by Tara Maya, Elle Casey, J L Bryan, Anthea Sharp, Jenna Elizabeth Johnson, Alexia Purdy (epub)
Beyond the querns was a deep, cool pit for storing jugs of milk and water. The two walls extending from the cooking corner were lined with shelves above and jars below. The shelves were crammed with spices, cheeses, dried fruit and tools knapped of chert. The rest of the chamber was given over to a broad clay platform at knee height, which served as an eating-place. As a tot, she’d danced there, pretending to be a Tavaedi, earning laughter and cheers from her family. She’d never stopped dancing; they’d stopped cheering. By the time she was five, the same aunties who had praised her grace and dedication complained of her clumsiness and laziness. Little girls should keep the platform white washed, and cover it with fresh reed mats, not dance there.
The members of the clan had seated themselves in a rough rectangle around the edge of the platform, smallest children on laps. Hands passed back and forth the communal bowls of food. The clay bowls and platters held flat triangular bread, bean mash, goat cheese melted to a gooey sauce and bowls of crushed chili peppers and lemon juice to be added for flavor. Family members used their hands to make pishas by wrapping the beans and cheese in the bread. The warriors sat nearest the door, the maidens nearest the ovens. Great Aunt Sullana and Mama and the other aunts sat against the wall, the matriarchs an isle of dignified manners amidst the chaos. Only matriarchs knew the secret of eating pishas full of melted cheese without getting sticky fingers.
Zavaedi Abiono, the leader of the Tavaedi troop, sat in the place of honor, between the warriors and the aunties. He nodded to Dindi. Her heart drummed faster.
“Why, here’s Lost Swan Clan’s very own lost cygnet!” cried Papa. He was a big, wry man with a spreading belly. Papa and Uncle Lubo led the others in cheers and whistles. Dindi blushed.
“There you are at last, girl,” said Great Aunt Sullana. “Your hair looks as though beavers had abandoned a dam there. Your face is smudged. Did you spend the morning rolling in dust? Never mind, Zavaedi Abiono is doing us the great honor of a visit. Comb your hair and wash your face before you join us. This is a kitchen, not a den of bears.”
Flustered, Dindi took her basket of soap to where deep clay pots had been sunk as a cistern in the earth. This was the darkest corner of the kitchen, smelling of dirt hardened with aurochs dung and the memory of pools in ancient caverns. A single Blue nixie floated on his back in the depths of one of the jugs. He winked up at Dindi. Puddlepaws extended a tiny paw to reach him and almost fell in the water.
She took out a lump of soap, splashed water on her face and rubbed up a quick lather. The soap did not lather well, but rather than struggle with it, she rinsed her face again, dragged her fingers through her wild hair and hurried to the platform where everyone else sat.
She shoved herself between her female cousins, Jensi and Tibi. Dindi peeked curiously at Aunt Sullana, at Zavaedi Abiono, at Mama, at Papa, hoping for a clue to the real reason behind their visitor’s purpose.
They stared back at her in amazement.
“Yes, I can see why you were asking about Dindi,” Papa said to Zavaedi Abiono.
“Oh, Dindi,” sighed her mother.
Uncle Lubo slapped his thigh and bellowed with laughter. In minutes, the whole clan joined him.
“For mercy’s sake, girl,” said Great Aunt Sullana. “Did you smear your face with blueberries?”
Dindi’s hands flew to her face. It did feel sticky…. Horrified, she glanced back at the pile of soap lumps she had left by the cistern’s lip. The lumps were blue.
Blue soap.
Blueberry soap.
The fae had mixed the blueberries, not the soaproot, with the ashes and lard.
Oh, mercy. Her whole face must be stained with the indelible juice.
“Because you don’t know her well, you may think Dindi’s just a little strange,” Papa said to Zavaedi Abiono. “Once you get to know her better, you’ll realize that’s not true. She’s extremely strange.”
Uncle Lubo’s renewed peals of laughter reverberated around the smoky kitchen.
“Enough,” said Great Aunt Sullana. It was a decree. The guffaws of the uncles subsided to an echo of snickers and snorts from the younger cousins. “Where have you been, Dindi? Hadi says you ran off without him despite my express wishes.”
Dindi shot Hadi the wounded look of one betrayed. He shoved a pisha into his mouth and shrugged.
“Seven and seven times and seven times more,” said Great Aunt in a voice wheezing with age, “I have warned you and warned you about going off on your own. Didn’t I just say that strangers have been spotted in the woods? What if some outtribesman had seen you alone and made off with you!”
“Well,” said Papa, “You’ve been wondering how we’d get Dindi married off.”
“I said I wanted her married off, not carried off. Elli, can’t you put a leash on this man’s tongue?”
“If I had married a goat, I could leash him,” Mama said.
“Instead you had to marry a boar.”
Papa just laughed.
Great Aunt Sullana turned to Zavaedi Abiono. “You see what I have to put up with, Zavaedi.”
Zavaedi Abiono glanced at Dindi, at her sticky blue face. He emitted a non-committal cough. She wanted to die.
“I gave up on taking that wild child in hand long ago,” went on Great Aunt Sullana. “If her mother won’t do it, I can’t. And her mother won’t. Will you, Elli?”
“She’s still just a child, Aunt Sullana,” Mama said.
“Not for much longer,” said Great Aunt Sullana.
The adults’ conversation moved on, finally and thankfully, but beside Dindi, Jensi and Tibi began whispering.
“Dindi, before you arrived, Abiono was asking what year you were born,” said Tibi. “He asked about Hadi and Jensi too. Do you think there’s going to be an Initiation?
“Of course that’s what it means, you squirrel brain,” said Jensi impatiently. “It’s finally here. Finally. You’re lucky, Dindi. It came early for you. It came late for me. Just think, Dindi, a year from now, we can start to pick a husband! And after that, you know what comes next. Babies!”
“Ugh,” said Dindi. “I can do without either, thanks much. What would I want with babies and a husband? They just give you a lot of cooking and cleaning to do. I’d rather dance.”
“Well, you can’t dance without magic,” said Jensi.
“I hope you’re not as stupid as Mad Maba,” said Tibi. “Someone told me that she wanted to be a Tavaedi so badly that when they told her she wasn’t worthy, she--”
“Kemla told you that,” said Jensi.
“What if she did?”
Across the room, Hadi and the other boys were apparently having a similar conversation, and reached a similar conclusion, for he suddenly burst out very loudly, his mouth still half full, “Is that why Zavaedi Abiono is here? Is it time for the Initiation?”
This overly loud question silenced the room, and Hadi turned bright red.
All the adults in the room found someplace else to look, except Great Aunt Sullana who withered Hadi where he sat with a hard stare.
“Not my place to ask,” he mumbled. “My apologies, Zavaedi.”
Zavaedi Abiono nodded. He glanced again at Dindi, coughed again, and toyed with his pisha thoughtfully without taking a single bite. A small furry creature, Puddlepaws, noticed the undefended lunch and lowered himself into a crouch to sneak up on the pisha.
That kitten loved cheese.
“So, Zavaedi Abiono,” said Great Aunt Sullana, affecting a tone of innocent interest that fooled no one, “If an individual were not invited to join the Tavaedis, the best thing for her to do would be to marry a nice young man, give him her fields to plow, bear him children, all in all, settle down to a quiet, responsible life?”
“Er, yes, I suppose.”
“You have two nephews on the verge of manhood, don’t you? Tamio is too handsome for the likes of Dindi, but sturdy Yodigo will make a fine farmer one day.”
“Well...”
“For mercy�
�s sake, let the man eat, Sullana,” Uncle Lubo said. “Here, Zavaedi, would you like some blueberry juice? Dindi made it this morning.”
“Why, thank you…”
Dindi looked up in horror. But before she could compose a proper warning, Abiono lifted the jug to his mouth.
She covered her face with her hands, but she could still see the disaster unfolding on the other side of her fingers as Abiono sipped from the jug of soap juice. His face scrunched up and his mouth opened into a rictus of gastronomic distress. He spit out a spray of sudsy liquid.
Great Aunt Sullana cleared her throat to warn him that not even a Zavaedi would be permitted to behave rudely while dining.
“Urghrem,” Abiono said, manfully wiping his chin. “Quite delicious, I thank you. Er, Dindi made that, you say?” He glanced at Dindi before he set down the jug and reached for his pisha, now wrapped in kitten. He pried Puddlepaws off his food, which prompted the kitten to tackle his finger. “I thank you so much for the wonderful meal, Dame Sullana. I fear I must take my leave now, however, as I must also visit Full Basket clanhold before the sun sets.”
Is there anything else I could do to convince Abiono not to invite me to become a Tavaedi? Dindi despaired while the rest of the clan fussed over Abiono’s departure. My life is a colossal joke that’s funny to everyone but me. Uncle Lobo was still chortling.
Once the guest was gone, taking the excitement with him, a general exodus out of the kitchen followed. One by one the others finished, burped and left, until only Dindi and her mother remained. The kitchen was very hollow and empty without three dozen bodies filling it with life. The smell of farmers’ sweat lingered, mixed with spicy food aromas and smoke from the burning dung.
Dindi sniffled.
“Lady of Mercy,” said Mama under her breath. Muttering to herself, she went to the oven, where she placed a dollop of bean mash from a storage pot onto a piece of flat bread. She laid cheese on top, and folded over the three corners of the bread. She placed it on the pottery bread shovel and pushed it into the oven, which was kept stoked all day. When she decided that the pisha was crisped to her satisfaction, she pressed it into Dindi’s hands. “Eat, eat.”
Dindi pushed it away. She hid her blue face against her drawn up knees.
“You behave a like a child,” Mama said. She lifted Dindi’s chin. “But you’re twice seven years, now, sweetling, and past your moonblood. If you lay with a man, he could make you a mother.”
“I know I’m a burden to everyone around me. I try to do what’s right, but everything I weave gets tangled.”
“There is still a chance you will be chosen.”
“Great Aunt Sullana obviously doesn’t think so.”
“What does she know?”
“Maybe something I don’t,” said Dindi. She lifted her head just enough to peer at her mother through tear dewed eyelashes. “You weren’t chosen.”
Mama stilled. “No. I wasn’t.”
“But you could have been the best dancer of your generation. Everyone thought so. Then, one day, instead of choosing you to dance magic, they told you could never dance, ever.”
“It…wasn’t as bad as all that,” Mama said. “By then, I had your father. Soon I was trying hard to have a child. Sometimes you have to let a dream die.”
“I just want to dance.”
“Oh, Dindi.” Mama put down the pisha. “If you won’t eat, at least let me clean you up.”
She went to the shelves in the corner. There she fiddled with various jars, until she returned with noxious, sharp smelling goo on a rabbit skin cloth.
“Come here, my little blueberry face,” she said, taking Dindi by the chin. Mama wiped the ick on Dindi’s cheeks and scrubbed. Hard.
“Ow!”
“Stop wiggling.”
“Are you washing me or flaying me?”
“If you prefer, we can just rub blue soap over the rest of you, so at least you’ll match.”
“Mmmrrff,” said Dindi, while her mother wiped the cloth over her mouth.
“My mother loved dancing too,” Mama said. An old hurt quivered in her words. “She loved it more than me. Shortly after I was born, she abandoned me to dance with the fae. They caught her in a faery circle and she danced herself to death. Her sister had to raise me in her place. That’s why your great aunt worries so over you.” She lifted Dindi’s chin and inspected her face for any trace of blueberry. Apparently she found none. “I understand you love to dance. I do, Dindi. You cannot know how well I understand.” She stroked Dindi’s cheek. ”But I would never choose dancing over you.”
“Why can’t I have both?”
Mama was silent a moment. “My mother used to sing me a song. The night before she left me forever, when I was still just a tiny child, she told me it was part of an ancient tama, and if only she could dance that tama, to the end, she would never have to leave me. She didn’t know how the song ended, so she hadn’t performed the tama correctly during Initiation, but she never gave up trying. She thought the fae could help her learn it…. I was too young to understand that she was really saying goodbye. The unfinished song began like this:
Came a faery cross some kits
Suckling at their mother’s tits,
Pawing, kneading with their mitts;
Ma, content to laze
‘neath these tiny, mewling bits
Hid in a row of maize.
Cat and kittens were all a-purr.
Their mama licked and cleaned their fur.
Cat met the faery’s eyes, demure,
And yet with pride ablaze.
Strange the mood that crept on her,
She watched them in amaze.
To her came her darkest sister,
Put her arms about her, kissed her
Drew her to her in the middle
Of the twisted ways,
Whispered in her ear this riddle:
‘Chose the Windwheel or the Maize!’”
Chills whispered down Dindi’s spine. A reverberating hum of the song echoed in the room for a few seconds after Mama finished signing.
Mama expelled a heavy breath. “Over the years, I have asked everyone I know about that song. No one knows it. A long time ago, a Green Woods tribeswoman, fleeing the Whistlers who ruled the Rainbow Labyrinth tribehold in those days, told me that perhaps the Zavaedi with the Singing Bow would know the tune. But the Green Woods tribesfolk have retreated to the Hidden Forest.” She shrugged. “Perhaps all our worries are wasted. I truly hope you will be chosen to become a Tavaedi. And if not….”
“I’m sorry, Mama,” said Dindi. Her jaw hurt, so hard did she clench it. “I think I’m more like Gramma Maba than like you.”
Mama touched her cheek.
“Eat,” she said. “Eat, already.”
That night, Dindi was kidnapped.
You never forget the night they come for you.
Shuffling in the dark, followed by silence. You wake up with your heart already racing. Intrusive smells, chalk paste and feathers. Sweat. Beer. Heavy male breathing.
Their aim is to terrify you, disorient you, and they succeed. Grotesque heads loom over you, claw-like hands grasp you, yank you to the hay-strewn dirt in the goat pen under the loft. More hands smother your scream.
Their aim is to strip you of dignity, of comfort, and they do this literally. Horrible things, uglier and taller than men, surround you. They shove you from one to another, casual but brutal, tear off your clothes, smack your bare flesh, gag you and snag your wrists behind your back with scratchy twine. Beside you, your clan sister Jensi suffers the same abuse. Tibi cowers in a corner of the goat pen, but the kidnappers ignore her.
They herd you into the courtyard. Whitewashed adobe reflects the moonlight like bone. Night leeches color from the intricate designs painted on the houses, so the buildings look strangled by black nooses.
Firelight winks on a dozen naked captives, all in a line, a snake winding around the houses, preyed on by monsters. For a moment, you thi
nk the monsters are fae, some hideous sort, trolls or harpies, but fae do not carry torches or cast shadows. Fae glow with their own light. The kidnappers must be men in masks and mantas. As the enemy Tavaedi warriors shuffle and cavort, deformed shadows spring up to dance beneath and between them.
Their aim is to crush you, to grind you down like corn meal. They steal your senses one by one. You’ve already been gagged so tightly you find it hard to breath. Now they blindfold you. Have you ever had black cloth wrapped so tightly you can’t see a torch held right next to your face? No, you’ve only played at it, in children’s games. Real blindness, forced blindness, petrifies you. They shove a hollowed tree drum over your head, then pound it, assaulting your ears. Your hearing and balance, gone. A heavy basket, a mountain of stones, is forced onto your back. Your knees buckle under you, you want to collapse and cry, but you can’t afford weakness. A switch against your thighs drives you forward.
You hate the switch, the ropes, their rough hands, yet, in your helplessness, you crave even the touch of these things to guide you, assure you the rest of the world is there, that you aren’t lost alone blind and deaf in the dark.
Their aim is to keep you so exhausted, so helpless, you can’t think beyond surviving the next step, and the next after that. They never let you rest, they hit and curse and threaten you. They force-march you down a narrow trail through bushes and trees that slap you. Occasionally, you trip, slip, bump against another captive tied in the line, and this brief rub of flesh on flesh reassures you that you aren’t alone, but also makes you want to rage and weep because it reminds you the enemy has captured your cousins, your friends.
A strange thing happens. You’re terrified, disoriented, humiliated, helpless, panting with exhaustion, focused on trying to place one foot at a time while avoiding the switch. You’re also angry. As your hearing and sense of balance returns, your anger creeps up on you, growing fiercer, until it strangles your fear.