Bright Shadows 2: A Hinterlands Anthology

Chapter 4: A Glimmer Of Hope, A Shade Of Favor

Space inside of a house is at a premium when all houses are hand built, plus one must make sure that the stilts go deep. Moreover, sometimes stilts rot. Lastly, some termites and ants were bigger than mice, and a few bigger than rats. When you're a pygmy, a swarm of rat or lobster sized ants is, frankly, terrifying.

As in, you hope that all they want to eat is your house!

Luckily, a way had been invented to artificially petrify wood with a combination of a waxy resin infused with gypsum plus some copper and iron salts. The process worked with bamboo as well.

The benefits: fire and rot resistance.

The downsides: more weight and more flexibility, especially when hot — like from a fire.

Translation: Don't worry about your house getting burned into stubble. Instead, worry about it "melting!"

Windows were for letting light in while keeping the weather out. Therefore, one had to open a window in order to look out of it. Enter the periscope, stage left. This presumes that a flying critter hasn't made either a nest or a hive in it. Getting egg in one's face was fortunately rare — just not rare enough.

In practical terms, every room in a house was a "multipurpose room." This included bedrooms, which usually contained zero furniture. Both movable partitions and lightweight furniture were extremely common. As in, why have as many as three chairs, a sofa, or even a bedframe?

So... Kneel or squat on mats! Avoid needing any "table legs!" Roll or unroll sleeping mats! Fold and stack blankets in a corner! Et cetera!

Understandably, few (if any) chairs = tables knee high to a grasshopper. Since grasshoppers could be lobster sized, and most every human was a pygmy, this was at best a feeble joke.

Quick. Easy. Practical. Attaching handles to a table simplified this. However, this could pose a trip hazard if done improperly.

Oh. And recycle everything, or otherwise repurpose it. Even bathwater. Hence, the injunction against throwing the baby out with the bathwater was NOT a joke!

Since the two ladies' mute guest was a grown man, throwing him out with the bathwater would be, well, rude.

What happened next was tragic.

Suffice that, before season's end, "Missy Katrina" was Tan Pau's ward. The young orphan became the swamp folk's new barber and herbalist. Grief must be experienced, but duty calls. She obsessively channeled her grief into a drive to help others. She also took on apprentices.

One summer evening when she was nine, she got into Tan Pau's financial records. She knelt at the low table so that she could stay organized. Her "uncle" was thinking about opening his own stall. Yet, what was the snag in his river of destiny?

She poured over his ledgers and notes by lamplight. After an hour, the numbers began dancing in her head like lamp's flame. Equity. Inventory. Creditors. Shipping. And...?

There! Tide scheduling! Tides rule sea trade! Local tidal forecasts were accurate for maybe three days! Beyond that, watch for warning signs of ebb and flow.

Patterns... Patterns... Patterns?

Patterns!

Tides on Homestead were complex. Two suns: a minor influence. Isabel: that grand, celestial ob! Significant, but predictable. Yet Luna and Selena: the twin moons and their eternal game of tag! They were the tricksters in tidal matters! So...

Plot each partial tide separately for each place of interest ... Add the results... Equaled a week's worth of each regional seaport's semi-accurate tide schedules!

"With more input," she muttered "I could forecast round about a fortnight of tides."

Hmmm... Some animals sense the tides... Sooo:

"Aquariums! Saltwater aquariums! Watch the critters! Know the tides! That's where I'll get my information! Plus, plus... Each seaport can have their own aquarium! Then... Then signal up and down the coastlines via lighthouses, flags, and foghorns! Astronomy and critter talk! Uh!"

Tan Pau coughed softly.

Startled, Katrina-Katrina yelped. "O! Greeting, honorable uncle! I have hatched an idea!"

He smiled. "As I and all of the owls have heard."

"Uncle? Want to go into the aquarium business?"

By age twelve, Katrina had rediscovered calculus. By age thirteen, she had expanded its utility, plus had discovered practical uses for the square root of negative one.

As for Tan Pau, he was as good an "uncle" as a she-child could ever ask for. The rickshaw driver never lacked for costumers, as he had the best of sponsors. (This also explains how and why the girl learned how to use sign language with her feet and legs.)

How "Katrina" once again became known as "Katrina-Katrina" is simple:

She became so busy, that people became used to calling out to her twice to show other people that their demands were more urgent. All of which forced her to get creative in her time management. After all, her numbers kept calling her name!

Finally:

Age fifteen:

Grief done?

She gone!

Katrina-Katrina walked into biggest college that she had ever heard of. And it seemed absolutely huge! It was its own village: Library! Book store! Dormitories! Cafeteria! And that eatery is bigger than a house! And a clock tower... Uh...

Not knowing about registration, she started attending classes almost at random. In one class, the professor was trying to use math to disprove a "rogue theory" in physics. After a third of an hour, she walked up to the slate blackboard. "Excuse me, honorable sir, but you need to use square root of negative one in the exponent. May I?"

Then she picked up a piece of chalk with her left foot. "You are correct, I'm thinking, but maybe for the wrong reason. First, may I show and tell how use the exponent I proposed?"

She deftly wrote the proof on the blackboard. "Correct, methinks, is your objection. Yet, and here's the fun part! You might get a curious conclusion!"

For ten minutes, she explained her mathematical theory. "Now, back to your problem, honorable sir."

In five minutes, she had filled the blackboard with math that the professor had never seen before. "Viola! Differentiated phase velocity! Or maybe not. It needs confirmation."

"Well, young lady! You certainly earned your grade for today!"

"Um, grade?"

"For... taking my class."

"I didn't take it. I found it. Excuse me. I have an art class to find."

"You're... not a student?"

She laughed before declaring, "Of course I'm a student, you great silly! I just lack both bed and employment! No not a problem! Your village has fresh compost! Most excellent!"

She ambled away before about-facing. "Halt. I beg a ladylike favor, methinks for which I need coins. My tide will soon rise. But such... considerations... cost coins hereabout. May I scrub this room as barter?"

When "Katrina-Katrina" -officially- attended that mainland college, her strong, rural islander accent hindered communication. Hence, she playfully reinstated her name duplication tradition.

The future valedictorian's soon famous ability to pick her nose with any of her ten toes clarified one thing:

Shake . . . hands . . . with her at your own risk!

Finis