Chapter Ten

When Edna’s eyes open, there is a familiar confusion; not of the kind that comes with memory loss, or of the kind that one has when they wake up outside, on the ground, in an enchanted world, but the kind one wakes to when they have fallen into a deep sleep at an unusual hour. She does not know what day it is, whose couch she wakes up on, or whose child is the little girl next to her. A large, concerned face appears above her, examining her pupils and putting a container of water to her lips. And the little girl’s hand, which Edna now realizes has been holding her own, tightens its squeeze. With the squeeze comes Edna’s memory.

“How long have I been asleep?” Edna asks.

“A few hours, I’d guess,” Gargana says.

“Are you feeling better now, Grandma?” Kadiatu asks, sitting up on her knees and placing a hand on Edna’s cheek, and staring into Edna’s pupils to look for whatever it is that Gargana had been looking for. “You look good, I think you’ll be just fine,” she says.

“Well thank you for taking such good care of me—my two nurses,” Edna says. “Where are the others? Have they made it yet?”

“No,” Gargana says, “but we’ve been waiting for a long time. They should be here soon.”

“I need to stretch my legs,” Edna says. Gargana gets up quickly so she can help Edna out of the carriage. Kadiatu is down, first, to help as well. Kadiatu insists on holding Edna’s good hand, and she pulls on it, causing Gargana to have to work harder to keep Edna stable. Edna laughs at the two.

“The last time I needed to stretch my legs,” she says, “I had to beg for help. But you two are so helpful that I’ll have to beg for some space.”

Kadiatu puts her free hand on her hip. “Well, I’m here to take care of you. You’re not gonna get space from me.” She then tugs again on Edna’s arm. “Come on Grandma. It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

Gargana smiles and playfully rolls her eyes. “Listen to your little nurse, she knows best.”

The environment had changed while Edna slept, so they leave the sleeping unicorns to explore the new terrain; three creatures still so unfamiliar with how much variety Storia has to offer. They are on a large, round, flat plain that is situated within a pocket of mountain. The ground itself is hard and looks to be grey rock with patches of shallow vegetation growing on top. And large perfectly circular holes pit deep into the ground in various places. There is water in the holes and it is so clear that the three explorers can see right down to the bottom, along with a myriad of floating and swimming things.

“Can you ladies help me to the ground?” Edna asks. “I want to see what’s down in this hole.”

“Of course,” Kadiatu says, eagerly putting two hands around Edna’s waist. Gargana bites her lower lip as she helps Edna to the ground with Kadiatu’s weight, helpfully hanging to Edna’s middle. Once Kadiatu feels that Edna is properly seated, she quickly lays on her stomach with her elbows at the edge of the hole and rests her head on her hands.

The three observe the curious sight below them. Peering down miniature leagues of water, they see a variety of sea creatures. At the lowest depths, round grayish-brown bodies, about the size of Kadiatu’s hand, move sluggishly about. They are the most leisurely of the water hole’s wildlife. Their mouths open from time to time to let out bubbles, or to suck in slime from the ground they lay on. Above them are schools of tiny fish, each fish no bigger than a pinky nail. Each school is made wholly of the same color, and yet each school is a different color. The schools move in unison. It is a beautiful sight. The living color dances and moves in an unpredictable rhythm.

The creatures on the bottom are easy to see because of their size, and the schools because they are so vast and colorful, but it takes keener eyes to spot the rest. Kadiatu points out many little shark-like creatures that orchestrate the lovely unpredictable movements of color. Edna assumes that with each new change of direction, a few of the tiny fish are gone forever. But there is no prey in Storia, and no predators; only work and play. And for the creatures that live in water, there is only play.

Kadiatu gets up and quickly runs around inspecting the other holes to see if there is anything new to discover. Each hole that she hovers over gets only a few moments of her attention before she yells, “nothing new in here!” Gargana takes the opportunity to help Edna off the ground while Kadiatu is busying herself inspecting water holes. As soon as the two walk away, dozens of the tiniest merpeople peer out of tunnels in the side of the rock—tunnels that connect to the other water holes—and whistle the signal that all is clear.

Kadiatu runs up to Edna and leans her side against the old lady as the three walk back to the carriage. Edna looks down at Kadiatu’s young face. The child bounces joyfully with each step, causing colorful plastic beads to clash against each other.

Edna has never thought about what kind of child she was, but being in a fantasy world with a child the age Edna should have been when exploring this world makes her wonder what five-year-old Edna would have been like had she come to Storia. She doesn’t think she bounced around joyfully like Kadiatu does; but maybe she would have, had she come.

“Tell me about yourself, and your family,” Edna says to Kadiatu.

Kadiatu’s eyes light up, and her words are quick, “I live with my aunty, Mariama. She’s so nice and so funny and so beautiful, and she’s a very good dancer!”

“Oh? She’s a dancer?”

“Well, she’s not in a dance company. But she loves to dance. We both do. Some evenings, when she’s not too tired, she takes me to dance with her friends who are in a dance company!”

“Well, that sounds quite lovely.” Edna says “And what about your parents?” Edna immediately regrets her question. If Kadiatu hadn’t talked about her parents yet, it may be that, as with Edna’s own parents, there is a story attached to the answer that Kadiatu does not want to think about.

A hint of sorrow dulls the light of Kadiatu’s eyes for just a moment, but her eyes are soon shining again. “They are with God. But they loved me very much.” Kadiatu is quiet for a moment, then continues. “There was war in our country. My aunty said that when people are full of greed and hate and fear, they will do horrible things to to make themselves feel better; they will even kill. And she said that war happens when there are enough people who are greedy for the same resources, hateful of the same people, and afraid of the same things. And many innocent people were killed during the war in my country; including my parents.”

“Oh honey, I’m so sorry,” Edna’s eyes begin to water. After some moments of silence, Edna says, softly, “life can be so cruel.”

“It is not life that is cruel, grandma,” Kadiatu says. “It is people who are cruel.”

Edna thinks for a moment about what Kadiatu has just said. “That’s a lot of wisdom from someone so young,” she tells her.

“What about you, Grandma? Did you have parents?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What were they like?”

Edna hesitates. She never talks about her childhood. And she certainly would never want to talk about her childhood to someone as young as Kadiatu. Edna has always felt that adults should never burden children with sad personal stories. But Kadiatu understands the reality of suffering and unkindness more than most adults, so Edna thinks that maybe it’s okay to tell Kadiatu a little bit about her own childhood. Maybe it is okay to share their stories, here in Storia, because, maybe, though Kadiatu won’t remember the conversation, it will help her feel connected to others who have had difficult childhoods. Maybe it will help her to not feel as alone when she sees other children with moms and dads.

As if reading Edna’s thoughts, Kadiatu says, “They weren’t very nice, were they? It’s okay to tell me about that.”

“No,” Edna says, shaking her head. “They weren’t very nice. I was an only child. And they worked a lot—especially my dad—so my mom could buy nice things. I was alone most of the time. But I preferred being alone. I felt safest when I was alone because no one wanted anything from me when I was alone, and no one was screaming at me or ignoring me on purpose.

“My mom was never happy. She depended on others to make her happy. And the only others there were to make her happy were me and my dad. But I couldn’t make my mom happy. I didn’t know how. I just wanted to be alone. I just wanted to feel safe. And my mom could tell. She could tell that I was scared of her; and that made her angry. And the more angry she was at me, the more she yelled at me. And the more she yelled at me, the more I was scared of her—and the more distant I became. So she would cry to my dad because of how distant I was. And to try to make my mom happy, my dad would refuse to talk to me, to punish me for making my mom sad. But I never did that to him. I never refused to talk to him when he made her sad. I couldn’t understand why he would do it to me. I didn’t realize, until I was older, that my parents’ behavior was not normal. And that none of that was my fault.”

It occurs to Edna that her parents were not too different than those who fight and kill because of greed, hate, and fear. Kadiatu lost her parents because of the greed of others, and Edna did not really have a childhood because her parents were consumed by greed and fear.

Kadiatu and Gargana walk along with Edna in silence and with a sense of solidarity. All three have experienced suffering—Gargana’s being a little different, not a result of greed, but of the fear that caused her to shut herself off from her own fantastical world.

After a while, Gargana breaks the silence. “Greed makes your kind do such horrible things to one another,” she says. She hesitates for a moment, then continues, “it’s, here, too, though. Not as much, maybe hardly any at, but there’s greed, and violence, and it’s getting worse.”

Edna thinks about the episode near the boat. Now that she has met so many other Storians, she realizes how very human the attack was; it does not seem like something that could happen in a place like this.

“How do you know so much about what’s happening in Storia if you’ve never left your land?” Edna asks.

“I’m a medicine woman. I just know. I have the same intuition about our world as I do the body. That’s why I’ve always believed in the prophecy. I know it brings the cure.”

“But how can killing a dragon bring a cure? Is one dragon responsible for so many creatures turning bad, and disappearing?”

“That I don’t know, Edna. I’m dumbfounded about that. I can’t make sense of it.”

“Look, there’s our friends!” Kadiatu says. Edna’s skin prickles at the sight of the others. The idea of fighting a dragon in a fairy land was amusing at first, but the charm is now lost at the thought that the fight is against an evil no different than that on earth. And now that her friends have caught up with her, there will be no more waiting; they will want to get right to it.

When the group reaches Edna, they circle her, each examining her arm as closely as she and her nurses will let them, and then they ask her about her health and whether she is back to her old self again.

“Oh, believe me, I couldn’t escape this old self, as much as I wish I could,” Edna tells them.

Twynne, all practicality, does not wait too long before slapping Edna on the back—lightly, of course—and saying, “you’re looking better, let’s go.”

“The unicorns left already,” Gargana says, “but they said we’ll have to walk the rest of the way. There are no more paths that a carriage could handle.”

“I was afraid of that,” Pixie says. “Edna, are you going to be all right? We’ll have to walk the rest of the way.”

Edna shrugs her shoulders slowly and mostly with her right side. “Well then, if we must walk, we must walk. I’ve slept. I should be good for a while, and I’ve got my two nurses.” Edna says, winking at Kadiatu.

“There’s where we’re headed,” Pixie says, pointing towards the closest mountain. There is no sign of passage, not even the smallest opening or beaten path.

Edna stares at the mountain that she is supposed to cross and feels justly irritated. “Oh, for crying out loud,” she mumbles, then pushes her way past her friends, smacking at their ankles with her cane as she goes. “Come on Kadiatu, come on Gargana, I’m gonna need my nurses close.”