Dragonfly Song (14 page)

Watching out for figs

and other fig-pickers,

Aissa still has time

to spy on bull dancers.

She knows

what she doesn't want to –

that Nasta is quick,

light on her feet,

her handsprings sure and free

a joy to watch

if only she wasn't Nasta.

Luki is strong

can pull himself to a branch,

can spring from hands to feet

and back again,

cartwheel along a wall –

but not lightly or surely.

Aissa imagines the feeling

of whirling hands and feet

and would hold her breath

in fear of his falling –

if she cared.

She sees too

that sometimes,

when the world sleeps

in hot siesta lull,

she is not the only one

to steal through the back gate

out to the hills.

Bull dancers don't belong to the Hall

the way servants do,

but they belong to the gods –

their lives are not

theirs to waste.

So even though

they don't have servant rules

or beatings for straying,

everyone knows

they must never go out

without a guard.

But Luki is leaving

sly as a thief

slipping into the garden

keeping in shade

looking left, looking right,

and sidling out to the lane –

not seeing Aissa

waiting behind the fig tree

while Pigeon-Toe sleeps

for her moment to snatch

a ripe, bursting fig

ready to be eaten.

Aissa doesn't let it

wait any longer

but she barely tastes

that sweet red juice

because her hunger now

is to know where Luki goes.

Racing through

the bare barley field

he turns to the mountain,

his route home:

his feet know their way

up the slopes and through the trees.

Aissa rushes not to lose him

but Luki,

sure he's alone,

sings as he goes,

laying a trail with his voice.

The song stops

and Aissa creeps

quietly, closer:

Luki is watchful

but not for her.

The ground is rough,

plants grubbed up;

the stink of pig

rises high.

Across the hill

a swineherd sleeps in front of his hut,

his dog beside him.

Luki reaches a clearing

where a big boar dozes

under an oak;

and forgetting that his life is sacred,

tempts the boar

away from the trees.

The day is hot

the boar is sleepy,

wanting to nap

like everyone else.

But Luki dances

until the beast charges.

Aissa's mind screams,

but Luki stands

until the boar is nearly there,

then leaps

as if he'll somersault

down the boar's back –

but instead crashes

hard to the ground

and lies still.

The boar turns in shock –

the swineherd has never

begged him to charge

or jumped over his back –

and starts to rush

the boy on the ground.

There's no time for Aissa

to get out her sling

or find a rock

or do anything except scream

a silent
No!

till the boar stops

and wanders back

for his afternoon nap.

But Luki doesn't move.

Aissa doesn't know what to do

or how to help
.

Doesn't know if Luki

is alive or dead;

doesn't want to curse him

with her touch.

The fear in her belly

says that her curse

has already followed him here.

Even if he's only stunned

when the boar wakes again

to see a body in its field

it will nose,

and trample,

and eat

until Luki is gone.

But if she goes closer

to see if he breathes

and he wakes in fright

with a spit for No-Name

it will seem

too much to bear.

Fear tells her to run;

if anyone sees her

or Luki wakes and tells,

she will die too,

thrown off the cliffs

for cursing the dancer.

She stays frozen

and in that long moment

sees

an adder

sliding towards the boy on the ground –

fast in the midday heat,

messenger of the gods,

such a small snake

for such a deadly bite –

up to Luki's face.

Aissa sure she can see

the tongue flickering

tasting his scent,

nothing she can do,

no way to run

fast enough to save him,

but she calls to the snake

with her mind,

‘Turn away, turn back!'

And from somewhere near

comes the Lady's song,

the song that sings the sun to rise

and sings the snakes

up from their baskets;

the snake lifts its head

and turns.

Luki sits,

wobbly, blinky-eyed.

Aissa stands,

shaky too.

The voice disappears

and so does the snake.

‘Thank you, Mother!' says Luki,

hand on heart.

‘Praise the snake singer!'

Then stares around, lost,

because there is no Lady,

or even Fila,

but only Aissa.

Aissa searches too

because how could the Lady sing

if she isn't here?

‘It was you!' says Luki,

with wonder,

almost with fear.

Aissa waves away

his blasphemous words

but the Lady

is still not there.

Luki stands,

shakes his head,

rubs his back,

‘That was stupid,' he says,

‘but I wanted to know

what it would be like

to leap an animal

instead of a wall.

The boar was the biggest

one I could think of,

and I've known this one

since he was a porker.

You won't tell?'

Then he remembers

that Aissa can't.

‘But you sang!

You're the snake singer,

the one to follow the Lady.

People say it's Fila,

but I've heard her voice –

it must be you.

How can you sing

when you can't talk?'

Aissa doesn't know,

though she would like to understand.

Doesn't quite believe

that she was the singer

except that her throat

feels raw and open,

as if something great

has passed through it.

And no one else was there to sing.

There's a lot she doesn't know

and a lot Luki wants to.

‘I won't call you No-Name –

you must have a name,

you marked it at the ballot.'

Aissa holds out

the mama stone around her neck

to let him read the dragonfly mark.

‘Aissa,' says Luki,

the first person since Mama

to call her by name,

and she never knew

how perfect it could sound.

‘Aissa the snake singer,

who lives under the sanctuary rock –

you're not the only one who watches.'

The fear

is bigger than Aissa

and her mind flees.

She looks down

at her hollow self,

her body as sheer

as a black dragonfly wing

and where her belly

and heart should be,

there is nothing.

‘Snake singer, snake singer,'

she hears in her head,

more terrifying

than any other chant

she's heard.

It was easy to lock

the story of the Lady's dead daughter

in a secret box in her mind,

because it was impossible

that it could be her.

Only the Lady can sing snakes,

and only the Lady's daughter,

the Lady-to-come,

can learn.

Yet Aissa has done it –

without learning,

without voice.

And though she could never

be the Lady-to-come

could it be

that she's the daughter

who should have died

and didn't?

Death might have been easier

than bearing the gods' anger

for living.

Only the gods' rage can explain

why the Lady's daughter

is hiding alone in a cave

cast out even

by the servants.

If she is the Lady's daughter

then who is Mama?

And Papa

and all who loved her –

she knows they did

though she remembers

not much else

and now she's not even sure

of that.

Her thoughts spin

in jagged circles,

till she feels

sick and dizzy.

It's impossible

that the Lady could have borne Aissa –

Aissa is nothing

and the Lady is everything.

If she is the Lady's daughter

why did the Lady want her dead

and not love her as she loves Fila

and the little boys

and as Milli-Cat

loves her kittens?

But if she is not

the Lady's daughter

then how

did she sing the snake?

She knows in her heart

that it was her,

that wild strange music,

high as a flute,

a song with no words

and powerful magic.

She just doesn't know how –

and that's a very big thing

not to know.

‘And what about

the fireflies above your bed

when you dreamed them,

the dragonflies

when you learned your name,

and the crickets

the goddess told you not to eat?'

asks the voice in her head

that isn't silent at all.

‘Or Parsley the goat

that came to you

when you held Spot Goat

in your mind?'

Hands over ears

can't block the thoughts

till another voice –

a new, small voice –

says, ‘Maybe I could try.'

She doesn't know

what she could try,

but knows that if it's true

the gods will send a sign.

And they do.

The very next day,

foraging wild grapes –

leathery sweetness to pop in her mouth –

she watches a bee

hunting its own sweetness

in fading flowers;

sees it leave the plant,

bumbling no longer,

to fly a straight line

back to its home.

So Aissa follows.

In her spying,

she's watched beekeepers

rob a hive

with smoke and masks.

Further back,

there's a memory of Kelya,

the old woman holding

tiny Aissa on her knee,

coaxing her tongue

with honey dripping from a spoon,

though failing to make the mute child talk.

‘That was kindness!'

Aissa thinks in surprise,

and knows there are more

questions of Kelya,

but now she must think

only of the bee.

It's hard to see as it crosses a rock

and she doesn't want

to lose it now.

Flying to a rocky cliff,

a small outcrop on the mountain's face,

the bee disappears

into a hole –

a buzzing, humming hive.

Aissa stops,

watches

and thinks.

If she can sing out the bees

and rob their hive,

it could mean

that what Luki says is true –

but if she fails,

is covered with stings

from an angry swarm

she'll never have to

think of this again.

And of course she'll fail,

because when she opens her mouth

she hears Mama say,

‘Don't make a sound,

stay quiet,

still as stone, till I come back,'

and no song comes out.

But she can't help

a silent song within her mind

of flowers and nectar,

bees in flight,

and one by one

then in a cloud,

the bees fly past her

till the buzzing hive

is silent.

No choice now but to climb the rock

to the sweet-scented hole

and dip her arm into the darkness,

waiting for the sting

that never comes.

The hive is full

of waxy cells

dripping with honey,

a gift from the gods –

and even though she'd wanted to fail

Aissa is grateful.

She throws the first comb

to the goddess.

And then she tastes

and knows that even the Lady

could never have anything

better than this;

crams her mouth

and the pouch on her belt

with honeycomb to store in her cave

for the hungry winter.

But even sliding to the ground,

chewing the last sweetness

from her ball of wax,

thanking the bees with her mind

as she'd thanked the goddess with the comb,

she wishes she was running

from angry bees.

Easier to be No-Name

and have no mother at all

than be a maybe daughter

to both Mama and the Lady.