Chapter 6: The River Pact

The sun had burned away the mists of morning, and the air shimmered with heat. It was the season when the river rose too fast and too often, carving new paths through soft earth and washing away old trails. The children were forbidden to wander near the floodplains.

But curiosity, like the river, did not ask permission.

The river — called Yarû by the elders, for its mouth was wide and its hunger ancient — had taken lives before. It had swallowed hunters, fishermen, even an old shaman once, who tried to speak to it in song and never returned. The village taught its young to respect it, not to trust it.

Arã stood atop a bent tree limb, his bare feet curling over the slick bark. Below him, the smaller children played among the shallows. They splashed, shrieked, tried to balance on stones slippery with moss. He said nothing, only watched.

He had never feared the river. But he did not love it either.

Among the children was Tika, a boy with wild hair and a mouth full of mischief. Arã had carried him once after a fall and said nothing when Tika boasted about killing snakes with his hands. Tika chased a frog too far. The stone he leapt for rolled. His foot missed.

The river took him.

It happened fast — too fast for a cry.

But Arã was already running.

His feet struck the mud without sound. He tossed his bone pendant to the ground before diving — not like a boy, but like something born from the current. His arms cut through the water. His legs kicked in rhythm with the pull.

The water was cold and heavy. The current seized him like a hand, dragging him down the bend where whirlpools waited in murky pockets.

Tika's hand broke the surface once — then vanished.

Arã reached the bend just in time. His eyes burned from silt. He felt more than saw.

His fingers caught cloth.

The current fought him. Roots scratched. A submerged branch tore skin from his back. His lungs screamed.

But he held on.

He pulled.

They surfaced.

The air exploded in his lungs.

Tika was limp but breathing, his chest rising in short jerks.

Behind him, older boys came running. Someone screamed. Someone leapt in.

By the time they reached him, Arã had already dragged Tika to the rocks.

The boy coughed, wept, breathed.

Arã said nothing.

His eyes were on the river.

As if asking why it gave back what it had taken.

As if it were waiting to take again.

Word of the rescue spread like wildfire through the tribe. By dusk, whispers passed between cooking fires and weavers' circles. Children told the tale with growing embellishment: Arã fighting river snakes, Arã walking across water, Arã breathing underwater like a turtle spirit.

But Arã said nothing.

He sat beside the old stone path near the smoke huts, pressing cool river pebbles against his palms. Not for healing — for remembering.

Iwame arrived with fresh cloth and herbs.

"You could've drowned," she said, her voice a blade wrapped in feathers.

"But I didn't," he replied.

She knelt, examining the wound along his back.

"Did the river speak to you?"

"No."

"Then why did you jump?"

"He was going to die."

She sighed. "That is not always your burden."

Arã looked to the river's direction. "Then whose is it?"

Later that night, Ma'kua stood before the fire, listening to Kori and another hunter argue whether the boy had defied death or invited it.

"He walked into danger without command," one said.

"He walked out with the living," the other replied.

Ma'kua listened. Then said simply: "The river does not speak to fools. It drowns them."

A quiet fell.

Takarê arrived near the embers and sat.

"I have seen the river pull many. It never gives anything it cannot return."

He turned to Arã.

"But you were not taken."

"I was pulled," the boy said.

Takarê smiled. "Then you are bound to it. There will be a price."

Arã nodded, as if he already knew.

He returned to the path of stones, and sat.

And the river murmured on in the dark.

Three days later, the river receded slightly, leaving behind driftwood, glistening stone, and the scent of rotting lilies. Life returned to its regular rhythm — or tried to.

But Arã returned to the water's edge each morning.

He didn't enter. He sat.

He would sit on the same stone, arms crossed, eyes locked on the soft pull of the current as it passed.

The other children whispered now. Some feared him. Others followed him at a distance, hoping to see him speak to fish or command the tide.

Only Tika approached.

He came with two small river stones in hand — smooth, oval, warm from his pocket. He sat beside Arã without asking.

"You saved me," he said.

Arã did not respond.

Tika placed the stones between them.

"Here. One for you. One for me. If the river takes me again, throw it in. Then I won't be lost."

Arã looked at the gift. Took the stone. Held it in his palm like something fragile.

The pact was made.

That evening, Iwame watched from the longhouse as her son climbed the path home.

"He's changed," she said aloud.

Ma'kua, seated in the shadows, did not disagree.

"The river gave him something," she added.

Ma'kua nodded. "And took something too."

Far below, the river glinted beneath the moonlight — silver and silent.

Waiting.