Blood Moon River

I knew.

I knew before I had the words to speak, before I had thoughts to understand. Even though she were mine, I knew I was not hers.

My name is Sarabi. That is true. I’m from the Kaishun tribe and the village of Enadu, south of Nairobi, is my home. The sun rises at dawn and the stars begin to dance at dusk. My skin is black, my eyes are brown, and my hair is silver.

These are the truths I hold onto when the day gets too long, and my soul feels adrift from Zalika. My mother.

For as long as I’ve known her, Zalika has spoken words to soothe my worries, but only the ones I speak out loud. She says some of the village folk stare at me because I don’t look as the other children do, with hair and the manner of an elder. The others stare because I am the daughter of the tribal leader, Zalika, bearing no resemblance. She says their eyes land on me because they either assume I’m a gift from the heavens or fear that I am a curse from hell – but she believes that I’m neither one of those things. I’m just an eight-year-old girl with silver hair.

Naya and I sit on the steps of the hut Zalika, and I have lived in all my life. It’s the grandest, largest dwelling amongst the others, sitting at the innermost point of our concentric village with a view of all that goes on in Enadu and beyond. Naya holds a stick loosely in her grip and traces shapes along the red dirt where our bare feet rest.

The afternoon sun is beginning to dip, casting an orangey light at all that is unfolding, deepening the red of the sand, turning the familiar figures of the village folk into silhouettes as they move about. The air hums with a calm anticipation as the village prepares for The Festival of the Departed. Every year, on the thirty-first day of the tenth month, the people of Enadu gather to celebrate the souls who have crossed over the other side.

Marsa, Naya’s mother, and a few other of the village parents erect wooden poles from the ground to the sky and hang large colourful fabrics from one to the other.

‘Are you coming tonight?’ asks Naya, looking to me, dusting her hands on her cotton blue dress.

‘No,’ I smile sadly.

‘Why not?’ she frowns, her shoulders collapsing.

‘Did you ask your mother?’ Naya presses.

‘No,’ I respond, smiling a little less.

Naya furrows her brows and glares at me as if I’m being silly.

‘I know what she’s going to say, Naya,’ I complain, ‘on my birthdays and The Festival of the Departed, I must stay home and be with her.’

‘Buy why?’ whinges Naya.

‘I don’t know. Maybe she will tell me when I’m older,’ I shrug.

‘Maybe I will be allowed to celebrate my birthdays, maybe I won’t have to ask at all.’

Naya sighs exasperatedly in defeat.

‘Fine. I’ll bring you some coconut bread in the morning.’

Naya smiles the most beautiful smile, even though most of her teeth have fallen out and the new ones are yet to grow. I send a beam of love to her heart from mine, expressing my gratitude in a language words cannot hold.

She is the truth I hold the closest, her friendship, the way she holds my hand when the other village children grow weary of my presence, the way her braids fall loose so quickly, and her dress soils so easily. The way her brown eyes look at me and sees my heart and assumes it is as pure as hers.

‘They’re back’ Naya says, pointing to the horizon where a dozen village folk approach, each carrying two large pails of water on either side of their shoulders, some carrying a third atop their heads. Everybody in the village, big and small, has a role to play in the community, some jobs are easier than others. It’s half a day’s journey to the nearest well to fetch fresh water for the whole village and every second day, new volunteers are up for the trek. Today, Zalika was one of them.

She sets down her pails and reties her skirt around her waist, waving off some small attempts of a conversation. Zalika walks a brisk straight line toward us, her clothes flowing gently with the wind as passers-by sneak in glimpses. I often think that even if Zalika weren’t the tribal leader for the fifth time in almost a decade, she would still command the same attention. How could she not, with such unwavering beauty? Zalika’s high cheekbones, sharp white teeth, shaven head, and obsidian skin awes those in her presents and attracts suitors even from villages beyond.

Zalika stands before us and exhales, pushing back her chiffon scarf, draping it around her neck.

‘Hello dearest,’ she smiles at me.

‘Hello, Naya. Did the two of you have a good day?’ I nod.

In the distance, by the pit where the bonfire is to be, Naya’s mother, Marsa, calls for her. Her voice is permissive, but I can feel her gaze harden from this far back.

‘I better go get ready,’ Naya smiles apologetically. She takes my hand and squeezes it, eyeing me with her gentle brown eyes as if to say: next time Sarabi, next time.

Zalika watches Naya with her head turned as she runs to her mother and wraps her arms around her waist. Marsa doesn’t look at her daughter and Zalika doesn’t look at me, instead, our two mothers eye each other carefully. Zalika then turns to look at me and stretches out her hand.

‘Come now,’ she says. I take my mother’s hand and follow her inside.

In the evening, when the sun sets and the heat’s grip on the day loosens, I sit by an opening on the side of our hut as a celebration outside ensues. A gentle breeze blows in the smell of sweet bread and smoked meats. The ground glows incandescently, the fabric hung up high dance in the starlit evening air and the fire roars in the centre of it all. Masked performers, skin painted in ochre, bodies draped in orange silk, red velvet, and green linen, dance to the beat of the drums, stomping their feet on the earth with a force that makes everything shiver, from the straw tassels on their ankles to the smallest vertebra on my spine.

The full moon glows brightly above it all, watching, listening, protecting.

‘Sarabi?’ Zalika says gently as she sits opposite to me.

‘Yes, Zalika?’

Her face hardens and her lip twitches as if she is pained. It’s a while before I realise my mistake.

‘Darling, I am your mother. It’s rude of you to call me by anything other. We’ve spoken about this, Sarabi.’

‘I’m sorry, mother.’

Zalika exhales and her chest falls. Even tired, her beauty could kill.

I turn my head to look out the window once more when her voice pulls me back.

‘You mustn't dwell Sarabi. I keep you from these nights to protect you.’

‘Protect me from what?’ I ask curiously.

Zalika stares at me contemplatively. I’ve asked her this many times, and every time it’s a different hue of the same answer. She opens her mouth to speak but changes her mind.

‘Best get ready for bed, darling.’

I stare at her, then shift my gaze outside the window behind where she sits. A growing river flows gently.

‘Mother?’

‘Yes?’

‘Why do the village folk travel half a day's journey for freshwater, when there’s a river just outside?’

Zalika’s eyes widen with worry and her shoulders tense.

‘Sarabi, what river?’

****

I watch as the sun sinks behind the horizon, taking with it all its light.

Time has passed, the sun has come and gone. The days of Enadu are far behind us. Zalika thought it was best we left the village. People started going missing, disappearing without a trace. It was her protection of us to flee and her worry that the fearful eyes and blameful fingers would land on me. I’m not a child anymore, I understand why they would, but it’s for that reason, I sense there’s more that I don’t know and there’s a feeling in my spirit that tells me so.

I am 18 years old, according to the stars. They’re about the only thing I speak to these days. They remind me of all that I had and all that is yet to come. They remind me of Naya.

My greatest pain was losing her. Despite all the time that has passed, her loss still creeps up on me and stabs me through the heart. Marsa - Naya’s mother was the last to go missing before Zalika and I packed small, tangible pieces of ourselves and left that same night. It was the year Naya and I turned ten. It pained me to leave without saying goodbye, tore me apart to abandon my friend when she needed me most.

It’s just she and I now, Zalika. We never stay anywhere for longer than twelve moons, I don’t ask why. I stopped asking questions long ago, when the cracks in Zalika’s words began to show. She isn’t the woman she once was. She doesn’t command with her sheer presence like before and it has little to do with her sudden succumbing to her image. At first, Zalika began losing colour to her skin, her golden tones turn grey, then white hair sprung from her chin and a few teeth began to fall.

We live in the outskirts of desert lands, far away from anyone, but close enough to fruit and water. In complete isolation, living in silence. Zalika fears every living thing, even me. Her eyes turned from careful, to watchful when they fall on me. We share the same hut, eat the same food, drink the same water, and yet there are only few hours in the night when I feel she sleeps, but never fully at rest. There are times I awake in the middle of the night as her dark figure watches me, her black eyes glinting with fear and a recklessness that would bring me harm, only be immediately followed by her regret.

The cool night air washes over me, soothing my thoughts and easing my worries. I gaze up at the full moon rising from the horizon, slowly finding its place in the centre of the sky. In the distance, I see the river begin to form. Without rain or a storm, without a beginning nor an end. It forms upon the earth as clouds do within the sky. Commanded only by the full moon, though my eyes see it every night.

On our journey from place to place, village to village, from savanna to desert, community to isolation, just as the stars do, the moon river follows.

I feel Zalika shuffle to the threshold of the door. She watches me. I slowly rise to my feet and turn to face her. I walk past her and into our hut and place the meal I prepared earlier on the floor before me.

Zalika turns slowly and eyes me ominously. I pick up my spoon of wood, take a helping of rice, and put it in my mouth. Zalika releases bated breath and sits opposite me, remembering her part of this dance she and I do before she eats anything. Zalika takes a bite and chews slowly. The hollows of her cheeks are more visible on these nights.

By the time she swallows her bite whole, I have already finished my supper.

Zalika shudders and releases a harsh breath. Her small frame shakes feverishly.

‘Sarabi,’ she says.

It’s the first time she says my name in what feels like a lifetime. Zalika takes a laboured breath and speaks the words arranged in her mind.

‘I feel like I have… robbed you of a great amount of your life.’

Zalika’s breath is strained and her eyes water. It’s as if every word she speaks weakens her.

I don’t say anything. I glare at her undoing, curious, cautious.

‘When I was a child,’ Zalika begins, regaining some control of her body, restoring strength in her tone.

‘Not far out of Enadu, beyond the trees that surrounded and over a hill, there was a hollow, a sort of dent on the earth. I always assumed it was caused by a fallen rock many years by and deepened by rain.’

Zalika takes a breath and her harsh gaze at me softens.

‘As a child, I went there to hide. It was my place of peace whenever I needed solitude. It was my secret… and mine only… until I’d decide to share it.’

There’s a roughness to her tone that unsettles me. Where has it come from? Where have these words come from? Where are they going?

‘The hole grew as I did and would fill with water whenever it rained. Soon, It became deep enough for me to stand in.’

Zalika suddenly stops speaking, choking on her last word as if somebody has gotten hold of her throat.

‘There were stories Sarabi,’ she breathes harshly, her eyes watering again, ‘stories that people from our village would go to the water and never return.’

****

That night I wake with a start and a heavy feeling in my chest.

When I sit up, I see Zalika, her face illuminated by the moonlight with terror in her eyes and a tremble only the deepest of fears can birth. Only she isn’t glaring at me with her black, soulless eyes, she looks out our window, at the river.

At first, I think it’s a leafless tree. When my eyes adjust, I see a ghastly figure. The body of a man who looks to be years dead, standing possessed, so very still, staring into the river.

Zalika whimpers behind me, muttering prayers, begging for her life to be spared.

His clothes hang over his skeletal body, his decaying skin, blowing gently, but far into the direction of the wind.

A get a feeling, deep in the pit of my stomach when the man slowly turns his head in hour direction, his body unmoving.

He is without eyes, but he gazes right into our souls through the dark hollows where they are meant to be. There is an anguish cast in every inch of his existence, so palpable it grips me from this far back. An anguish felt by the remains of the dead, whose soul was kept from crossing over.

He is here tonight to see her, to see Zalika.

****

I dream of a woman; she dances in the stars. She takes my hand and tells me all will be okay soon because time has come. As I stare into her eyes, I know that I am hers and she is mine. My mother. I call out to her, and she wraps me in her light. Chestnut eyes, onyx skin, silver hair.

When I open my eyes, they meet with the stars outside my window. I follow the stars, stepping outside the hut, bracing for my dive into the night sky. A full moon shines brightly in the centre, glowing a ruby red. The moon river below flows silently, 33 steps wide, without a beginning or an end, perfectly reflecting above.

Zalika sits at the edge of the river, possessing a stillness unnatural to her.

She begins speaking before I take my seat beside her.

‘This river follows me,’ she says absentmindedly.

‘It won’t go away.’

It is eerily silent, as the wind gently blows as the water flows, no sound comes from anything but Zalika's mouth.

When I say nothing, Zalika continues.

‘It’s a reminder Sarabi, a reminder of those I have drowned.’

Then I start to hear the river, the voices from the bottom, calling, screaming, pleading.

‘Your mother was the first, this night nineteen years ago. It was my first election as tribal leader and there were rumours of a woman, mighty and insightful, who was to run against me. This woman was journeying back to Enadu after ruling in Kericho.’

The voices grow louder.

‘I sought counsel from a seer who had predicted the woman to be by a river on the wettest day of the month, a day’s journey away from Enadu. And so, she was. Standing there amongst the water, white hair glowing. She didn’t see me. From behind, I dragged her under the water until she stopped kicking.

Zalika exhales softly, speaking emotionlessly.

‘I realised my mistake too late, but I,’ she laughs, ‘I wasn’t filled with regret.’

The fall of Zalika is a simple one. First went her power, then her beauty, last went her sanity. The very thing she killed for.

‘I saw you there Sarabi, an infant, tucked away in the corner, wrapped in linen cloth and banana leaves.’

'I took you as my own and this river never left, no matter how many souls I drowned. To keep you, to keep Enadu. It only ran these waters red.'

When I meet her gaze, I see a familiar anguish in her sunken eyes. She glares at me as if I were a ghost and my existence is her haunting.

‘The river won’t leave without me,' she breathes.

‘That is what she says.’

‘What who says?’ I ask.

‘There’s an angel,’ speaks Zalika, ‘she sings to me.’

‘What does she say?’

‘She says, meet me at the bottom of the river.’

Zalika stands swiftly and slowly, her knees unshaken. She takes even, intentional steps toward the river, walking through the water without falter. It’s on the twenty-fourth step that she wholly vanishes, surrendering to the waters that have gripped her for so long.

Dawn breaks as starlight fades. The river slowly vanishes.

Beyond the horizon, the sun slowly begins to rise, exploding the sky wide open with colour in complete silence.