Hey, what can i say? ... i felt bad...
I rose the next morning to the tingle of cold on my toes and the smell of cooking meat. I yawned, stretched, tossed my blanket to the side and set off to find food.
Several women were standing around a wagon outside. There was no sign of either Silver or Sezjah nearby. I noticed Rhian, the tall woman who had carried me from my village, leaning against the wagon wheel and wandered towards her. She was simply a familiar face and I approached her as humbly as a beggar approaches a king.
"Is there food… sister?" The appellation felt strange on my lips but she nodded and pointed to a small fire at the center of a circle of wagons. The smells of porridge and cooking meat intensified as I came closer but I was without bowl or spoon and did not want to steal one. I stumbled back over to the women to beg a spoon. One threw me a roughly carved bowl and told me to keep it. I thanked her, gratefully and hurried back to the small pot of food. I ate as only a child can, with the pangs of hunger slowly subsiding until almost the entire bowl was gone. It was the first time I'd eaten cooked food in almost six months.
I was too absorbed in my bowl to notice that Sezjah and several other had appeared behind me by the time I was finishing up. I wiped my mouth on the back of a grimy sleeve, stood up and turned to go return the bowl to the place where I had slept. I took not even a step before running into Sezjah. She grinned down at me in a predatory way as I took a step back. A hand with long fingers grasped my shoulder and steered me in front of her. We walked quickly towards the edge of camp, her stride was long and I spent half the time tripping over roots and the other half being hauled up again.
"Come girl, it's time for you to be introduced and given a name, and for us to decide who wants you."
" But …. But I already have a name! And I thought you wanted me?"
"You'll learn what I mean child. Now hurry up. I don't have time to explain."
"Where's Silver?" I shot at her, angry for being hurried off and practically ignored.
"Gone. He hates staying here; too many women who are related to him."
We finally arrived at wherever it was that we'd been headed. It was a tent, larger than the one I'd slept in and from the sounds of it, full of women. Sezjah held back the tent flap and practically shoved me inside. The space was dark and that same incense was burning. Smoke stung my eyes as they adjusted to the darkness and Sezjah pushed me to the center.
As we approached a small table the room grew silent and all eyes fell upon us. A loud ringing grew in my ears and my pulse throbbed in my thumbs. I had always avoided any sort of attention and there were over 50 women here, all looking at me. Needless to say I felt as if I were crossing center stage naked and my cheeks heated with a rising blush. My anemia as child had often left me feeling faint. Blacking out was a regular occurrence for me and headaches and dizziness occurred almost as often. All three struck me at the same time and I promptly sat down on the rug covered floor. My vision went dark but I could still hear as the worried voices of those around me rose to a buzz. It almost a minute before I could rise again but, for once, Sezjah was patient with me. When I finally stood, silence fell over the tent again and Sezjah turned me to face the crowd and placed both of her hands on my shoulders.
"Sisters, this is one who would join us. She is young, with no family and great spirit. But she is marked already as one of us. Shall we accept her?" Sezjah's voice rang out, brassy and cold as she met the eyes of every woman in the tent. I stared up at her, confused but she covered my lips with a frigid hand and did not look at me.
The gazes of the multitude of women turned towards me and once again I was on stage. I caught snatches of conversation from them but understood little.
"Strange eyes…"
"… and already marked?"
"See how she stands…"
"… she survive the change?"
Finally a tall woman with fiery red hair approached us and took a small knife from the table behind me. She traced the knife gently across the flesh of her thumb and squeezed the wound until a small line of blood appeared, then with little ceremony she did the same to my cheek, only deeper. She pressed her thumb into my cut and murmured,"Blood meets blood. Welcome sister. I am Chale." She pulled her thumb away, licked away the mingled blood and wandered back into the darkness. Sezjah's stance loosened, as if a great burden had been lifted but I barely noticed as I stared after the women who had wounded me so.
Another woman approached me, and then another and another. Soon it seemed that every woman present had pressed her thumb to my cheek. And each said the say thing, 'Blood meets blood.' Some introduced themselves, most did not and a few just stared at me with dark cold eyes, barely uttering the ritual statement. During the ritual my own blood was kept from running down my face by their thumbs but when the women were finished I shrank back and hunched my shoulders, putting my hand to my face to comfort the stinging wound, completely confused. But Sezjah was not yet done with me. She grabbed my hand away from my face and shunted me back in front of the table.
She spoke facing be, but her voice carried and it was not really to me she spoke. "Welcome sister. Blood meets blood. You have been welcomed among us. Now choose the name you would wish your sisters to call you that you may in time forget your old life."
I was not sure that I wanted to forget my old life but I remembered the conversation I had had with Silver the day before and swallowed several times before spitting out, "Kali. My name is Kali."
The women murmured this name in unison and though I had just claimed it, I did not feel that they spoke of me.
Suddenly, as if a dam had just broken, the women began to leave the tent in clusters and soon it was only Sezjah and I left in the tent. Then, from the darkness, the first woman who had touched me, Chale, came near. She bent down on both knees and looked me in the eye. Sezjah watched her, not entirely unpleased as she wiped the blood from my face.
"Welcome little sister. May we be well met. You are young to have joined us, as I was. You may visit me whenever you like. Come with me and I will get you new clothes. I work with cloth and can make you some pretty things if you like." She brushed some hair back from my forehead. "We'll even see if Rhian will make you a knife. Would you like that?" I nodded because I felt it was the right thing to do, not out of any interest in having a knife. Her voice was warm and kind, her touch was light, but her eyes spoke of something unfamiliar and burned with a strange light.
"Sezjah?" Chale turned her body to face the older woman with a questioning glace. "If I may?"
"Of course. Bring her back to me when she smells better. I am grateful to you my sister."
"You should be."
The exchange was confusing to me, but I guessed that Sezjah was glad that Chale was going to clean me for her. Little did I know that Chale, though young, was powerful within the Brynja. If she or another of her strength had not stood for me, then I would not have been welcomed as I was. I would have been harassed at every moment until someone took it too far and I was beaten within an inch of death. Sezjah could even have been banished for daring to bring in an outsider who was not welcomed. You think this strange, but once I was older I would watch it happen to another woman, one whom I could do nothing for.
