was all her life would come to. There was a flash of movement then. She heard the poacher scream, her neck freed from his grip as he fell backward off of her. Liwen gasped for air, turning over in the dirt. She saw the dull glint of her knife in front of her. She grabbed it and quickly pushed herself to her feet, turning to see the poacher sieze Capo and violently fling her off of him. His face was dripping with blood, deep claw marks carved into his skin. Before he could recover Liwen lunged at him, plunging the knife into his stomach. There was a moment of stillness, of shared surprise. She looked at him, her face inches from his, seeing the fear in his eyes as he choked and fell backward into the earth. “Liwen!” Came a shout from back inside the house. She ran inside, finding Ravi still tied to the chair. “They will have heard the gunshot. We must go.” Liwen nodded absently and went back outside to the poacher, whose eyes were already vacant. She pulled the knife from his stomach and carried it inside. Ravi looked at her warily as she began cutting through his binds, the poacher’s blood leaking into the strands of rope, staining them just as it had her skin. Once freed Ravi took her hand and looked her in the eyes. “Thank you, sister.” Liwen was momentarily brought back to the present by his choice of words. “Now we must go,” he said, and led her back outside where Capo sat, seemingly unfazed by their encounter with the poacher. “We will go to the temple. I am sure the others will be there.” She followed Ravi into the jungle, grateful not to have to think about where to put her feet. Her mind was far from here, and no amount of breath work or admonishments from Capo could fix that. She had killed someone, yes. This was a fact now. Something she would carry with her for all of her days. But that is not what weighed on her, not now. All she could think was that her mother was dead. And yet, it still didn’t feel true, didn’t feel possible. She had always known, deep down, that she would see her mother again. That in her old age her mother would soften, would want her daughter back in her life. Liwen had longed for that day. Now that was impossible. The hate of their last moments together forever etched in stone. The sun was setting when Liwen and Ravi arrived at her people’s temple. The temple itself was no manmade construct, but a waterfall that crashed down into a thick mist. Many of her people were there, all of them eyeing her reproachfully as she walked with Ravi. But she was too worn down to be angry at their visible disdain. Then, sitting on a boulder not far from the water, she saw her brother, Joao, sitting, staring off into the distance. For a moment she felt happy, grateful he was alive — and mad at herself for having forgotten him. She went to him now, ignoring the others, and sat on the boulder beside him. Joao did not look up at her. A part of her wondered if her brother hated her too. But he was not leaving, either. She sat with him in silence for a time, then asked, “Do you remember me?” Her brother frowned. “Of course I remember you,” he tossed a pebble into the water. “That’s good. I wasn’t sure if Mom pretended like I never existed.” “She tried,” he said absently. Liwen sighed and closed her eyes. “But I could hear her cry at night,” he continued. “Sometimes she’d mumble your name in her prayers.” Her brother had spoken with distrait indifference, and yet the words loosened a knot that had been tied deep inside her heart, tied by the strands of thought that had convinced Liwen her mother loathed her, despised her. That her mother had died carrying the same hatred she had expressed in their last moments together. But that wasn’t true, was it? Liwen put her arm around her brother then, looking out at their temple, following the water as it rushed over rocks high above. She remembered her mother taking her here as a kid. She remembered standing in the stream, splashing in the water, looking back at her mother on the shore. And for the first time in years, Liwen saw her mother smiling back at her. 23 ART BY SOMMERSBY
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