3. Book of Meaning

Eonada knew what her family was about to say, and she hated it, so she walked away. If Donat hadn’t saved her father from a stupid fight with a crocodile, she wouldn’t have even been here. And now Donat was gone. She would have liked to meet her uncle; her father claimed he was the sweetest brother ever. And much smarter than the rest of her family, for surity.

“Don’t walk away!” her mother called. “Eonada! This is important!”

“Bla bla, the Connido that defeats a crocodile will bring back the poison, do this, don’t do that. Everything is forbidden!”

Even though she’d been walking away for years, she couldn’t help noticing danger everywhere too. A shadow quickly morphed into a crocodile’s nostrils. When the sun set, she shivered before actual cold set in.

Even though she was one of the larger predatory animals on this planet—and had never been in actual danger. Her family followed her, but suddenly left her alone when other creatures crowded around her.

The godchildren had decided to visit this place.

Her family grew nervous as if seeing five crocodiles. No, ten crocodiles! Eonada didn’t. She liked the gods, precisely because her family hated them.

A beautiful raccoon stood on two paws and extended her front paws. “You have something of ours.”

“We don’t know what you talk about.” Donat’s mother, her grandmother, played innocent.

Bella sighed. Ardex the tiger and Darus the wolf stood behind her, as if her brothers were her guards. “I wanted to solve this in the friendliest of ways. Could also just raze your small home aimed to retrieve my Book.”

“How is it your book?” Eonada’s mom said, also not the brightest. “We found it first.”

Bella rolled her eyes. “That you found it must mean that another has made it first, no?”

When her family didn’t seem to understand, the Goddess of Wisdom pointed at herself. “I made that book. And now I am sure you have it. So give it to me.”

Her family members studied each others. Even at these moments, Eonada’s direct family was clearly separate from the others. Some saw Donat as heroic, others as weak. Her father had then sworn to never fight another crocodile again, which her entire family had seen as cowardly.

“One one condition,” her grandmother said. “You give us back the Venomous Bite.”

“What makes you think that such gift’s in my power? We are gods of wisdom, fire and earth.”

“Then … then … that giraffe of yours. Or that fox.”

“A little more respect—” Ardex started.

“It would please us,” Bella said, “if you learned the names of your gods. We want to help. We know the injustice done to you in the past. But we did not take away your poison, so we also cannot give it back.”

“Then forget about your book! Never heard of it!”

Eonado had to laugh. What was her goal? Did she really think she could hide that Book from the gods forever? Her family was insane.

“I’ll show you where it is,” she said, still laughing.

If these animals had known curse words, they’d have yelled them all to Eonada now. Multiple Connido tried to form a wall before here. Darus let out a single breath and her family members suddenly all slipped and fell.

Eonado trudged to the Bookcave. Until the moment she pushed aside the right stones, the gods didn’t know where it was.

“I told you,” Darus whispered. “I knew they’d hide it in a cave. Stones—always useful.”

“Darus, we have lost this invaluable Heavenmatter for ages,” Bella said sternly. “I am glad we have found it. I am scared that our own subjects would hide it from us.”

As night set in, the bright light from the Book was hard to miss. Bella smiled broadly and pattered impatiently. The gods circled it. Darus kept trying to touch it, but Bella nudged his paw away.

“What injustice? Eonada asked carefully. “You said injustice was done to us? In past?”

Bella’s paw slid over the pages. Her nails imitated the symbols, as if they were only real once she’d done so, and her eyes wanted to read all pages at once. Under her godly touch, Eonada realized the true power of the book. Suddenly, the number of pages seemed to be in the millions. The three her family had translated by now felt silly and meaningless compared to all of that.

She thought the gods were ignoring her, until Bella crouched and held the book before her. Eonada wasn’t exactly small—Bella was huge, especially for a raccoon. On that page appeared a sketch. A raw drawing, as if it was made on the spot by an invisible hand.

A drawing of her ancestors, who were fished from the water by other animals in large numbers.

“They attacked us?”

“Without warning, all animals suddenly conspired to fish you out of the water. You, Connido, specifically. It was over before we even learned about it.”

Ardex stood at the exit. “Will this take any longer?”

Eonada grabbed Bella’s fur, but quickly let go. “Did they make a secret plan?”

“We don’t know how or why. Your species almost went extinct. Your father …”

“We don’t know that,” Ardex interrupted. “Bella, you shouldn’t present your theories as truth. It misleads our subjects.”

Eonada didn’t understand. Back then, they still had the Venomous Bite, right? That should’ve helped scare off the other animals. Instead they all went to the river, together, to fish for them.

Bella frowned and wiggled her snout, the book stuck under het armpit. She seemed about to say something. Eonada wanted her to say something, for now she really could not return to her family. Her father was a coward; and now she was a traitor.

But the beautiful goddess stood and exited the cave resolutely. “We do not like animals stealing our objects,” Bella said to her entire family, though mostly her grandmother.

“What? A book?” They all looked extremely surprised. “We had no idea it was there!”

Bella ignored it. “If you wanted answers to your questions, you could have just asked.”

“Walk to your Throne? There must be at least fifty crocodiles on that path!”

“Your fear for them is not shared by all.”

Bella turned around and pulled Darus along, who still studied the cave’s stones as if they were newborns. Eonada hopped after them, but Bella raised her hand and increased her pace.

You must understand, dear reader, that these creatures were cold-blooded. They did not constantly keep their own body warm, like humans. That’s not great, as most processes for living things happen faster or better at high temperatures. Now that night had fallen, and taken cold and dark with it, and Eonada barely had food in her belly, it was as if her body had frozen. As if, for her, the world and her body played at half speed.

Head bowed, she returned to her family. Father had been pushed aside already, outside of their territory. Nobody had to say anything. The biggest males formed a wall and the others angrily turned their back.

Dreadfully slowly, with paws that felt as if they held the weight of the world, they shuffled away from their safe home. They were alone, truly alone. In each ray of moonlight, each disturbance in the bushes, Eonado imagined seeing a crocodile. Her father was equally nervous. He held her close and turned his head around and around as if screwing it loose.

It was no use.

Two rows of sharp teeth flashed in the moonlight. Eonado was temporarily blinded and waved her paws forward, but even that happened at half the usual speed. She touched leathery skin, maybe the tip of a tail, but not with enough strength to hurt.

“Leave us alone,” father said calmly. After many meetings between Connido and Crocodiles, they were able to communicate quite well. “We wish no fight.”

The crocodile clenched his jaws after every word, as if eating at the same time. “You know the prophecy. It is time for our fight.”

Her father dug into the earth. “Why do we do this? Why do you take pleasure from killing all my family members? What monsters are you!?”

The crocodile stopped his chattering teeth. “You are food and anything else is moot. You want that Venomous Bite back or not?”

Eonada still wondered how that was supposed to work. If even the gods couldn’t give it back, why would poison return once they defeated a single crocodile?

More rustling. More noises around her. More crocodiles? Was their family coming anyway? She looked behind hopefully, until her stomach took a painful hit—

Her father had thrown some blocks of wood against it.

By the time she looked back, the fight had already started, and was already almost over.