The Quiet Young Woman With the Adventurous Heart

When Celestine has her first confrontation with Cat-ara, Ka-puki steps in and smooths things out. The reader meets this young Jabuani woman in Travels to Fahdamin-Ra, and Kapuki's story continues in Across the Savannah, and in Firebloods.

 Mary McAvoy edited Travels, and she thought that Ka-puki was as young as Celestine. I had to go back and correct things, because Mary knows what she is talking about. I thought of Ka-puki being an eighteen-year-old, and she hung around with sixteen-year-old Cat-ara, because being older and wiser, she knew that the insolent Cat-ara was lacking manners, good judgment, and friends. Ka-puki is loyal to her friends and family, and does not want to hear gossip or criticism of them. She is soft spoken, small of stature, but has a strong will and a big heart.

Ka-puki's mother is Artist Teacher Fay-ola, so she is one of the Becca, the five women who govern the tribe. Her father is the quiet O-nani, who slips in and out of scenes occasionally. I wanted a female character that was cute and nice, but had a lot of depth to her once the reader got to know her. She comes from a quiet, hardworking family. She had two older brothers who were a year apart in age, but they disappeared. Her parents believe that the boys were killed by crocodiles, which live in a swampy area near the ocean, and are a hazard to the Jabulani that pass by them on rafts.

Both Cat-ara and Ka-puki were in training to be possible future Becca in their tribe. Fay-ola taught Ka-puki from birth about the making of pottery and tiles, weaving and decorating of cloth, and other crafts in which the Jabulani excel. Ka-puki, like her mother, tends to listen to other people talk and then work for a way to have everyone come to a compromise. This has made Ka-puki mature for her age, and most Jabulani tend to favor her to follow her mother into the post of Artist Teacher. Cat-ara, on the other hand, is disliked by most of the Jabulani and only her foster mother, Qui-ana thinks that she would be a fit leader of the Becca one day.

When Ka-puki becomes an Exchange Youth and goes to Harun, she, like most Jabulani, does not know how to read or write. Prince Kayin decides to personally teach her and the other Exchange Youth, Nas-sor. Ka-puki is thrilled with learning and after she and Nas-sor have to leave Harun, Prince Kayin talks to Councilor Raymond about continuing to teach them in Jabulan. Raymond was all for education, so he asks King Zayas to spare his son, so of course the king complies, and Kayin happily moves into a hut at the stone circle and starts teaching at Jabulan every day.

Stop right here if you haven't read Travels to Fahdamin-Ra, because I am going to give some story line away. Kayin and Ka-puki start seeing one another. Kayin is infatuated with her, and she is very attached to him. Even though the City Director is looking for another bride for Kayin, he does not care and is determined to have his fling with Ka-puki. The young Jabulani woman knows that Kayin will go back to Harun one day, marry a hand-picked bride, and settle down to a somewhat happy life, so she decides to have a fling with him as long as she is able. It is sheer luck that Ka-puki and Kayin are chosen to go across the savannah with the Creators, giving them a chance to be away from their tribes, and giving them more time. By then, Kayin has a bride that he knows about, and Ka-puki resigns herself to the fact that when the journey ends, she will have to give up the prince, return to her tribe, and eventually select a husband from the many men who adore her.

Or so she thinks.....

Firebloods Hit Town

I am so glad to be blogging again. There was a problem where I could see my blog but not have access to it, so, just when I was thinking that I would have to start another, I gained access to it again. In July, the third book to the Fahdamin-Ra series came out as an e book, which was exciting. It is fun to write a series because it is like temporarily moving back to a neighborhood where you used to live and seeing old, familiar faces again and some new ones.

As I write the Fahdamin-Ra series, the books get more difficult. In the first one, Celestine and Joel arrive in Fahdamin-Ra and have no idea of their abilities, so I spent most of the book with them getting acquainted with that world and their supernatural abilities. They did not need much of a protagonist because so much was unknown to them.

In Across the Savannah, it was a little harder because they are familiar now with their magic and they do more experimenting. They had to have a more powerful foe because they are more powerful first.

By the time I started writing the third book, the kids had figured out a lot of things and found, that by putting their minds to it, they could figure out more. I wanted this foe to be scary. The first two books were not really scary. It is fun coming up with bad guys and I wanted the Firebloods to be as despicable as possible. Usually, there is something that the reader likes about the villain (isn't that one reason why Hannibal Lecter is so compelling?) However, there are a few moments here and there, where Celestine has compassion for the Firebloods.

I changed the book covers for the e books because my very wise publisher pointed out that potential readers would see the animals on the covers and think that they were books about animals, so I changed to simple pictures of people. On Travels to Fahdamin-Ra, it is a silhouette of Celestine, and on the cover of Across the Savannah, it is a silhouette of Joel. On the cover of Firebloods, is a sort of silhouette of a Fireblood, of course.

Travels to Fahdamin-Ra, soft cover

Travels to Fahdamin-Ra, e book

Across the Savannah, soft cover

Across the Savannah, e book

Foxes

My daughter loves foxes and so do I. Here in Maine, we have red foxes, like the one in the photo above, and gray foxes. Growing up out in the country, I would occasionally see a fox crossing the fields, bushy tail floating along behind it. In the winter, it was fun to see a fox hunting for mice underneath the crust of the snow, cocking their ears to listen for the rodents running along and then pouncing when a mouse showed themselves on top of the snow.

This fox lives at the Maine Wildlife Park in Gray, Maine. It has been there my whole life and I love to visit. Wild animals are brought there because they have been hurt or people have picked them up when they are young and brought them home as pets. Oftentimes, people think that the babies are abandoned when the parents are out finding food or are hiding when people intrude into their area.

It is ironic - I was taught to leave wild animals alone when I was a child, but we also had a raccoon for a while and a great horned owl. The raccoon was a baby when it's mother was killed and my father brought it home to raise. It was fun for a while, but then it grew up. One day, it climbed on top of the oven and started feasting on a cheesecake that was cooling there. My father went to get it away from the food and the raccoon (naturally) bit him. After it finished eating, my father put it in a burlap bag and took it to a remote wooded area and let it go. I sometimes wonder how long that raccoon survived after it was let go.

My father also brought home a great horned owl because he was driving home from work and saw an owl that a local doctor had captured and staked out in a field. Its natural enemy, crows, were coming down to plague the owl and the doctor and his friends were shooting them. My father ran out in the field, pulled up the stake, got the owl, and brought it home. It stayed with us for a little while until its wing healed. It was very expensive to feed it raw meat!

I have taught my children to leave wild animals alone, and I practice what I preach. It is fun to go look at the animals at the Wildlife Park, but sad to think that some of them are there because people interfered.

On a happier note, if you like foxes, there is a talking fox in my book "Spellbreaker". My daughter and I also love fairy tales, so Tansy, the main character, gets pulled into a fairy tale. The talking fox is named Reynold and of course, Tansy loves him, letting him cuddle up beside her at night and eat off her plate. I will let you know when "Spellbreaker" comes out as an ebook but in the meantime, support your local Wildlife Park!

Overcoming a Broken Leg

Today, I walked to work for the first time since I broke my leg on January 30th. I was a little nervous at first, but once I passed the place where I fell, it was a great relief.

I walk to work because it is only about 1 3/4 miles from where I live and the exercise is great because I sit at a desk all day. Last summer, I rode my bike, which is another story. Anyway, it had just started snowing that fateful day when I started to walk, but I did not worry about it. I had on boots, a warm jacket, my stuff in a knapsack and was using ski poles. Even though the snow started coming down harder, I kept on because I did not want to turn back and get my car.

Besides there being snow and ice, I got out my cell phone and called a friend. So there I was, walking along, holding my cell phone up to my ear and carrying ski poles with the other hand, when I slipped and fell forward, dropping my cell phone on the sidewalk, where it broke open and the battery fell out. There was a flare of pain up my right leg, but I thought that I had sprained my ankle. I sat on the sidewalk and tried to wipe off my phone and put it back together, but the snow was falling too fast and thick, so it was impossible to get it dry and working.

I got on my hands and knees, but the pain was really awful when I put pressure on my right ankle. I tried to get up on my feet but the pain made me feel woozy and everything started to look gray. I remember looking at my watch, and it was a few minutes after 8 am. I tried waving to people, but everyone drove by. I was wearing a bright yellow sweater and a red coat, so I didn't blend in with the snow, and the area was by a school, so everyone had to drive 15 mph. No one stopped.

After a while, I looked at my watch and saw that ten minutes had passed by. I was cold and in a lot of pain. One of my coworkers usually took that route to get to work by 8:30, so I hoped that he would see me and come to my aid. I sat there, watching the cars go by and felt like I was in a daze.

Then, a school bus stopped on the other side of the street and the driver called out the window and asked if I needed help. What a wonderful person! I replied that I did need help, and he apologised that he could not leave the bus because he had little children on it. He did put on his blinking lights, forcing cars to stop so that he could alert drivers that I needed help.

A bunch of people stopped and helped and a very nice couple that I did not know gave me a ride to the hospital, where the doctor told me that I had snapped off the bottom of my fibula. I was issued crutches and had a cast put on the next day. Since I had broken my right leg, I could not drive and had to depend on family, friends, and co-workers for rides.

After 7 weeks in a cast, 5 weeks in a brace, I now am able to work on getting my leg restored to normal. At first, I could only walk a few blocks before my ankle would really start hurting. Today, I walked to work and my ankle only bothered me a little.

I am thinking of having one of my characters break their leg, and have them lay somewhere, unable to move....

I'll Make it Myself

Sometimes it is satisfying to sew something for myself. I have been sewing for years, since I was ten years old and my mother signed me up for a sewing class because I kept begging to use the sewing machine. Being a chunky kid, I sewed a lot of my own clothes by the time I got to high school and when I was a stay at home mom, I sewed clothes for my family, curtains, drapes, and other stuff for my house, and even a wedding dress for a friend.

When I was sewing a new dress the other day, I thought about how many people I know that don't know how to sew or find it difficult, so I decided to pass on some helpful and timesaving tips.

First of all, I have a grid printed on cardboard, which I open up and lay on the dining room table. I cut out everything at once (I was making two dresses, a scarf, and a pillowcase.) For the dress I am going to show you, I ironed the fabric (having washed and dried it beforehand to pre-shrink it, and important step) and ironed the pattern pieces I needed before cutting them out. After cutting, I made marks for the darts with a special washable marker, then took the pins out and folded the fabric once or twice with the pattern, so I would know which pieces were which.

Next, I pinned all the darts and pieces together where I could. There are two important things to making something look great - sew it well and press as you go. I made a pile of items that were pinned and sewed each one, putting the sewn pieces in another pile, and then I pressed the seams:

 

After that, I kept sewing and pressing. I have a serger set up with the correct color of thread and I usually sew with that for most of the garment. In this case, I decided to line the dress, so I did not need to have serged edges.

The dress I made is like the purple one on the pattern envelope. The bodice is supposed to be lined but I decided to line the skirt, since the fabric is mostly white. It makes it easier in a way, but on the other hand, I am really sewing two dresses and putting them together. Once both the dress and the lining were sewn together, I basted the zipper in place (SOOO worth the time and effort!) and sewed the zipper, hemmed the dress and lining and I was done. I have a white belt that I put with it, though if I hadn't I would have bought the materials needed and made my own. (Maybe that can be another blog.)







My dress when done:

 The best part is while I was sewing it, I came up with the idea for a new book.....

Things I Like To Do - Refinishing Furniture

Besides being a writer and artist, I like to do a lot of other creative things. Today, I am going to talk about refinishing furniture.

I like to decorate, resulting in a lot of changing furniture arrangements. When I was a kid, I was recruited to paint things from spray painting dried milkweed pods and pine cones gold to painting the picnic table. We always had leftover paint around, so I used it sometimes to paint furniture for my room.

When my husband was in the navy, we did not have a lot of money, so after we found furniture at yard sales, I painted it. I also inherited some old furniture that my great-grandfather made, covered in dark brown varnish that came off like chewing gum when the wood was scraped and sanded. I figured out how to make upholstered seat cushions and even though everything wasn't a collector's item, the furniture started to blend together.

One of the best pieces of advice that I have ever read was to have all the furniture in your house be roughly the same color. It has worked well - a bookcase in the living room can be moved to an upstairs bedroom or into the kitchen and not have to be refinished. A small table can serve as a beside table or end table. I have a few pieces that I paint, usually white to match the woodwork, and they go anywhere.

I took a class to learn how to cane chairs and I caned most of the old chairs that I was given with broken seats. I have a few more to do. One chair is a neat old wooden high chair that was my grandfather's. It was painted light blue, so I stripped it down then refinished it. I have the finer cane to do the seat, which I have not gotten around to and need to soon because it could be used by some little children that visit.

There is something inside of me that likes to improve things and the feeling of accomplishment is a great feeling, when I look around my house and see how many pieces of furniture I have improved. It kind of makes me feel like my furniture had a beauty makeover.

Yes, That's My Family - Attending Church




This is inside the building of the church that I used to attend - it is a different denomination now.

  As I said before, I started attending my friend Shirley's church in Virginia in August. I attended services for a few months until my daughter was born at the end of October. Buzz was on deployment, so he did not get to know those folks until November, when Callista was two weeks old.

We were not trying to be cagey or anything, but it seemed impossible at first to find a church in Norfolk where we felt comfortable. Martin Luther King, Jr. said "It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 o'clock on Sunday morning…," and things have not changed that much in America. I went to an Ice Cream Social with Shirley and really liked the people, so I decided to attend services at the almost-all-white church. It was 100% white because two elderly black women moved into a retirement building down the street and it was too far for them to attend their old church across town. I was a young, white, pregnant Navy wife who was enfolded into the flock.

When Buzz and I attended after the birth of our daughter, people were nice enough, though I could tell some people were surprised to discover that my husband was black. I met some wonderful people from that church that are still my friends. We were members there for seven years until we got stationed in Puerto Rico.

Two incidents bothered me. One was after Buzz and I became members of the Diaconate. It used to be that the Diaconate was made up of all men. This church had communion every Sunday morning, served by the Diaconate members as the people sat in their pews. Some of the older people would not accept communion unless it was offered to them by a Deacon. It was ironic that some of the Elders who blessed the communion and passed it to the Diaconate were women, but those people didn't seem to care about that. A lot of the Diaconate were offended that those members would not take communion from a woman, and they started saying, "What if they won't take communion from Buzz?" It was not going to be the last time that the issue of color would be dragged into a discussion about people not liking other types of people. In the end, the minister said that we (the Diaconate) needed to love and accept people who did  not love and accept others.

The second incident was when we had been church members for over six years. When we went to get our family photo taken for the church directory, there were some people that my friend Laura pointed out. Later, when I asked her why she was pointing out that couple, she said that they had left the church when Buzz and I became members. I did not know what to think when Laura told me that. I felt guilty at first, because the couple gave the church a lot of money and he was an Elder and she was a Deaconess. When they stood up at a church board meeting and announced their intent, the rest of the board members told them that they were welcoming this interracial couple into their church, and if they did not like it, they could leave.

That people stood up and did the right thing at that church made me feel such a wave of love and gratitude for them and what they did for us. After all, it is the kind and wonderful things that people have done for me in my life and not so much the crappy stuff that lingers and makes me a better person.

Yes, That's My Family - Friends and Relatives

There have been people who have not approved of my marriage to Buzz, or the fact that we had children. I want to take a moment here to talk about some fun experiences with friends and relatives.

After looking back on my continuing story, I forgot to tell the story of when we visited my sister-in-law, Gina, in the hospital. Gina was admitted because they discovered that she had diabetes and it was way out of control. When Buzz, his dad and stepmother, and Gina's three girls, and I went to the hospital, we could only have one or two people at a time visit her, because she was so ill.

When my father-in-law was upstairs visiting her, the rest of us were hanging out in the cafeteria, which was empty at the time except for a middle aged white woman. Buzz was getting change and buying the girls stuff out of the vending machines, so Delores, my mother-in-law and I were sitting at a table and talking. The white woman started talking to me, telling me about her medical problems. I listened politely, making appropriate sympathetic comments, until she finally ran out of symptoms to talk about. She looked at the rest of the Youngs and asked, "Do you know these people?" I introduced Delores and told the woman that the man was my husband and the girls were my nieces.

The woman looked at my family and said, "We had a colored boy that worked for us one time as a gardener."

I could see Delores start to open her mouth and blast that woman because "colored" was such an offensive word to her. Before she could say anything, I looked at the white woman and asked, "So what color was he?"

The woman was taken aback and sputtered about the man being a negro. I told her, "We like to use the term 'black', thanks!" The woman did not know what to say, so she got up and left. Delores and I almost fell off of our chairs, laughing. When Buzz and then my father-in-law approached us, we were laughing too hard to explain at first.

Delores explained later that the word 'colored' had a lot of negative connotations for her, having grown up in the south where it reminded her of 'colored only' water fountains and the like.

I also cannot look back at my first visit with my in-laws without thinking of my three Young nieces - Angela, Lisa, and Tracie with a smile. I am sure that they knew white people but I think I was the first close relative that was white. They were really young - I think that they were 9, 7 and 6 years old when Buzz and I got married. The girls were curious about me and paid a lot of attention to me, like when they all wanted to comb my hair - at the same time!

Another thing that made me laugh was that they wanted to come in the bedroom when I was changing or into the bathroom when I was taking a bath. Gina got after them because she thought that they were bugging me, but I guessed what they were curious about - the girls wanted to know if I was the same color all over - something that I wondered about black people when I was a little kid.

There will be more fun stories coming up in my next blog of experiences with friends and relatives.

Yes, That's My Family - 10 Stupid Things People Say to Us.

My husband and I have been experiencing an interracial marriage for over 27 years, have two kids, and during that time, we have had people come up to us and say some really stupid things. Usually, they start with, "I am not a racist, but..."

What people have said to me:

1) Is he/they with you? 'He' in this instance is Buzz, my husband, and 'they' refers to my kids, or my kids and my husband, or my relatives on my husband's side who are black.

2) Couldn't you find a white guy to marry? Apparently not. I polled all the white men in the world of marriageable age and none of them would marry me, so Buzz got me by default. Yes, I am being sarcastic here!

3) How could you bring bi-racial children into the world? People think that because we had two children, they are scarred for life. My daughter and son, who call themselves 'brown' when they refer to their race, are well adjusted, happy adults who think that being two races is an advantage.

4) When you and your husband get into a fight, do you call him a nigger? What the heck? It never crosses my mind. Obviously, if I was of the ignorant mindset that I thought that Buzz was a nigger, then I would not have married him. Duh!

5) White women shouldn't have black children because they don't know how to take care of their hair. Really? I did not realize that top hairdressing skills were a requirement for being a mother.

6) You kids are so cute! Where did you get them? I stole them from a black woman when her back was turned? I must admit that it is funny sometime to see the expression on people's faces when they realize that I am the kids' biological mother. The most hilarious times were when my kids had Halloween parties and I would go to the door, dressed in a costume. Sometimes, people thought I was the maid.

What people have said to Buzz:

1) What's the matter, aren't black women good enough for you? The irony in this is that there were some black women who would not date Buzz when he was single, because he was too dark. Buzz explained to me that it is a mindset from the slave days, when darker skinned people who looked like him worked in the fields, while the lighter skinned slaves worked in the house and were higher up in the slave hierarchy.

2) Some of my best friends are black. Really? Why didn't you mention that some of your best friends are white? Buzz and I think that if you single out someone by race, you are not as close to that person as you try to appear.

3) I have nothing against black people, but I wouldn't want my daughter/son to marry one. What people who say this are REALLY saying is "As long as black people stay away from me, I don't have a problem with them, though they are inferior to me, a white person."

4) Why is it that black men are always (choose one) good dancers, good athletes, good musicians, or are well endowed? Being black is not easy. You have to enroll in "Black School" at an early age, where there is rigorous training in music and athletic abilities. Black men that are not well endowed are banished to a secret location, to live a obscure life of shame.

I made sarcastic comments because we think that the things people ask are mostly funny. There are some things that hurt my feelings in the past, but now, I just look at the person who is making the comment and feel sorry for them.

Chapter 7 ~ The Masamba

We arrived back at the city and then parted ways. Yohance and Jetta took the twins home while Joel and I went to locate our dad. We found him alone, reading parchments in the back room of the temple.

          “Are you finding anything interesting?” I queried as we sat across the stone table from him. He leaned back, stretched, and then rubbed his eyes.

          “A little. The Harun tend to be dry and long-winded, so it takes time to sift through and find pertinent information. One history or legend is that the first Creator, Obasi, created Fahdamin-Ra and all its inhabitants. He moved back and forth between our world and here by use of the stone.” Dad shook his head. “It sounds like a fairy tale, except here we are.”

          “How did he create this world?” asked Joel.

          “In this account, he didn’t. This world was already here. It goes into great detail - and I mean a lot - about how he formed the Harun from the rock of these mountains, the Masamba from the wood of the trees, and the Jabulani from the clay of the riverbank. That is as far as I got.”

          “He made people out of rocks and stuff? I gotta read that sometime. We found out some things today, too.” Joel was eager to tell about our adventures. He started talking about the apartment, which Dad wanted to see. We left the temple and hiked up to our new lodgings.

          Half a dozen guards and another Historical Scribe waited for us there. To my immense relief, Dad dismissed them all over their polite protests. When it was just the three of us again, we showed him around. Once he admired the outside, we brought him into the main room and told him about the rest of our day.

          “I am curious about the Masamba, and the Jabulani, too,” Dad said.

          “Why don’t we go now, and visit the Masamba?” Joel asked, eager for another adventure.

          “What? In the jungle at night? How would we find them? It’s dark out there.” It was the last thing I wanted to do.

          “We would see their fires from above, when we fly there,” my brother said. “Let’s just drop in.”

          “Maybe another time, kids. It has been a long, exciting day and you need to go to bed now.” Dad said.

          My brother and I both protested. “I don’t feel tired at all.” I said. “You know, nothing made me tired today.”

          “We went all day without eating or drinking anything, either.” Joel added. “I think that Creators don’t need to eat, drink, or sleep. What we can do is fly, like right now.”

          Dad slowly looked convinced, but said, “I don’t know how to fly, son.”

          “It is so easy. We can show you and you’ll be flying in a couple of minutes.”

          “Where is he going to learn?” I countered, pointing to the ceiling.

          My brother was undaunted as he strode outside. “Let’s try it out here, on the balcony.” We joined him on the veranda. Dad went to the edge and looked down.

          “The ground is awfully far down there. Do you think I can learn before I fall and break my neck?”

          “No,” I said.

          “Yes,” Joel said at the same time.

          Dad stood there, thinking. “So, what do I have to do?”

          My father caught on quickly. He was much more careful than Joel and enjoyed flying more than I did, so soon we were zipping along over Harun, the fields, and then arriving at the jungle. I tried to look for lights below but when I did, my stomach would flip. The moons covered everything in their fluid silver light, making the landscape below shimmer. We flew for some time, but we could not locate the Masamba fires.

          “What about the Outsider village? We could go there tonight instead,” I suggested after a while. I would rather go to a civilized village than a dark, scary jungle filled with wild animals and even wilder people.

          Dad shook his head. “I want the Directorate to take us there themselves. Did you see how reluctant Zayas seemed? He needs to answer for what they have done. No, I’m determined to find the Masamba. Let’s fly lower.” We flew so low that our toes brushed the topmost leaves on the trees. It was annoying to have bugs hitting my face and arms. I was careful to keep my mouth closed.

          Dad slowed, flying in a circle. Next, I caught whiffs of wood smoke. All three of us stopped until we hovered in the air. Lights twinkled below my feet. We floated down while being careful not to brush against leaves and branches.

          An unseen man was speaking somewhere beneath us. In front of us to the right was a clearing. There was a fire in the middle and torches around the perimeter of the clearing, lighting the circular area brightly. Off to one side sat four men on large, high-backed chairs. There was a fifth chair in the middle and the man standing in front of it was the speaker, whose voice we could hear. A single man sat in a smaller, less ornate seat off to their right. There was a crowd of people facing them, sitting on the ground and watching.

          I wanted to stop and hear what the man was saying, but my father kept descending. We followed Dad as he touched down in front of the crowd and heard their gasps of astonishment. The speaker stopped and there was complete silence.

Though our dropping in was unexpected, the Masamba did not pause but took immediate action. People melted away into the darkness until the leaders were the only ones left facing us.

          The speaker stared at us for a few moments, which was intimidating. He was a little taller than my father and massive with muscle and bulk. Like Hunter, his chest was bare, but around his waist was a type of skirt made from narrow, braided strips of leather, and a fluffy fur neck-piece covered his shoulders. He was scary. On his head he wore the head of a snarling baboon, a huge knife hung from his belt, and he held a yard long, narrow club. I wished we had never decided to come down and face him. The fire reflected in his deep-set eyes as he fingered one of the braids of his long beard.

The other four men were dressed similarly and they glared at us. The lone man to the right got out of his chair and came closer to the group. He was as massive, but unlike the others, he did not wear a baboon head or a braided leather skirt. There were tufts of tawny fur woven in his hair, the same as Hunter. He had a beard, but it was shorter and not braided. Instead of scowling at us like the rest, his eyes rested on us with wonder. If he had been alone, our reception might have been friendlier.

My father stood straight and tall, not intimidated by the leader, or at least, he did not show it. “What are you doing here? You have invaded the serenity of our gathering,” the man in charge said.

“We are the Creators and have arrived at Fahdamin-Ra after our long absence. Since our return, we are meeting each tribe.”

“My tribe does not believe in Creators. Leave now, and do not bother us again.” The man turned his back on Dad, and plunked down in his chair.

Dad glanced back at us and then folded his arms. “I am not leaving and neither are my children. We have come a long way to visit you, so why don’t you make the effort to get to know us? After all, who else but Creators would visit you by flying?”

“You are not Creators. You are magicians, who used a trick,” he spoke loudly, playing to the unseen audience of his people, who listened in the dark.

My father studied the man for a moment. “Aren’t you the least bit concerned about being rude to Creators, with the powers we possess?”

The man looked bored. “There are no such beings as the Creators.”

Dad scowled. “Well, we will just have to convince you.” For a reply, the man lifted an eyebrow and smirked toward his friends. My father stared at the leader and the leader’s chair rose from the ground. The man was jolted, but tried to cover it up.

“It is still a trick,” he called, from twelve feet over our heads. “You cannot convince me that easily.” Dad shrugged his shoulders, and lowered the man to the ground. The leader’s expression did not change, but he stood up and moved away from his seat.

“Bring someone to me that is sick or wounded, and I will cure them,” My father spoke matter-of-factly.

The leader held up his stick and gazed at it when he said, “We do not have any sick or wounded people. We cure them at the shrine.”

“Let me have your knife and your arm. I will make a cut and then heal it.”

The men snorted with laughter at this proposal, but Hunter stalked out of the darkness and up to Dad. He handed my father the large knife that hung from his belt. Dad took it and grasped Hunter’s outstretched hand. Gritting his teeth, he slashed Hunter’s arm as the warrior stood there, unmoving. Blood gushed out; dripping on the ground as Hunter took back his knife and returned it to its sheath, his movements calm and steady. Dad traced the wound with one finger, making the blood and the cut disappear. Hunter put his arm up in the air so all could see that the cut was gone and then faded back into the darkness beyond the circle.

The leader leaned back in his chair, unimpressed. “Another trick. It just proves that you know magic.”

“Then you suggest a challenge.” Dad stood there, arms at his sides waiting, as the men huddled in a conference. After a while, they went back and sat down wearing identical smirks. The leader did not say anything but seemed to be waiting for something. Dad did not move, but Joel and I looked around wondering what was going to happen.

We did not hear them come until they were almost upon us. A dozen or more leopards dashed into the light. Dad crouched, ready to leap into flight and I cringed, throwing my arms up to ward them off. Joel whistled and one leopard bounded to him, knocking him over. Dad and I reached out to grab the animal but Joel was laughing and rubbing her fur. “Harriet, you lummox, get off my stomach, you weigh a ton.” He grunted as he pushed her off him. The other leopards ran in circles, uncertain what to do. Dad touched them one by one, so my brother and I copied him. The big cats calmed and sat at our feet, with one sitting directly on mine!

“Is this all you can come up with?” It was Dad’s turn to laugh. The baboon men looked annoyed as they got back in a huddle. The lone man just stared at us in wonder.

After a long while, men broke apart and went back to their chairs. “Come back tomorrow, and we will have a more appropriate challenge for you.”

“I accept.” Dad turned away and rose in the air. Joel and I followed. Once we got above the jungle, Joel suggested that we go for a spin. Dad agreed, so outvoted, I tagged along.

We cruised over the stone circle, and saw the smooth stones reflecting the moonlight. We headed east and found Jabulan beside a bend in the river. It was a village of circular huts set in concentric circles with a much larger building in the middle. No one was stirring, but rafts floated off a dock on the river and smoke curled up from a structure that stood alone, a little way from rest of the village. Light streamed from the open sides so we went lower, and spotted a woman adding wood to a fire underneath a large kiln.

She wore a vivid print top and a wrap skirt an equally vivid print, though they did not match each other. A scarf that covered most of her hair was another pattern, with its own intense color and design. She finished her task and vanished back into the darkness, but we heard her begin to sing:

Lady Creator, mother of all,

Thank you for this night, and the sleep you give us,

For the stars and the moons that watch overhead,

Thank you for the day, and the light you bring,

For our willing bodies and the work we do.

Let us be one with your creation

As we use the gift to create ourselves.

Let us see the beauty of every living thing.

Thank you for the land and the sky

Thank you for the plants and the trees

Thank you for the fish in the water

Thank you for the birds that fly

Thank you for the beasts of the land

Let us be one with your creation

As we use the gift to create ourselves.

Her strong and melodious voice floated up to us, as we hovered above her in the dark. I wished I could hear it in her language instead of automatically hearing it in mine. At the end of the song, she did not reappear, so we drifted away and followed the line of the river. It sparkled below us, finally blending into an ocean.

We landed on glowing white sand. The beach stretched for miles, lined with palm trees that waved and whispered in the wind. I heard a splash and my brother was swimming in the glistening ocean. I pulled off my dress and headscarf before leaping in and joining him. I enjoyed the warmth of the water and the fun of swimming in my underwear. Dad sprawled on the sand, watching us and smiling. He was not fond of swimming. Mom was the one who always swam with us, gliding through the water like a seal. I suddenly missed her very much, so I climbed out of the water and sat by Dad.

“I wish Mom were here.”

Dad nodded as he pulled a strand of seaweed out of my wooly hair. “I do, too. Maybe, after I figure out what I’m doing here, I can go back and get her.”

“Really? That would be great.” I splashed back in the water to tell my brother the good news.

We swam for a long time, never getting tired, cold, or thirsty. The sunrise turned the color of the sky to salmon, and Dad called us out of the water, and told us it was time to leave. We flew back to Harun and the flight dried our salt stiffened clothes. No one was there when we arrived, so we slipped inside, unnoticed. We took turns bathing in the big tub and then decked ourselves out in another change of clothes and different jewelry.

When the Harun Directorate arrived at our doorstep, we were standing in the main room ready to go, not sure of what we were going to find.

This is the last chapter that I am posting. For my book, "Travels to Fahdamin-Ra", you can buy it at Navarone Books, Smashwords or Amazon. I will post when it is available in soft cover. Thanks for reading! Navarone Books Link, Smashwords link, Amazon Kindle link