I stayed away until the Twilight Days were over. Summer came with heat and the first true dawn in a season. The days were long, and the suns rose at different times, hanging high in the sky for what seemed like forever. They were far away, compared to how close and big they were in Twilight.

  Every morning, HoPa woke early and roused my brothers. Sometimes I followed. In the dawnslight, the air was still cool. The sky splashed by orange. A slight breeze that snaked over my skin.

  I had dreamt that my body was a doll. A doll shaken and tossed about by shadowed hands. I hoped the dreams would take away whatever Whaaloo had done, but the unnaturalness remained.

  HoPa led us round the hill and up the garden. It was in bloom. The apple tree white and bright, full of blossoms. The lettuce, cabbage, chives, and onions thriving. Little saknis sprouts poked through the saknis mound and HoPa pointed to them. Akmuo yawned and he and Medis went to the sprouts and raised the saknis mound higher, covering the sprouts once more.

  HoPa nodded, “That’s the last time we’ll cover them until next summer.”

  My brothers nodded and followed him to the peppers. I stumbled into Akmuo who only grunted in annoyance. A few of the peppers were ready, already touched by yellow. Most were small and green. HoPa cupped the yellowing one, “The longer they stay on, the sweeter they become. First they’ll turn yellow like this. Then they’ll blush and turn red. Your mother loves red peppers. I prefer green, but the rest of these aren’t ready yet. We’ll pick them in different colors.”

  HoPa pulled a thin sprout from the ground and held it up to them, “Plants like this are no good. We can’t eat them, and they steal the suns and soil and water from our food.” He repeated this a few more times as he inspected the garden.

  I had trouble following his words and I kept tripping over our plants. HoPa scowled when I stomped on a carrot and tears scratched at my eyes. He took me by the arm and lifted me out of the garden. “You should’ve stayed sleeping. You’re clumsy today.”

  But the clumsiness remained. Had stuck with me since that night in the forest.

  Next, we inspected the traps. A large stone pinned a dead rabbit beneath it. HoPa lifted the rock and Akmuo grabbed the rabbit by the ears and carried it to the next one. Two of the traps caught rabbits and Akmuo carried them with us, until we brought them home and hung them above the firepit.

  HoPa led us to the forest and said, “I want to show you a new kind of trap.” He slowed us and directed us to two sticks poking straight up. There were notched on either one near the top. He pulled out a third stick, which had notches that fit into the two in the ground. “With a bit of rope now, we can use this to trap a rabbit and keep it alive.”

  “Why?” I said without meaning to.

  HoPa smiled, “We won’t have to hunt them anymore. We can keep them like chickens. Our food will make more food.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Though I was standing still, I fell backwards. Akmuo and Medis caught me, laughing, thinking I was playing a joke. But I wasn’t. It was like the ground slid out from beneath my feet. It terrified me, but I tried not to show it. Akmuo stepped forward, then slowly fell back into Medis, who caught him, laughing. When Medis helped him back up, Akmuo fell forward, into HoPa’s arms. HoPa snorted laughter.

  HoPa tied a noose and pulled on it, revealing that it was tied up into a tree. Then he wove it into the third stick, “When a rabbit comes through, the noose will tighten around its body, and bring it up into the air.” He demonstrated this with his hand. “Simple.”

  “Easy!” Akmuo clapped.

  That night at the fire, Akmuo and Medis explained the new traps to mother.

  “We won’t even have to hunt anymore! We’ll just have loads and loads of rabbits.

  Mother smiled, “My genius!”

  Nothing felt right for days. No one noticed because I was just a child. Clumsiness was expected.

  I stayed away from Whaaloo. I thought distance would heal me. Would take his curse from me, but everything was wrong.

  In the forest with my mother, watching her practice Mirtis Kardas, my eyes couldn’t focus. She often blurred from my sight and I had to blink and blink and wipe my eyes till I could see her again. She carried me through the forest then, seeing how upset I was. Carried me as she jumped and ran and climbed. Halfway up a tree I was crying but didn’t know it.

  “What’s wrong?” Mother’s voice warbled in concern. She kept repeating those words and my name, but it was as if I watched it from outside myself. I knew my body was crying, but it no longer felt like my body. Mother shook me, calling my name.

  It wasn’t until we were down on the ground, her breath heaving, her heart stampeding, that I wrapped my arms round her neck and squeezed her.

  “Little moon?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Her face was awash with so many emotions. Concern, fear, anger. An undirected anger that radiated from her.

  At the fire, I heard her and my fathers whispering about me, trying not to look in my direction. But their eyes all peered over at me and their words reached me. How I was clumsy. How maybe something happened to my head. My body was so still, and everything was hazy. The world felt as if it were behind dirty glass or separated from me by a thin fabric. I could see, sort of, but couldn’t impact what happened on the otherside. And the otherside was my body.

  My brain had become untethered, I think. It’s difficult to explain because it’s difficult to remember the sensation of not having sensations. But so say I wanted to grab this glass of wine here before us. I would look at it and tell myself how to get my right hand there, but my left hand would kind of flail forward, spilling the contents.

  LoPa sighed and stared down, “I knew a boy when I was young. He looked normal, but something happened. Inside.” He tapped his temple, then shook his head. “We think he hit his head hard on something. Not hard enough to bleed or crack, but hard enough to smash up his brain. Make it…wrong.”

  Mother’s eyes were like glass. Reflecting the firelight, “My moon.” She sniffled and wiped her eyes, then smiled and turned to me, “Come here, little Lu.”

  Her worry gnawed at me. I knew it was something Whaaloo had done when it stepped inside my skin. Twisted my body wrong. Turned my brain inside out. But I couldn’t comfort mother. I knew explaining things would make it worse. Make her more scared.

  She held me often during those days, whispering to me that I would be better, that I was beautiful, that she loved me, not matter what. It only made me feel more broken.

  LoPa tried different plants on me. He brewed teas. Some sour and some bitter. Some that made me gag and others that were so sweet I couldn’t stop drinking them.

  After I finished a drought, he stared into my eyes and told me to look in different directions.

  But nothing helped.

  I had to go back. Had to make Whaaloo fix what it had broken. I didn’t want to be a broken girl.

  Finally, I returned.