The Empire in the Eastern Sky

Chapter 5

"You're mad!" I clenched my teeth together. My cheeks burned but all I feel was rage. I saw my own grandmother telling me what to do in that witch's place and I hate it. Nobody can dictate me except my own will. I decide what I can do and don't. I own my own destiny.

As that thought crossed my traitorous mind, a wave of grief pummelled on me fully. But she was dead. My father was dead. I saw the man who killed him with one stroke from a parang. I saw my grandmother stilled figure over my crying sister. I saw our home died in fire and fell into the sea. The people who died at their home. Those who ran away and died. Those who tried to fight. Those who was captured inside those steel cages dangling over the pirate airship's flank. Their hands clawed and their cries called to my soul. But I was too afraid to save them.

"Are you alright? You're started to shake up like a tree," the boy said and I saw that they're watching me closely with their too observant bright eyes.

"Nobody is marrying me off. I don't have time for that. Now where is my sister," I demanded although I knew I was in no shape to demand anything. They had saved my life but I know where my priority lies. 

The boy looked at his grandmother and back at me. "We found you alone by the river. There was no one else with you."

I considered his words and remembered the large elephant in the waters and the people who came from its inside. They took Maya and left me there. Why?

"Take me back where you found me. They couldn't have gone far." Then I saw their uneasy posture. Something was up. "How long has it been since then?" They were silent and I pressed them again.

"Three weeks," the old woman said.

It was getting harder to breath. Then I saw the dishes with the herbal condiments and now I began to feel the aching heaviness around my temple and the smell began to lul me to the kekabu-filled bed. I slammed my hand on the floor and the wooden house rattled in protest. The pain gave me strength to stay awake, "You've drugged me," I glared at her.

"We had to. You won't heal if we don't. You're going to break those scabs of yours and I need to reapply the black gold," the old woman turned to the boy. "The rain was gone now. Call your mother to come, Hari."

The boy with darkest skin as night stared at me and give me a lecherous grin and left in a hurry.

"I don't know your name, child."

"Neither do I, grandmother," I said rudely. My irritation lingered and I focused on my rage rather than the grief that shadowed my thoughts. The old witch crackled again and coughed and started to heaved and spit on a dirty pan. I saw this particular habit from older folks back home and I never found myself the appeal of it.

"You got fire but it won't last long enough if you don't learn to control it."

After that silence grew between us and soft wet flaps came from around the hut and then I saw a middle age woman wearing a tight sarong over hclimbing over the stairs. She was dark but not as dark as Hari and she was particularly beautiful even though she looked weathered and tired. She gave me a hesitant smile and I smiled back. Then she kept her eyes low and slipped toward the the older woman and bowed in respect. 

"You need me, Nenek?" The woman said softly. I am not surprised when she called the elder woman that way. The word grandmother, Nenek, can become a title of respect that doesn't denote any kinship to the person who said it. For a medicine woman, she had a greater hand for the health of the village. My own grandmother explained that in her night stories a long time ago. 

They began a conversation in their own language and I realized that I was in the forest people country. The native people of the land, the Orang Asli. I was a lot deeper in the forest than I had expected. They were people in hiding for a long time. They know the secret of the forest and the worship different things than my own belief. Sometimes they venture outside their forest to trade and sometimes people seek them out for treatments and give offerings. I looked closely at some of the herbal bowls and two of them was made out of copper. Then I observed their clothes and although they were weathered but their batik does not have cheap designs I used to wear along with my tunic.