The bigger we grew, the more mischievous we became.
And the more mischievous we became, the more our runaways took us away from the camp.
At first, we were just disappearing for a few hours. Then whole afternoons. Then days almost complete. When we were twelve, we knew the hills better than some adults.
We knew where the wild fig trees grew, where the water remained fresh even in the middle of the summer, where the rabbits had their burrows, and most of all, we knew where no one would come for us.
For several months, we have been going up the course of the Darro regularly, each time a little further, each time with the same impression of discovering a new world.
One afternoon, while the sun was still high in the sky, we ended up reaching a place where the banks became impassable.
In front of us, the river would tighten between the rocks, behind us, the road seemed useless. I remember looking at Maeva, looking at the other side, long, without talking.
- Shall we cross?
She shook her head. We knew a shallow passage that the elders sometimes used to reach certain lands of the Vega. The water barely came over our knees.
So we went through and I think it was that day that it all started.
On the other side, the landscape seemed different, yet the hills were the same, the trees too, the river too, but there was something strange.
As if we had come out of a familiar world to enter another one that looked perfectly like him. We walked for hours, we sang, danced, told absurd stories, as always.
Then the sun began to disappear behind the mountains. Usually it was Maeva who was watching the time. She had always been more careful about this than I was. But that night, she seemed distracted. I noticed it when it was almost dark.
- We have to go home.
She didn't answer.
- Maeva?
She looked at the river as fascinated. I think this is the first time in my life that his presence seemed strange to me. Finally, she got up without a word, picked up some dead wood, some dry branches, and then lit a fire about 50 meters from the shore. I watched her do it.
- You know mom's gonna kill us?
For any answer, she outlined a smile. The fire was slowly crumbling, the night was falling. In the distance, the lights of Granada began to appear and behind them, the dark silhouette of the Alhambra still dominated the hills.
For the first time in my life, I spent a night away from the camp, I was scared to death. Maeva seemed strangely calm. We sat by the fire for a long time, without talking, and then she asked me a question.
A simple question, the same question that no one had ever allowed us to ask.
- In your opinion... What happened to our fathers?
I still remember the silence that followed. In our community, children had no right to ask this question. The secret was revealed on the fourteenth anniversary. Not before. Never. I didn't know anything and, because I was scared, I never really wanted to know.
I missed my dad sometimes.
But how can we regret someone we've never known before?
So I answered honestly.
- I don't know.
Maeva kept looking at the flames.
"I think about it every day.
That sentence upset me more than I would have thought.
I suddenly realized that Maeva and I had grown up together. Yet we were not the same. That where I had just lived, Maeva was looking for answers. That where I looked at the present, she was already watching the shadows.
I lay down, the stars appeared one by one. The sound of the water filled the darkness, I even thought I'd slept for a few moments, and then I heard my name.
Or maybe I dreamed it. I don't know anymore. When I opened my eyes, the fire was still burning, but Maeva was gone. I first thought she had moved away, and then I called without an answer. My heart got excited, I got up, I looked around, nothing, just the river, the night and the sound of the water.
I approached the shore, the darkness was almost total, that's when I saw it on the other bank, still.
A black silhouette, darker than at night. She seemed to be wearing a long cape or a toge.
I didn't distinguish her face, yet I immediately had the certainty that she was looking at me and even worse, that she was smiling. I can't explain why, I couldn't see anything but I knew she was smiling.
The cold ran through me, I wanted to run, I wanted to scream, I wanted to close my eyes, but I remained still, as fascinated, unable to turn my eyes away.
Then something came close to my hand, I started screaming, before I realized that it was a boy.
Rodrigo.
He came from the camp, he was fourteen years old for a few weeks, he was a strange boy, the only one who never pursued us, the only one who had ever sought our attention.
I immediately showed her the other bank but the silhouette had disappeared, as if it had never existed.
- Did you see her?
Rodrigo looked at the water.
Long time.
Then he simply replied:
— Kamino always appears to those who begin to ask the wrong questions.
I had never heard that name, not once, yet, hearing it, I felt like I've known it forever. Like a buried memory, like an old, forgotten fear.
- Who's Kamino?
Rodrigo did not answer.
Instead, he asked me:
- Where's your sister?
I showed her the fire, explaining that she was there a few moments ago, and that she had disappeared the next minute.
But when we came back, Maeva was sitting by the flames, as if she had never left them, as if nothing had happened, as if I had imagined everything.
However, that night, none of us really slept and for the first time in my life, I was afraid of something that I could neither see nor understand.