The Third Scroll (chp 1-3)

I wished my mother were with me still, showing me wonders like the flowers and birds that lived on top of the tall trees. Maybe she had many more secrets she had not had time to share, things I would never know, could never show my own daughter someday. 

I did want a family. But not before my healing powers came to me. I could cure without them, help others with potions and poultices, powders and teas. But true healing, my mother had warned me-the knitting of bones and binding of spirits-would be lost to me forever if I rushed the sharing of my body. 

I had to make sure Jarim understood this before anyone came to offer for me. I climbed faster. In my hurry, a broken branch snagged the worn linen of my thudi, leaving a slight tear. My traditional thudi had its puffy legs gathered to narrow cuffs at the ankle. Its waist was fastened with a twisted length of blue shawl, as tattered as the strip of linen bound tightly around my middle up to my armpits. 

I kept moving. I never thought that the snag might have been a warning from the good spirits resting on top of the numaba tree. If they had whispered Little Sister, do not rush, watch out, I did not hear.  

To avoid another sharp branch, I had to turn away from the tree a little, now on the beachside of the thick trunk. Jarim stood in front of our home, four men around him. I brushed the hair out of my face and pushed a leafy branch aside for a better glimpse. They were not Shahala. I did not recognize their strange clothing. Maybe they were traders. If only we had something to trade. 

Jarim was gesturing as if trying to convince them of something very important, his arms going up and down in a choppy motion like the wings of the small chowa bird.  

I stopped. I had left my dress and my veil at home, as always when going for a climb. I could not let strange men see me like this.  

But what if they had come for healing?  

I tried to help the few who had not heard of my mother's death and made the arduous journey, but despite the healing potions, I rarely succeeded. Jarim said I did not have the power in my hands, but I knew the truth: I did not have the power in my heart. Something inside me was missing, and the spirits sensed it. 

Sometimes, secretly, out of sheer frustration, I blamed him. My mother had been a Tika Shahala, a healer from the highest order. Jarim, a foreigner, weakened her Shahala blood, robbing me of my heritage.  

I slipped to the next branch, and it dipped under my weight, the leafy end shifting, and I saw the visitors' ship at last, bobbing in the water some distance from the beach. My fingers went numb as I recognized the black sails.  

A slaver.  

The sea churned furiously around the ghastly vessel, foaming at the mouth. I shivered despite the heat. 

I had seen a slave ship once, years before. An illness on board had brought them to seek my mother. The fame of her powers drew all manner of people to us day and night, never giving her a moment of rest. She did not seem to mind. She did everything with a smile. She had the kindest face of any woman, always comforting, making the sick believe they were already well even before she began her cure. 

I only saw her sad once in all her life, the day the slave traders came to shore. She helped them, like she would anyone else, taking a boat to the ship and staying on it well into the night.  

The Shahala did not own slaves-my people found the practice distasteful. But the Kadar did, attracting unscrupulous traders from the nearby kingdoms that dotted the sea.  

The Kadar had to be the most terrible people anywhere, I had thought, but it was not until months later that I truly learned to despise them. From visitors, we had learned that the Kadar High Lord had fallen gravely ill. My mother, with her caring heart, wished to go and heal him.