We had always been friends, Maliwa and I. Since our births we had been inseparable, born of the first ones in the twilight of their lives. Maliwas’ mother had been the tribes’ leader, he was her image with her red hair and blue eyes, she doted on him, she knew he would be her last. Maybe she spoiled him a bit, he could get away with it; when he ate the last of the berries of the bush and the farmers caught him with stained fingers and lips, when she looked into his big tear filled eyes she could not help but to forgive him. “The crops are in and it is not a great loss”, she told the farmers. They grumbled a bit but went back to the harvest, he could get away with things like that, he was born lucky.

I on the other hand was not so lucky. My Mother was found at the edge of the forest by one of the younger villagers, she had washed out of one of the canoes as it struck the reef and the current swept her to another side of the island. She remembers struggling in the sea trying to swim ashore but she was too weak and thought she would drown. Once, in the hut on a moonless night she told me of that day during the storm and how the waves pulled her under and then she felt as if someone had grabbed her hand and pulled her to the shore, but when she awoke on the beach she was alone at the edge of the surf, so she thought at first it must have been a dream. She leaned in close to me and whispered, “but I wasn’t alone Alisha, there are others here, I saw them.” She would say no more on the subject. Although she came to the village with great knowledge of the growing and harvesting of food plants, most of the villagers kept their distance from her, she would never come out and say what she had seen in the jungle in the months she had survived alone, but sometimes we would see her stand at the edge of the clearing talking to no-one in the bushes and trees…at least we never could see anyone, and she would stop talking whenever anyone came near.

I do not remember when my innocent childhood friendship with Maliwa changed, for so many years we played together in the rocks by the shore. Those same rocks, as adults, we were told by the Great Spirit to use to built a temple. Maliwa and I danced around the great rock, that even now, the Spirit says holds a new gift to the tribe that we must chip away to find. Time changed the village and time has changed us, where once we were children, now we are man and woman. Maliwa was in charge of the work on the great rock and I swim in the sea and gathered fish for the tribe. We worked hard during the day but in the evening around the fires we would sing the old songs and still we would dance together in the moonlight. It was he who would comfort me when my Mother died and he who would help to dig her grave and erect the stone.

Only a few moons had passed since my Mothers death when Maliwa and I walked in the moonlight and promised our love to each other and to no other, we would raise many children together as we watched our tribe grow strong… We made great plans together that night. By the light of the dawn Maliwa left me to return to work on the great stone, he would go first to the rock pile in the jungle behind the flowering field to gather stones to make new chisles out of, as the old ones were growing dull and small. I did not rush to the sea to fish, I lingered by the stone covered cave and the berry bush and remembered the small boy with the juice stained lips and marveled at the man he had become, the man I would love forever.

“Alisha, Alisha,” I was surprised to hear my name being called, I turned to see Maliwa beckoning me to come to him over near the burial grounds, I rushed over to him as he motioned me to be silent. “Look what I found hidden under the stones in the rock pile”, he said as he uncovered a skin wrapped book. “What is it, I asked…what does it say”? “I don’t know I haven’t read it”, Maliwa replied. “I am going over to the waterfall where I can be alone and read it”. “No Maliwa, take it to the elders, it might be some book of magic or one written by the old ones, the ones my Mother said lived on this island before we came here”, I begged him. “I think it is from the old ones and I want to read it”, he replied, “I will show it to the elders after I am done”, and with that he left me with a kiss, hid the book in his shirt and walked to the waterfall.

I did not fish that day; I took laundry back and forth to the lagoon so that I might catch a glimpse of Maliwa reading now and then. As the sun began to dip down for its journey under the sea, I went one more time to the lagoon. Maliwa was there at the edge of the jungle walking quickly back and forth, I could see he was upset and before I could call out to him he plunged into the brush, finding the secret path that had gone unnoticed by the villagers. Where he has gone is a mystery, but he has gone...
The others heard me standing at the edge of the jungle, frozen by the words of my Mother that “they were out there, the old ones”, I screamed his name again and again but there was no answer.

I told the elders of the book and watched Maliwas Mother grieve at the loss of her youngest child. Some of the villagers blamed her, since he had again disobeyed her rule about things found that might be from the old ones. “He was spoiled”, was their verdict. Some blamed me because of my Mothers strange ways. In the end it did not matter, village life continued on; Maliwas’ Mother faded away and died a few moons after his disappearance and his sister, Meira, became our tribal leader.

And what of me? I spend my day’s cradling my infant son in my arms, whispering his fathers’ story to him. I take him to the edge of the jungle and call out to Maliwa, hoping he will come to see his son. I wait; I know someday he will return…someday…