Chapter Twenty-three

Edna rests for the next couple of days and receives care and attention from her two nurses, Gargana and Kadiatu. Much of the time her friends are by her side to talk with her and keep her company. Sometimes they are silent companions, playing with her helmet of stiff white hair.

“Your hair sure knows how to hold itself up, doesn’t it?” Pixie asks as she rubs a few strands between her fingers.

“Yep,” Edna says proudly, touching a couple fingers to her hair, “that’s why they call it a permanent.”

On the morning of the fourth day, Pixie finds Edna near the trees; eyes closed, hair rustling in the breeze. When Pixie is next to Edna, she tells her it is time to send her home.

“Already?” Edna asks. She thinks about the mossy island and its soft comforting atmosphere. It feels like an eternity since she arrived in Storia. “Can we go back to the mossy island?” Edna asks.

Pixie looks at Edna with a secretive smile. “One day, but not now. Now you must be getting back to your earthly home.”

“One day…?” Edna begins to ask, but Pixie disappears right in front of Edna’s eyes.

“Goodbye, Edna….” comes Pixie’s voice, very soft and faint, as though the wind has picked it up from far away and is letting it slowly drift by Edna’s ear.

“What! For heaven’s sake! You can’t go like that!”

Pixie reappears just as she had left, and she begins to laugh hysterically while slapping Edna’s good arm.

“Oh, you crazy thing!” Edna says.

Instead of a quick and silent departure, Edna’s friends give her an elaborate and festive send-off. Many of their new friends gather flowers and ripe green leaves for decorations, and Kadiatu prepares the entertainment.

Kadiatu has grown up around a dance company whose rehearsals were in an old concrete building; a juice factory that had been abandoned during the war. She, with a host of other children and would-be professional dancers, often crowds inside the buildings and practice along with the dancers during the practices and rehearsals. Kadiatu now teaches the moves she has learned to many of the Huldu who studied dancing before captivity. Some of the drummers from the enemy camp and some of the Huldu who are eager to learn to play the drums watch Kadiatu and create rhythms that match the beats that she mouths as she teaches.

Edna, Twynne, Pixie, Gargana, Gargan and Cellu sit in a patch of grass and watch the rehearsals; Cellu with deep wholesome breaths and a soft heartbeat. The group is in no hurry, they let the town prepare for the evening while the sun moves across the sky. While they sit and watch, they discuss life, like old friends do.

Though time seems to hold its usual place in Storia, with the movement of day into night and night into day, it is not a real movement of time as Edna is used to, and she can feel there is a difference, but she cannot quite put what she feels into words. Today, as she watches Kadiatu and the others rehearse, and as she chats with her companions as if they have known each other since they were children, Edna begins to understand. There is no sense of urgency here; there is no feeling that the day must be made the most of before night comes on; night does not signal the death and finality of the day that precedes it.

It is as if Storia only pretends it must play by the rules of time, like a child pretends they must feed their baby doll. The rising and setting of the sun is a game that does not really make anyone any older, and so the game never gets old. Even the giants and the villagers who start as children and become adults are not subject to time, but only to the game of time that Storia plays with them. For, the giants and the small villagers do not lose their sense of wonder as they grow, unless, like Gargana, they are full of fear.

And what seems to make time different in Storia is friendship. Friendship is prioritized above all, and everyone has friends, and everyone is a friend. And there are always friends nearby. No one need be lonely. Edna realizes that she has lived her whole life within the constraint of time.

Evening has approached and with it comes the heavy smell of roasted garlic, and savory vegetables unique to Storia. The town comes together without being called. Long strips of burlap have been laid out on the ground for the food to be placed upon, and leaves and flowers fill the spaces that food dishes and plates do not take up. Silken curtains from the dragon’s cave entrances are strung from rods, creating a vibrant canopy above the dinner placements. Along each side of the long strips of burlap are the soft down cushions that Edna has become accustomed to sitting on and sleeping on. On each cushion lays a crown of flowers, and next to each cushion is a golden goblet filled with a delicious ruby red liquid. Everyone takes a place, and sets the ring of flowers on their heads, becoming part of the decor. Kadiatu makes sure to take a seat next to Edna. Edna turns to Kadiatu and smiles, then lowers her torso to give Kadiatu a tight, warm, grandmotherly hug. Kadiatu catches a whiff of Edna’s breath; it smells like sour pineapple.

The plate set before Edna is filled to the edges. A rice-like grain is placed to one side and covered in a spicy green sauce, and there are roasted root vegetables on the other side of the plate. And in the middle are tender chunks of mushrooms bathed in garlic and oil. Kadiatu eats the grains and the spicy green sauce eagerly, finding it similar to her favorite meal from home.

When Edna is finished, Kadiatu hurries away, and a sharp drumbeat, “brap-ba-doe-brap,” signals the beginning of the entertainment. A few moments later the drums answer their own call, “brap-ba-doe-a-doe-a-doe,” and suddenly dancers file out in front of Edna. They move like liquid, with beautifully wild but masterfully controlled leaps, and swinging arms that cut through the air. Kadiatu is in front, dancing so freely and with such conviction that if gravity were to lose an ounce of authority, she would have danced into the sky.

Edna’s face grows thick with sleep as she enjoys the dance and drums. Her heavy eyelids begin to droop over her watery eyes. She tries to keep her eyes open; she wants to hold onto the sight of Kadiatu’s wide smile, her dancing braids, and her thin arms and legs that seem to be flying. But the anchor of sleep has been thrown, and it sinks deep, deep, deeper into the depths, pulling Edna with it.