The Boy Who Didn't Talk

There was a girl that, without fail, would walk up the side of the mountain and sing her songs alone.

I was just a boy, and my mother would take me to that mountain city every year around the same time. “I feel bad for fighting the natives for their land,” she said. “We should visit and learn about the local culture of the island,” she insisted. “Maybe new places and experiences will help him talk”. She was talking about me.

So every year she would take me to that same mountain where the nights were too cold and the day was too humid. They’d make us take off our socks and shoes and walk on the same rocks everyone else did. “It’s the local culture, we should respect it,” said my mother, but only to me. My father didn’t visit again past the first year.

They would make us eat strange, chewy mushrooms, and breads of an odd texture and with a strange sauce. I couldn’t wait until my mother was tired of touring around so I could walk by myself. Instead of walking inside the city, I walked outside while there was still sunlight. And that’s where I first met the girl.

She sang in her strange language. Sometimes strange things happened around her, but I couldn’t tell if it was her, or the mountain. The side of the mountain she liked to sing in was decorated with patches of flowers. They were a strange kind of pink flowers, and the wind that hit the mountain would land on them and spread their petals. But nobody else was around to look at them except the girl, and I only looked at them from afar.

One day, a couple of years after my first time there, the girl spotted me. She waved at me with a joy I couldn’t understand. How could she be so happy, if every time I went there she was alone, and her songs were so sad?

I walked up to her and saw her up close. She had strange, pink hair, just like the flowers. Udari’s hair is colorful, even brighter than the paintings we had at home, but even then, hers was stranger than those.

“You can hear me sing, and you’re fine?”

The girl seemed curious, but to me, her songs were just like any other, except for the Udari language. I nodded my head. Perhaps I got close too soon. There was nothing I could say to her, or anyone. I didn’t want to add extra problems to someone who seemed so sad. Yet she seemed beautiful, too, and drew me in.

“I’m sorry, that’s a weird question, isn’t it?”

She got up from the side of the cliff where she enjoyed sitting and singing, and stretched her hand in a Uman fashion. “I’m Uisempuli. Call me Ui, ok?” She smiled while offering her hand. The odd girl stood there for far too long, and I shook her hand to avoid the awkwardness.

“So you’re a Uman, huh?” She looked at my hair with curiosity. “What do you think of Aure?”

I realized I had nothing positive to say, if I could even talk in the first place.

“Not much of a talker, huh?” Ui stood there, confused, before sitting back down and offering me a place next to her.

I immediately felt like sitting there was something I shouldn’t have done. The wind would gust, suddenly, occasionally, and looking downwards created fear like I never felt. There were no such places in the capital, my home. She grabbed my hand and smiled.

“If you can’t talk, then I’ll do some singing.”

The girl started singing in her strange language, and immediately the wind, which was gusting dangerously before, calmed into a gentle, cooling breeze. The waves, instead of crashing violently down below, made their way delicately into the side of the mountain.

“Wow! My songmagic doesn’t affect you!” The girl examined me from different angles.

Songmagic? I had heard stories from the war before, about mystical Udari mages called Songmages. Their power relied on the land instead of how we Umans learned magic.

“This is amazing!” She grabbed both of my hands, excited. I couldn’t understand the reason for her happiness, but somehow, I smiled with her.

I let her sing her songs, and every time she was done, she examined me once again. I wanted to ask her questions, but even if I couldn’t, she would just start talking about different things.

“Nobody comes here to pick up the fish from these lines. I’m not sure why…” She looked downwards with no fear as she reeled in long fishing lines set by her people. “But I do like having my own place for my songs.”

I didn’t want to tell her why I thought nobody wanted to be there, she probably figured it out by herself. There was no reason to say words that are too sad. I wanted to tell her that her songs were beautiful, instead. But I couldn’t.

At some point, she just started crying. “Nobody can hear my songs and not be affected by them…” She just started crying and crying. I wanted to tell her that any kind of words can hurt, and that hers made me feel better instead. But I couldn’t.

The gusts of wind gradually returned as the petals blew around us.

I had spent too much time outside, and I soon realized my mother’s worries had grown into something I shouldn’t have caused. At some point, she found me, sitting next to that strange girl.

“Cro… why are you all the way out here?” My mother had an Udari woman next to her, who had likely brought her there.

“Uisempuli, how do you manage to cause trouble?” asked the Udari woman.

“Me? I’m just collecting the fish here like I always do Adari!”

The two Udari squabbled for a little bit over who was at fault. I looked at them with pain, as my mother made worried faces and sounds that I tried to ignore.

“I-i-t’s n-n-not he-r fault.”

“Cro? You’re… talking?!” My mother’s panic doubled compared to the one from before, but then she started crying while smiling. I will never forget that confusing sight.

“C-can w-we b-b-bring her h-h-h-ome?”

My mother cried and hugged me, and the Udari woman, along with Ui, were now just smiling and looking at both of us.

My mom told me later that she talked for a long time with the Udari woman called Adari, and she offered the girl a place in our home.

That’s how I started living with my sister, Ui.