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The Earthquakes are Coming
“The earthquakes are coming,” Grandmother whispered.
The panic wasn’t immediate but hung like a boulder sitting at the edge of a valley, tipping over and collecting speed over angle and uneven dirt and grass grounds with towering, close standing trees. It rushed within me, quickening my pulse, thundering through my bloodstream and the nerves of my brain. There was a creeping fear of not knowing what to expect, when exactly it might happen, and how it might feel when it arrived.
Grandmother bent down, brushed her right hand over loose soil, meeting the dirt with each of her fingers before resting all five, digging into the earth, feelings for its vibrations. Though she no longer had monthly earthquakes herself, she knew when it was coming for Mother, and soon, for me. Patience child, patience, she would say every time I asked about the earthquakes. Soon child, soon.
Mother bent one knee, dropping next to Grandmother, and assumed the same stance.
“The earthquakes are coming,” she echoed the elder woman.
Both looked up at me, waiting, expectant. Though towering, I felt powerless. The tremble in my knees intensified, but I forced them still. I had never done this before, but I had been told that one day, I would have to join them in this monthly ritual. But there had been no other warning beforehand to let me know that today was the day. I woke up this morning, and I felt my own earthquakes coming—but the question was, when? The anticipation was the greatest terror of all.
I bowed my head, my heart pounding, threatening to escape my skin and body, making the blood quiver in my veins. For us, three decades was nothing—but five decades marked a new milestone in life: the earthquakes. For a moment, I marvelled at Mother’s youthful face—most humans have long perished at her age.
My joints crackled, muscles groaned, as I lowered myself. The familiar stance felt mechanical as I tried to mimic Mother and Grandmother, having only seen them perform the ritual from behind the walls of our hut previously, muttering to themselves, muttering to one another, until Mother began to transform.
For a moment, I marvelled at Mother’s youthful face—most humans have long perished at her age.
My limbs were growing too fast, whining during sleepless nights and sun-baked mornings. I felt the muscle tear, rebuild stronger, then tear again, and again, the bones lengthening. In a fetal position, I would clutch my knees to my chest, dig my nails into my prickling calves, until all the pain became numbness.
I brushed each finger across the surface of the ground, the same way Grandmother had, then planted each fingertip before the motion turned into clawing—but only within my mind. In reality, my position looked like a replica of Mother’s and Grandmother’s. With my hand within the soil, it was as if the darkness my fingers absorbed seeped into my mind, mixing with the red imprints of the sun prying at the surface of my eyelids.
“The earthquakes are coming,” I whispered, my voice fading into the remnants of an echo. The mountains in the distance seemed to respond, repeating the same words, carried by the wind toward me. All three of us knew what it really meant was my earthquakes were coming. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for the pain, but seeing Mother endure it reassured me that perhaps I could, too. And yet, fear still haunted my thoughts.
I closed my eyes and waited with a sudden peace—a stone frozen amid its fall—knowing that for us, earthquakes are inevitable. Mother told me to embrace it when it comes. But this peace was momentary because as soon as my eyes opened once more, the panic returned.
It was a false alarm—a common occurrence when the earthquakes first begin. Though I was grateful, it made the anticipation more stressful. Mother’s earthquakes arrived a few days after mine were supposed to, right in the middle of the month, as they always did. She told me when mine arrived, they may vary month to month before they stabilized, but it was different for each of us.
I watched as Mother’s limbs stretched, lengthened, then darkened, as what was once human became the branches of a billowing willow tree. Each of her toes sprouted roots that drove into the ground next to our hut, resembling how our fingers dug into the dirt, feeling for the earthquakes previously. She tossed her head back, reaching her arms upward. Her fingers sharpened, shooting, reaching toward the sun and clouds. All became bark. Her head disappeared, nestled within the tree’s core, pulsing. Each strand of her hair thickened, ran along the branches and trunk of the white willow, leaves budding, like vines, like fingered armour. A piercing wail pried its way out from her lips as they disappeared, until her features became unrecognizable—wrinkled, withered, wild.
Mother remained in this form for the next five days—for Grandmother it used to be four, and for her own mother, three. Mother’s branches swayed, peaceful. But I knew on the inside, there was only pain. I carried water and fertilizer to Grandmother as she tended to the sharp ends of Mother’s roots that peeked from the ground, smoothing them out before coaxing them back into the soil. “It will be you who will have to do this for your mother when I am gone,” Grandmother told me.
Each strand of her hair thickened, ran along the branches and trunk of the white willow, leaves budding, like vines, like fingered armour.
Gone. I hoped that day would never arrive. Though we could live for centuries, not all of us do. Grandmother is nearing her first, but her mother only made it three years past the first. The seed she had become still sat at the base of the mountain where Grandmother had buried her. Each year, when the moon was at its fullest, she would visit the seed alone—a traditional ritual performed in hopes of bringing her mother back in a reincarnated form.
“Why do you not experience earthquakes anymore, Grandmother?” I asked, watching her fingers work with the sureness of experience and age, until no roots could be seen above ground. Mother’s wails, hummed through the sprouting leaves and trembling branches, lowered in volume and dropped in pitch.
“They left me long ago,” Grandmother replied. “And they will leave your mother, and in time, they will leave you, too. And perhaps you may see it as a blessing, but many also see it as a curse. Though you will no longer feel its looming rumble, you may find that the silence is much more dreadful and enduring.”
I watched Mother’s rippling branches finally stop growing and settle, as they always eventually do. And in my mind, I was convinced this was a curse. Then, there was silence.
When I asked her why we have earthquakes, she pinched my chin and smiled. “Without them, I would not be able to have you.”
My fingers felt along the creases on the aged bark, indented cracks that were not present on Mother’s usual face. Mother never spoke of her pain, but the vibrations against my hand exposed briefly what she always tried to suppress. I could almost hear her voice reassuring me: it will pass.
Grandmother and I waited in the hut on the night of the fifth day with a single candle between us in the middle of the table made of packed hay. A low whine sounded from where Mother stood in tree form. There was the creaking of branches, rustling of leaves, the sound of roots uprooting before only the whistling of the wind remained. Grandmother nodded. I grabbed the folded quilt weaved together with hemp and moss from the corner of our hut and followed her outside. Mother lay in a naked heap where the soil sat damp, but loose. Her body was littered with bruises where it had been pulled into natural yet unnatural shapes. I looked down at my own unmarked arms and wondered if I would soon meet the same fate. How do you endure the pain? I wanted to ask, but didn’t.
I unfurled the quilt, and with Grandmother’s help, we covered Mother’s body as tenderly as we could, then waited by her side until the sun rose. I stroked Mother’s hair, lank, drenched in sweat, the same way she did for me each night as I fell asleep. But it felt as though I was soothing myself more than I was soothing her.
“Are you all right?” It was the same question I asked Mother every month when she awoke. Though she always gave the same answer, I still held my breath as I waited, while she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. The skin under her eyes sagged, crinkling and grey. Though her eyes were now the colour of a passing storm, weary and drained, I knew their usual brightness would return in a matter of days. She would be Mother again, as always, with her strength that seemed boundless. I hoped with each passing night as my earthquakes loomed closer that I would be able to weather them with as much grace as Mother.
“Yes, darling, yes,” she said.
When my earthquakes arrived, Mother and Grandmother were nowhere in sight, having headed for the mountains early in the morning to collect herbs for healing and energy replenishing concoctions. We didn’t get sick often. It was more for after the earthquakes and for stragglers who stumbled into this part of the forest—those who lost their way.
“Mother?” I called, stumbling outside, but only the wind rustling through leaves answered.
“Grandmother?” I whispered, but the lull of birdsong caused my legs to sway under me, my vision blurring, shuttering like lightning between clouds.
For a moment, I froze.
And then it began.
My body crashed to the ground, arms and legs tangling, weaving, becoming spindly branches. Each strand of hair tugged at my scalp, causing stars to appear behind my closed eyes. I bit down on my tongue until it was no longer there, as my back arched, my mouth a void held agape. Then the roots sprouted from my toes, anchoring me to where I lay spasming. My organs groaned, trembling. And all at once, I felt myself curl while the branches and leaves grew erect—a withered seed hidden at the core of my tree form.
All went still, only for a moment.
A breeze passed, caressing my branches, leaves, bark, but where it would have felt gentle on human skin, in my new tree form, the wind felt as though it was lashing out with sharp coldness and uncomfortable heat at once. But the worst of it was the ache within my mind that pulsed, a growing pain like a piercing scream. It drowned out the external pain, enclosing me within, holding me captive in my darkness.
Was this what Mother felt every month?
Through the hollow, my half-open eyes spotted Grandmother and Mother coming down the road from the mountains. They saw me, but made no movements to quicken their steps. Their slow walk irritated me. The way their herbs were tucked at their elbows angered me. Their expressionless faces caused my roots to ripple and break the soil that covered them. Could they not see that I was suffering?
Through the hollow, my half-open eyes spotted Grandmother and Mother coming down the road from the mountains.
When they finally reached me, I felt the desire to lash out, knock them off their feet, coil my branches around their bodies, crush—
Mother was first to drop to her knees, grinding herbs in a slow, rhythmic motion. Grandmother, with the same oils she used to massage Mother’s roots, began working on mine, easing them below the soil, pouring fertilizer atop. My moaning limbs settled, relaxed, my anger simmering at a low heat, until it was all but extinguished.
I awoke in Mother’s quilt, my head cradled in her lap.
“You’re all right, my love. It’s over for now.” Mother brushed the damp strands of hair matted to my forehead. It seems your earthquakes will last much longer than Grandmother’s and mine. Seven days.”
I whimpered, knowing that the earthquakes would return and return near the same time each month—always for seven days rather than my mother’s five. “Does it get easier?” I asked.
Mother, stroking my hair, replied, “No, but it becomes familiar.”
Grandmother moved forward from behind Mother, holding ground herbs mixed with water from the river nearby to my cracked lips. My limbs relaxed and the pricks at my scalp subsided—everything became only a dull throbbing warmed by the morning sun.
“Sleep, child,” Grandmother said, and as though under her murmured spell, my eyelids fell closed.
By the fifth month, the earthquakes were no longer a thing to be feared, but a friend whose touched ached and bruised—a visitor we all expected. And right before the earthquakes left, new seeds scattered across the land, toward the mountains, sometimes growing floral, sometimes bearing fruit, sometimes new trees—and perhaps one day, another me.
I was by the river collecting water for Grandmother when the rumble started. I took my time, filling a large shell with water before making my way back to the hut. Both Mother and Grandmother were already waiting, each resting on a single knee. I assumed my position next to the two women.
With the same breath, we said, “The earthquakes are coming,” right before the internal fissures arrived, fighting their way outward.
Our limbs—Mother’s and mine—began pulling us in all directions. And all the while, Grandmother stood by, silent, waiting, preparing to tend to the aftermath of our earthquakes, closing her eyes as the forest filled with our wails, surrounded by the remnants of our labour and pain.
