Jayita stood there, staring at the space beneath the partition, waiting for something—a sign, a glimpse of his foot to prove that there was even anyone there. But of course he was there. And had heard her arrive.
When no such sign came, she pushed aside the curtain.
Even with his hair hanging in long plaits, wooden beads and nut shells adorning the ends, even in the peculiar folded robes that made him look like half a tree himself, he still looked like Marcel.
But he looked like them, too. Brown and brown and brown, hair and skin and robes, made from the earth that they rarely touched and the trees they called home.
He hummed quietly to himself, hugging his knees to his chest where he sat on a cot in the corner. His hair swung in time with the tune he sang, his head moving almost imper
