This tale concerns a boy and his stories.
Stories, fictional ones at least, were unknown to those people who lived at the foot of those snowy mountains, in those caves next to that creek. There were no storytellers in that tribe called the Hotiki—that is, until the one named Cabal was born.
Cabal was born during a rainy season, and when the next rainy season arrived, he was already speaking. Six rainy seasons later, he was telling long and complex yarns that kept the Hotiki enthralled well into the night. He told them about how the stars were enchanted beings. He spoke of faraway places where the forests and fields were awash with flowers and the snows never came.
“Where do you learn such wondrous things?” the elders asked, for they only knew of things they had witnessed with their own eyes and ears. They observed. They shared knowledge. They didn’t invent like Cabal.
“I am not sure,” Cabal admitted. “Like the rain, sometimes stories fall on me.”
It was as acceptable an explanation as any, and the elders actually didn’t care where his stories came from, so long as Cabal kept telling them.
One night, Cabal told the story of a girl and her brother. The girl had long arms and big round eyes and a scar on her cheek. Her brother was a mischievous boy who happened to be a shape-shifter, a person who could transform into any creature alive. While playing near a pond one day, the girl dared her brother to take on the form of a frog and to hop across the water on the tops of lily pads. Never one to resist a dare, the boy dove into the water and emerged transformed, entirely slick and green. But before he had a chance to even hop once, a turtle surfaced and gobbled the frog-boy up.
The girl was terrified and filled with sadness. Also guilt, plenty of guilt. She feared that her tribe would accuse her of murder, so she devised another solution to her predicament. She journeyed into the woods and rounded up animals.
“You must pretend to be my brother,” she told the animals. “And I will let you live among us and eat our food. But only one of you at a time. If the tribe becomes suspicious, then I will replace you.”
Because humans always had the best food, the animals agreed. A wolf was the first one to accompany the girl back to her tribe. Since the girl’s brother was a known shape-shifter and spent most of his time in the form of animals, the tribe had no reason to doubt that the wolf was the child they all knew. And they all lived in harmony for quite a while. Until one morning the wolf could not control himself and he stole a baby from a bed of hay and ate the baby in the woods.
“You wicked beast,” the girl told the wolf as he slinked away into the brush. “You are no longer my brother.”
The tribe never suspected the wolf. They thought he was simply the precocious, but peaceful, shape-shifting boy. Instead they blamed the missing baby on the wrath of their creators.
“The creators give and so they must take,” the elders pronounced.
The girl, determined to continue with her charade, replaced the wolf with a bear. Life with the bear was nice. Good. He was part of the tribe and all was well. Until, as anyone could guess, the bear gave in to temptation, his insatiable hunger for old ladies. One foggy night, the bear stole the girl’s grandmother from her slumber and devoured her in the woods.
“You wicked beast,” the girl told the bear. “You are no longer my brother.”
Like the wolf, the tribe did not suspect the bear. They laid blame upon the creators. And the girl replaced the bear with a lion. The arrangement worked once again, until it didn’t. The beast’s appetite won out. This time the tribe’s greatest hunter was the meal.
It kept on like this for a while. The girl refused to tell the truth about her brother, she continued to replace the animals, and people kept getting swallowed up in the forest. Soon, the only ones left in the tribe were the girl and that turtle, the one that had originally eaten her brother. Due to a steady diet of frogs, the turtle had grown to the size of a mammoth.
“Do you plan to eat me and end this tribe?” the girl asked the turtle.
“No,” the turtle told her. “I plan to protect you. To keep you alive so that you will grow very old and realize how foolish and selfish you have been.”
Sure enough, that’s just what the turtle did. He kept the girl from harm, lending her his shell when she needed protection, catching extra frogs and fish so that she would always have food. And she lived a long, healthy life.
When they were both quite old, the turtle asked her if she regretted what she did.
The girl, now an old woman, replied, “No. Because I lived much longer than I would have without your help. Lying was the smartest thing I ever did.”
This angered the turtle so much that he finally revealed the truth to her. “All of these years and you haven’t learned one thing!” The turtle then transformed into an old man and stood in front of her.
“Brother?” the old woman asked.
The old man nodded. “The same,” he said. “That day at the pond, I did not become a frog. I became a turtle. And you became a liar.”
This was not the end of Cabal’s story, but it was all the tribe would hear, for Cabal stopped the tale when Hela, who was their oldest member, began to weep.
“Do not worry, Hela,” Cabal said. “It’s only a tale. This girl did not exist.”
“But she did,” Hela cried. “The girl you described was Una, with her long arms and big eyes and scar on her cheek. And the boy? He was Banar.”
“Who is Una?” Cabal asked. “Who is Banar?”
“I am the only one old enough to remember,” Hela said. “When I was a girl, there was a boy named Banar who impersonated animals. The chaos spirits drowned him in the creek one night. Not long after that, they took his sister, Una. We never saw her again.”
The rest of the Hotiki gasped at this. “I know nothing of these people,” Cabal said.
“Of course you don’t,” Hela said. “No one does. Because we chose not to speak of them, for fear that the chaos spirits would come after us all.”
“I believe you’re seeing something in my tale that is not there,” Cabal said.
Hela stood up and pointed a finger at Cabal. “I believe your tale comes from an evil place. I believe you know not what fills your head. I believe you are possessed by the chaos spirits and have no place in the Hotiki.”
Since Hela was the eldest in the tribe, she was trusted to be the wisest. The rest of the Hotiki agreed with her when she said that Cabal might be dangerous. Even Cabal’s parents thought it best when the tribe decided to isolate him for two rainy seasons.
“We will not speak to Cabal,” Hela decreed. “He will not speak to us. We will bring him food, but that is all. He will live alone in the smallest of our caves. And if after two rainy seasons we are safe from the chaos spirits, then we will let him live with us once more. But he must not tell such tales ever again.”
There was no arguing with Hela, and Cabal accepted his fate. He set out to live in the small cave. It was a cramped and dank place. Water dripped from the stalactites and onto Cabal’s head when he tried to sleep. It kept him awake for hours. In the past, when he couldn’t sleep, he would make up stories, but he tried to wean himself of that habit now.
I must think of only things I know, he told himself. I must not let the stories in.
There was no stopping them, however. The stories rushed in at an alarming rate, piling up in his head. Soon there was no room for them and they started replacing his memories. By the end of the second rainy season, Cabal hardly had any memories left. His head was only stories.
Hela came to him one morning and said, “You have been noble and brave to live alone for all these days and nights. The Hotiki have been safe. Would you like to rejoin us now?”
With an innocent smile, Cabal said, “Yes. But first I’d like to finish that story.”