is a weekly serial. While it is a work of fiction, it has elements from both my own experiences and stories I’ve heard from various people. The characters, while in some cases inspired by real people, aren’t directly modeled on anyone in particular. I expect there will be inconsistencies and factual errors. I don’t know where it is going, and I’ll probably forget where it’s been. Why am I doing this? To give me an excuse and a deadline for some creative writing and because I thought people might enjoy it. Gozatu!<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\u201cLanguage? Those aren\u2019t even letters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a special witches\u2019 code.\u201d Maite paused. \u201cGaruna, have you seen anything like this before?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo,\u201d rumbled the AI in her head. \u201cI have never seen such scribblings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey are not scribblings,\u201d replied Maite, making Kepa guess what Garuna had said. \u201cI think this is a code, used by the witches to transfer their knowledge to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWitches?\u201d asked Kepa. \u201cReally?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maite looked up to him quizzically and shrugged. \u201cAfter the zatia, you still doubt there were witches?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kepa blushed. \u201cWell, ok. But not like de Lancre described them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maite nodded. \u201cI agree. They weren\u2019t worshipping Satan or anything of the sort. I imagine they were mostly just herbalists, men and primarily women who knew about the benefits of herbs and other elements from nature to make various remedies and the like. Others thought it was magic, but mostly it was chemistry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd some magic. The zatia, like you said.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI guess, but I\u2019m not convinced that the zatia are supernatural, or just some natural phenomenon that we don\u2019t yet understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c\u2018Any science suffciently advanced\u2026\u2019\u201d Kepa began quoting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cExactly,\u201d smiled Maite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn any case, how does this journal help us? And why hasn\u2019t Marina come back for it herself before now?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure how it helps, but it doesn\u2019t hurt. Maybe it will teach us more about who Marina really was. And as for why she never retrieved it, I guess she has been too busy?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOr she thought it burned with the baserri and never bothered to look.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s probably more likely.\u201d Maite paused again. \u201cGaruna, do you think you can decipher this code?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPossibly. But, it will take some time. You are not a very efficient power source. I cannot devote any significant energy to this problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUnderstood,\u201d said Maite as she stood up. Turning to Kepa, she added \u201cGaruna\u2019s going to try to decipher the code, though I will have to mentally scan the pages for it to have access to it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cScan the pages?\u201d asked Kepa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJust flip through it, registering every page in my mind so that Garuna can take a snapshot, so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAh,\u201d replied Kepa. \u201cSounds tedious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maite threw Kepa a mischevious smile. \u201cWell, I can do it while you give me a back rub.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI guess I can do that,\u201d he replied. \u201cAs long as I can put the pelota match on in the background.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDeal,\u201d said Maite as she headed out of the ruins of the baserri.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kepa looked at his branch, debating momentarily whether he should take his new favorite stick with him. But, after a brief internal struggle, he threw it aside and jogged to catch up with Maite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you get this post via email, the return-to address goes no where, so please write blas@buber.net<\/a> if you want to get in touch with me.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhat is it, then?\u201d asked Kepa as Maite flipped the pages of the journal. \u201cIt must be some special language.\u201d \u201cLanguage? Those aren\u2019t even letters.\u201d \u201cI think it\u2019s a special witches\u2019 code.\u201d Maite paused. \u201cGaruna, have you seen anything like this before?\u201d \u201cNo,\u201d rumbled the AI in her head. \u201cI have never seen such scribblings.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2640,864],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adventures-of-maite-and-kepa","category-bubers-basque-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/maite-and-kepa-v2-01.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-1KD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6736,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6735\/revisions\/6736"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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