Dragonfly Song

by Wendy Orr

  And when she steps back inside the town walls, her head carefully bowed to hide the purple of any stolen mulberries, she feels a secret thrill like a bright ribbon through her darkness: Half-One and Half-Two would be so angry if they knew how much I love this!

  But now she’s here without being sent, and that’s the strongest magic of all. As her feet hit the path, her whole body remembers Kelya’s songs; it hums and throbs, singing silently through her hands and feet and belly, as if there’s music inside her struggling to escape.

  She hurries faster up the hill to where the path forks. The left-hand trail will take her to the procession at exactly the right place and time, but her feet turn the other way, and suddenly she is looking down at the white cave and deep blue water of the Source.

  Aissa is sure she’s never been here before: it’s too holy a place for servants and No-Names. But it calls to her, and something in her recognises it. She slides down the white pebbles to the edge of the steaming water.

  There’s a flash of deeper blue. A dragonfly skims over the rock, a breath past her face, and disappears across the pool.

  My name! Aissa thinks. It’s my name that was calling me. She cups her hand into the pool, splashes the sacred water onto her face, and turns back to the trail.

  It leads her into the forest, dark and shadowy, whispering with mysterious noises. Aissa is too full of dragonfly-wonder to be afraid. She comes out again onto a rocky hillside, catching her arm on a wild rose bramble and sucking the blood off quickly, before it can stain her new tunic. She doesn’t even notice the blood on her foot, where a stick has speared between her toes.

  The hill rolls down to a smaller meadow where the billy goats are sometimes kept away from the herd. Aissa skids cautiously down the hill, skirting the edges of the field. She’s so close now, she’s not going to be stopped by a charging goat. But if any billies are lurking in the shadows, they don’t care enough to charge. She reaches the end of the meadow.

  The procession stretches in front of her on the broad mountain path. She doesn’t recognise anyone; the people passing now are mostly herders and woodsmen. But further down, the tail end is in sight: the Hall servants are nearly here. If she’s going to join in, she has to do it now.

  As the sky purples into twilight, Aissa scrambles over the rock fence, crouches behind bushes – and slides into the middle of the procession. She smooths her tunic as if she’d just ducked behind a shrub to pee.

  No one notices. Eyes flick over her and return to friends. She’s just another young girl who’s strayed up in the crowd from the servants, or back from the craftsfolk. For this one night, she’s invisible – and free.

  4

  THE LIGHT OF THE FIREFLIES

  Aissa free in the darkness,

  slipping through the crowd

  as if she were one of them.

  Turning away from familiar faces

  or curious

  or kind –

  but still with them.

  Up the hill to the cliff

  high over the marsh,

  the people crowding in –

  the Lady and the chief above

  on a dais of rock.

  From the rock to the ground

  the Lady pours wine

  for the goddess to drink,

  scatters poppy cakes

  for her to eat,

  and cries her plea aloud,

  ‘Feed our dead,

  and set their souls free.’

  The people are waiting

  anxious in the dark

  for that first light,

  the brave soul riding on a firefly back,

  towards rebirth.

  Always-spying Aissa

  sees it first:

  a light in the sky,

  the dancing spirit

  of a soul set free.

  Now the crowd sighs,

  a thousand voices

  of Ah! relief

  and tears of joy.

  And the fireflies come,

  a cloud more than Aissa can count

  till the dark sky flickers

  with dancing stars.

  And the potter,

  the potter’s husband,

  the dead guard’s wife,

  the gardener’s son,

  all who have lost,

  sing their last goodbye

  to the souls they’ve loved.

  Aissa watching

  the firefly souls,

  the singing mourners,

  the Lady and her family

  on their high flat stone,

  the guard below

  handing an unlit torch to the chief.

  The chief passes his hand

  over the torch

  and presents it to the Lady –

  who twirls it gently,

  high in the darkness

  till a freeflying soul,

  seen by none,

  lights it with its firefly flame.

  Aissa feels the magic,

  hears the sighs,

  but she has seen too

  the red glow of coals

  dropped from the chief’s leather pouch

  to the waiting torch.

  The Lady glows like the moon itself. Torch flames dance off the gold of her headdress and necklace, from her gold-laced waist and arms, and the crowd is hushed by her majesty.

  Now she passes the sacred light from her torch to the chief’s, and then to Fila and the maid walking with the little boys. They step down from the dais and the crowd surges around them.

  ‘Lady!’ people shout, thrusting their unlit torches towards their rulers. ‘Hey, Chief!’ and even ‘Fila, over here!’

  It’s worth shouting and shoving. The earlier your torch is lit, the higher-born the person who passes the flame to you, the luckier your season will be. So the Lady and her circle light the torches of those around them, and then they light the torches of those around them ... Flame by flame, the lights spread all the way down to the servants, till the shimmering tablelands drown the stars above and fireflies below.

  Finally every torch has been lit. The guards clear a path through the crowd, and the Lady begins to lead the long bright snake back down the mountain. Castes are confused in the flickering darkness; fishermen walk with wise-women; the stone carver’s daughter shares a torch with the garden boy Digger. Aissa slips from one group to another, always a step away from the torchlight. It’s easy enough to do – only the richest or largest families have more than a torch or two to share. Aissa’s not the only child without her own, and not the only one separated from her family on the return.

  For a little longer than is wise, she trails a farmer family, breathing in the pungent smell of their goatskin jerkins. The smell wakes memories that she can’t quite reach, teasing her with a glimmer of happiness. Maybe, she thinks, maybe they knew my family. Before I was a bad-luck girl; when I was Aissa.

  The oldest boy is watching her just as curiously. The torchlight falls on his face, and suddenly Aissa recognises him. He’d come to the town a moon ago to offer the year’s firstborn kid to the sanctuary. Now he’s trying to figure out where he’s seen her before.

  Aissa waves wildly, as if to a searching mother, and charges like an angry ram. People slap and shout but Aissa’s fast: she ducks and weaves, and is quickly out of reach.

  When she dares lift her eyes again, the first woman she sees is the Lady. She’s far ahead, but for just that instant, the crowd thins, so that Aissa can clearly see the back of her head and shoulders, and the glinting of the gold ring in her hair.

  If the farmers weren’t so far behind they might have thought she was claiming the Lady as her mother.

  Aissa breathes deep, and slips through the crowd more quietly. Head down, elbows tucked, her thin frame sidles between adults and around children, past craftsfolk and traders, till, as the procession nears the town, the privy-girl is right behind the Lady’s people and guards.

  I must be crazy! she thinks. But not crazy enough t
o go through the main gate.

  No one notices when she steps aside to retie her sandal, and slips silently down the dark path to the garden. A moment later, she’s in the servants’ kitchen.

  Suddenly she feels as drained as an empty waterbag. Too tired to worry whether anyone will notice her new, clean tunic in the morning, she finds her ragged cloak in her sleeping place against the wall. Luckily the twins are too afraid of her pollution to take something she’s already worn. She curls up in the cloak on the furthest corner of the stone floor. Long before any of the other servants have stumbled in, Aissa is truly, deeply asleep. She dreams of fireflies. Dreams that the stale air of the kitchen is full of tiny golden stars dancing above her, lighting her space while the rest of the room is left in gloom and shadows. The free-flying souls light up the lowliest, least sacred place on the island. Voices cry out, and Aissa wakes in a leap of terror.

  The fireflies disappear as if her thoughts have extinguished them.

  In the morning the fear is gone, but the golden glow is still dancing inside her: a sign that her life is going to change.

  It’s the day of the lottery.

  Every twelve year old on the island will assemble in the square. They will draw the signs of their names on shards of pottery, carefully and clearly, and drop them into an urn – one for the boys and one for the girls.

  Year after year, Aissa has watched the solemn guard tip and swirl the urn, mixing the shards so only the gods can know which one is on top. She’s seen the pale, tense faces as the chosen shards are pulled out and the new bull dancers are named.

  Now Aissa is twelve. And she has a name to call.

  As if a firefly in the night

  has brought rebirth

  to a girl who is not yet dead

  but has barely lived,

  the no-name girl

  has a name

  and a sign,

  and a light in her shines

  secret bright,

  as blue as the dragonfly of her name.

  Buzzing

  as she shakes her cloak at the door

  and shoves it in the hole

  at the bottom of the wall –

  away from the others,

  because no one wants the cursed child’s things

  to touch their own.

  Buzzing fierce

  as she hauls water from the well

  and fiercest of all

  when the chores are done

  and she squats in the lane

  by the kitchen gardens

  where she played long ago

  with the potter’s daughter,

  and with a stick in the dust,

  draws her dragonfly name.

  She draws what she knows

  of the long, slim bodies,

  their round, watching eyes

  and fast-beating wings.

  She draws the sign she saw

  on her mama stone

  till knowledge and sign

  are one and the same

  and all her own.

  The potter sees her

  drawing in the dust.

  She shouts a curse

  and spits,

  once, twice, three times,

  because her daughter is dead

  in the Bull King’s land

  and the bad-luck girl is here

  and alive.

  Now the shards

  of the potter’s smashed pots

  will choose the girl

  to dance the bulls

  in her daughter’s place.

  The potter’s hatred,

  cold as winter ice,

  makes Aissa shiver

  and chills the joy

  of her dragonfly name.

  The morning’s too late

  and the square too busy

  for a girl to slide

  under the sanctuary rock.

  But in the gardens

  behind piles of compost –

  rotting weeds and kitchen waste –

  she finds a place to hide

  safe from hating eyes.

  Drawing her sign like a prayer

  till the buzzing grows again

  because the bad-luck girl

  has found her name

  in time to draw it on a shard of clay.

  She knows,

  as if the gods have spoken,

  that by this nightfall

  the privy-cleaner will be free,

  will be warm,

  clean and well-fed,

  cherished and honoured,

  with the chance to free the island

  and herself.

  It will be worth

  dying with the bulls

  to be that girl for a year.

  By noon, the twelve year olds and their families are in the square. Two days in a row, they’re clean and dressed in their best. The children are fidgety and self-conscious; the parents’ faces are a mixture of pride and fear. They’re all pale and dark-eyed from last night’s procession – no one is used to staying awake after sunset.

  The watching crowd jostles for places. Whether you’re grateful or ashamed that you don’t have a child to offer this year, you want to see the chosen ones. You want to touch them right at the start, so that their luck can rub off on you. The excitement is growing – and the louder it gets, the paler and more awkward the twelve year olds and their families become.

  The guards bang their spears for silence. The Lady and the chief appear; Aissa sidles out of the garden and across the square. There are eleven boys and eight girls. Eight girls plus Aissa.

  Another sign, Aissa decides. Easier for the gods to choose my name.

  Though she’s still not quite ready to join the line; she slips behind it to her nook in the wall.

  Even now, no one notices that there are actually nine twelve-year-old girls in the square. No one thinks that a girl with no name would have an age. Aissa wouldn’t know it either, if Kelya hadn’t told her. This is the first spring that the wise-woman has forgotten to remind her she’s another year older – that she’s five, then six, on up to eleven.

  The chief is speaking.

  ‘Welcome!’ he says, looking around at the families in the square so that each of them feels as if he’s talking directly to them. Then his voice booms out loud, carrying to the furthest listener.

  ‘The chance of honour falls equally on every family. We do not know who the gods will choose: we know only that the new dancers will be chosen from every girl and youth who reaches twelve summers healthy in mind and body. Let no one stay hidden; let no family shrink from their duty!’

  He glares so fiercely that people shuffle their feet and stare around too, as if they might spot a secret stash of twelve year olds – but still no one sees Aissa.

  The chief takes one last look, and when he’s satisfied that he hasn’t missed anything, bows to the Lady.

  The Lady begins in her oracle voice. ‘Dancers have died, but some will live. This year brings change, and a greatness that has not been seen before.’ She pauses.

  ‘The Oracle doesn’t say whether the change will come from the dancers who have just left, or the two who will be chosen now.’

  But if this year’s dancers live, we won’t need new ones! Aissa thinks. It would be evil to feel disappointed. She doesn’t care.

  The Lady continues, ‘All we can do is ask the gods to select whom they will to fulfil this prophecy. To choose those who are destined for greatness and change, however and whenever it comes.’

  The children and their families look solemn. Aissa is shaking. I’ve got to step forward. It’s what the gods demand; it’s what I must do.

  She stays in her nook.

  The tall guard places an urn in front of the chief. Another guard puts down a basket of clay shards.

  ‘We call the boys and their namers,’ says the chief.

  Boys and their mothers shuffle into a raggedy line. Two boys don’t have mothers; a grandmother stands with one and a father with the other
. The woman at the front of the line looks panicked. But she can’t run away now. She salutes with her hand on her heart.

  The chief nods at her and she takes a deep breath.

  ‘I present to the gods Luki, son of Misha the tenth,’ she taps her own chest, ‘daughter of Ina, daughter of Isha, daughter of Misha the ninth . . .’ She chants on right back to Misha the first, so many daughters-of ago that Aissa loses count.

  Have there been Aissas before me?

  How can I step up with no one to name me and my line?

  It’s one of the first things a child is taught: the long chant of who they come from, mother to grandmother and on till the beginning of time. But Aissa knows only Mama and Gaggie. She doesn’t know their other names, and she couldn’t say them if she did.

  But she has her own name. That is infinitely more than she had yesterday morning. It’ll have to be enough.

  Luki chooses a shard from the basket of smashed pots, and the guard hands him a lump of charcoal. The boy squats in front of the basket. Carefully, he draws his leaping-deer name on his piece of clay, and drops it into the urn.

  He and his mother step back into the crowd. The next mother and son begin.

  Aissa watching from her nook

  knees trembling

  holding her mama stone

  for comforting strength,

  because the last boy

  is dropping his name

  into the urn.

  The guard rolls the urn,

  tumbling smashed-pot pieces

  for the gods to choose.

  The chief reaches in,

  pulls out a shard.

  ‘Luki,’ he says.

  The boy stands

  straight and proud.

  In the audience

  his grandmother faints,

  thumping hard to the ground

  as if her heart can’t hold

  the joy and dread

  a bull dancer brings.

  Aissa feeling nothing

  outside her quivering self;

  the Lady’s calling the girls,

  but still Aissa hides –

  her legs as useless

  as her voice.

  A no-name girl

  can’t be named.

  The gods won’t choose