The Third Scroll (chp 1-3)

If those hunger-filled days taught me anything, it was that if I could not heal, I was nothing. 

The breeze from the sea strengthened and moved the branches around us. Our perch swayed. Koro held on tight with both hands, his face turning pale. 

"Maybe you should go. Your mother might need help with the twins." 

"Of course. And you would want to perform your ceremonies."  

Nothing but kindness sounded in his voice, but I caught a flash of disappointment in his eyes, along with a faint trace of hurt.  

I had managed to offend him, at once implying he could not handle the climb and that I did not want him with me.  

"I will visit again in a few days, if you do not mind," he said as he slipped to a lower branch carefully. 

"Of course not." Even to my own ears, the words sounded insincere. I cared for Koro. He was my childhood friend. But the great shadow of marriage had come between us lately, threatening the only thing I ever wanted. 

I watched him climb down and disappear in the dense foliage below me, swallowed by a profusion of palm-size round leaves. Then I turned to the task that had brought me to my perilous perch. As a healer, or almost one, I spent a fair amount of time with potion gathering. 

I said my prayers to the spirits and bowed before them. I thanked the numaba tree for sheltering the moonflowers that lived in the crook of its branches. I thanked the flowers at length for their dew as befitting a great gift. Then I tipped one of the large flowers in front of me, the haunting color of the twin moons, and collected the tiny drops that nestled inside the creamy soft petals. I moved to the next flower and the next, filling the small phial that hung on a cord around my neck. 

The ritual of the harvest filled me with peace, but as soon as I finished, frustration nudged its way back into my heart. I loved collecting potions, but the time had come when I wanted more than this. 

"The spirits know when the healer is ready, Tera," my mother had told me a hundred times, trying in vain to quell the sea of impatience inside me. 

I was so very ready. Why could the spirits not see?  

I pushed to my feet on a sudden impulse, balancing on the swaying branch, and stood over the endless forest that covered our hill. Mountain of No Top stretched on the horizon, the dwelling place of the spirits. 

Beyond the mountain lay the desert and the Kadar lands. For all I cared, they could both fall into the sea. Of the large Island of Dahru, I cared only about the Shahala lands of my people and my family's beach. 

Careful of my center of balance, I spread my arms and tipped my head to the sky, the wind whipping my hair around my face.  

I shouted my heart's desire into that salty wind. "Great spirits, I am ready!" 

A wild gust rushed my words across the undulating emerald carpet of the treetops, ruffling the leaves. Birds of a dozen colors, like dazzling jewels tossed into the air, took wing. 

I waited for the spirits to respond to me, to touch me, but I felt nothing. I could only hear my mother's soft voice in my ear, words I had heard a million times. "You cannot rush the spirits."  

I hung my head. She would have been dismayed by my willfulness and impatience if she were with me.  

Disappointment clenched my teeth as I climbed down the tree, watching where I put my feet at every step, even though I had made the climb a thousand times before. I stepped from one thick vine to the next as they wrapped themselves around the tree's smooth grey bark. My clothes stuck to my skin. Up in the treetops, I had the wind, at home a constant breeze blew on the beach from the sea, but in the woods, the hot air stood still.