Malu laughed as she hopped from stone to stone across the small stream that ran through the back of her family's section of the compound. She was a happy child, though the only one of her parents. Others may have thought she was lonely, she never spoke to the other children, but she would never think it that way. She anchored more towards her spirit friends than those of flesh and bone.
"Malu!" her mother cried as she pulled the paper sliding doors apart and rushed towards her.
The little girl spun, taking her mother's harried expression. Her long hair fell over her tattoos, strands freed from the elegant knot her mother had put it in before leaving home this morning.
"Mom?" Malu cried back. "What's-" she began to ask, but her mother didn't wait. She grabbed the little girl and ran across the stream, uncaring if the bottom of her robes were being soaked by the water.
"Stay here, darling," her mother finally said as she placed her in a cave a distance away from the compound.
"Mom, no, don't leave," the little girl, holding on tightly to her mother's skirts.
Her mother crouched down, gently prying her daughter's little fingers off. She placed a kiss on her forehead and said, "I'll be back. I promise."
Malu waited for years for her mother to return, reluctant to admit that she broke her promise.