“Hey!” Abbakka protested.
The bird answered with a sharp peck on her head as the other two tugged on her hem.
Abbakka sat down next to the birds. “Happy?”
The bird on her head landed in front of her and puffed with self-satisfaction. After it settled between its companions, the three birds stayed quiet, ready to listen.
“I need to see Matanta,” Abbakka explained.
One of the birds chirped and hopped onto her knee as it fixed its pulsing orange eyes on hers.
The little girl wanted so desperately to lie. To say she just wanted to visit and chat with Matanta as she’d always done. But she couldn’t speak the words. So, she whispered the truth. “I... I need to ask a question.”
The birds erupted with their protests. They leaped into the air, swirling around her and flashing their feathers. Abbakka tried to shush them, but they refused to listen, especially as more adaiman flew toward them and joined the chorus.
“It’s more of a favor, really!” she said. “I just...”
She gripped the silver payal bells so hard that they left imprints on her palm. Her voice lowered. “I just need to ask for a moment with my mother.”
Despite all their squawking, the adaiman heard her secret. Most of them slowed their spiral and settled in front of her. One landed on top of her head again, so the little girl did not try to stand up.
“I won’t be greedy,” she reassured the sacred birds.
They continued to stare at her, unblinking. Unmoved.
“I just want to talk to her. Tell her about Ektha and how she’s so sick and how they’re keeping that room so full of smelly incense and droning prayer. Every time I see her, she gets... smaller. Ektha needs something more than prayer. Amma would know...”
The little girl’s voice trailed off, and her eyes stung with the tears she refused to let fall. Her tongue was heavy, weighed down by all the words she wanted to say but couldn’t push past her lips.
“Amma would know what to do.” Abbakka’s voice was barely a whisper. “She would know what to say.”
One of the adaiman cooed gently and perched itself on her shoulder, nuzzling her and catching the tear that slipped down her cheek.
“Even if she could just hold me for a moment. I don’t even need to talk to her. I just need to know she’s there. To smell her. To see the way her skin crinkles around her eyes when she smiles. To feel her strength when she hugs me. Nobody hugs me anymore. Except for Ektha, and she’s too sick for a hug right now.”
The little girl was crying now. She couldn’t help herself. She made herself a ball, squeezing tight until she was as small as she could be. Sobs rattled from her lungs and rocked her whole body. “I need to see my mother. Even just for a moment.”
The adaiman chirped softly and took to the air, spreading their wings wide as they created a sphere around her. Abbakka opened her eyes to see an ethereal blur of glowing green surrounding her, lifting her spirit as they flew. Her breath calmed as the sphere grew, giving her a safe space to breathe.
Abbakka stood and smoothed her salwar kameez. “The Spirits will understand. Matanta will understand.”
The adaiman chirped urgently, contracting their sphere around her. Abbakka tried to dodge around them, but they were relentless. They swirled continuously and pushed her back to the fort.
“Please. He’s my friend.”
Her words only whipped them into even more of a frenzy. She blinked at the whizzing green blurs in front of her, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “My only friend.”
The adaiman chirped their warnings frantically, filling the night with their cacophony as they darted in front of her and created a wall with their flying bodies.
The little girl with big brown eyes dug in her heels. She clenched her teeth and took a step toward Matanta’s cave, but the adaiman were unyielding. The farther she went, the more they pecked at her arms, her toes, and her fingers, adding red specks to the pink welts streaking across her body.
“Stop!” she cried. “Just let me go!”
But the birds would not listen. They took no pity on the girl whose fingers trembled even though her mouth screamed her defiance. Tears tracked down her cheeks with every blink, but she kept trying to press forward as the birds’ beaks pricked her like a thousand tiny thorns.
Finally, Abbakka’s legs crumpled, and she fell to the ground, weeping. She covered her face and cried until she had nothing left in her. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even summon the strength to scream her frustration. It took everything in her just to breathe. Just to keep being.
One of the adaiman hopped toward her, cooing gently as it cocked its head from left to right. It stretched its beak toward her when she didn’t respond, leaning in with its comforting sounds, but the little girl did not move.
