Content warnings

Child loss. Implied self harm.

My knees trembled under the weight of my jamun plant. I hefted it up my hip, wincing when the sapling twisted through my heart. Gentling my fingers, I trailed through the thick foliage twisting around my ribs. They rustled restlessly and wound tighter around my sweaty torso with every bite of their thorny weight.

Ho’oponopono.

I exhaled. My nerves—intertwined with roots, stretched taut with tension—relaxed. Lips zinging coppery-wet, my heart thumped faster, pumping thick branches full of carbon. The jamun flowers swayed, perfuming the air with a sweet scent. It instantly transported me to another day.

I stood under my first jamun rain. It was the first day of autumn, and my first day out in the Greer forests with Rheta.

The earth ran a tart purple, the sky a splash of rainbow gems. I watched the trees breathe a new exhale as Rheta plucked jamun fruits off the forest floor, staining her hands and teeth purple with the ripe flesh, before spitting their seeds into the trees in a delighted game she called, ‘Watch how far I can spit them!’

The seeds disappeared into the forest and my daughter rushed after them, disappearing in her turn into the thick foliage. My heart plunged; but moments later she emerged, laughing triumphantly over her childish win.

That day seeped into my bones, painting the white canvass of my bones a deep purple.

My sapling tugged hard. I bowed over—hands on my knees, sapling digging deep—and panted. Dusky bruises stained my chest, rivalling the jamuns. 

But I wouldn’t let go. Not yet.

The sky was a thunderous dome, a monstrous grey cloud. It looked hungry, and my jamun plant squirmed. Its bloom—dewed until that morning within my cloistered greenhouse—faded into a deep, lightless black.

I swallowed tears and reminded her. Not yet, I told my little one. We have some time. I continued my trudge up the fading forest trail.

The forest’s upper reaches had turned over a new leaf, becoming a thick drizzle of warm sun over barren lands, the vast disembowelled earth drenched with detritus graves. The earthquake may have left long shadows in my life; but here, in the heart of the forest, it had filled it with pure, naked light. The soil was now a cloud of mushrooms. Algae veiled the toppled trees, like epitaphs written in fluid green life. I leaned over to brush a trunk clean. Drawing my hand back, I went to blow on it to clear the dust.

I paused.

There was no dust. No grime stuck to my skin. Nothing.

I let my hand still, staring at my clean palm. Its white smoothness, the cold absence of any imprint, mocked me. Tears escaped me, trailing through leaves and dripping down whitish-green stems before disappearing in their turn into the forest floor. I clasped my jamun, my child, tighter.

I’d be left with nothing, I thought. Not even a scar. I’ll only have my memories.

I sobbed openly under the darkening sky, and let my memories flood me in a storm.

The earthquake was sudden. It ripped us apart.

I clawed through the wrongness, through the inside-out rottenness, through the breathless ocean of upturned earth.

Searching, breaking. Begging.

But it was over. Gone. My daughter was gone.

I carried home emptiness and a single jamun seed buried deep in my nightmares and in my dreams.

Thirty years.

I tended my seed alone, growing it deep within my bones. I watered and cherished it in marrow-drip and pleas. It grew into a fine sapling, reaching up into the skies.

But its roots would not take. They began to wilt in my desperate embrace. I wailed, begging for them to root through my flesh. Take me instead, and grow—just please live.

But my pleas changed nothing.

I clambered deeper into the clearing. The air began to thunder a heavy purple, slowly seeping into my sapling.

One day, in utter despair, I set my flesh on fire. Eyes stinging in the bonfire blaze, I watched my world burn to ash, again. The nitrogen-grey-blush flew through the roots; I tasted her leaves breathing oxygen-fire through every vein and organ; yet. Yet my darling, my daughter, did not move.

I realised.

My jamun was lonely in my wilderness pain.

Lightning scarred the sky. My sapling shuddered, reaching.

I was no longer my child’s world.

I knelt in the middle of the clearing, bones creaking as my knees dug uncomfortably into the stony earth. I moved, trying not to jostle her, and lay face-up in a warm hollow in the earth. I finally faced, head-on, the thunderous, burning sky.

Grateful, my young one bowed above me, leaves waving. Reaching her branch down to me, she blossomed a ripened jamun fruit.

I hesitated. Then remembered my final lesson.

My child is my world.

I live in her world.

I crushed the fruit between my fingers, staining my hands in sweet and salty hues. I pressed my hands to my mouth, whispering over and over again.

Ho’oponopono.

Lingering over the taste of our parting fruit, I failed to notice the falling sun until it was gliding across evening skies, welding them shut.

It was time.

I strained, together with my daughter, one last time.

My fingers stained the undergrowth, weaving scented prayers into the skeletal veils of mycelial nets. I strummed their cobwebbed lutes, reminding them that their songs had once nested entire forests.

Buried skeletons of bygone trees chorused the hymn; their gossamer drench seeped into my darkness. My sapling’s roots finally found their home, entwining with roots that spoke her tongue. Her whitish-green buds nodded, tilting towards the last rays of the sun in a beckoning gesture.

The skies exploded. The storm was here.

White horses reared, charging down tarred-cloud roads. Their manes snapped electric bolts; brazen beauty uncaged, unfurling fiery wings that shattered the skies to stardust. Lightning skies melted open, revealing stars re-constellating.

My grief had reforged, reincarnating to love. 

The forest’s breath whirled with the passing storm, mulching the earth rich and moist. My sapling rewilded.

Ho’oponopono. 

She was free.

***

I walked home in the dusk, breaking whole. 

A sweet-spicy scent trailed behind me. It followed me down slippery paths: curling around my steps, holding me safe, and leading me back home. 

That night, I cradled forest–bathed dreams and watched Rheta dance again beneath the wild jamun trees.

END

Author’s note

I once had the wonderful opportunity to work with environmental scientists in the Western Ghats who were restoring forestation in denuded areas. The sheer vitality of their work, combined with being in the presence of Nature rewilding herself, left a profound impression on me that partially inspired this work.

NC Maha

Maha is a science writer by day and a fantasy enthusiast by night. She began creative storytelling in 2023, and is currently working on a dark fantasy novel. Her works appear in Intrepidus Ink, SpecPoVerse, and other places online.