by Mary Mackey
She rounded the point, and soon she was standing on one of the sea cliffs looking down at the sea, which was surging against the rocks like a great cauldron of boiling water. At the sight of the surf, her courage almost left her, but then she saw that the tide was nearly at full flood. Stripping off her dress, she threw it to the ground and stood naked in the wind wearing nothing but a small shell necklace. She was a slender girl, with strong arms and legs, tiny breasts, large hips, and a narrow waist, but she was as unconscious of her body as the bird she was named after. She had never been forced to compare herself to a single standard of perfection. Her people admired all forms and shapes and ages of women, believing that human beauty, like the beauty of flowers, was infinitely varied. This confidence that they were perfect was part of what gave girls like Marrah such grace and self-assurance. In the language of the Shore People, the word "ugly" only meant ill-tempered and selfish, and Marrah knew she was neither.
Carefully she counted the pulse of the waves, trying to get their rhythm as they struck the base of the cliff. It seemed as if the water might be getting deeper. If I don't do this now, she thought, I never will. She counted one last time to make sure she had the jump timed right, then closed her eyes, ran forward, and plunged off feet first.
The fall through the air was terrifying, but she had no time to think about it. She heard the sound of a wave slam against the rocks under her, and then she hit the water so hard that the breath went out of her body. Down and down she plunged through the cold salty sea toward the rocks, and then, just as she thought she would surely be dashed against them, she stopped and her bare feet struck something hard, throwing her forward toward the base of the cliff. She had a quick glimpse of a dark, jagged shadow rushing toward her. She reached out instinctively to protect her face, touched something, and her hand closed around it. Out of breath, she fought her way to the surface and discovered she was clutching a piece of gray sea flint. There were no land deposits of flint within a week's walk of Xori, only bits like this that occasionally washed up from the sea. The sensible thing to do would have been to drop it back into the water, but flint was precious, and this was such a large piece that she kept it in her hand as she struck out for the small sandy beach to the left of the cliff.
By the time she had pulled herself out of the waves, she was exhausted. Panting and shivering, she lay on her back looking up at the sky, too cold and stunned to think. Gradually the sky grew brighter, the sun rose over the forest, and the sand began to glitter. Warmed by the sun's rays, she came back to her senses, sat up, and wrung the salt water out of her hair. I did it! she thought. She picked up the flint and examined it closely, pleased with what she saw. Once it had been properly shaped, it would make a good knife or scraper. She would give it to her mother. She decided the flint must be a gift from Amonah. Perhaps it was even a sign that the rest of the day would go well.
She got to her feet and climbed to the top of the cliffs with the agility of a goat. Soon she was back at the village, which had become a hive of activity in her absence. Small children were running off into the woods and fields and returning with their arms full of roses, bluebells, violets, yellow trefoil, marigolds, buttercups, and dozens of other flowers that the older children were weaving into long garlands destined to be hung around the Goddess Stone. Begi and Alaba, Great-Grandmother Ama's oldest daughters, were digging a pit and preparing to line it with hot rocks and seaweed so they could steam two large baskets of mussels, shrimps, and crabs. Goats and pigs were roasting on spits over the central fire pit, and the communal oven near the temple was giving off the scent of baking honey cakes, bread, and a special festival pudding made of acorn meal, dried berries, dried apples, and goat's milk.
As Marrah made her way through the village, she saw that most of her friends and neighbors were now awake. Some were standing outside the doors of their longhouses pouring water over themselves or scrubbing one another's backs with a harsh brown soap made out of fat and ashes. Others were combing and braiding their hair or painting family signs on their faces, while others were putting on their best clothes. At the far end of the village the Young Men's Society was drumming and dancing in a frantic last-minute practice session, out of sight but not out of earshot of the Young Women's Society, which had gathered outside the temple to sing. The whole village seemed to be moving to the sound of the drums, and as Marrah stopped to listen, the first of the guests from two neighboring villages began to arrive, calling out greetings and running forward to give the kiss of peace to relatives they had not seen since the Swallow Moon Festival two months ago. Although the three villages were not far from one another, most people tended to stay close to home except for days like this when they would feast together, sing, and catch up on gossip.
Marrah stopped, overwhelmed by the sight. Even though she had seen other girls and boys come of age, she still had trouble believing that whole families had risen before dawn and traveled to Xori just to see her give her child necklace back to the sea. She touched the strand of shells that she had worn for as long as she could remember. Soon she would toss it back to the Goddess Amonah, who had made the shells in Her watery womb. All at once this seemed more exciting man any number of leaps off sea cliffs.
"Marrah," people called to her as she walked through the village, "come over here and touch our children to give them luck."
"Marrah, may Xori and Amonah bless you today."
"Marrah, may you walk with Their blessing."
Some of the men even called to her — "Marrah, we're waiting for you!" — which made her blush with embarrassment, which was ridiculous because she had known them all her life.
The greetings and good wishes went on, until by the time she arrived at her own house she was on the verge of tears. Love enveloped her at every step. Not once did anyone give the slightest sign that they knew she and her mother were adopted members of Great-Grandmother Ama's family. Not once was she made to feel that she had been born far away or that she looked different from the Shore People, who were heavier boned, broader chested, and somewhat lighter skinned than she was. In their eyes she was a beloved daughter of Xori as surely as if she had been born in the temple by the Goddess Stone.
Both doors to the longhouse were wide open. As she entered, she found the place in an uproar. All seven fires were lit now, with tasty things cooking in clay pots or being turned on spits, supervised by Hatz and his sister, Lepa, who were acknowledged to be the best cooks in the family. Esku, Lepa's current lover, kept appearing and reappearing with great armfuls of wood. Zuriska, having run out of flour, was grinding wheat with a stone pestle, thumping it against the sides of the mortar, while a few steps away her Aunt Hanka was ladling fermented fruit juice from the big vat into small clay jugs. The only person who seemed calm was fourteen-year-old Izirda, who sat with Seshi at her breast and a dreamy look on her face. Having given birth only six weeks ago, Izirda was still excused from all labor, even cooking her own meals, which the others did for her.
Sabalah was seated by three large baskets of strawberries, sorting out the ones that looked overripe. As Marrah approached, she could see that her mother was already wearing the ceremonial earrings, blue stone necklace, and linen skirt she had brought all the way from the city of Shara. She had covered the skirt with a clean straw mat to keep it from getting stained.
"Good morning, Mama," Marrah said, not in the language of the Shore People but in the language of Shara, which Sabalah had taught her when she was a small child and which she insisted that her children speak when the three of them talked among themselves. Marrah lifted one bare foot and scratched the back of her leg with her big toe. It was a nervous gesture that, considering that she had disappeared on the morning of her own coming-of-age ceremony, was completely appropriate. Sabalah was going to be furious.
Sabalah started at the sound of Marrah's voice, but instead of demanding to know where she had been, she went on sorting strawberries. "Ah, here you are at last." She paused, inspected the berries
she held in her hand, and threw them on the discard pile. "It's a good thing the rain stopped, or all the fine young men who've come so far to impress you would be dancing in the mud like a flock of wet ducks."
Marrah was surprised by Sabalah's reaction. She had expected to be scolded. She shifted her weight awkwardly from one foot to the other, at a loss for words. Then she remembered the flint. "I brought you a present," she said, handing her mother the lump of grayish white stone. "It's a big piece, even bigger than the one Arang found last fall."
Sabalah took the flint and weighed it in the palm of her hand. Although she appeared calm, she had been very worried when she woke to find Marrah gone. She knew it would be just like the girl to commit some dangerous act to mark her coming-of-age, and she had been tormenting herself with visions of Marrah wandering off in the forest and being torn apart by wolves or swimming out to sea and drowning. All foolish worries, of course, but Sabalah's one flaw was overprotectiveness. She loved her two children so much she couldn't imagine life without them, and whenever Marrah went off without telling her where she was going, she would be seized by a terrible fear that the beastmen had come for her and taken her away. What she was feeling as she looked at the flint was a sense of relief that made her almost ill, but she had no intention of letting Marrah know this, not today at any rate.
"Hmmm," she said, pretending to examine the flint, "not bad. You're right; it is bigger than the piece Arang found. In fact, it's been some time since anyone's come up with a flint this size. This must be your lucky day." She paused and looked Marrah straight in the eyes. "Where did you get it?"
"On the beach." Marrah turned slightly red and looked down as if she had suddenly discovered something interesting on the floor. Technically she was telling the truth, if you were willing to call land under water "the beach."
Sabalah was no fool. She inspected Marrah from head to toe and her eyes narrowed, but she held her tongue. She knew the flint could have only come from the base of the sea cliffs. Given the girl's damp hair, it was all too clear what she had been up to. As recently as yesterday she would have scolded her and then given her all manner of advice on the best way to live a long, happy, safe life — none of which would have included the option of a leap from the cliffs — but she had promised herself that as of today she was going to stop treating Marrah like a child. It was time she got used to the idea that her daughter was a woman.
She put the flint down and went on sorting strawberries. "How about a nice cup of fresh milk?" she asked, as if appearing soaking wet with a large sea flint in your hand were the most natural thing in the world. "Arang just finished the milking, and this morning, by some miracle, he didn't spill it on the way back from the corral." Marrah nodded, amazed that there were to be no questions. She sat down and waited while her mother dipped a cup of fresh goat's milk out of one of the communal jars and handed it to her. The milk was warm and she drank it quickly; she remembered suddenly that she'd had no breakfast. Sabalah watched her for a moment and then reached into the basket of strawberries, took out a handful, and offered them to her.
"May Amonah and Xori bless you on this day," she said.
"And bless the mother who bore me," Marrah said. It was a traditional response, but she meant it with all her heart. As she ate the berries, she was filled with love for Sabalah. The berries were perfectly ripe, firm in her hand, sweet in her mouth. She reached into the basket for more. Not a word had been said about her absence. Amazing, truly amazing. For the first time she began to feel what it might be like to be a woman, but she had no leisure to savor the sensation because almost immediately the first of the ceremonies to mark her coming-of-age began.
"Marrah! Marrah!" a chorus of shrill voices cried. "Come out!"
"That must be the Society of Children come to sing farewell to you," Sabalah said. Taking the empty cup from Marrah's hand, she kissed her on the forehead. "Go to them, and Her grace go with you."
Marrah hurried out of the longhouse to find the entire Society of Children gathered in a ragged semicircle like a flock of little birds about to take flight. They were a pretty, healthy bunch, so excited they could hardly stand still. The eldest was a girl just a little younger than Marrah, and the youngest a boy barely old enough to walk. Arang was with them, of course, looking terribly proud for it was his sister who was about to become a woman today, and he felt he was sharing in her glory. Garlanded with flowers, they all had the rosy complexions of children who had been scrubbed within an inch of their lives with cold water only minutes ago, and as Marrah looked at them, she could almost feel the scrub cloth on her own cheeks. Until today, she had always stood with them. Now, for the first time, she stood apart.
Goodbye, Marrah,
They sang.
Goodbye, goodbye.
Your childhood is over
and you are leaving us.
You are flying away
like the wild geese.
You are leaving
your old playmates
to become a woman.
Goodbye, goodbye.
We will miss you.
"And I am going to miss you," Arang said when the song was over. Running to Marrah, he threw his arms around her waist and gave her a hug. He stood for a moment, clinging to his sister, thinking of all the good times they'd had together: the trees they had climbed, the wild berries they had gorged on, the wonderful stories she had told about bears that talked and deer that danced like people. He couldn't think of a thing to be gained by having her turn into a woman. "I wish you could stay a child forever. I hate the idea of you growing up."
Marrah was touched. She hadn't known she would feel any regret about leaving her childhood behind. She hugged Arang and then lifted him off his feet and gave him a kiss. "Stay a child forever? No, thanks, little brother. I'm looking forward to being a woman." This was silly; if she kept on this way, she was going to cry. She put Arang back on his feet and chucked him under the chin in her most big-sisterly way. "Do you realize, my boy, that as of tomorrow I can eat my whole year's share of honey in one day if I want to?"
"And that's not all," nine-year-old Majina said, winking at the other children, who broke into helpless giggles, for now that Marrah was a woman she would be expected to go off in the woods tonight with some young man of her choosing, and the children who lived in close quarters with adults knew exactly what the two of them would be doing.
"It's going to be Bere," six-year-old Egin predicted, and the rest of the children took up the name as if it were a song. "Bere, Bere," they chanted. "Marrah is going to spend tonight with Bere." Bere was the son of Hostra, one of best hunters in the village. Like his mother, he was quiet and lean, moving like a shadow through the forest, able sometimes to catch rabbits with his bare hands. Also thirteen, he had his coming-of-age ceremony only six months ago. Now that he was a man, he and Marrah had to keep their distance from each other until she became a woman, a prohibition that had made Bere walk around the village with a miserable look on his face that everyone, including the children, found hilarious.
Marrah laughed at the knowing nudges they were exchanging. She knew she was going to be in for a lot of sexual teasing today, all good-humored but bound to grow increasingly explicit as the day wore on. Tradition required that girls becoming women and boys becoming men be welcomed into the adult community with all sorts of sly references to intercourse, as if they might not know what to do without prompting — which was ridiculous, of course, since every child knew how babies were started or, for that matter, prevented. "How do you know it's going to be Bere?" she yelled over the din.
"Because," one of the children taunted, "everyone in the village knows you've been playing sex games with him ever since you were old enough to walk. And everyone in the village knows you were sneaking out in the woods with him for over a year before he became a man."
Dissolving in helpless laughter, Marrah began to pelt them with strawberries, and they scattered in all directions. So much for privacy.
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br /> The rest of the morning was considerably more decorous. About five minutes after the children left, the chorus of the Young Women's Society appeared, bare-breasted and dressed in fringed leather skirts and shell waist belts. Crowning Marrah with flowers and kisses, they led her around the village and then escorted her to the temple, singing songs in praise of Amonah, Xori, and the Goddess Earth. Inside, Marrah was stripped and washed with holy water, her body anointed with oil, her hair curled and braided and plaited with feather and flowers. Then Sabalah, Great-Grandmother Ama, and four other priestesses carefully painted her breasts with the sacred circles and triangles, dusted her nipples with powdered mica, colored her belly and hips black for fertility, and drew nine lines on her cheeks with red ocher to symbolize the nine months of gestation.
When they were finished, Sabalah knelt at Marrah's feet and spread out five shells containing various pigments. Starting at Marrah's left knee, Sabalah drew a snake that wound its way around her daughter's body in life-giving coils.
Although every house in the village had its lucky snake, the symbol was not traditional in Xori, and as Sabalah painted it she could not help thinking of the city of Shara and how different this day would have been if Marrah had been coming of age there. She remembered her mother, Lalah, and Uncle Bindar, and all the other relatives she had left behind, and for a moment tears blinded her and she could no longer see the tip of her brush. The snake wavered, and she had to rub part of it out and do it over again. Turning away, she hid her grief from Marrah. Marrah knew Shara only from stories. There was no reason for her to see her mother grieve, especially today of all days when her heart should be filled with rejoicing.
Marrah stood patiently, letting them adorn her. Closing her eyes, she felt her body changing under their hands. She was only human, but today they were making her into a goddess. By the time she stepped out of the temple, she would be a symbol of everything fertile and life-giving, and a symbol of death too, for the eternal cycle was never left incomplete. She yielded to the touch of the brushes and the soft sweep of their fingers applying the pigments. When she finally opened her eyes and looked down to see what they had done, her body seemed magic and unfamiliar, and she felt a strange mixture of pride, nervous excitement, and even a little fear that perhaps they had gone too far.