Dragonfly Song

by Wendy Orr

of herbs and wine,

  and Aissa buries

  the lock of Kelya’s hair,

  and a curl of her own,

  where she’d lain

  that long cruel night.

  Then in a circle, joining hands

  they dance fast and wild

  around the bush

  and the wise-women sing

  praise and thanks

  for lifting the curse.

  And then Aissa does too.

  No words to her song,

  a wild high keening

  not the lu-lu-lu-ing of grieving mourners

  but as if the Lady herself

  was singing

  the curse to rise

  and be gone,

  so the others stop

  and Aissa sings alone

  until she hears it

  and sees her own wonder

  on their faces –

  she’d never quite believed

  that it was her

  who’d sung the snake

  away from Luki,

  but this time

  she knows.

  They lie in the grass,

  panting,

  wondering,

  wrapped in their cloaks,

  Aissa’s wolf fur like a hunter’s,

  until Lyra and Roula

  turn one way

  with the healing herbs for the swineherd family

  and Lena takes Aissa

  back to Kelya,

  who holds Aissa’s face in her hands,

  saying,

  ‘Tell me.’

  And just for a moment,

  Aissa thinks that she can,

  but when she opens her mouth

  Mama’s voice is still in her head

  and no sound comes out.

  As the days grow shorter, the wise-women spend more time together in their chamber and storerooms, checking that seeds and herbs aren’t going mouldy, grinding and mixing preparations. They sing and tell stories as they work. Some of the stories are about healing and some about history, knowledge passed on from wise-woman to wise-woman through the ages.

  One night Kelya tells the tale of a hunter trying to catch the moon. ‘On a night when the gods were young,’ she begins solemnly, as if it’s sacred lore they need to learn, and goes on to tell the rudest, funniest story Aissa has ever heard.

  Lyra and Lena gasp with laughter; Roula actually falls off her stool. Aissa is too shocked to breathe.

  ‘Aren’t you listening, little one?’ Kelya asks, and tells the whole story again.

  This time, when Kelya describes the hunter tumbling off the moon with his tunic around his ears, Aissa sees the whole crazy, ridiculous picture in her head. Warmth bubbles up inside her till it explodes out through her mouth, and she falls off her stool too, rolling on the ground beside Roula, which makes everyone else laugh even harder.

  Everyone except Kelya. She is simply beaming, tears in her blind eyes: Aissa is laughing.

  But she still can’t make a sound when she tries. And she does try, even against Mama’s voice in her head, because the wise-women tried to lift the curse and it’s her fault that they failed. She’s failed them.

  One afternoon when the others are out – winter is a busy season for seeing the sick – Kelya calls Aissa to come and sit by her knee.

  ‘It’s time for you to know your story. It’s not an easy one, but it’s yours. The servants banned you for calling the dragonflies; we’ve all seen how the cats come to you, and Lena and Lyra have told me of your singing. You must have guessed enough that it’s best to know.’

  She reaches for Aissa’s hands and gently rubs the tiny scars on the wrists.

  ‘Sometimes in the Lady’s family, a baby is born with an extra thumb. For a boy or younger girl, it’s not a problem. But for a firstborn daughter: does it mean that she’s not perfect? How can we know what is perfect in the eyes of the gods? If a Lady grows up to have a crooked nose, or walks with a limp, is she still fit to rule?

  ‘No one knows the answers. This time the Lady thought one thing and the chief another. The Lady wanted the chief to be right, you must remember that. So the chief cut off the baby’s extra thumbs, thinking to please the goddess – and the sea gods took him the next day. It seemed a sign that the baby must go.’

  ‘But the midwife whose job it was couldn’t take the baby to the cliff. What if the gods weren’t angry because the chief had tried to trick them – but because he had wounded a child who was perfect as she was?

  ‘So the midwife took the baby to a good woman to raise as her own. That woman had been grieving for a baby; now she was happy, though the Lady grieved so hard for the girl she believed had died that the midwife feared she might die too. But she could never tell her the truth.

  ‘Then the raiders took that family.’ Kelya strokes Aissa’s shoulder, trying to soften the words. ‘But the goddess spared you – and you ended up back at the Hall. Humans can never outrun the fate the gods have planned.

  ‘I hoped that your voice would return when the curse was lifted from the place of those terrors – but I was wrong. All I know is that the goddess has her reasons. I just hope I live long enough to see them.’

  Stories aren’t only for the wise-women’s chamber. The year wheels around to midwinter and the celebration of the shortest day. The Lady offers the goddess wine and a goat to ensure that she’ll bring sun and spring again – gods love nothing better than the smoke of barbecued meat. The feasting in the Hall goes late into that long dark night, as people offer their songs or the endless, chanted stories of their ancestors. One of the fishers can make his harp sing as if it were alive. A farmer has such a fine clear voice that no one cares if her songs are clumsy. The oldest guard tells stories as so many different characters it’s hard to believe he’s only one person. And Kelya adds hers – a wise one and two funny ones, but not the rude one that made Aissa laugh. That’s just for them.

  They leave the chamber door open so Aissa can share the music and laughter, though she can’t hear enough to understand the stories. The smoke from the Hall hearth fire drifts in, and she has a lamp – a small dish of oil with a floating, burning wick – so she’s not in the dark.

  Roula brings her honey cake and a drink of goat milk mixed with wine. It must taste better in the Hall, thinks Aissa. Maybe nothing tastes as good when you’re sitting outside the party.

  Not that I want to be in the Hall with all the Hall folk.

  Or in the kitchen with the servants.

  Or anywhere but here!

  So she sits and spins, because she’s finally got her own spindle and has learned to comb wool, and to spin and weave. She doesn’t like it as much as she thought she would, but the quiet rhythm is comforting – and she’s pleased that she can do it, just the same as everyone else. Gold-Cat likes it too. He bats at the spindle and makes it spin. He claws the wool and tangles it.

  ‘Stop it!’ Aissa thinks at him.

  Gold-Cat cocks his head to one side as if he’s trying to hear, and taps the spindle again. Aissa laughs.

  The sound of her own laughter still surprises her.

  Now the days get longer but the nights are colder; the rain comes hard and there’s more and more illness for the wise-women to see to. Roula and Aissa are learning fast. When the barley is harvested in the spring, Roula will graduate to be a full wise-woman.

  Aissa will never do that, but she likes the learning, and loves travelling around the island to wherever they’re needed. She doesn’t enter homes in the town, where they know her, but the other islanders don’t always recognise the cursed child in the clean young server. Or if they do, they’re too sick to care.

  One bright, almost-spring day she goes with Lyra to see a fisherman with a terrible, hacking cough. Aissa fetches a jug of water from the river and builds up the fire for Lyra to boil mountain herbs into a tea.

  ‘You’re the girl they call No-Name!’ the fisherman says, when his coughing has stopped enough to let him speak.

>   ‘She’s the wise-women’s server,’ Lyra snaps.

  ‘Yes, yes; I’m grateful. It’s just – be careful on the cliffs on your own. Nasta’s mother . . . she hasn’t been right in the head since her brother died. He was the chief then, you know; she thought that made her quite grand. Then he drowned, and her baby, Nasta, came early with the shock.’

  Her brother was the chief! Nasta’s uncle . . . the Lady’s husband . . . the baby’s father. The baby that was me.

  Nasta is my cousin.

  Wouldn’t she hate to know that!

  It’s hard not to smile.

  ‘When I’m well,’ says the sick fisher, ‘pass by here on your way to the beach. It would be an honour to watch out for you.’

  18

  THE SHIP IN SPRING

  Spring comes to the hills

  with its new life and flowers.

  The swallows fly in,

  then the herons and cranes –

  nearly the year’s full cycle

  since the Bull King’s ship,

  Firefly Night,

  the bull dancer lottery

  and Aissa’s exile.

  Now,

  gathering greens with the wise-women

  Aissa almost forgets

  she’s not one of them,

  and so do they,

  watching her grow

  with big-sister pride.

  Aissa one of the group

  when Kelya tells them

  that the signs are right

  for the barley to be cut

  and in the morning,

  the oracle will say

  the harvest is early

  and must start that night

  at the rise of the moon.

  Kelya always knows

  what the oracle means

  even before the Lady says it.

  Sometimes Aissa wonders –

  but no;

  the Lady’s oracle

  comes straight from the goddess –

  it can’t be Kelya.

  Next evening

  as the full moon rises,

  the chief and the guards,

  the men of the hunters,

  fishers, farmers and town,

  line the path to the barley

  with bright flaming torches

  lighting the Lady

  as she leads Kelya,

  Lena, Lyra and Roula,

  then Fila and Nasta –

  but not Aissa –

  to the shimmering, moonlit

  field of barley.

  Roula carries a wine jug

  and a basket of barley cakes;

  the Lady pours wine to the ground

  for the goddess to drink,

  scatters the cakes

  for the goddess to eat,

  and sings her request

  for a full-basket harvest

  so they can offer

  the same again next year.

  With her curved bronze knife

  like a sickle new moon

  the Lady cuts the first heads

  from the barley stalks;

  hands the knife to Kelya

  then Lena, then Lyra

  and Roula too, for the very first time.

  But Aissa

  is not with them

  nor with the women

  from the town and the Hall

  who reap the barley

  in the coming days.

  Between two worlds

  belonging to neither,

  watching in darkness –

  careful that no one’s polluted

  by her standing close –

  suddenly

  rage burns through her,

  darker than the night,

  hotter than the torches

  the men hold high.

  Rage at the Lady,

  her mother, not mother

  who wanted her dead

  and doesn’t know she’s alive.

  Rage at Kelya,

  for not dropping the baby

  off the cliff as she should have;

  rage at herself

  for being made wrong;

  rage at the goddess

  for making her so.

  Her rage burns on

  against the Lady,

  against herself

  and the goddess,

  but she can’t hold it

  against Kelya

  because even in her fury

  she is glad she’s alive.

  Luki watches the Lady’s barley harvest and wishes he were home. His family’s barley is a small field and doesn’t take long to reap, because the whole family works together, everyone who’s old enough to use a sickle without cutting off their fingers. His mother says men are just as good as women, and if the goddess wants the barley brought in on time she shouldn’t care who does it.

  Luki’s only task this year was to hold a torch while the Lady and the wise-women made the first cuts.

  Aissa wasn’t with them. He still watches for her, the girl who doesn’t speak but can sing snakes like the Lady. She’s grown taller now she’s the wise-women’s server and doesn’t live under a rock. Sometimes he tries to catch her eye but she still scurries away as if she’s afraid of being spat at or stoned. It hurts that she’s forgotten how he tried to help.

  He never thinks that she might be avoiding him for his own good.

  In the middle of the barley harvest, when all the town girls are helping with the reaping and the boys are busy with the girls’ other chores as well as their own, the guard Tigo is looking for someone to race the bull dancers. Luki sees Aissa at the back gate, her gathering basket on her arm.

  He points imperiously. ‘That girl! Call her.’

  ‘Girl at the gate!’ Tigo bellows, because he can’t figure out what to call her now – but what Luki wants, Luki should get.

  Aissa turns. Her face lights up so that for an instant anyone can read it: I’m going to race the bull dancers!

  ‘Tigo!’ Nasta wails. ‘Can’t you see – that’s No-Name!’

  ‘She’s the wise-women’s server,’ Tigo mutters.

  No one hears him. Nasta is shrieking as if she’s walked into a hornet’s nest. ‘We’re the bull dancers! Are you trying to bring us bad luck? Don’t you know she’s cursed?’

  On and on – she’s still going when Aissa slips out the gate.

  ‘Are you afraid she would beat us?’ Luki asks, which makes Nasta even louder – but Luki’s curious, because he’s seen Aissa run and he thinks she’s faster than him, maybe even faster than Nasta. Of course he wants his fellow bull dancer to be quick and agile to give them both a chance of staying alive. He’d just like to see her lose once.

  But soon we’ll be gone and Aissa can race with the new bull dancers.

  He stops feeling sorry for her. Maybe she’s still a servant and some people spit at her, but when he leaves for the Bull King’s land, Aissa will stay safely at home. Sometimes he feels his life is dripping away from him, one spring day at a time. But the ship is late this year, and each day that it doesn’t come is another day to wonder if it never will.

  Then late one morning, after the full moon, the Bull King’s ship returns. Last year’s dancers aren’t on it. They have disappeared like all the dancers before them.

  Luki hadn’t known how much he’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to go. He’s not a coward, but he’s a realist: if anyone ever survives the bulls, it will be a natural athlete with balance sure as Milli-Cat’s, reflexes fast as a snake’s tongue, and light-footed as a goat. Someone like Nasta. Not Luki.

  Now there’s no more hope.

  But I can go home for a day, he thinks. A last night on the farm with his family . . . it’s almost worth facing the Bull King for that.

  The running rushing panic

  like every other year;

  Nasta’s father leaving his boat

  to run with his wife

  up to the Hall

  to take their precious daughter

&nb
sp; home for a day

  and the last visit

  to their clan’s sacred shrine.

  Luki, racing out the back gate,

  not wasting time

  to run around the walls,

  stops

  to touch hands with Aissa,

  a last thank you

  for saving him from the snake.

  Aissa, too shocked to refuse,

  presses her hand to his

  for the first time,

  because it’s too late

  for people to mock him

  for kindness to her.

  She can only hope

  it’s also too late

  for her curse to taint him

  since he needs

  all the luck he can get –

  though she sees the shock

  in Tigo’s eyes

  at her bad-luck touch –

  Tigo, sent to guard the bull dancer

  across the hills

  and bring him back safe

  at dawn.

  Feeling the dread

  all that long, long day

  and anxious night,

  like all the other ship days

  and not like any other

  because she is safe with the wise-women,

  but this time she cares

  what will become of a dancer.

  Dawn comes,

  the Lady’s song so strong

  Aissa feels it

  tremble through her body

  as if she could rise with the sun –

  and as the last notes die

  and the praise begins

  she almost wishes

  she could give up her safety

  to hide as she used to

  and feel it alone.

  Then the trembling grows,

  the ground quivers,

  birds wheel in the sky,

  dogs howl and babies wail,

  water shoots from the well,

  and the great oil jar at the kitchen door

  topples and smashes

  with a flood of oil.

  The earth swells

  like a wave from the sea –

  and a booming crash

  shakes the world.

  A silence follows

  louder than sound,

  broken by screams

  and fisherfolk running

  up to the gates.

  The goddess of fishers

  has taken her cliff

  and her shrine,

  her image and offerings,

  back to the sea,

  and Nasta’s mother

  and Nasta

  with them.

  Aissa knows it’s her fault

  for worshipping

  the fisherfolk’s goddess –