Naondel

by Maria Turtschaninoff

  I reached out and took hold of her dream. It had never been easier. I had only just been inside it, and all its scents and sensations were still in me. I let sadness flood into Mother’s dream, I channelled all the sadness I was feeling into her like a giant tidal wave. She shuddered and whimpered softly. Father sighed heavily in his sleep. She should grieve for killing me, her own daughter. I wove in an image of me with delta clay all over my body and dripping-wet hair. My eyes were accusatory. I opened my arms out to her.

  You can give a dreamer feelings, visions and experiences. But you cannot control how they will react.

  Mother did not respond to my embrace.

  In anger I wrapped my arms around Mother and flung us both down into the sea, letting her nose and mouth fill with water. If she could not love me she would learn to fear me!

  Mother’s body was jerking and writhing in her bed.

  Her dream self was fighting for freedom. Then she stopped all resistance.

  Mother lay motionless in bed.

  I lunged forward and shook her body. It was lifeless, cold. I called her name, and Father sat up, half asleep and uncomprehending. I was crying. I slapped her repeatedly in the face.

  One gasping breath. Then another. She jerked, sat up in bed, eyes wide open. Glared at me. I could never have imagined such horror as was present at that moment in her eyes, and in my heart.

  “She wove me a dream,” whispered Mother to Father, who was clutching her hands in concern. “Unbidden.”

  Father froze. They both looked at me. I got up quickly, wanting to run away. Away from the awful, unthinkable thing I had done. But by that point Mother had come to and she was faster than I. She jumped up and grabbed me by the wrist. Hard. I had grown nearly as tall as her, but she was still stronger. I could not get away.

  Without a word Mother dragged me outside. Father followed after with the little ones in his arms and on his shoulders. I stopped struggling and let myself be taken. Over bridges, one after another, straight into the heart of the city. A gentle breeze rustled in the leaves. The wood in the bridges was still damp after the seemingly endless days of rain. It smelt of wet wood and decay, like it always did after the rains. Many families were already awake, and curious eyes followed our movements. I heard the bridges creaking behind us where people followed to see what was happening.

  Mother dragged me directly to the Queen’s tree. She stopped on the great platform before the tree.

  “I bring with me an accused criminal, and demand the Queen’s ruling,” she said in a loud voice.

  “What crime has been committed?” asked one of the two guards standing in front of the steps that led up to the Queen’s residence.

  “Dishonour to dreams,” Mother said loudly. One of the guards turned around at once and climbed up the steps.

  “Think what you are doing,” said Father in a low voice.

  “She has to learn,” said Mother resolutely. “She is a plant that needs pruning. Her gift is great, but it brings with it great responsibility. I cannot have a criminal as my apprentice.”

  Nothing about me being her daughter. She saw me as no more than a troublesome student who had failed.

  “Forgive me Mother,” I whispered. “I did not know that you could… that it was possible to harm someone in a dream.”

  She was still holding me in a firm grip, but did not look at me. “Maybe not. But you knew that you mustn’t enter another’s dream unbidden. That you mustn’t weave without the dreamer knowing. It was the first thing I taught you. It is the most essential pillar of our craft. If we went into dreams against people’s wills we would soon be suspected and feared—persecuted.”

  The hatred she had felt towards me in the dream was still clinging to me. I was a disappointment. I was burning with contempt for her, and for myself. It was like a heat in my body, a fever with no outlet. I began to tremble.

  The Queen descended the stairs, accompanied by two guards and two maidservants. I had never seen her so close-up before. She was older than Mother, with white in her hair and lines around her eyes. We must have awoken her. She turned to Mother. A servant handed her an obsidian knife, the one she always carried when she dealt justice, to cut truth from lie and right from wrong.

  “What is the crime?”

  “My daughter, a dreamweaver in training, entered my dream unbidden, Your Grace,” replied Mother. “It is the greatest transgression of our craft. She must be judged accordingly.”

  “As her Mother it is your right to impose punishment,” said the Queen pensively. One of the guards fetched an ornately carved chair for her to sit on.

  “It is truth,” nodded Mother. “But this is a grave crime, which could damage the reputation of our craft irrevocably. I wish for the punishment to be public.”

  The shame. I needed to get away. I could not bear everybody’s eyes on me. I tried to twist out of Mother’s grip, but she held me firmly.

  “Very good. Then I shall punish in your stead, as a Mother would her child.” The Queen turned to me. I could not look at her. I could not take my eyes off the knife, the dark, gleaming blade.

  “For your crime, not against your craft but against your parents, I sentence you to one whole moon as the lowest of the low. You are to carry out all tasks whosoever may ask of you. Empty the latrines. Gut fish. Slaughter goats. You shall be everybody’s child, so that you might learn to respect your own parents.”

  Mother exhaled heavily and let go of my hand. It occurred to me, much later, that she feared the Queen would mete out a punishment befitting a craft defiler, not a disobedient child. What I had done could have led to much worse punishment.

  But shame was raging through my body. Such powerlessness. All I could see was that Mother loathed and despised me. That all the love I felt for her was coldly refused. And now everybody would see my shame, everybody would find out what I had done. At the same time I was furious. How could Mother be so cold? How could she disgrace me this way? I wanted to see her feel something, anything at all!

  The knife in the Queen’s hand was calling to me. Enticing me.

  Before anybody could react I lurched forward and grabbed the black blade. Slipped through the arms that grappled after me. Stuck the knife deep, all the way to the hilt, into the soft trunk of the Queen’s tree.

  All sounds around me went silent. I saw gaping mouths, black eyes. People were screaming, but I could not hear what. Everything happened slowly, so slowly. The fever was released from my body. I was empty, completely empty. A frenzy of movement everywhere, hands pulling out the knife, arms protecting the Queen, hands gripping me. In the middle of all this frenzy there was one person as calm as I was.

  Mother.

  Her arms hung loosely by her sides. She looked me in the eye, just once. The only thing I could read in her eyes was despair.

  Without hearing what was being said, I knew what would happen. To harm a tree, with knowledge and intent, was the worst thing anyone could do. And this was the Queen’s tree I had stabbed. Exile or death.

  The Queen spoke. Mother fell to her knees. She kissed the Queen’s feet. She spoke and spoke, I could see her lips continuing to move. I no longer cared about anything. Whatever happened, happened.

  Mother must have been begging for my life. Someone threw a tunic over my head. Took me away, down stairs and ladders. To the boat tree. I was dumped in a boat. Some bags were thrown in after me. A water bottle. The rope was cut. The boat was pushed out to sea.

  I could no longer see Mother or Father. Only gaping mouths up among the branches. A stone came flying. I turned to look in the direction it had come from and thought I saw the snub nose of my old friend Aurelo.

  I lay on my back in the boat and let the tide carry me out to the open sea.

  * * *

  The worst part is that I surrendered voluntarily. It is my bitterest memory. Everything could have been so different. I have only myself to blame.

  I let the boat drift past all the known islands. I could have rowed
to Aspris. The way there was easy. Grandmother would have taken me in until the exile was lifted. Or I could have lived on the island with her, shared her simple life and grown old there.

  But I did not want to inflict my dreams on her. I already knew how they would be. What they would contain. How could I tell her that I had intruded on a dream? Tried to kill my own mother?

  I knew that they had packed food and water for me. I did not care. I lay on the bottom of the boat and let myself scorch in the sun until my skin peeled and my lips cracked. The waves swayed me like the tree branches used to. It is the same wind, I thought. Same wind as home.

  I no longer had a home. My family wanted nothing to do with me. My life was meaningless.

  I lay that way for a long time. But my body was weak and refused to die. It crawled up to seek out the water. I drank, ate, looked around.

  There was nothing to be seen except the ocean, brilliant with sunlight. No islands. No sandy shores.

  Never had I been so far from home. There were no other people. No voices or sounds except of the water lapping against my boat. And something else was different. I realized that while I dozed in the boat I could sleep undisturbed.

  I was too far away from anybody to be affected by their dreams.

  I drank some more. Decided not to die, at least not yet. Stowed away my shameful memories and searched for a fishing line. There are always some in Terasu boats. Fishing lines and hooks and knives.

  The knife was not black obsidian, but a simple flint blade.

  I got a bite on the second day.

  Sometimes I think back to those days on the ocean as the simplest in my life. Not the best. I was never truly free of the shame and guilt. I had left behind the dreams of others, but neither were my own pleasant. Yet everything was so simple out at sea. Survival. That was all I thought about. I split open one of the sacks to make a shelter from the sun. I ate raw fish. Sometimes sea turtles bumped against the side of the boat. I could catch the smaller ones by hand and haul them into the boat. I drained their blood when the water had run out. One day it rained and I could drink the water that collected at the bottom of the boat. The nuts and dried fruits I had been given lasted a long time.

  I did not drift for long. A handful of days only. When I caught sight of the ship I was still strong. Not desperate. Mostly curious about who it was. It was an immense ship. The kind we did not have in Terasu. I had never seen anything so big built by human hands. It must fit a great many people, I thought.

  I could have let them sail by. If it had been night time I would have. For I would have seen their dreams. And I would have known.

  I raised my hand and waved. Somebody up on deck waved back. Movements. Several heads appeared over the railing.

  A call. A language I did not understand. I called back.

  “May I come aboard?”

  Voices, calls. All incomprehensible. But then: a ladder was lowered. I manoeuvred my boat in closer with an oar. Grabbed the ladder and climbed up.

  I am choosing life, I thought, and left my little boat behind me, floating away alone on the waves, full of fish scales and turtle corpses.

  Hands pulled me up over the railing. Many men. Hard eyes, rough arms, shining steel. I had only seen steel knives at the Queen’s ceremonies. In Terasu we were ignorant of the secrets of steel. Suddenly I was afraid.

  A man dressed in expensive garments approached me. Inspected me carefully. Smiled. He laid an arm on my shoulders, and spoke words I did not understand. His voice was warm and smooth. The others held back. This was the man who made the decisions. He stroked a finger lightly over my dry lips. Spoke quietly in my ear. He led me through a door, leaving the armed men behind us. Inside was dim and my eyes saw nothing, burnt as they were by the sun. His hands drew me farther in, gently. A bed. I relaxed. He could see that I was tired, he could see that I needed to rest. I sank down on the bed. It was so soft, after those nights spent on the bottom of the boat.

  “Water,” I said to the man. “I am so thirsty.” I made a gesture like drinking. He nodded. He understood.

  He leant over me, pushed me down on the bed and with a single movement he forced himself inside me.

  He did not let me drink until the next day.

  * * *

  It is incredible how strong is the desire to live. Even when you wish for death, your body fights to continue breathing, eating, sleeping. Loving. Not that I know, for I have never truly loved anyone. But my body has often betrayed me when I have wanted to die.

  The first night aboard I realized where I had ended up: in the clutches of the god of the underworld. The smiling man dreamt horrific things. I had never experienced anything like it before. I had no dreamsnares to protect me.

  He kept me in the little cabin for weeks. I never saw daylight. Dreams and reality bled into one another. I knew what he was capable of. I saw his fears, his appetites, his desires and deeds. I saw his plans. It all seeped into me and I struggled against the visions night and day as I became enveloped in his blood-soaked mind. When he took me, which he often did, I had no energy to fight back. I did not even know if what was happening was real, or one of his twisted desires. I did not always know whether it was him or one of the other men.

  We sailed for many days and nights.

  Through his dreams I understood who he was. I learnt words of his language.

  He never spoke to me. He had no name. I became so absorbed by him that I lost myself.

  At times, lying among the stench of the unemptied chamber pot, and the smells of sea and tar and fish and bodily fluids, I knew that I wanted to die. But all wit abandoned me, until all I knew were his wishes. His orders.

  A sound came that was different from the others. It was not the lapping of water against the side of the ship. It was not the wind’s swift flutter in the sails or the creaking of wet rope. It was the sounds of many different birds.

  I propped myself up on my elbows. We must be near land.

  A little later the door to the cabin opened. Bright light streamed in and I turned to look. A man came in. It was not him. The man said something to me, and I understood.

  “Up.”

  I wanted to obey, but my body was so unused to moving—to obeying the commands of my own mind instead of his. The man came to the bed with an expression of disgust and pulled me up. Pulled me out of the door, outside on the deck.

  At first I could not see anything. The light was sharp and merciless on my eyes, so accustomed to darkness. The scraping of boots hurrying towards the deck. Voices were calling, and this time I could understand some of the words. The air was filled with the screeches of birds, and the smell of honey and conifer trees. When my eyes adjusted I could see that we were sailing past islands where the vegetation was nothing like ours back home. The sun looked the same, but its heat was different. Drier. Lighter.

  Somebody crouched down next to me. I thought for a confused moment that it was to offer me support. Then I felt something around my wrists. Rope. My hands were twisted behind me and tied tight. As if I were a threat that needed taming. My heart was pounding.

  Then I saw him. He came walking over the deck, dressed in sea-blue and silver. He stopped for a short while and spoke to the man next to him. I understood one of the words.

  Ocean.

  Then he carried on walking. I was worth no more of his time. There were jobs to be done. He was already talking with one of the other men, something about rope.

  The man by my side pushed me up to the railing. Grabbed hold of me to lift me up.

  Death awaited me down there in the ocean. My body was putting up a fight. It did not want to die. Not even broken and defiled as it was. I hissed and writhed. The man swore.

  My mouth stopped on a word. I called out.

  “Anji!”

  I had heard the word in his dreams. I knew it was a word full of power. It incorporated all of his desires and fears.

  He stopped talking. He took a few steps and stopped in front of us. He tore me
out of the other man’s grip, grabbed hold of my chin and turned my face towards his.

  “Speak.”

  The smile was gone.

  I groped desperately among the few words I knew. I had to make him understand what I could do. What I could offer him.

  “Dreams. I give.”

  A stream of words, none of which I understood. The grip on my chin hardened.

  “Sleep. I give. Dreams.”

  He quietened. Looked me in the eye. It was the first time I saw straight into the eye of the man inflicting all of this on me. I could only hope. Wish. Something glinted in his eye. Maybe curiosity, maybe greed.

  He glanced to the side, briefly, considering. He said something quickly to the man who had tied me up, of which I did not understand a single word. He strode away over the deck and disappeared in among the men. I was pushed into a corner and lay there, forgotten, while we sailed farther with the ship full of men working frantically. I saw relief in them, and expectancy. We were close to the end of our journey, and they would soon be home. They were thinking of their women awaiting them. They were not thinking of me.

  The sun made its way across the sky. I lay still. I watched everything. I waited.

  By nightfall I could sense that we had come very near to dry land. The ship dropped its anchor in a small bay. They probably wanted to sail into port during daylight. I had one night to prove my worth. Otherwise I would be drowned before daybreak. Nobody wanted proof of what had happened on board to follow them home.

  When all the ropes were lashed a man came and loosened my ties. I was led in through another door, to a large cabin lit by many candles and lamps. The smiling man was sitting by a table and finishing his evening meal. The smell of cooked fish reminded my stomach that they had not given me anything to eat that day. He looked up when I came in. Smiled. Gestured for me to approach.

  “Come.”

  I walked on unsteady legs. Placed myself at the other side of the table.

  He gestured to show that I may eat what was left. Laughed and said something to my guard; I understood the words “strong” and “full”. Maybe he thought that I needed my strength. I stuffed my mouth with bread crusts, fish guts and a slug of wine while I furtively followed his movements around the room. He went out to piss, came in again, washed his hands in a basin. Got help from the guard to take off his boots. He undressed, exhibiting no shame in letting me see him naked. Only smiled at me mischievously. Like a child. As if he had not been taking me in the most degrading way night after night. I wiped my greasy fingers on the tablecloth. He had put on a nightshirt and looked at me as if to ask, “What now?”