Nation

get down in the dirt because a baby was dying of hunger and crawl up to a pig and…I mean, when you think about it, it’s still YUCK, but…in a good way. It’s still yucky, but the reason you did it…it makes it sort of…holy….” At last her voice trailed away.
    Mau had understood baby . He was also pretty sure about yuck , because her tone of voice practically drew a picture. But that was all. She just sends words up into the sky, he thought. Why is she going on at me? Is she angry? Is she saying I did a bad thing? Well, around about the middle of the night I’m going to have to do it again, because babies need feeding all the time .
    And it’ll be worse. I’ll have to find another sow! Ha, ghost girl, you weren’t there when she realized something was going on! I’d swear her eyes had shone red! And run? Who’d have thought that something that big could go that fast that quickly! I only outran her because the piglets couldn’t keep up! And soon I’ll have to do it all again, and go on doing it until the woman can feed the baby herself. I must, even though I may have no soul, even though I may be a demon who thinks he’s a boy. Even though I may be an empty thing and in a world of shadows. Because…
    His thoughts stopped, just there, as if they had run into sand. Mau’s eyes opened wide.
    Because what? Because “Does not happen”? Because…I must act like a man, or they will think less of me?
    Yes, and yes, but more than that. I need there to be the old man and the baby and the sick woman and the ghost girl, because without them I would go into the dark water right now. I asked for reasons, and here they are, yelling and smelling and demanding, the last people in the world, and I need them. Without them I would be just a figure on the gray beach, a lost boy, not knowing who I am. But they all know me. I matter to them, and that is who I am.
    Daphne’s face glistened in the firelight. She’d been crying. All we can do is talk baby talk, Mau thought. So why does she talk all the time?
    “I set some of the milk to keep cool in the river,” said Daphne, idly drawing on the sand with a finger. “But we will need some more tonight. MORE MILK. Oink!”
    “Yes,” said Mau.
    They fell into another of those awkward silences, which the ghost girl ended with: “My father will come, you know. He will come.”
    Mau recognized this. He looked down at what she had absentmindedly been drawing in the dirt. It was a picture of a stick girl and a stick man, standing side by side on a big canoe, which he knew was called a boat. And when he watched her, he thought: She does it, too. She sees the silver line into the future, and tries to pull herself toward it.
    The fire crackled in the distance, sending sparks up toward the red evening sky. There wasn’t much wind today, and the smoke rose to the clouds.
    “He will come, whatever you think. The Rogation Sunday Islands are much too far away. The wave could never reach them. And if it did, Government House is built of stone and very strong. He is the governor! He could send out a dozen ships to look for me if he wanted! He already has! One will be here in a week!”
    She was crying again. Mau hadn’t understood the words, but he understood the tears. You’re not sure of the future either. You thought you were, it was so close you could see it in your head, and now you think it’s washed away, so you’re trying to talk it into coming back.
    He felt her hand touch his. He didn’t know what to do about that but squeezed her fingers gently a couple of times, and pointed at the column of smoke. There couldn’t be many fires burning in the islands now. It was a sign that must show up for miles.
    “He will come,” he said.
    Just for a moment, she looked astonished. “You think he will come?” she said.
    Mau rummaged around in his small collection of phrases. Repetition should do it. “He will come.”
    “See, I told you he would come,” she said, beaming. “He’ll see the smoke and steer right here! A pillar of fire by night and a pillar of smoke by day, just like Moses.” She jumped up. “But while I’m still here, I’d better go and see to the little boy!”
    She ran off, happier than he’d ever seen her. And all it had taken was three words.
    Would her father come to find her in his big boat? Well, he might. The smoke of the fire streamed across the sky.
    Someone would come.
    The Raiders , he thought….
    They were a story. But every boy had