Free Island's End by Padma Venkatraman Page A

next. My body is bumpy and swollen from mosquito bites. But as soon as I picture the insect-eating plant in my mind again, I realize something that gives me new strength: the plant has watery juice for me to drink.
    I gaze ahead, through the closely woven tree trunks. To the north, I spot a patch of red. Hoping the insect-eating plants grow there, I crawl across the mangrove roots in that direction.
    Soon I am forced to leave the shelter of the trees behind. Wet mud stretches in front of me, broken only by pools of brown water. I break off a mangrove branch and walk forward carefully, testing the ground ahead with every step. Mud squelches between my toes and leeches wriggle up my legs. I have seen a few leeches by our pool with Natalang, but never as many as in this swamp. I stop to flick the ugly creatures off my legs and continue north, toward the reddish patch.
    As I move closer, my eyes make out the pitcher-shaped leaves. For a few moments, I do not dare to let myself rejoice, afraid that it is just my imagination. But the plants do not disappear as I approach them.
    Though my skin burns and my head aches, I rush forward as fast as I can until I am surrounded by the insect-eating plants. I sink down on my knees among them and take a deep breath of the sweet-smelling air.
    Drink.
    I tear off a leaf and swallow all the juice inside. Leaf after leaf I suck dry, until my throat is soothed and my thirst is gone. Even my stomach feels full.
    “Thank you,” I whisper.
    Rub the leaves onto your body.
    Like a snake shedding its old skin, I scrape off the dried mud still on me. Then I crush some leaves in my palm and smear them over myself. To my surprise, the pain in the bumps left by the mosquitoes lessens. When I rub the juice into my temples, my head stops aching.
    “This juice works faster than any of the medicines in my pouch,” I say, surprised by how refreshed I feel. “Why?”
    Think back to what brought you here today.
    “I saw the insect-eating plants in my first vision of the Otherworld.”
    And when did your spirit first enter the Otherworld?
    “The day the strangers came. But . . . but they make me angry.”
    Their ways also make you curious.
    I think of the strangers’ fast metal boat and the wonderful paintings inside Ragavan’s box. Unable to deny that the strangers’ magic amazes me, I remain silent.
    It is not wrong to be curious. The strangers are different, not evil.
    Remembering the disturbing aura around Ragavan’s head, I disagree. “If the strangers are not evil, why does Lah-ame want to keep us far away from them?”
    Lah-ame loves the way of the oko-jumu and the world of the En-ge. He brought your tribe to this island to protect them, like an eagle who builds a nest high up on a cliff to keep its eggs safe. But as every eagle knows, the eggs will hatch. And one day the young must grow wings and fly away.
    “We have everything we need here,” I say. “None of us wants to leave the island.”
    Maybe not yet. But this island is small and the ocean is large.
    “The Otherworld is larger.”
    Few spirits travel to the Otherworld as willingly as yours.
    I nod, thinking of how uninterested Natalang was in the Otherworld—and yet how fascinated she was by the fruit that the strangers brought from across the sea.
    Once, long ago, this swamp was part of the jungle. Then it turned into a swamp. Most plants found it hard to live through the change. But the insect-eating plants survived because they learned how to eat insects, just as animals do. And yet their spirits remain deeply rooted in the ways of plants. Somehow they held on to the beauty of plant life and took from animals only that which made them stronger. To live in their new world, they had to find a balance between the ways of animals and plants.
    “What does all that mean?” I ask. “How will this knowledge help me guide the tribe?”
    One day you may understand. But no one can ever tell you how to overcome the many tests that lie