THE ISLANDERS

The Islanders pulled in their slender, bladeless oars. With the ship safely clear of the cave, it rode the swells of the western ocean.

The ship's massive figurehead bobbed up and down, rising toward the sky before plunging back down. Mindaza's stomach lurched in time with its motion. Perched atop the breeze, the eagle let out a harsh cry and started preening its feathers. A seagull swooped in for a closer look but thought better of approaching the formidable bird.

"Hoist the mainsail!"

Sulaya effortlessly commanded the crew to position a thirty-foot tall pine mast upright in the center of the ship.

Khallel barked orders to fasten stays and hoist a cross-spar near the top to secure the mast. The crew raised a great red canvas sail that billowed in the breeze.

Granny Juana started a rhythmic chant that the rest joined in, synchronizing their rowing. This old woman knows the myth and some legends that living in the depts of oceans. The chant is to give them guidance on board allowing them to start the journey with the calmness of water.

At the stern, Khallel proudly steered the oar. Standing at the bow, Sulaya gazed ahead towards the island of Mindanao.

Mindaza swallowed hard as she watched her home island diminish into the distance. A pang of sadness washed over her as she realized her father would not be joining them on this journey, despite her mother's words.

"Do you have to say something, Mindaza?" Khallel asked softly, noticing her grief.

"I just miss my father. I'm so sad he's not coming with us," Mindaza replied wistfully. "No matter where I go, this island will always be my home."

"One day you will return here, but for now you must face your fate," Khaled said, a gentle smile crossing his face.

"Are you serious?" Mindaza asked, but Khaled gave no answer. He simply smiled knowingly, lost in hopeful thoughts.

"There is no permanent in this world, just say goodbye for now, as your future is coming," Khallel said, before leaving her.

Mindaza felt conflicted. Though sad and uncertain at his abrupt departure, she also felt a thrill of excitement and wonder at the new experiences ahead.

After sailing for five hours, ominous dark clouds suddenly filled the sky as a fierce wind whipped up massive waves, leaving them stranded amid the churning sea.

Mindaza looked at the crew. She had known these people all her life; now, they sat hauling on the long oars as the ship rose and fell, dashing aside the waves from its sharp prow.

The youngest was middle-aged, the oldest in her dotage, yet here they were, pulling lustily at the oars.

"Jeg.jeg.jeg." Rushing in the wind.

"Mother, they are all wet now because of the rain, how can I help?" concerned Mindaza asked her mother, but Sulaya said,

"Don't worry, they will be fine. Soon the rain will stop."

Granny Juana made another chant. Verse after verse she said, "Open the light and guide everyone for a journey on."

After she praised those opening words, the crew joined in as they leaned forward and hauled back. A shaft of sunlight probed from the east, reflecting from the waves in a myriad of diamonds of light and highlighting the faces of them all.

Suddenly, they did not look like farmers and peat-cutters.

The sun cast shadows on high cheekbones and strong jaws so, for the first time, Mindaza saw the hidden strength of these people. She saw the deep eyes and set mouths and wondered how these men and women would have looked twenty or thirty years or so back, when they were in their prime.

"Over there." Sulaya informed her daughter Mindaza.

"That's where we are heading, Mindaza." She leaned closer to her daughter.

"There, you will find your destiny."

A series of small islets surrounded by waves that broke into a curtain of spray and spindrift before the steady westerly wind blew the boat, until the waves collected power for the next onslaught, and it followed until it stopped.

The islanders dipped their prow to huge waves so that scores of gallons of seawater surged on board, ran the full length of the vessel, soaked every one of the crew, and gushed out through the scuppers.

Mindaza stretched her neck backwards as far as she could to view the cliffs, "Mother, why are we here?"

"We are here, so you can find your destiny, Mindaza."

Mindaza heard Khallel's rough laugh stop abruptly. "Why are you laughing?"

"No I didn't." Khallel immediately responded.

"I saw you laugh,"

"Never mind it, I am just curious about you," Khallel said. Mindaza sighed.

"Go, find your destiny," Sulaya repeated.

"But how do I do that?" Mindaza asked.

"It's your task to find it," Sulaya told her, "Just be careful out there, be careful of someone you can trust, you have to learn more about life. I know you are that smart sweetie..."

A sea swell raised the ship, causing it to surge up and closer to the rocks.

The voice came from above, faint, feminine, and familiar; just the words escaped Mindaza, despite her efforts to listen.

"What was that?" Mindaza asked. Sulaya held her gaze but said nothing.

"Mother, did you hear that?" Mindaza tried again. And nobody else among the people spoke. They avoided Mindaza's eyes as the voice came again, ethereal, drifting around her mind without the luxury of words.

"Okay, I am going onto the island," Mindaza decided.

"Steer us closer, Khallel," Sulaya ordered quietly.

Mindaza noticed a little ledge a few feet above sea level mounting the rock at a sharp diagonal as the ship got closer to the island. She followed it with her gaze until it vanished, then mapped a path to the dizzying heights above.

"Stop," Mindaza said, wobbling on her bare feet as all the people bounced and rolled to the beat of the waves.

She cast a peek behind her, but the stranger who had been her mother said nothing. In that location of splintering waves and roaring wind, the voice she heard again, tantalizing, spooky.

Mindaza landed softly on the shore after a short leap from the ship to the island. She glanced up and balanced comfortably. What appeared to be a clear ledge from the ship was really a little crack with hardly enough room for her toes.

Mindaza looked over her shoulder, but all the people had backed away. She was about twenty yards offshore now, with Khallel holding the steering oar and all other eyes fixed on her.

The words came into her head, as clear as if somebody stood at her shoulder on that precarious ledge, reminding herself, she said, "I can do this, I have to find my own path, trust me mother!"

Mindaza's remarks were caught in the wind and carried away into the scudding clouds.

overhead.

She began to climb, searching for finger and toe holds with the unconscious skill she had honed on a hundred expeditions hunting birds' eggs on the cliffs. Twice she looked back over her shoulder, to see the ship further away; the wind was whipping spindrift from the surface of the lunging sea. There was nowhere to go, except going up.

As she climbed, the cliff seemed to rise before her, so the distance to the top never diminished; only the clouds seemed closer. The voice had gone, and now the only sounds were the howl of the wind and the crash and thunder of the waves against the rock.

The ledge stopped. One step there was a finger-wide ridge on which to balance, and then there was nothing except wind-smoothed granite stretching upward as far as she could see.

"What do I do now?" she asked nobody, but there were strange voices that came again saying, "Follow your destiny"

Mindaza heard the tartness in her voice.

She peered up again, blinked as water dropped from an overhang, and noticed a black smear fifteen feet above her head on the face of the cliff.

"That's a cave, but how can I go up there?" she wondered.

The cliff above was sheer rock save for a sliver of thorn-laden trailing bramble that the wind twisted this way and that.

Mindaza thought for a while now. She inhaled deeply. Later on she said,

"There is no other option."