So it begins! Aza shouted.
She led you and Wei to the forest margin. Your closest friends separated you to prepare each for the ritual. They sang songs of joy and songs of mourning. They gasped when you moved within the costume, animated that arcane skin.
A drum chorus resonated in your organs. The enactment began. A corridor opened from the forest to the fire. You felt the balanced weight of the red wings on your shoulders. You flapped with grace as you approached. The people who clapped fell into a hush as you walked among them.
Egnis, she who first saw All.
On the ground within the fire’s glow was a child. Its skin was blue from head to toe. It wore a loose white garment. You brushed your giant head from its feet to its crown. The child jumped up, alive.
Egnis and Azul danced. They circled the flames opposite each other in perfect orbit. The drums beat faster, and the witnesses hummed. The drone became a force that drew them together. The Red Dragon and the Orphan linked hands. They twirled around the fire until the dragon took the child in her arms. Azul disappeared in Egnis’s embrace, then rose again. The child tossed jewels into the circle around them. A rain of stars.
Leit ran toward Wei. He lifted his daughter on his shoulder. He wore the warrior’s blue tunic with a gold breastplate embossed with a coiled dragon. | made by Ingot | He placed Wei on the ground where you knelt. Wei took off your mask. She kissed the full moon of your face as you held her.
Aza and the council of elders stood before Wei. Edik opened a small box. He withdrew a pendant on a chain. Circle, triangle, square. Everyone, everyone, knelt as he placed the object around her neck.
Forged by Ingot, kissed by Incant, hallowed by Egnis, this gold amulet marks your transition. You danced in the skin of the Beloved Child, and you will continue within your own to keep our promise to the Three and the promise they asked of us, said he.
To the reign of love, shouted Wei.
To the reign of love, echoed all.
IN THOSE WAITING DAYS BEFORE THEY LEFT, YOU WATCHED LEIT PREPARE his belongings. He packed and unpacked, unsure of what he wanted to carry. He hadn’t been indecisive before. He brought his weapons to the smiths to hone. He hoped he would have no need for their edges. You mended a blue tunic and splayed it on your bed as he often lay. You asked Wei what she wished to pack but couldn’t bring yourself to gather it. Her dresses fell limp in your hands.
You felt muddled. Wei’s departure was inevitable. That you mourned openly. Another matter plagued you but you didn’t know what.
You went to the plateau to be quiet. The plain changed with the seasons but had not changed at all. You felt the landscape of your body in its shift. You were no longer the child who mapped hidden worlds.
To see a spiderweb was a matter of awareness. You noticed that you shared a space with the creature. You had a choice to leave it alone, destroy it, or engage with it. You assumed you engaged. You studied, and if you drew a map of the hidden world, it was to see the space for yourself. As well, you imagined what lay beyond or within what you could see. When a spider abandoned a web, where did it go? You knew it went to build another web, unless it died, but there was a gap from web to web. You were peculiar. You imagined the little beings could go to places you could not. Each creature had its own perspective based on its body. Where it could go, what it could build.
You watched the ants enter their nests. Like any child in its brutal inquisitiveness, you crushed several to see what was inside. Sometimes you did so to feel power, the gratifications of destruction. Sometimes you ravaged their nests for the sheer pleasure of watching the ants rebuild. A grain at a time, moving the eggs and young to safety, an automatic response.
The bees. Yes, the bees. The first time you’d seen a wild hive. The hollow of a tree torn out. Its sapwood little more than dusty splinters. A bear had found the hive and ripped it to pieces. Some remained in the tree, golden wattles so strangely intricate and formless at the same time. You watched workers patch a hole that the bear had made. You found pieces on the ground still moist, some cells unbroken. | and ate one | What order! The bees didn’t seem to fight or argue among themselves. Neither did the ants. We have young to protect. There is damage to our home. Let us fix it.
There was no way to save the young in the cells that had fallen to the ground. White ghoulish not-eggs, not-bees. You placed a section of the comb back in the tree. A hopeful act.
In your imagination and on your map, the bees built a bridge. They walked between the broken pieces. You listened to their attentive buzz. You felt the sun and the wind. Honey sweetened the rose of your lips. You studied what you had drawn. In that moment, you were completely yourself. The wholeness was no more complicated than that.
Who you were in that child was what you became. That essence was behind your exile and escape. It proved stronger than every other force that urged you to be a girl daughter sister wife mother woman on terms other than your own.
You understood Wei’s decisiveness as a higher form of reason. Your daughter could not deny her purpose if she was born with the power to honor it. No matter how much you would miss her, you had no right to take away what belonged to her.
But you did. You lapsed and panicked.
Before she left, you cut her hair and dressed her like a boy.
You told Leit what you wanted to do. The very idea horrified him. You reminded him of the danger. You didn’t invoke that of which he would never speak. Instead, you spoke of the boots, leggings, and cloak that once obscured your form. Your hair was worn long, but not too long. From a distance, you were mistaken for a man. The costume assured you safer movement.
We require no guise of the Voices, said he.
This would lessen the chance that someone would notice a girl among you, you said.
You forget some of our warriors are women.
And how do they dress on the trails?
Not as they sometimes do at home.
Ask them why that is, besides comfort, you said.
You consulted no elder or Voice. Leit didn’t fight you. He disagreed and resisted on principle. He deigned because he feared you were right. You gave Wei no choice.
For the first time in a long while, you spoke aloud of your life before her. You explained that where you came from, in most places beyond the settlements, girls were confined in what they could do and where they could go. Almost everyone seemed to agree to this. The girls who didn’t follow the rules were punished. Sometimes by their own family and friends. Sometimes by strangers, who had learned the same rules and believed them to be true. When you were a mapmaker, you had dressed as a man to look like the other members of the group. The disguise hid you from people who might think you didn’t belong with the men and try to hurt you. The women who walked alongside Wei’s father chose a similar costume.
Wei asked for no explanation. She seemed to accept the idea of a costume to perform her work.
Then you said her hair must be cut. She was outraged.
That is a part of me, said she.
It’s only hair. It will grow back.
It grows from inside of me. It’s mine, said she.
Wei, you won’t be able to wash as you do here. You would be uncomfortable.
Is that true, Ahpa? asked she.
You will not often bathe with the same comforts, said Leit.
She paused, considered the inconvenience, and stared at you. No, said she. No.
Sit here now. Do as I say. This is for your own good, you said.
You spoke those shame-filled words from the past. Your will held her down. Your hands whispered sharp violence below her ears. No blood was drawn but it drained from Wei’s face. Her black and white hair dropped lifeless around her feet. What was left framed her chin.
Wei, in time you will understand this action, said Leit.
Until then this will be a hateful thing, said she.
She pierced you cold with her uncommon gaze. Before she could see into you, you pushed the old resentm
ent away. That was what had troubled you. That was the source of what you did to your daughter. Aside from the necessity, under the justification you despised the dangers no man would face. Outside the settlement, your daughter was a carnal prey. A lamb for slaughter.
I mean to protect you, you said.
Why do I bother to wear this? asked Wei. She held the gold amulet away from her neck.
That has power only with those who recognize it, you said.
I will have warriors with me. Aren’t they supposed to protect me?
Yes, but they will not be with you every single moment.
You did this to me out of fear—not love, said she.
You breathed. An old part of you wanted to lash out. It wanted to assert a parental right to her blind obedience. You had no claim. The Guardians granted even the smallest child her truth and its say.
I hope one day you’ll forgive me, you said.
I feel very, very angry. I’m going to the forest now. I will ask Aza to go with me, said she.
You nodded. You knew you had wounded her deeply, and she knew she needed to tend that pain before it burrowed and festered.
The two of you achieved peace by the time she left for the trails. You held each other and wept. She covered your face with kisses. She placed her hand on your heart and warmed you through.
I will be with you again soon, Ahma. Be brave, said she.
Leit settled her on a cart. She and Leit would travel a short distance together, then separate for different trade routes. He lifted you as you clutched him around the neck. You pressed your lips to his throat’s pulse. He kissed you as he slipped you off his body. You expected to feel Makha’s kiss on your hand. For an instant you’d forgotten she was gone.
You watched the warriors in their blue coats begin another long journey. Wei turned to wave. You hardly recognized her until you realized she reminded you of yourself.
THEN YOU WERE ALONE FOR SEASONS AT A TIME. YOU MISSED YOUR spouse and daughter, but you also welcomed their absence. The focus you had devoted to Wei shifted. Of course, you had your duties to fulfill in the bakery and fields. When you left that work, you resumed another. Attention went to the manuscripts.
By then you were fluent in the Guardians’ language. You had developed a written form that satisfied you. Before, your collection of histories and tales was sporadic. The effort became a devotion. You were allowed to observe the storytellers’ training. Each young apprentice spent years with the elder adepts who repeated the legacy of their people. You listened, then scribed their words.
As well, you observed your neighbors and gathered their
wisdom. You noted how they performed their work, where, and when. You spoke to them of the ways they learned their peace. You wished to glean the secrets that weren’t meant to be so.
Your friends saw you less often when your spouse and daughter were away. You showed them examples of your work to explain your absence. They were curious. None had ever seen a map or a written page. Although they encouraged you, they didn’t comprehend the purpose. We must only ask and we are told, said they. I don’t understand the need, said some.
This is a means of memory, you said once. The statement startled you and puzzled friends. The words you wrote were not static. They had the power of conveyance, if one could comprehend the language. In your life before, you used texts for their facts. Yet you knew they could contain falsehoods, deliberate or unintentional. Regardless, the words became a form of memory that outlived the witnesses. They spoke for themselves.
Yes, as Sisay’s words suggested, you, too, were misunderstood.
Nevertheless, you continued.
You offered to teach those who wished to learn how to read and write. You had few students. They enjoyed the novelty but to them these skills served no practical purpose. Why write when they could speak? Why read when they could listen? The immediacy of their lives required no record. They remembered what they needed to remember.
THOSE SEVEN YEARS WEI WAS ON THE TRAILS, YOU ACCOMMODATED THE cycles. You worked with determination while Wei and Leit were away. You welcomed the rare nights when Leit slipped through the gaps to join you in bed. At dawn, you walked with him | and the wolf | to the hollow then back to the settlement in time to knead. When your daughter and spouse arrived for their rest, you felt missing pieces had been returned. You remembered how you pined for their love and affection and the chance to give yours to them. The discovery surprised you each reunion, like a well full again.
Wei’s emergence into womanhood was abrupt for you. She returned home taller, the shape of her face sharper. The older she became, the more difficult it was to disguise her. She was no tawny little bird. Wei was a striking beauty. Her physical being and essence were feminine, soft as they were strong.
Each return, she told of her adventures. The warriors she accompanied treated her like loving uncles and brothers would. They allowed her periods of play. In safe villages and distant settlements, she made new friends. You were grateful the warriors didn’t deny her simple childhood pleasures.
For all of Wei’s joyfulness, she was a serious girl as well. She shared some of what she had encountered while on the trails. As a younger girl, she told stories of people and places. As she grew older, she began to speak of what she discerned.
There is so much pain, Ahma, said Wei. She told of the children she found and the adults who crossed her path. She had learned to treat others as friends, but she and her warrior companions were often met with suspicion. She glimpsed lives full of cruel words, bitter silences, and harsh whippings. There were resentments and grudges that lingered long. She had felt unease and witnessed strife and poverty. With her own hands, she touched children who had endured treatment that left them sad, hurt, and confused. They all blamed themselves. They believed themselves to be bad and deserving of punishment. Wei did what she could to help them, children and adults, assure them. You are more than this pain. You are beautiful. But the wounding was too profound. These matters affected everyone to some degree, but some far worse than others. The harm of it twisted people deep within themselves and they hurt others in return.
So many believe the toil and trouble of life is all there is, said Wei. They believe this is how life is meant to be, that it will always be so, and they have no understanding that it can be different.
You nodded. You listened with your full attention. She said she was confiding this to you because you had been born away. You knew the consequences of these experiences. | all too well | If she asked questions about your life before, you replied as best you could. Some you simply could not answer. The most difficult was, Why? How does one explain a beginning no one remembers?
She didn’t know then | or perhaps she did | that she was about to name her purpose.
As for Leit, he appeared more worn with each return. He was older than many of his companions. The exertion of travel was enough of a strain. He knew, and told you, that his endurance waned. He admitted he was rough in situations he might have once managed with a lighter touch. He couldn’t discern whether the incivility had become more common or his tolerance for it less strong.
You watched his darkness loom like storms, then blow away. The man he was at essence would return for periods, then slip into hiding. You encouraged him to speak to Aza or Edik, but he refused. He thought his wound was beyond their healing. The dragon’s brand didn’t have the power. How could they? He wouldn’t dare risk this pain with his daughter.
Despite this, you had more days of contentment than not. When Leit and Wei were home together, they played and walked in one another’s company as before. Their shared experience of the trails drew them closer.
Wei was ever gentle with her father. Her affection for him was expressive and frequent. She still took his hand and kissed his cheeks. When he was occupied with a task, she sometimes looked at him with love. She knew what the warriors suffered. You wondered if she glimpsed into his wound, waiting for it to open.
Once, Wei ca
me to you when you were alone.
Ahma, said she. He cannot forgive himself. Do you understand?
You stared into her violet eyes that saw beyond seeing.
The child’s desecration and death were not at his hand. He intended no harm to her, said Wei of what had never been spoken aloud between you.
You didn’t ask how she knew. You didn’t ask why she spoke when she did. Wei had her ways and reasons.
I don’t understand why he clings as he does, you said.
He wants someone punished for what was done. He only has himself to inflict with the pain. He judges himself unjustly.
What of … You paused to build your courage. What of the man who did the deed? you asked.
Listen, Ahma. He suffered before and continued to do so afterward. What is no consolation to the little girl, or Ahpa, or anyone else who suffered at his hand, is still heavy with consequence. His lifetime is a limitation but not the end, said she.
Wei embraced you. She tingled in your arms. You accepted the light she offered. You let it slip, for a moment, into the hard holding cells within yourself where forgiveness couldn’t reach.
AS SHE GREW OLDER, WEI HAD GREAT COMPASSION FOR AS WELL AS CONflict with her father. She had always discussed the Guardians’ ways with Leit. However, her observations on the trails deepened her inquisitiveness.
She was thirteen when she began to deliberately challenge him. Wei questioned why the settlements remained remote and why their | our | people had rare contact with others. Leit reminded her that new settlements were built when populations needed to be dispersed. She knew that but wondered why those born away weren’t invited to join. He explained how often those born away struggled with their ways, even those who were mysteriously drawn to the Guardians.
That’s not how it always was, said she. Remember, Azul gathered friends at first to build the early settlements.
We don’t reject anyone who comes to us, said Leit.
We don’t openly welcome them to stay, either, said Wei.
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