*Yes,* the hinte replied. *You don’t hear it? If I call high-high the sound does confuse small meat; tree frog and thing. If I do it soft, I does see things inside things. I see the baby in you.*
“To rass! Allyou got sonar!”
*Sonar?*
“Yes, man. Sonar and echolocation too, I bet you. Abitefa, you could see in the dark down here?”
*Not good, no. Not with my eyes. So I call. I does hear if something in my way. When my wings grow in, is so I go fly at night.*
“See what I mean?” Tan-Tan laughed, happy to latch on to this new thing instead of her troubles. “Girl, you is a ratbat for true!” An idea hit her. She’d always wondered… “Tell me this. How allyou does always know where the next group of exiles show up?”
*It does make a big, high noise,* Abitefa chirped. *It does hurt we ears. You never hear it?* The hinte’s second eyelids flickered in surprise.
“No. I never hear a shift pod materialise. No human could hear it.”
*Oh,* Abitefa replied matter-of-factly. Plenty of things tallpeople couldn’t do, after all. She held up her lantern, looked round. *You feel better now? Ready to go?*
“Yes, the nausea does go away once I vomit. Plenty women not so lucky.” Lucky. Tan-Tan scowled. She rubbed her hand over her belly, imagining she could just dig her fingers inside and pull out the thing growing in her. “Sonar not going to help me, Tefa. What I need is to lost this baby. I need to kill it before it grow any more.”
*No,* Abitefa insisted.
“Oh, God, Abitefa, what I going to do?” Tan-Tan leaned against Abitefa’s warm body, comforting as Benta’s. Tefa’s feathers were coming in. Tan-Tan wished she had wings too, and a sharp beak like Abitefa was getting. For all her bones were probably hollow to aid flight, Abitefa would come in bigger and stronger than any man of her people. She could defend herself.
“Abitefa,” Tan-Tan said one evening while they were climbing back up to the daddy tree, “if you only know how sick I getting of roast manicou and halwa fruit, eh?” With her feet Tan-Tan curled a length of the vine rope she was climbing into a knot round her instep and stopped for a rest. She was already experiencing the shortness of breath of pregnancy. Abitefa leapt to a nearby branch to wait until Tan-Tan was ready to go again.
*I go give you some of my tree frog tonight,* the hinte suggested.
“Nah, man. After it go be raw?”
*Is good that way, not burnt like you does do it. Daddy must be mad, eating tallpeople burn-up food.* Abitefa had once tasted some of Tan-Tan’s cooking. She had spit it out one time.
“Taste nasty, you mean. Uncooked. Me can’t get used to the kaka oonuh does eat, you hear?” Tan-Tan untangled her feet again and continued climbing. Abitefa followed her in silence. Tan-Tan stopped.
“I sorry, girl. I ain’t mean to insult you. All I could think about is this baby eating out my insides.” She sighed. “Tefa, you want to go with me tomorrow to the village?”
*We already living in the village.*
“No, the tallpeople place, not this douen place; the village nearby where Chichibud and Benta did going that time. You want to come with me?”
*Is too dangerous for me.*
“Yes, you right,” Tan-Tan replied gloomily. “Them will take you for some leggobeast out of the bush and throw two cutlass chop in your head one time.” They climbed a bit more. “But you don’t have to come all the way with me, Tefa. Just show me how to get there nuh, and wait in the bush for me? I ain’t go stay long. I only have to find them doctor and make she give me something to abort this baby.”
*Do what for the baby?*
All she tried, Tan-Tan hadn’t really been able to make Abitefa understand. Easy for her. When Tefa came of eggbearing age, if she couldn’t or wouldn’t look after one of her own pickney, her chosen nestmates would, or another nest. “Take it away from me. You go help me?”
*I can’t go. You shouldn’t go neither. You hear what Daddy say.*
Tan-Tan hauled herself up onto a younger, narrower daddy tree branch and lay there puffing. The monster child was taking away her wind and all.
“Abitefa, I tell you true, if I don’t lost this baby, I go kill myself.” Abitefa looked at her, feathers puffed out in alarm. “So,” Tan-Tan asked her again, “you go help me, or what?”
When Abitefa said her reluctant *yes,* is like a weight lifted off Tan-Tan’s chest. She laughed out loud, ignoring the douen pickneys wheeling through the branches around them. “Oh, Tefa, you is a real friend, you hear?”
They didn’t waste any time, oui. Next morning self, barely dayclean, the two of them were down in the bush. *Sorry I can’t fly yet,* Abitefa said. *Else I coulda carry you.*
They took the regular path. Abitefa led the way and Tan-Tan clambered after her, prodding the ground ahead of her with a stick as she went. Like everything in douen territory, the path grew over quickly. Ground puppies sprang out and snapped at Tan-Tan; dead branches reached up and jooked her calves; grit flies pestered her; a manicou shat on her head from a tree above. But Abitefa? Grace covered her like a blanket. Nothing could touch her. She saw branches before they snagged her skin, dodged the ground puppies-them before they could land. The trip was pure cool breeze to Abitefa. Two-three times Tan-Tan nearly said, “Let we turn back,” but the nausea was burning in her belly like acid this morning, driving her to her purpose. They pressed on. Every few minutes, Tan-Tan felt for the gold ring she had knotted into a corner of the dhoti she was wearing. Antonio’s wedding band. The one he had give her for her ninth birthday. All those years of wearing it, and every time her hand had brushed it, it had propelled her back to that birthday night, to Antonio touching her, hurting her, to the smell of liquor on his breath. She had taken it on its leather thong off her neck the second day in the daddy tree. She could use it to buy herself freedom from the monster child. Bad Tan-Tan within accused her of being ungrateful. She kept hiking doggedly along the overgrown path.
The pink sun rose, shooting the occasional beam of light through the sombre bush. With it came the heat. At least that sent the grit flies away. They walked another hour or two, stopping twice for Tan-Tan to lose her breakfast. They stopped beside a tree, a weed compared to the daddy tree.
*Walk through there so,* Abitefa hissed, pointing. *You reach.*
Tan-Tan couldn’t see anything but more bush.
*Little more and you go be there. I go wait in this tree.* Abitefa nicked the bark with her claws in a particular pattern to help Tan-Tan find her again. She climbed up into the tree. *Be careful,* she trilled.
“Yes, man.” Tan-Tan took a minute to untie her dhoti and wrap it into a sarong round her hips. She patted at the knot that concealed the ring. Then she set off the rest of the way. So long now she hadn’t seen people! Once she traded the ring, maybe she would have enough money left over after seeing the doctor to get some real food. Her mouth sprang water at the thought of stewed gully hen with yam and dumplings and sweet, red sorrel drink to wash it down. Her belly rebelled, though. She had to stop once more to spew.
A few minutes later the trees started to thin out. Then it had low bush, then some picky-picky brown grass trying to grow in the hard earth under the hot sun. Beyond that it had a cornfield. The feathery spikes were brown for lack of water. It look like nothing grew easy in this place. Nobody was working the corn for it was day hot. So she got through without anybody seeing her.