"You uplander?" The girl suddenly asked in heavily accented English.
It was the first time I'd heard her say anything and my surprise was without equal at hearing English words come from off her lips.
"Yes, I am."
The girl nodded as if it had been a foregone conclusion to her. We'd stopped in a grouping of boulders in an area of the jungle that was broken up here and there and devoid of tree cover.
We were afforded a filtered view over the surrounding landscape that ran along this side of the stony mountain ridge that we were traveling along. In the distance as far as I could see was coastline. My sense of being on an island intensified.
My gaze came back to the girl who was an enigma to me. She was all but naked except for a brief skirt about her waist that appeared to be made of twisted together grass like reeds. She was the picture of unspoiled naivety and oneness with nature and yet she spoke English of all things. How on Earth could that be possible?
"You speak my words?" I asked.
"A little. A woman teach my father and I learn too. She very good woman. She look like me, but come from up there." The girl said pointing upwards with a finger.
To my continued shock I realized that there must have been a good bit more interaction from the surface to these hidden realms then even my former government had been aware of.
"Will you take me to her?"
The girl shook her head no and pointed towards the sea, "She on the far islands. No monsters there. She come not often now. She have………" The girl seemed to struggle at a lack for words and to make up for it she cradled her arms together and rocked back and forth suggestively.
"A baby." I filled in for her and she nodded with a pearly toothed smile. Then impulsively she reached forward and felt at several strands of my blonde hair, which had pulled free of my ponytail at some point. I'd lost my hat long since at some point along my forced march.
The girl said something in her own language and though its meaning was hidden I was pretty sure she was quite taken by the color of my hair. I very well may be the first such woman she'd ever seen and so I let her touch my hair.
I watched her eyes scan down me speculatively and then tilting her head to the side she asked, "Why you wear so much?"
"Umm, I just do. It's how we dress from where I come from."