Exploring Lost Territory

By Dale Stubbart

On a tropical island, a boy and girl pretend they're boyfriend and girlfriend and spend every day playing together. When they're nine, Chriselish dumps Bileander. She can't remember one day of her life, and she certain that he had something to do with that.
Meet the Vascanders who live on the island of Vascandola. They fish and gather fruit and live a simple lifestyle. During the hot season, it's too hot to sleep indoors, so they sleep outside on their porches in their rocking chairs. They also often sleep outside, even when it's not the hot season.
All the children play the boyfriend/girlfriend game. It builds trust and makes sure that you always have someone near in case you get into a dangerous situation. On Vascandola, there's the village of Vascanda and the beach. There aren't many dangers either place. But most of the island is wooded. The woods are dangerious, nobody ever ventures there. Well, they don't intend to. But sometimes they stray into the edges.
On that day in question, Bileander and Criseilish were having fun exploring Lost Territory. Will Criseilish every be able to recall what happened that day? Since she's forgotten it, she's forgotten all about Lost Territory. Will she ever be able to recall that day? Will Bileander ever tell her?
Maturity: PG13 (at most), Reading Level: 5th grade Easy. Longest Words: Disappointments, Procrastinating

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dale Stubbart
• Release date: Feb 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201842109

Book preview

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Glossary

Vascandola – The entire Island

Vascanda – The village on the Island

Vascander – A native of Vascandola

Eivon – Friend

Eivonalta – Boyfriend or Girlfriend – Closest Friend

Monsoomon – The hot season

Monsoomonalta – The last Monsoomon before you turned twenty-nine.

Arvendaloopa – Lost Territory – A place on Vascandola

Arvendala – A village in Arvendaloopa

Velveleton – Inspiration – means The rising of the wind

Sarasond – Beach – means Origin or Destiny, since Vascanders come from sand and return to sand

Sarasonda – can mean parent or ancestor, no longer used for that

Sarasondalta – can mean child or descendent, no longer used for that

Trinasond – The new beach

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Criseilish

Criseilish could remember every day of her life. All, except one. And it was all Bileander’s fault. She was certain of that!

Criseilish, like all Vascander children, could recall every day of her life. Some days, they could remember every detail. On others, they could only recall the main events. When Vascanders became adults, around the age of eighteen, they started to forget various days of their childhood completely.

Criseilish was the exception. She was in her early twenties. And still, she could recall every day of her life, minus that one.

Criseilish kept this secret, that she could remember all of her days, to herself. She already stood out from the others enough as it was.

When Criseilish was five, she chose Bileander for her first boyfriend – her eivonalta. It was just pretend. And they both knew it. They always played together. And often, it was just the two of them playing together.

Vascander children often played the boyfriend / girlfriend game. The word for both boyfriend and girlfriend was eivonalta. It meant closest friend.

Most often, it was the girls who chose the boys. These relationships often only lasted a few months. For Criseilish and Bileander, it lasted for four years.

The day which Criseilish could not recall, had happened during the last year of their relationship. One day, during lunch, she had realized that she couldn’t remember anything about her previous day.

She made certain not to tell anyone else about this. They would send her to the healers. And nobody wanted to go to them unless they really, really had to.

From time to time, Criseilish would ask Bileander what had happened that day. He would always say, Oh, we just played together as usual. When she pressed him for details, he would say that they played Cavern Boat.

This was one of their favorite games. There was a cavern which led deep into the ground. There was a small boat there which they would play on. No such boat nor cavern existed in their village nor in the entire island of Vascandola. It was all pretend.

There was only one village on the island. And children were warned not to play beyond the edges of Vascanda or Sarasond – the beach. Yet, some occasionally wandered into the woods.

Though Criseilish continued to press Bileander to tell her what had happened that day, he always said the same thing. And she never believed him. At the end of her ninth year, she dumped him. What had she been thinking having the same eivonalta for so long?

Criseilish chose Tomiterion for her next eivonalta. Their relationship lasted a couple of years. Her relationships quite often lasted longer than those of other boys and girls. Nevertheless, none of them lasted as long as the one she had had with Bileander.

Bileander’s relationships were now very short. They lasted at most a couple of months. Then he would move on. Or more than likely, his eivonalta would.

Sailor

When Bileander was seventeen, he sailed away on a merchant