Homecoming II

I followed Jayla as she stepped gingerly between dried twigs and leaves, trying to not make a sound. Soon, I could hear the horse too. I squinted through the trees and could make out a blurry silhouette of a person. What was their race? I couldn’t tell—did it matter?—but they didn’t have Asan ears, at least. It didn’t seem like they’d noticed us. I took another step closer.

“Boo!”

As a writer, I’d occasionally contemplated writing a memoir. I’d scratched that idea because my life wasn’t interesting enough. But if I did, in fact, write one—God knew there was a lot of interest now—I would pen a neat line that said, “I courageously did not scream at that moment.”

Anyway, someone came up behind me and said boo and I screamed like a banshee.

They doubled over laughing. I turned around quickly to see who it was, still a little shaky, grabbing on to Jayla’s arm.

An older Ry’ke woman, hair in a high headwrap, grinned at us and said, “What’s the matter?”

“You scared us...” I gripped my shirt over my ribs. Heart, be still.

Jayla had her knife out and was pointing it at the woman, breathing rough.

“What are two nice young women like you doing out in a place like this?” The woman wore a lot of jewelry, the sign of a high ranking position. Multiple earrings in each ear, a nose chain, and studded hairpins.

“We’re heading to Ky’an’th,” I said.

“Burying bodies,” Jayla said. “Or trying to.”

“Ah. You might want to come see something.”

I looked over my shoulder at the silhouette. “Who’s that?”

“My nephew. Val, come over here!”

He turned out to be an unthreatening boy of about eighteen or nineteen years. He stuck out his hand to Jayla and said, “Y-Yo,” with a light blush tinting his cheeks.

Jayla kept her hands in her pockets, looking at him warily.

Actually, that name sounded familiar. It wasn’t anyone I’d ever written, but maybe it was someone I’d put in to fill in a backdrop, like Jayla had been.. In any case, I should check…

“Sorry, ma’am, but what’s your name?”

“Oh, it’s Ky'cina. And you?”

“Naomi.”

Ky'cina. For the second time, we were encountering another major character in my story. Sy’anh, an antagonist in the original, had been killed early, changing the events of the plot as it would play out in this universe. Now, we’d run into Ky'cina, the main character’s mother.

In Kol 133, the current year, Ky’sy’ana was already an adult in her mid twenties, and her father was already dead. Ky'cina’s role in the story wasn’t centered around her motherhood, but rather, upon the fact that she was an active rebel against the government.

“Is it okay to follow her?” Jayla asked me.

“Yeah, it’s okay. I’ve heard of you.”

“Heard of me? I’m just an ordinary lady, so I’m curious to know exactly what you’ve heard.”

“Just that you might be a friend to people like us,” I said cautiously.

She nodded and started walking back towards the town. We followed her.

One of the buildings in town had paint still flaking off its side, what looked like it was a mural once. It was one story, but larger than the houses, long and low with high windows. Ky'cina led us around the back, where rows of grave markers stood.

“You buried them?” Jayla asked.

“A few others and I did.”

Jayla pressed her hands together and murmured a prayer. When she opened her eyes she said, “Did you know this was a school? You’ve buried them in a schoolyard. If you’d waited for someone like me, they could’ve told you not to.”

“Should we try to move the bodies?”

“No! No. It’s too late now. No one’s going to go to school here anymore, anyway…and if you’re an Asan schoolkid, you’ll have to face death anyway.” She stood up and knocked on one of the walls. “In here was my classroom. I’d just turned six, just started school. My mama had gotten me a set of building bricks I loved, and I told her I wanted to be a builder and make buildings like the school and our apartment house. She told me ‘you have to study hard, then’. I never liked studying but after I became a prisoner of war and then a slave I did all I could to keep learning. Some time later I got out. But my old school’s all dead bodies.”

“My apologies,” Ky'cina said.

“Don’t worry about being sorry,” Jayla said. “Worry about what you can do.”

Ky'cina laughed dryly. “Of course. I have a suggestion for you two.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“You’re going to Ky’an’th, aren’t you? So are we. We’ll take you there. Once we get there, we’ll introduce you to some friends.”

“That sounds spooky,” Jayla said quietly to me.

“She’s not the most trustworthy person, but she’s on our side. I’m sure of it,” I whispered back.

“How do you really know this stuff, anyway? Cass said the spy thing was a lie—”

“We’ll go with you,” I said to Ky'cina.

Jayla looked unhappy but she followed along. I probably got a little credit for being right about the Koteran, who Jayla had been leery about. (Though on second thought, our experience with them hadn’t exactly ended well, but we both got why).

Leaving the town, Jayla kept looking back at it. I hoped she was okay, but my attention was more focused on Ky'cina.

The ride, at least, was nice. The Ao clan had used their wagons for holding things and the people walked. Ky'cina and Val were traveling in a carriage to go quicker and were carrying a lot less. Val was driving; he turned the horses out of the forest and headed towards a main road.

“This will be a long carriage ride,” Ky'cina said. “Naomi, do you want to play a game?”