As the Sparks Fly Upward

By Je' Czaja

Just like us, the Tuans, who on a stone age island in Polynesia, have a rough week now and then. Just like us, they mostly just think about what's for lunch, but the week they were attacked by a giant boar, devastated by an earthquake and a tsunami which then woke up the serpent under the mountain...well, that was a rough week. Heroes rose up, love bloomed, blood flowed and still they found time to wonder what was for lunch. Just like us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Je' Czaja
• Release date: Sep 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311035462

Je' Czaja

In oldentimes, Je' Czaja founded and directed several non-profit organizations serving disadvantaged children and their families and has now retired to the edge of a swamp in South Georgia where she seldom ventures outdoors. Instead, she stays inside and sometimes imagines living on an island in Polynesia.But then, don't we all?

Book preview

As the Sparks Fly Upward

Copyright 2015 Je' Czaja

Smashwords Edition

Thank you for dowloading this ebook. You may share it with your friends and copy, reproduce and distribute it for non-commercial purposes, as long as it remains in its original complete form. If you enjoy it, please leave a review and see other books by Je' Czaja. Thanks again.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Firepit

Chapter 2: The Killer with the Smile

Chapter 3: The No Log

Chapter 4: $%*@^# Banana Spiders

Chapter 5: The Creeper

Chapter 6: Sem the Mighty Hunter

Chapter 7: Journey to Er

Chapter 8: The New World Order

Chapter 9: Zume' and the Furhats

Chapter 10: Lobbying in Tua

Chapter 11: Kern, Protector of the Mystic

Chapter 12: The Warning

Chapter 13: Set in Motion

Chapter 14: The Field of Gore

Chapter 15: The Land of Songs

Chapter 16: Refugees

Chapter 17: The End of the Age

Chapter 18: Dromek Meets Tua

Chapter 19: The Tomb

Chapter 20: The Day After

Chapter 21: The Serpent Under the Mountain

Chapter 22: The Sickmen

About the Author

Chapter One: The Firepit

It is the fifth month, a woman’s smooth voice whispered. Lemli gazed into the night sky and the moon was full and ringed with light. What is happening? she asked the whisperer. Behold, the whisperer answered.

Then it was sunny day time and a growing mountain of water was roaring toward the village. No...no! Lemli screamed and woke with a start, not so much because it was a strange dream; after all, who ever says, I had a perfectly logical and chronologically-sequenced dream last night?

No, she woke with a start because the mountain of water was going to kill her.

But she now appeared to be safe on her mat in her Grandma’s hut and after staring into the darkness for awhile, she grewt bored with staring into darkness, rolled over and went back to sleep.

It is early morning; the coals in the firepit still glow cozily in their bed of ash. As she gazes into the firepit, the charcoal takes the shape of a panther and the embers morph into his glittering eyes; the eyes of a predator watching his prey. The panther smiles at her and his teeth are the flat teeth of a man. She tries to scream, but the sound gets lodged somewhere between her diaphragm and her vocal cords and never escapes from her lips.  

As she awoke, her Grandma was rubbing her arms, and the scream that would not come out in the dream-world, came out here only as a moan. There, there, it's just a bad dream, Grandma was saying, as if Lemli didn't know that. Yet the fact that Grandma and she agreed on the diagnosis was somewhat comforting to both of them, particularly to Grandma, apparently, who soon went back to sleep. But Lemli could not.

She stumbled outside into the real world and the real embers had burned down in the real firepit to a rosy glow, just like every real morning. gripped by a sudden cold, sickening danger-chill, she froze in place, furtively darting her lovely golden eyes side to side. What is happening?

Everything looked normal. A small snap sent her spinning to see-or did she imagine?...a man slip behind a hut, a man who moved like a panther-Axam? She

crouched down on the sand, trying to make herself smaller, as if she could will herself invisible on an open beach. And what are these in the sand? Some tiny white…sticks? Bones?

Bones. The bones of a small animal which had been cooked and eaten in the wee hours of the morning. This piece of information tried to find the proper neural pathway in her mind for processing, but could not and instead flapped about like a panicked bird trapped inside the cage of her skull.

Thirty seconds passed before the bird, which could neither escape nor find a ready-made pathway, plowed a new neural pathway through her gray matter, seeking to connect with some other pathway that might lead to a concept that made sense.

This process of acquiring new ideas is usually avoided by humans, because it is somewhat painful, and especially so after a bad night's sleep. But there it was: Someone had killed, cooked, and eaten a picu, the sacred rodents of the forest.

But why? Sure the factoid had taken up residence in her brain, but why would anyone commit the sin of picu murder?

Really hungry? But no, there was plenty of food...Wait-no time for 'why' now, the danger-chill intensified and Lemli felt the eyes of the killer watching her from the shadows at that very moment.

She quickly covered the little bones and strolled casually toward the sea, as she did every morning. She concentrated on strolling casually, strolling like a person not being watched by a killer.

Maybe he would think she didn't know. She felt his eyes on her, and then she felt when his eyes left her and breathed a sigh of relief. Thank Apa...it looked like she had pulled off the casual-strolling bit.

Was it Axam? No, it couldn't be. Everyone knew that he was a very popular man so it was not possible that he actually possessed the morality of a sea slug. was it? She did not know Axam well, he only spoke with important people, or pretty young women, who giggled when he walked by and whispered that he was the handsomest man in all of the villages.

Actually, it wasn't just the young women; the older women whispered the same as he passed, nudging each other knowingly and adding, "We may be old, but we're not dead, aye?

Would Axam kill a picu? He was going to be the next elder, he was a very popular man, she repeated to herself. There had been rumors of his wrong-doing, but they were all proven false by the water test and attributed to jealousy.

She remembered the old ladies' gossip she had overheard the week before.

That Axam, he is a basta, I tell you, said Taproot, puffing on her pipe.

That's not nice to say about a man with so much sorrow, Manda huffed, reaching out for the pipe.

A basta I tell you! And his best trick is to make everybody feel sorry for him for the basta things he no doubt does himself, said Taproot.

What? He killed his own wife? Yes-just like his son said. insisted Taproot. His son was insane.

See how the basta made everyone think so?

The old ladies passed the pipe back and forth for a few minutes as they watched the babies play with pretty shells on the reed baby-mat.

Well, he did pull legs off live crabs when he was small. But little ones sometimes do such those things in ignorance, Manda speculated.

And he burned down the hut, Taproot added.

That was never proven. In fact, he passed the water test, Manda pointed out.

The water test only works if you have a heart-thorn, Taproot said loudly in frustration, slapping her skinny thigh for emphasis.

After a few moments Manda said, Everyone has a heart-thorn.

Not bastas! That's why they fool everyone. said Taproot firmly.

Lemli wondered, Could a person have no heart-thorn? Nothing inside to prick them when they did wrong? No, that's not possible, she thought. They wouldn't even be a person then, would they?

Lemli gazed at the sky, turning pink and purple as the sun rose. She started to pray: Apa… But no, she would not ask Apa if a person could have no heart-thorn, because she was afraid of what the answer might be; she wanted it to not be true, and so the safest thing was not to ask in the first place.

Chapter Two: The Killer with the Smile

You might say that later that day, Axam surprised Lemli while she braided vines, but surprised is not the right word for how you feel when a killer suddenly appears in front of you unannounced. Good day, Lemli, what a fine braid you are making, he said, smiling with his perfect teeth, which looked a lot like the flat panther teeth in her dream.

Can you show me how to do that? She stopped braiding but did not answer, heart thumping, looking down at her hands, adopting the deer-in-the-headlights defense: I don't know what to do, best do absolutely nothing. On this occasion, it worked out better for Lemli than it would for future generations of deer standing in the headlights of future generations of automobiles.

Are you shy, pretty little lady?" He put his finger under her chin and turned her face toward his. That's when she saw the most horrible thing she had ever seen in her short life, she who had watched her own family die.

He had no face, handsome or otherwise...just a sheet like dark still water that reflected her own image back to her. She saw her own terrified face, eyes wide and pupils dilated in terror. He reflects everyone’s face back to them! That's why they like him!

But where is he? Where is his soul? She saw through, that often unsettling gift of Mystics, and wished she could not. Now his normal eyes were back and glittering and she looked into them, terrified. He liked that, she knew, he liked her terrified.

You know Lemli, he said pleasantly and almost dreamily," A picu is small and slow and sometimes they come right up to you. You can easily pick one up and hold it by its hind legs and just slap it into a tree trunk.

It would squeak when it hit, don’t you think? Then it would go limp, maybe skitter for awhile. A strong man could do the same to you. Do you think you would squeak? Do you think you would skitter a bit before you died?"

Then he smiled his charming smile. But why would anyone do that? You are a quiet girl, and you can keep secrets, can’t you?

Nice job on the braiding, you will make some man an excellent wife, he said, slowly contemplating her long, graceful legs, then added, Yes, an excellent wife… I will see you again, he said cheerfully, and walked away, smiling and greeting other Tua as he went. They smiled and greeted him right back because Axam was a very popular man.

An hour passed while Lemli busily constructed a new box in her mind, a box essential for such situations, labeled I Don't Know.

Into this box she sorted panthers with flat teeth, picu bones by firepits and the entire contents of her encounter with Axam. Then she went back to her braiding, a thing she did know and therefore a thing that soothed her overheated brain.

Chapter 3: The No Log

Hey, Lem! It was Kern, walking up the beach waving an armful of palm fronds in her general direction. Lemli smiled and waved. They were both fourteen years-old, but Kern was born a day earlier and frequently reminded her that she should respect her elders.

Always the last one to get up, Kern emerged from his hut every morning rubbing his eyes and running his fingers through his wild, curly hair. After breakfast he went with the older boys to gather