Cala, the Origin: Cala and Yuma, #3

By Laura Pérez Caballero

Cala has always wondered why her family decided to abandon her. It has been nearly three years since she started her new life with Yuma. Now she herself is going to form her own family and, at last, she will be able to know her true origins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Victor Morcillo Sevilla
• Release date: Feb 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201779405

Book preview

To Aida

Preface

Ona slipped in stealthily. It was already dark. She had waited patiently for three days, and now she didn't plan to spoil it.

Her blood was still boiling. She could still feel the sensation that had risen from her stomach, taking over her chest.

But it wouldn't stay that way.

Yuma and Cala had laughed at her. He had married her knowing he did not love her, then he had given up everything for that human, and now....

She buried a painful cry in her throat and continued to cautiously approach the lair.

In her right hand she carried the five-liter gas can she had stolen from a gas station, in her left hand a lighter, and in her chest all the rage that could accumulate in someone who feels betrayed.

1.

––––––––

It was hot. Very hot.

It was true that the trees, with their tall, leafy canopies, provided shade in the forest, but even so, the heat caused beads of sweat to trickle down Namid's weary face. They had been walking at high speed for hours, running at times.

A few meters in front of him, Sasa was waiting with arms outstretched.

-Come on, fatty, all that sitting with Azca is taking its toll on you.

Namid snorted as he came up beside her. It had been a year since he had started to put on weight. He liked to spend hours with Azca, play with him on the fur rugs in his new den, tell her stories and tales, bathe him... He had put aside his hobbies and did no more exercise than was necessary to help with the family's food supply. But it was too hard for him to admit that he had lost his physical shape. He was a big, strong, agile Tupi, who stood out among his own kind.

He ran a hand over his forehead to wipe away the sweat and gave his wife a crooked look.

-I don't understand why you are in such a hurry.

She smiled. She knew Namid very well.

-Well, because we only have three days, I haven't seen Yuma and Cala for a long time, and because I'm dying to see them, especially Cala," she laughed.

Namid sat down on the ground and patted the grass inviting Sasa to do the same beside him. The sun's rays were streaming through the branches and the place was like a fairytale landscape.

-Come here, we have plenty of time.

-Oh, no, come on!

She reached behind him and tugged at his shirt made of sackcloth. Namid turned and flipped her over making her fall in front of him and then climbed on top of her.

-Who's in bad shape now, huh?

Sasa laughed as she squirmed under Namid's weight.

-Oh, come on, come on, don't you want to see your brother?

-I've seen him a lot. Hey, how long has it been since we've been like this?

-So how?

-So, alone, without Azca, without uncles and aunts, without grandmothers... we have to take advantage of this.

Sasa thought it was true. The couple's intimacy was being curtailed by the presence of other family members, and Azca was occupying all their time and attention.

-Maybe we should spend more time alone, I don't know, even if we don't go to another clan?

Namid brought his lips close to Sasa's and began to kiss her.

Sasa allowed herself to be kissed, but again she pushed him away and with a shove she pulled away from Namid and managed to get back to her feet.

-Seriously, Namid, we still have a long way to go, we're not even halfway there and I'd like to cover that distance before it gets dark.

Namid stood up, resigned.

-Then tonight, when this sun finally goes away and it stops being so hot, you'll let me sleep next to you," he joked.

-Well, that's if you can catch me before it gets dark.

Sasa rushed off, regaining the marked path, and Namid wiped the sweat from his forehead and followed her.

After they got permission from the clan to move to the new den, and thus be closer to Yuma and Cala's den, every four or five months some member of the family would make a trip to their den to see how they were doing and to maintain the family relationship. Never all at the same time, as that would arouse the suspicions of the other tupis. In the almost three years they had been doing this, he and Sasa were visiting them for the second time and Sasa was very excited to see them again, although Namid had imagined it more as a vacation and a way to be alone and have more privacy, since the baby had been born, they could hardly be alone.

-Wait for me," he said to Sasa, raising a hand.

Sasa stopped again. Namid came in deflated, put his hands on his thighs as he leaned forward and breathed heavily.

-Sasa stopped mid-sentence when she saw Namid put a finger to his lips.

Immediately the tupi took refuge behind a log while Namid stood behind her. For a minute they both remained motionless. Their mouths opened wide, trying to catch any scent that might be dangerous. Deep in the forest the twittering of birds could be heard, unstoppable on a sunny day.

Namid relaxed his body again.

-I thought I heard footsteps.

Sasa tapped him on one shoulder.

-You're a liar, you just wanted to stop for another little while and scare me to make fun of me.

Namid squeezed the shoulder where Sasa had hit him. His face was serious and Sasa understood that no, it had not been a joke.

-What are you thinking? Do you think we are being followed?

Namid shook his head.

-It could be anything, a deer, a mouse, who knows? I wouldn't want to run into a human.

-We would have smelled it, they give off give off a smell meters away..

They were both thinking the same thing. If anyone could be skilled enough to follow them without being discovered it was another of their own race.

-Do you think the Council is watching us? -Sasa muttered.

-I don't think so, if they haven't done it in almost three years, why now? Come on!

And Sasa noticed that, despite saying she didn't think so, Namid reached a speed that was difficult for her to maintain and that her mouth was often ajar, analyzing each of the smells that were intermingling in the air on the road.

2.

––––––––

Ona followed Namid and Sasa at a safe distance. She was a Tupi and knew well the fine hearing and prodigious sense of smell of her race.

That's why she got scared when she saw them hiding behind the trunk of a tree, and slowed her pace a little more. A little more, because she did not want to lose track of them. Hiding in the bushes, she watched them talking to each other. Then they set off again, this time with Namid in the lead.

Since they had requested a change of lair from the Council, she was sure it was because they were back in contact with Cala and Yuma. Was the Council blind? They were supposed to be wise. How stupid! Either they were just a bunch of old men or they were clearly benefiting Min's clan, and she wasn't about to let that happen. Sush had always had many privileges even though he didn't belong to the Council. His word was always taken into account when it came to making important decisions, and now that he was gone it seemed they had passed that role on to his wife, Min.

However, she had never been taken into account. After all that had happened, she had been discredited and had never been taken into account or believed. What she had gone through, very few knew. Rejected by a human, that was a burden she would have to carry for the rest of her life. Moreover, word had spread about her pregnancy and no other Tupi had ever approached her again. It was as if she had become invisible to everyone else.

When she had to deny the pregnancy to her mother, she did not expect her to react this way. She stopped speaking to her for months. And her father told her plainly that she was a disgrace to his clan. Then she spread the news that she had lost her baby, but she was sure that very few believed her.

No, it had not been easy for her.

Nor had the nights she spent alone in her room been easy, crying angrily, feeling despised and worthless, keeping her face to her bed so that the rest of her family would not hear her.

Then she found out. Yuma had decided to be banished in order to continue with Cala. He had preferred banishment to being separated.

She had been so foolish that, until the last moment, she had held out hope that he would crack and return to her side. That he would realize that everything she had done she had done only for love. But her love didn't seem to be worth anything.

She saw Namid and Sasa, in the distance, laughing, cuddling, happy....

Didn't she deserve to be happy too?

Time had passed very slowly. She wanted to trust that with the passing of the days, of the months, everything would fade away, fading inside her, until she achieved at least a little peace. But no, almost three years later she felt her chest burn when she thought about Cala and Yuma being together.

When about two years had passed, Min requested a change of assignment to a clan closer to that of one of her still living sisters and the Council granted it.

Ona suspected as soon as she heard the news. But she couldn't prove it, of course, and she was just a young, disgraced Tupi whom the Council would never take into account after everything that had happened.

Finding out for herself became an obsession. She analyzed all the options and asked her parents to spend a few days in one of the nearby clans, with a cousin close in age to her. Her father suspected nothing and gave her permission. Her mother, bolder, asked her to be prudent.

She barely set foot in her cousin's clan. She would get up in the morning and not return until nightfall. Her relatives, who knew her history, imagined that she sought to be alone. They did not know that she spent the day hanging around Min's clan.

Also there, one of those days, Namid was about to discover it.

Baby Azca, who was already two years old, ran out of the den. Ona was stunned by this being that reminded her so much of her false pregnancy. She too would have a baby if none of this had happened. Then Namid came running after him, and the moment he caught him he stood still as his eyes scanned the surroundings and his nose twitched.

Namid was too cautious to leave the boy alone or to look for whatever he wanted he was sniffing around and turned back to the cave with the boy to leave him safely there before setting out to investigate, which gave Ona time to flee.

This did not deter Ona, who continued to keep an eye on life in Min's clan until she heard what she wanted to hear: Namid and Sasa were going on a few days of travel.

She then returned to her cousin's clan and told them that she wanted to return home. She flatly refused to be accompanied by her uncle, saying that all she needed was to be quiet and alone.

By dawn she was already stationed in the vicinity of Min's clan.

Since Namid and Sasa had entered the forest, she was sure that this time she would get what she wanted, even if it was only for herself, she would prove that she was not crazy and that Min's clan had moved out solely and exclusively because they were breaking the Council's rule and were still in contact with Yuma and that human.

3.

––––––––

The tupi whistling crossed the air plagued by other sounds, birds chirping, leaves fluttering in the breeze, the sound of a river water running nearby...

Ona was ready, tense, waiting to see