Shards of History

by Rebecca Roland

  As if he knew she needed him closer, Enuwal took a small step and, though he remained behind her, brushed his fingers against hers. She leaned back ever so slightly. This was not the homecoming she’d imagined. She’d expected a warm dinner, a comfortable place to sleep, and easing back into village life. Instead, the weight of all those stares threatened to propel her right back out the alley and into the darkening plains.

  Most of the crowd smiled at her, or at least looked upon her warmly. They were glad to have her home. But a few looked far from pleased. One man in particular, a hooked nose his most prominent feature, scowled heavily enough to carve deep lines around his mouth and along his forehead. He stood beside a pregnant woman, the swell of her belly small. Malia racked her mind for his name, but there was nothing familiar about him. The woman’s name was Kima.

  Her mother stepped forward, arms out. Malia hesitated. Her mother had never been a very affectionate woman. To embrace her in front of the entire village heightened the oddity of the situation. But, the people—her people—were leaning forward, expectant. So Malia met her mother halfway and wrapped her arms around the shorter, plump woman, careful not to disturb the beads around her hips.

  “I’m sorry,” her mother whispered. “The council started talking about a homecoming, and the next thing I knew, it had gotten out of control. Everybody was so eager to have a celebration.”

  She squeezed her mother. “It’s all right. If I can survive dragons, I’m sure I can survive this.”

  Her mother pulled back, a relieved smile on her face. It made her look younger all of a sudden. There was something in her eyes, too. Pride? Yes, her mother’s eyes shined with the emotion. It hadn’t happened all that often in Malia’s life. A lump rose in her throat.

  “Do you think you can say something?” her mother asked. “They’d love to hear you talk.”

  The hooked-nose man scowled deeper. Most would like to hear her talk. She’d have to find out who that man was.

  Wings fluttered. Tulah flew up to perch on a roof. More wings whispered in the air, and other Jeguduns joined her until they formed a rough circle all around. Perhaps a dozen Jeguduns in all crouched on the roofs, wings folded, watching, like huge condors eyeing carrion, or like a hungry pack of wolves. Malia mentally shook the image free. That was her old way of thinking. She knew better.

  When she had come out of her long sleep, she’d been shocked to find how much time had passed and how much her brother had changed, but she’d been even more surprised to discover that her people now counted the Jeguduns as allies. She’d been raised to fear them and mistrust them, and somehow she’d helped bring them and the Taakwa together.

  Not everybody counted the Jeguduns as allies, though. A few men and women in the crowd shifted their weight, eyeing the Jeguduns suspiciously, hands twitching near their daggers. Only a year ago, these Jeguduns’ presence would have meant war. It took time to change people.

  Malia handed her travel sac to Vedran. The crowd parted as her mother led her to a tree stump set in the center. The sky was a deep purple, the harsh day giving way to a velvety night where stars twinkled in the sky like mica in pottery. Several children went around lighting torches that had already been spaced around the village. The flames sputtered and hissed, and the smell of wood smoke and burning sap danced across the air.

  The odor tickled at Malia’s mind. The fog hiding her memories shifted for a minute, just long enough for a tiny crack to appear, and the image of a massive fire, eating at the forest, flashed through her mind. Her steps froze, and she gasped.

  “Are you all right?” her mother asked, laying a hand on Malia’s arm.

  “Yes, yes,” she said, struggling to follow that tiny crack, but the wall of fog had already closed in again. The throbbing at the back of her head intensified. She looked around, blinked, wondered what she was doing here. Where had all these people come from?

  Then she remembered. She was home. She had to speak to them. Many of these people were wounded far worse than her. She caught the young, braided boy’s gaze. The burn scars twisted the skin of his right arm and neck, and part of his face. He was familiar somehow, the same age as Vedran. One of Vedran’s friends? She tried rolling back time, imagining the boy smaller, with the last vestiges of baby fat around his cheeks, and it came to her. Herule. He was Vedran’s closest friend, and she hadn’t recognized him. How could she not recognize him when he’d spent long days in their home?

  She walked the last few steps, wishing she could have Enuwal beside her. But when she climbed the stump and looked out over the crowd, she spotted his tall, lanky figure at the edge. He smiled, and a pleasant warmth passed through her. Beside him, Vedran grinned and nodded. They were glad to have her home, too. And when she got past the strangeness of it all, she admitted she was happy to be home. A genuine smile formed.

  “I am happy to finally be home,” she began, her voice echoing off the walls. She made sure to turn one way slowly, and then the other as she spoke, so that everybody could hear her well. “I’m sure those of you who fought thought the same thing when you finally walked into the village and saw the same loving, welcoming faces that I see now.”

  Her mother smiled and nodded. In the back of the crowd, the scowling man turned away and made to leave, but Kima grasped his arm, leaned toward him, and whispered something. He stayed, every muscle in his body tense. Malia turned from them.

  “My mother called me the war’s greatest hero, but I don’t deserve that title. For one thing, I can’t remember the war. Although I can’t remember what I did, I’m sure I was terrified the entire time. With dragons and Maddion flying overhead, and fires burning all around, who wouldn’t have been?

  “The greatest heroes are standing in this crowd,” she continued. “Despite your injuries, you are home again and working, tending the crops, hunting, fishing, mending clothes, caring for your children, cooking, building homes. Some of you were directly injured in the war. Others were injured because your loved ones never came back home. Some of us have holes in our bodies, others in our heads,” she said, tapping at her own and drawing a few wry laughs with the gesture, “but all of us have holes in our hearts. We all miss somebody or something.” Her own missing memories stretched before her. Her people hurt because they had lost husbands or wives or children or siblings. She should have hurt… she’d lost a husband, after all. And yet, she was oddly numb.

  Somebody sniffled. Malia stood straighter, scanning the Jeguduns who silently watched them. “But for all of our losses, we have also gained some things. We’ve gained new friends in the Jeguduns. We’ve regained our magic. We are stronger than we were only a year ago. We’ll never stop missing the people we’ve lost, but we’ll continue to live, and we’ll add children to our families, and we’ll create beautiful things, and all of that will soothe the sting of what we recently endured. The worst of it will fade as the dragon bones fall apart in our fields.” She nodded, her lips pressed tightly together, and stepped down from the tree stump.

  Her mother moved forward. She gestured a young woman forward. “This is Ayeelah, my attendant. There was so much to do after the war, I needed some help.”

  Malia nodded a greeting at the woman. She had high, round, flushed cheekbones. She carried a wide basket covered with a blanket woven in geometric patterns in deep red, black, and white.

  “The village wanted to show their appreciation,” her mother said. “They all put this together for you.”

  Malia took the basket. She let out a quick grunt at its weight and quickly set it on the tree stump she’d been standing on moments before. The blanket was soft and thick, better than any of hers by far. “It’s lovely,” she said.

  “Look under it,” Ayeelah said. She bit at her lower lip as if trying to hide a smile.

  Malia folded back the blanket. Nestled into the basket was a smooth spade for digging in clay, new paintbrushes with fine bristles, and in all sizes, and tiny jars of paint ready to use.

  “Oh,” s
he said. She ran a finger over the bristles, over the jars, and at that moment, she felt solid and whole and as if she’d truly come home.

  Enuwal had insisted she work on pottery during her recovery. It was something she’d enjoyed before. Her hands remembered what to do and enjoyed burying themselves in wet clay, but she’d found herself numb whenever she’d worked on it. But this made her want to hide away somewhere and create a bowl, or a cup, or a vase, and paint something on it… maybe lilacs like the ones she’d spotted two days before. She sighed.

  “It’s lovely,” she said.

  Wings flapped, the crowd stepped back, and Tulah landed nearby. She held something rolled in her hands, tied with a leather strap. She stepped forward and held it out.

  Malia gingerly took the item. It felt like leather, but smoother, and thinner. At Tulah’s urging, she untied the strap and unrolled it to reveal a painting of Tuvin’s Falls, the misty water glistening, and Jeguduns in flight around it. Her lips slightly parted.

  “This is amazing,” she said. “It’s so vivid. Who made this?”

  Tulah sketched a small bow, and when she straightened, she gave a wolfish grin, her eyes twinkling in amusement.

  “Thank you,” Malia said. She wanted to spend more time looking at the painting. She wanted to sneak away and dig for clay and begin working on a new piece of pottery. But everybody was watching her, and waiting. They wanted their celebration. She carefully rolled the painting up and tied it, placed it in the basket, and then handed everything to Ayeelah. “Would you put this somewhere safe for me?”

  “Of course.”

  Somebody started shaking a beaded gourd. Another joined, and another, until the sound echoed off the mud-brick walls and seemed to come from everywhere, including inside Malia’s head. The throbbing at the base of her skull flared. She rubbed at her forehead.

  “What is it?” her mother asked.

  “A headache. Too much excitement.”

  “After you greet people, you can slip home and rest.”

  “And which is my home?”

  Her mother flinched. “Stay with me and Vedran tonight. Tomorrow your brother can show you where you lived before the war. Then you can decide where you’d rather stay.”

  Enuwal joined them. “That was a lovely speech.” He grinned. “I can’t say that about too many of the speeches I’ve heard in my lifetime.”

  Her mother nodded. “It was heartfelt. Thank you. Everybody has been looking forward to your homecoming for such a long time.”

  Warmth flushed Malia’s cheeks. Though she’d been training to be the next clan mother, she had never been one to enjoy standing in front of a crowd. Still, she had a duty to her people. Her own discomfort was nothing compared to the discomfort of those who had been injured in the war, or who lost loved ones.

  Her mother led her through the crowd. Some people were dancing, playing the beaded gourds and wood pipes. It was like the harvest celebration, except nobody was wearing masks, and the atmosphere was lighter, more casual.

  Others had brought out food. The rich smell of roasted duck filled the air, along with fish and root vegetables. There were bowls of fresh spring greens, mugs of tea and the warm chocolate drink the Jeguduns had introduced them to, and blueberries.

  Malia spoke with the clan father, Paski. Skin crinkled around his eyes from long days squinting in the sun, and more lines formed a web around his mouth from smiling often. He was beaming now, clasping his hands before him as he said, “My life in your hands,” the formal greeting of a man to a woman.

  She spoke with the members of the women’s council, six in addition to her own mother, and then with the men’s council. Soon their faces and words blended together, as intrusive as the beaded gourds she usually enjoyed, and she began looking for her mother, who had wandered off to speak with somebody.

  She excused herself and weaved her way through the crowd. A woman, dancing, bumped into her and nearly toppled her over.

  “Oh, excuse me,” she said without a glance at Malia, laughing as a man pulled her back into a small cluster of people.

  Malia sighed. Even though she wanted a quiet night, her mother was right. Things had been too tense since the war’s end. A celebration was in order. After tonight, they could all put the war a little further behind them.

  At some point, the Jeguduns had flown off. In most of the villages, they made visits lasting a day or two, sometimes three, as they shared information with the Taakwa, but their presence still made some Taakwa uneasy enough that they felt it best to keep their visits short and to make their camps outside the villages. Tulah was a closer friend to Malia than most of these people. Everybody had changed so much. Or perhaps she was the one who had changed. Sometimes she caught her reflection in the water and startled. She was too young to have faint lines fanning around her eyes, or those strands of gray in her otherwise dark hair, or such stooped shoulders, as if she carried the entire valley on them.

  Her mother was talking with Paski, huddled in a dark space where the torchlight didn’t reach. She was using her hands quite a bit, unusual for her mother. Most of her conversations were calm and orderly, no matter what the subject. Malia headed toward them.

  Kima’s husband, the man with the hooked nose, stepped in front of her. Malia nearly ran into him, drawing up short at the last moment. He wore the same scowl, and between the angry glint in his eyes and the sharp bend of his nose, she felt as though she were facing down a bird of prey.

  “You don’t even recognize me, do you?” he asked. His voice trembled with anger. His fingers twitched, as if they longed to curl into fists.

  Malia took a half step back. “I’m sorry, but I don’t recognize many people these days.” Out of habit, she racked her mind for this man’s identity. The throbbing sharpened, and sent a spike of pain through her skull. She moaned, but the rattling gourds and voices and laughter covered the sound. “Perhaps you could remind me who you are.” She pushed against the fog, demanding access to her lost memories.

  He followed her, pressing too close, looming. “I’m your dead husband’s brother, Andrij.”

  The fog in her mind roiled like angry storm clouds. “I… I’m sorry, I don’t remember you.”

  “You don’t remember me, or your husband, do you? His name was Dalibor.”

  “I know.” She scanned the crowd for Enuwal’s tall form, or Vedran, or her mother, but she and Andrij might as well have been alone in the village center for all the attention anybody paid them.

  “Looking for Dalibor’s replacement?”

  Her gaze snapped back to him as anger, fueled by his words, surged like the agitated fog surrounding her lost memories. “I remember nothing of the past few seasons, not even my husband, I’m sad to say. I wish I did. I wish I remembered the man for whom I wear mourning beads.” She took a step toward him, forcing him back. “How dare you approach me in such anger?”

  For a moment, the fury melted from his face, leaving only sorrow. She almost felt sorry for him. She was about to ask what he wanted of her when the world started to spin. The fog in her mind slipped forward, lapping up new ground like a swollen river swallowing anything along its edges.

  “No,” she gasped. She wasn’t using magic. She wasn’t even anywhere near a Jegudun. Her memories… She reached out a hand as if she could grab them and keep them from slipping away. Instead, she grabbed Andrij’s tunic. He pulled out of her grasp with a silent snarl.

  She fell, the fog rolled over her, and the world went dark and silent.

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