It takes 3-4 months (Around 120 days) to harvest rice after planting.
Then comes the old man.
He comes every harvest season, and no one is brave enough to stop him.
He takes a part of their harvest, for what reason, they do not know. In whispered tones the farmers say he doesn’t even eat the bounty, only hoarding it in his house.
There was once a curious child that saw the man taking rice from the fields, she followed him to the outskirts of their time and saw him enter an abandoned house.
She was without fear and knocked at his door.
“Leave me alone!” His voice echoed through the trees.
“I just want to ask a question!” The girl intoned.
“If I answer will you leave me alone?!”
“Yes! I just want you to tell me why you take our rice harvest.”
“You mortals, so exhausting. I will not answer your query, that is not for humans to know.
“Then I will not leave you alone.”
The child planted herself by the old man’s door, periodically knocking loud enough to disturb him.
This continued until the dark hours but the child was persistent. She figured her family wouldn’t mind.
The old man finally surrendered and let the child in.
“So tell me why?” She said.
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Just because.”
“That is an unsatisfying answer.”
“It is the only one you will get.”
“Do you even know why?”
“Our ancestors have done it since your kind has first stepped foot in these lands.”
“So why did they do that?”
“Can you please leave me be?”
“Tell me.”
“We Muwa are tied to the land. When mortals first planted their rice, we knew they would multiply. So we take enough of their harvest to control their population.”
“Why are you so afraid of us?”
“There are those of our kind that see past the veil of time. In the seasons past they have warned us of our race being decimated by the new incarnate.”
“And do you believe that would happen?”
“Yes.”
The child left the old man’s house with new enlightenment. She would visit the old man after every harvest and he taught her the magics of his people.
In the third summer of their friendship, the child did the unthinkable. She took the magics that she learned and broke the old man’s illusion.
The form of the old man now resembled a hairy, hulking creature.
The child did not recoil, instead embracing the old man and, with a knife, stabbed him through the heart.
“This is for my brother,” she said.”
“Wha—-.”
“He died because we had nothing to eat.”
The body of the Muwa crumpled in front of her.
She spat at the corpse and threw away the knife.
Her people were outside and they took all the hoarded rice to eat.
She would later be known as a hunter of the Muwa, bringing the harvest one kill at a time.
=———————-=
Written by Karl Gaverza
Copyright © Karl Gaverza
Inspired by the Muwa description The Enduring Ma-Aram Tradition, Alicia P. Magos., New Day, 1992
Illustration by Angelo Adonis Chavez used with permission from Rob Martin of Pine Box Entertainment and Secret Garden Games
