5. The Poison Belt

Gonadisa knew exactly what her father was going to say, and she pushed a pile of leaves into her ears. If she had to hear this one more time, she’d simply die of fear. She could not sleep without nightmares about crocodiles. She couldn’t look at the clouds without fearing a bird attack. She estimated she had never been more than ten tree lengths away from her family in her entire life. Her one family, that was. The other branch hadn’t been seen in a while and if you asked mother—

“Those traitors are dead to us. They refused to fight crocodiles and now they’re stealing more and more children away from us. Only twenty of us are left!”

Sure, great, the next reminder about how they were almost extinct. Gonadisa pushed even more leaves into her ears. Her parents yelled some more angry words at her, but oh well, she didn’t hear. The world was nice and calm this way. She could relax somewhat, until she realized she couldn’t hear danger now.

The Gosti had made twenty rods for them, one per animal. They regularly visited to bring news or present their next invention. Last time, they glued a stone to a branch using vines and called it a “hammer”. To “build with”. When Gonadisa asked what they were going to build, they also didn’t know.

Their fishing provided more than enough food. Gonadisa didn’t understand why this obsession with crocodiles remained, though she’d be overjoyed if they went extinct. The place to have your fight—your “meeting” with a crocodile—was of course the river bank where they also fished.

Gonadisa didn’t say it out loud, but she planned to just run away when she saw one. The consequence was that she ran away all day, from trees, plants, other animals, and even gods, who could somehow look like a crocodile if the light was just right. In just about any light, if she was honest. Sometimes she looked into the water and yelped from her own reflection.

Her parents always suggested she’d be “friendlier” with the Gosti. She knew what they really wanted: information. The Gosti also visited the other branch of the family and so their daughter had to become a spy. She didn’t mind. Being a spy in your own territory felt both awesome and not dangerous at all.

“So, Ghosties, any news?”

“Mwah, we had a discussion with the gods.”

“Discussion … with … gods?”

Why were these animals not allowed to do? The gods seemed to prefer them. As if, in reward for something, the gods had given them bigger brains. Though she also heard the Gosti played a role in the demise of dinosaurs, which wasn’t something you rewarded, right?

“They want us to show them each invention first. They’re afraid we will make bad inventions, I think.”

“But you help everyone with your thingelings!”

The Gosti shook her head. Gonadisa always felt like they knew more and were smarter—and looked at her like she was a naïve baby. “It’s no punishment. It’s control, for in the future we might, I don’t know, make a super rod that extracts all fishes from the sea. Like … like what happened to your kind. They don’t want to repeat their mistake.”

The Gosti looked away pensively. “It’s actually quite an idea …”

“And you didn’t like that conversation?”

“Who ever loves control? Loves hearing all the things they’re not allowed to do?”

This entire family. Every conversation with her parents contained the next list of dangerous or crocodile-inducing activities, like they were a spell. If you said their name, they’d appear. If you looked too green, they’d approach you. If you laughed too hard or talked to loud, especially at night, they’d be behind you in an instant. Grandfather even claimed you drew a crocodile if you snored too loudly—as if she controlled that.

“So you can talk with the gods? And even tell them you disagree, without … them hurting you? Banishing you? Killing you? Or—”

The Gosti frowned again. “They are very kind creatures who think the best of us. As opposed to crocodiles!”

The Gosti shivered at the word and usually refrained from speaking it. As it should be.

She saw an opportunity. “Could you ask the gods something for me?”

The Gosti returned soon, just after dawn, with good news and bad news. Yes, the gods had responded. No, the answer wasn’t great.

“They think they know the place where your ancestors last had the Venomous Bite. The place where all animals suddenly pulled them from the sea. It’s not inside this territory.”

Gonadisa hadn’t told her parents anything. She knew what the response would be. A lecture, territory arrest, never speak to Gosti again, bla bla. “… how far away?”

“Along the river for a while. If we leave now, we might be back before dusk.” The Gosti looked serious. “Forgive me, but what do you hope to achieve with this?”

Gonadisa’s head hung low. Her voice cracked. “Something. Something different than what my days have been. I’m just scared, and angry, and uncertain, and tired of crocodiles.”

At the word with the big C all the Gosti shivered with her. “I understand.”

As her family checked the rods for fishes, she snuck away on the other side. She walked along the riverbank until the sun was at her peak and the Gosti suddenly pointed at the water.

“Let’s see. Purple trees, red flowers, large bend to the right, a snowy Maybemountain in the distance, the Ghost Den at our back—yes, this is the place.”

It seemed no different than any other part of the river. Gonadisa had to admit she wasn’t sure what this would accomplish. She carefully stepped into the water until it reached her belly. From close range, she noticed discoloration in te water. Trails of slightly different colors. The more she looked, the more she could differentiate them. They were mostly yellow-ish streams, mixed with some green or red. They were pulled along by the general flow of the water.

No other choice. She had to go underwater. The Gosti had taken a rod with them that held a block of wood at the end, as opposed to thorns. “If something is wrong, grab this, and we pull you up!”

Her species had left the water long ago. She wouldn’t last long now. So she took a long, deep breath and dove in.

The streams were more visible underwater, creating a sea that was all colors except blue. She picked a yellow-orange stream and followed it, past coral gardens, past schools of fish and plankton, over a few hills on the shallow seabed.

The stream met other streams. They all led back to the same place, a hill in the distance of which the top narrowly passed through the surface. To other animals, it would be a small island in the middle of the river. From below, you could see it was a pillar of mud, with a large opening through which Gonadisa swam.

The inside was decorated with plants shaped like glasses or buckets. Their leaves were stretched downwards and curled on the sides, as if two Gosti hands made a bowl. She knew them from the land, where they used the shape to catch rainwater. Underwater, it obviously didn’t rain.

So what could they catch here? How did grow in such a neat arrangement, stuck to the wall? These must have purposely been—

After a life of fear, Gonadisa reacted before she knew she did it. Her body whizzed out of the pillar, as if controlled by wires from above, precisely when a crocodile bit into the dirt from the other side. She looked for the rod above her; it had floated away.

She hadn’t practiced swimming a lot. She hated herself for it.

But if the streams all come from here, she thought. These plants would be catching … poison.

When the crocodile came for her, she didn’t flee, but duck underneath him. She swum the long way around the pillar and hoped the crocodile wanted to take the shortcut: straight through it.

And so the beast did. He burst through the pillar at speed and destroyed the entire chamber.

Clouds of poison exploded from the plants and quickly painted the sea a poisonous rainbow. Gonadisa felt it burn her skin. She was out of breath and shut her mouth tight against accidentally swallowing any poison. Blinded, surrounded by floundering fishes, she sought her way back.

Her tail tapped something hard. She grabbed it instantly. Relief. It was the rough wood of the rod. The Gosti pulled her out of the water, their eyes even larger than usual. They grew to an impossible size when they saw what appeared behind her: a dead crocodile.

In no time, the entire river changed into a poisonous stream. Fish after fish tried to escape from it. Gonadisa herself could barely stay upright, her body weakened and burned at many places.

I have, she thought, swallowed a bit too much of this water.