Realm of Ash

by Tasha Suri

  He was, in short, the very picture of a Khir noble—except he was not, as usual, straight as an iron reed upon his low backless chair with the standard of their house—the setting sun and the komor flower7—hung behind it.

  Finally, he patted the stone step with his left hand. “Come, sit.” His intonation was informal, and that was another surprise.

  Yala settled herself, carefully. With her dress arranged and her feet tucked to the side, she lowered her eyelids and waited.

  Lord Komori did not care for idle chatter.

  The great hall was different from this angle. The table was large as it had been when she was a child, and the cavernous fireplace looked ready to swallow an unwary passerby whole. The braziers were blackened spirit-kettles, their warmth barely touching winter’s lingering chill. Flagstones, swept and scrubbed even when winter meant the buckets formed ice which needed frequent breaking, stared blankly at the ceiling, polished by many feet. Yala stilled, a habit born of long practice in her father’s presence.

  The mouse that moves is taken. Another proverb. The classics were stuffed to bursting with them.

  As a child she had fidgeted and fluttered, Dowager Eun despairing of ever teaching her discretion. In Yala’s twelfth spring the weight of decorum had begun to tell, and she had decided it was easier to flow with that pressure than stagger under it. Even Mahara had been surprised, and she, of all the world, perhaps knew Yala best.

  After Bai, that was.

  “Yala,” her father said, as if reminding himself who she was. That was hardly unusual. The sons stayed, the daughters left. An advantageous marriage was her duty to Komori. It was a pity there had been no offers. I wonder what is wrong with me, she had murmured to Mahara once.

  I do not wish to share you with a husband, Mahara answered, when she could speak for laughing.

  “Yes.” Simple, and soft, as a noblewoman should speak. She wished she were at her needlework, the satisfaction of a stitch pulled neatly and expertly making up for pricked fingers. Or in the mews, hawk-singing. Writing out one of the many classics once again, her brush held steady. Reading, or deciding once more what to pack and what to leave behind.

  She wished, in fact, to be anywhere but here. After a visit to the ancestors, though, her presence at her father’s wrist was expected. Brought back to endure scrutiny like a hawk itself, a feather passed over her plumage, so as not to disturb the subtle oils thereupon.

  “I have often thought you should have been born male.” Komori Dasho sighed, his shoulders dropping. The sudden change was startling, and disturbing. “You would have made a fine son.” Even if it was high praise, it still stung. A formulaic reply rose inside her, but he did not give her the chance to utter as much. “But if you were, you would have died upon that bloodfield as well, and I would have opened my veins at the news.”

  Startled, Yala turned her head to gaze upon his profile. The room was not the only thing that looked different from this angle. The thunder-god of her childhood, straight and proud, sat beside her, staring at the table. And, terrifyingly, hot water had come to Komori Dasho’s eyes. It swelled, glittering, and anything she might have said vanished.

  “My little light,” he continued. “Did you know? I named you thus, after your mother died. Not aloud, but here.” His thin, strong right fist, the greenstone seal-ring of a proud and ancient house glinting upon his index finger, struck his chest. “I knew not to say such things, for the gods would be angry and steal you as they took her.”

  Yala’s chest tightened. A Lord Komori severe in displeasure or stern with approval she could answer. Who was this?

  Her father did not give her a chance to reply. “In the end it does not matter. The Great Rider has requested and we must answer; you will attend the princess in Zhaon.”

  This much I knew already. The pebble in her sleeve-pocket pressed against her wrist. She realized she was not folding her hands but clutching them, knuckles probably white under smooth fabric. “Yes.” There. Was that an acceptable response?

  He nodded, slowly. The frost in his hair had spread since news of Three Rivers; she had not noticed before. This was the closest she had been to her father since… she could not remember the last time. She could not remember when he last spoke to her with the informal inflection or case, either. Yala searched for something else to say. “I will not shame our family, especially among them.”

  “You—” He paused, straightened. “You have your yue?”

  Of course I do. “It is the honor of a Khir woman,” she replied, as custom demanded. Was this a test? If so, would she pass? Familiar anxiety sharpened inside her ribs. “Does my father wish to examine its edge?” The blade was freshly honed; no speck of rust or whisper of disuse would be found upon its slim greenmetal length.

  “Ah. No, of course not.” His hands dangled at his knees, lax as they never had been in her memory. “Will you write to your father?”

  “Of course.” As if she would dare not to. The stone under her was a cold, uncomfortable saddle, but she did not dare shift. “Every month.”

  “Every week.” The swelling water in his eyes did not overflow. Yala looked away. It was uncomfortably akin to seeing a man outside the clan drunk, or at his dressing. “Will you?”

  “Yes.” If you require it of me.

  “I have kept you close all this time.” His fingers curled slightly, as if they wished for a hilt. “There were many marriage offers made for you, Yala. Since your naming-day, you have been sought. I refused them all.” He sighed, heavily. “I could not let you go. Now, I am punished for it.”

  She sat, stunned and silent, until her father, for the first and last time, put a lean-muscled, awkward arm about her shoulders. The embrace was brief and excruciating, and when it ended he rose and left the hall, iron-backed as ever, with his accustomed quiet step.

  He is proud of you, she had often told Bai. He simply does not show it.

  Perhaps it had not been a lie told to soothe her brother’s heart. And perhaps, just perhaps, she could believe it for herself.

  if you enjoyed

  REALM OF ASH

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  THE SISTERS OF THE WINTER WOOD

  by

  Rena Rossner

  In a remote village surrounded by vast forests on the border of Moldova and Ukraine, sisters Liba and Laya have been raised on the honeyed scent of their Mami’s babka and the low rumble of their Tati’s prayers. But when a troupe of mysterious men arrives, Laya falls under their spell—despite her mother’s warning to be wary of strangers. And this is not the only danger lurking in the woods.

  As dark forces close in on their village, Liba and Laya discover a family secret passed down through generations. Faced with a magical heritage they never knew existed, the sisters realize the old fairy tales are true… and could save them all.

  1

  Liba

  If you want to know the history of a town, read the gravestones in its cemetery. That’s what my Tati always says. Instead of praying in the synagogue like all the other men of our town, my father goes to the cemetery to pray. I like to go there with him every morning.

  The oldest gravestone in our cemetery dates back to 1666. It’s the grave I like to visit most. The names on the stone have long since been eroded by time. It is said in our shtetl that it marks the final resting place of a bride and a groom who died together on their wedding day. We don’t know anything else about them, but we know that they were buried, arms embracing, in one grave. I like to put a stone on their grave when I go there, to make sure their souls stay down where they belong, and when I do, I say a prayer that I too will someday find a love like that.

  That grave is the reason we know that there were Jews in Dubossary as far back as 1666. Mami always said that this town was founded in love and that’s why my parents chose to live here. I think it means something else—that our town was founded in tragedy. The death of those young lovers has been a pall hanging over Dubossary since its inception. Death liv
es here. Death will always live here.

  2

  Laya

  I see Liba going

  to the cemetery with Tati.

  I don’t know

  what she sees

  in all those cold stones.

  But I watch,

  and wonder,

  why he never takes me.

  When we were little,

  Liba and I went to

  the Talmud Torah.

  For Liba, the black letters

  were like something

  only she could decipher.

  I never understood

  what she searched for,

  in those black

  scratches of ink.

  I would watch

  the window,

  study the forest

  and the sky.

  When we walked home,

  Liba would watch the boys

  come out of the cheder

  down the road.

  I know that when she looked

  at Dovid, Lazer and Nachman,

  she wondered

  what was taught

  behind the walls

  the girls were not

  allowed to enter.

  After her Bat Mitzvah,

  Tati taught her Torah.

  He tried to teach me too,

  when my turn came,

  but all I felt was

  distraction,

  disinterest.

  Chanoch l’naar al pi darko,

  Tati would say,

  teach every child

  in his own way,

  and sigh,

  and get up

  and open the door.

  Gey, gezinte heit—

  I accept that you’re different, go.

  And while I was grateful,

  I always wondered

  why he gave up

  without a fight.

  3

  Liba

  As I follow the large steps my father’s boots make in the snow, I revel in the solitude. This is why I cherish our morning walks. They give me time to talk to Tati, but also time to think. “In silence you can hear God,” Tati says to me as we walk. But I don’t hear God in the silence—I hear myself. I come here to get away from the noises of the town and the chatter of the townsfolk. It’s where I can be fully me.

  “What does God sound like?” I ask him. When I walk with Tati, I feel like I’m supposed to think about important things, like prayer and faith.

  “Sometimes the voice of God is referred to as a bat kol,” he says.

  I translate the Hebrew out loud: “The daughter of a voice? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  He chuckles. “Some say that bat kol means an echo, but others say it means a hum or a reverberation, something you sense in the air that’s caused by the motion of the universe—part of the human voice, but also part of every other sound in the world, even the sounds that our ears can’t hear. It means that sometimes even the smallest voice can have a big opinion.” He grins, and I know that he means me, his daughter; that my opinion matters. I wish it were true. Not everybody in our town sees things the way my father does. Most women and girls do not study Torah; they don’t learn or ask questions like I do. For the most part, our voices don’t matter. I know I’m lucky that Tati is my father.

  Although I love Tati’s stories and his answers, I wonder why a small voice is a daughter’s voice. Sometimes I wish my voice could be loud—like a roar. But that is not a modest way to think. The older I get, the more immodest my thoughts become.

  I feel my cheeks flush as my mind wanders to all the things I shouldn’t be thinking about—what it would feel like to hold the hand of a man, what it might feel like to kiss someone, what it’s like when you finally find the man you’re meant to marry and you get to be alone together, in bed… I swallow and shake my head to clear my thoughts.

  If I shared the fact that this is all I think about lately, Mami and Tati would say it means it’s time for me to get married. But I’m not sure I want to get married yet. I want to marry for love, not convenience. These thoughts feel like sacrilege. I know that I will marry a man my father chooses. That’s the way it’s done in our town and among Tati’s people. Mami and Tati married for love, and it has not been an easy path for them.

  I take a deep breath and shake my head from all my thoughts. This morning, everything looks clean from the snow that fell last night and I imagine the icy frost coating the insides of my lungs and mind, making my thoughts white and pure. I love being outside in our forest more than anything at times like these, because the white feels like it hides all our flaws.

  Perhaps that’s why I often see Tati in the dark forest that surrounds our home praying to God or—as he would say—the Ribbono Shel Oylam, the Master of the Universe, by himself, eyes shut, arms outstretched to the sky. Maybe he comes out here to feel new again too.

  Tati comes from the town of Kupel, a few days’ walk from here. He came here and joined a small group of Chassidim in the town—the followers of the late Reb Mendele, who was a disciple of the great and holy Ba’al Shem Tov. There is a small shtiebl where the men pray, in what used to be the home of Urka the Coachman. It is said that the Ba’al Shem Tov himself used to sit under the tree in Urka’s courtyard. The Chassidim here accepted my father with open arms, but nobody accepted my mother.

  Sometimes I wonder if Reb Mendele and the Ba’al Shem Tov (zichrono livracha) were still with us, would the community treat Mami differently? Would they see how hard she tries to be a good Jew, and how wrong the other Jews in town are for not treating her with love and respect. It makes me angry how quickly rumors spread, that Mami’s kitchen isn’t kosher (it is!) just because she doesn’t cover her hair like the other married Jewish women in our town.

  That’s why Tati built our home, sturdy and warm like he is, outside our town in the forest. It’s what Mami wanted: not to be under constant scrutiny, and to have plenty of room to plant fruit trees and make honey and keep chickens and goats. We have a small barn with a cow and a goat, and a bee glade out back and an orchard that leads all the way down to the river. Tati works in town as a builder and a laborer in the fields. But he is also a scholar, worthy of the title Rebbe, though none of the men in town call him that.

  Sometimes I think my father knows more than the other Chassidim in our town, even more than Rabbi Borowitz who leads our tiny kehilla, and the bare bones prayer minyan of ten men that Tati sometimes helps complete. There are many things my father likes to keep secret, like his morning dips in the Dniester River that I never see, but know about, his prayer at the graveside of Reb Mendele, and our library. Our walls are covered in holy books—his sforim, and I often fall asleep to the sound of him reading from the Talmud, the Midrash, and the many mystical books of the Chassidim. The stories he reads sound like fairy tales to me, about magical places like Babel and Jerusalem.

  In these places, there are scholarly men. Father would be respected there, a king among men. And there are learned boys of marriageable age—the kind of boys Tati would like me to marry someday. In my daydreams, they line up at the door, waiting to get a glimpse of me—the learned, pious daughter of the Rebbe. And my Tati would only pick the wisest and kindest for me.

  I shake my head. In my heart of hearts, that’s not really what I want. When Laya and I sleep in our loft, I look out the skylight above our heads and pretend that someone will someday find his way to our cabin, climb up onto the roof, and look in from above. He will see me and fall instantly in love.

  Because lately I feel like time is running out. The older I get, the harder it will be to find someone. And when I think about that, I wonder why Tati insists that Laya and I wait until we are at least eighteen.

  I would ask Mami, but she isn’t a scholar like Tati, and she doesn’t like to talk about these things. She worries about what people say and how they see us. It makes her angry, but she wrings dough instead of her hands. Tati says her hands are baker’s hands, that she makes magic wi
th dough. Mami can make something out of nothing. She makes cheese and gathers honey; she mixes bits of bark and roots and leaves for tea. She bakes the tastiest challahs and cakes, rugelach and mandelbrot, but it’s her babka she’s famous for. She sells her baked goods in town.

  When she’s not in the kitchen, Mami likes to go out through the skylight above our bed and onto the little deck on our roof to soak up the sun. Laya likes to sit up there with her. From the roof, you can see down to the village and the forest all around. I wonder if it’s not just the sun that Mami seeks up there. While Tati’s head is always in a book, Mami’s eyes are always looking at the sky. Laya says she dreams of somewhere other than here. Somewhere far away, like America.

  4

  Laya

  I always thought

  that if I worshipped God,

  dressed modestly,

  and walked in His path,

  that nothing bad

  would happen

  to my family.

  We would find

  our path to Zion,

  our own piece of heaven

  on the banks

  of the Dniester River.

  But now that I’m fifteen

  I see what a life

  of pious devotion

  has brought Mami,

  who converted

  to our faith—

  disapproval.

  The life we lead

  out here is a life apart.

  I wish I could go to Onyshkivtsi.

  Mami always tells me stories

  about her town

  and Saint Anna of the Swans

  who lived there.

  Saint Anna

  didn’t walk with God—

  she knew she wasn’t made

  for perfection;