Her face, already excited exploded with laughter and delight. “Thank you, thank you so much! Yes, of course I will! Yes, oh yes!” she turned around to me and I kissed her.

“Congratulations!” I exclaimed.

“KALU KRANA FAHUHO!”

“Jonathan! I am finally a warrior! Finally! Wait-isn’t there one more-” the last magic ball had made a faint trail of light away from the jar and was headed down the sand in the village’s main road. Khorana and I followed it, and the crowd walked behind us, singing softer now. The ball of magic led us around the village. Something had changed, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

The magic ball finally led up behind a hut, and that’s when I remembered. “Andara,” I whispered to Khorana. “She isn’t screaming anymore.”

We turned around the frond hut, and we found Andara and her lover, Romu. Andara was sobbing silently into her hands, and Romu held a small infant.

He looked up at the crowd. His voice was weak and cracked. “She was born a moment ago…” I felt my heart break, and everyone’s face fell. “She wasn’t breathing.”

I slipped my hand out of Khorana’s and knelt down in the sand, taking the small child from Romu. The wet body was cold and limp, and I put my hand on its wrinkled chest. I strained for any feeling, but I could not feel a heartbeat. I gave it to Romu, and a silent tear rolled down his dark cheek as he stared into its small, emotionless face. I busied myself by wiping my dampened hands on the palm fronds. I couldn’t stand to see the dead baby.

At that moment, the ball of magic dove down into Andara’s hunched over chest-it didn’t even bother with the dance. She perked up at the feel of the warmth. “What…what’s going on?

“You were chosen,” Romu spoke softly. “And maybe that means-”

A small cough emitted from the lifeless child.

“She’s alive,” Andara whispered. “It can’t be!” Romu handed her the infant, and the new child pawed the air. Andara embraced her little girl. “My daughter is alive! MY DAUGHTER IS ALIVE!!”

“KALU KRANA FAHUHO!” we all cried.

The magic speaks!

Five Years Later


“Jonathan Ingab!” Khorana cried in a singsong voice. “Jonathan, I found us dinner!” she backed into the door of our hut, carrying a limp piranha.

“Alright!” I exclaimed when she laid it on the table.

“So, how is your magazine going?” she asked, dabbing on more war paint.

“Great, they love the weekly column I write about life here.”

“And people are reading it?”

“It’s the most popular column they’ve had in years!”

“Oh, wonderful!”

I grabbed my teaching scroll-my second job that I held in the Rawakaki tribe is teaching the children to read and write in their native language and in English. “Where is our little Jakahla?” Three years ago, Khorana and I had a beautiful little girl we named Kifimbo. She was born on the same day as a boy named Khamisi, making her a Jakahla (a moon-bringer) which, if you recall, means that on the night before the magic is released, she gets to gather a speck of magic that would be released the next night. But not until she is five.

“Kifimbo is out playing with Andara’s daughter, Ingab.” They had named the new votazy evoltfos after me, because I had saved her.

Before Khorana slipped out the door, I wrapped my arms around her. “Isn’t it simply magic that all of this has happened?”

She just smiled and replied, letting it echo over the whole island of Geola, “KALU KRANA FAHUHO!”