Family Celebration
Asha Banu sat on the porch and watched the other children play. She could hear the older women and girls chatter as they prepered the celebrations inside, and as the sun went lower and lower, the sound was replaced with the grave sound of prayer, spoken over food and drink. Soon the men would return from their journey. She could see them, colored sails in the water.
It was a lovely day. The leaves were shining red and yellow, painting not only the trees but the soil, too, as if they were welcoming the men in their own, special way.
Asha Banu couldn't wait for her father to return. She hadn't seen him for a year – the men always away but for one week when no woman would work and the families would celebrate.
The other children were excited, too. They would talk about the beautiful things they would get from their fathers, about the tasty food always prepared at this occasion, about the joy. Forgotten was the misery of their lives, if only for a week.
Asha Banu spottet the boy under a tree, his little arms hugging his knees, looking at the leaves beside his feet. The other children avoided Rob Lucci. He wasn't like them, and not only did they know it – they felt it. His tattoos were different from theirs – not of their caste. His skin was too light, his eyes of a strange color. And worst of all – he had no mother. Nobody was sure that he wasn't some sort of demon or evil spirit. There were legends that sometimes the creatures of the night would steal a child and replace it with it's own. It would fit his case. After all, Anka Zena had gone to give her stillborn child to the river and returned with the boy, claiming to have found him in the wet earth by the water. Nobody had known what to do with the child – some said to kill him, but others feared the wrath of unknown creatures. Anka Zena herself wasn't very afraid of the boy. She was said to have gone insane, the way she would throw tanturms nearly killing the child when the other day she would go into the wood near the river, the child in her arms, talking to the spirits for hours, pleading them to trade the child for hers. She had even risked her life for him once – when soldiers had come to them, two weeks after he had been found. They demanded every infant and killed him right away. Every mother that had refused to give them her child had been slaughtered with it, but Anka Zena could not have cared less as she hid the child.
And then there was Sanaz Akua. She was said to be old (something you could never tell with their people, as with age their features simply got more childlike while it was their mind that slowly decayed) and in fact Asha Banu couldn't remember a time when the woman had not been there, in the small room full of books and cards. They say she was over hundred years old and was of a very high caste – she had taught one of their queens once to read and write, and she spoke so different from the others. When she was seen outside her room – which was rarely the case – she never spoke to anyone, her head held high. She had a certain interest in Rob Lucci from the day he was brought to her for advice, had him come to her room quite often as he learned to walk.
Asha Banu was pulled out of this thoughts as the bells rung. She could see her father in the red light of the sun and joy filled her heart as she ran up to him and he pressed her against his tattooed chest. The doors were opened and they all got inside. There the women would greet their husbands, and they would eat the wonderful food prepared and there was music and dancing. Asha Banu herself watched her parents dance as she got out to catch some fresh air.
Rob Lucci was still sitting under the tree, arms around his knees, watching the house. She felt pity for him. It was already dark outside, dark and cold and even if he was a demon – he was just a little one, wasn't he? He couldn't cause much harm, anyways.
„Rob Lucci!", she shouted as she ran over to him. „Come inside, let's celebrate!" She reached her hand out to him. When he didn't take it, she grabbed his small hand and pulled the little boy along to the perch up to the door. That's when she felt his hand ripped out of hers. The blow hit him so hard, he fell down the steps and didn't move for a few seconds. Anka Zena stood there, a hard look on her face.
„That's a family celebration.", she said, her voice cold. „It's Belakane. It's only for Belakane." She turned, but glanced over her shoulder. „Demons don't have any business here."
Ashu Bana stared at the boy.
Tears were running down his face.
She asked if he was okay. He said nothing.