Dindi

Dindi and Hadi climbed down a ladder to the kitchen in the main house. Puddlepaws was not invited but the kitten scrambled down the ladder after them. Smoke dimmed the whitewashed walls to grey and hazed the air with spicy fumes. She searched the room for an important guest. In the corner opposite the ladder were three beehive-shaped ovens, each with its own adjacent ash pit. Mixed with lard and soaproot, the ashes would be used to wash clothes in the stream—which reminded Dindi of the chores she should not have let the fae do for her. Nearby were quern stones for milling corn.

Beyond the querns was a deep, cool pit for storing jugs of milk and water. The two walls extending from the cooking corner were lined with shelves above and jars below. The shelves were crammed with spices, cheeses, dried fruit and tools knapped of chert. The rest of the chamber was given over to a broad clay platform at knee height, which served as an eating-place. As a tot, she’d danced there, pretending to be a Tavaedi, earning laughter and cheers from her family. She’d never stopped dancing; they’d stopped cheering. By the time she was five, the same aunties who had praised her grace and dedication complained of her clumsiness and laziness. Little girls should keep the platform white washed, and cover it with fresh reed mats, not dance there.

The members of the clan had seated themselves in a rough rectangle around the edge of the platform, smallest children on laps. Hands passed back and forth the communal bowls of food. The clay bowls and platters held flat triangular bread, bean mash, goat cheese melted to a gooey sauce and bowls of crushed chili peppers and lemon juice to be added for flavor. Family members used their hands to make pishas by wrapping the beans and cheese in the bread. The warriors sat nearest the door, the maidens nearest the ovens. Great Aunt Sullana and Mama and the other aunts sat against the wall, the matriarchs an isle of dignified manners amidst the chaos. Only matriarchs knew the secret of eating pishas full of melted cheese without getting sticky fingers.

Zavaedi Abiono, the leader of the Tavaedi troop, sat in the place of honor, between the warriors and the aunties. He nodded to Dindi. Her heart drummed faster.

“Why, here’s Lost Swan Clan’s very own lost cygnet!” cried Papa. He was a big, wry man with a spreading belly. Papa and Uncle Lubo led the others in cheers and whistles. Dindi blushed.

“There you are at last, girl,” said Great Aunt Sullana. “Your hair looks as though beavers had abandoned a dam there. Your face is smudged. Did you spend the morning rolling in dust? Never mind, Zavaedi Abiono is doing us the great honor of a visit. Comb your hair and wash your face before you join us. This is a kitchen, not a den of bears.”

Flustered, Dindi took her basket of soap to where deep clay pots had been sunk as a cistern in the earth. This was the darkest corner of the kitchen, smelling of dirt hardened with aurochs dung and the memory of pools in ancient caverns. A single Blue nixie floated on his back in the depths of one of the jugs. He winked up at Dindi. Puddlepaws extended a tiny paw to reach him and almost fell in the water.

She took out a lump of soap, splashed water on her face and rubbed up a quick lather. The soap did not lather well, but rather than struggle with it, she rinsed her face again, dragged her fingers through her wild hair and hurried to the platform where everyone else sat.

She shoved herself between her female cousins, Jensi and Tibi. Dindi peeked curiously at Aunt Sullana, at Zavaedi Abiono, at Mama, at Papa, hoping for a clue to the real reason behind their visitor’s purpose.

They stared back at her in amazement.

“Yes, I can see why you were asking about Dindi,” Papa said to Zavaedi Abiono.

“Oh, Dindi,” sighed her mother.

Uncle Lubo slapped his thigh and bellowed with laugher. In minutes, the whole clan joined him.

“For mercy’s sake, girl,” said Great Aunt Sullana. “Did you smear your face with blueberries?”

Dindi’s hands flew to her face. It did feel sticky…. Horrified, she glanced back at the pile of soap lumps she had left by the cistern’s lip. The lumps were blue.

Blue soap.

Blueberry soap.

The fae had mixed the blueberries, not the soaproot, with the ashes and lard.

Oh, mercy. Her whole face must be stained with the indelible juice.

“Because you don’t know her well, you may think Dindi’s just a little strange,” Papa said to Zavaedi Abiono. “Once you get to know her better, you’ll realize that’s not true. She’s extremely strange.”

Uncle Lubo’s renewed peals of laugher reverberated around the smoky kitchen.

“Enough,” said Great Aunt Sullana. It was a decree. The guffaws of the uncles subsided to an echo of snickers and snorts from the younger cousins. “Where have you been, Dindi? Hadi says you ran off without him despite my express wishes.”

Dindi shot Hadi the wounded look of one betrayed. He shoved a pisha into his mouth and shrugged.

“Seven and seven times and seven times more,” said Great Aunt in a voice wheezing with age, “I have warned you and warned you about going off on your own. Didn’t I just say that strangers have been spotted in the woods? What if some outtribesman had seen you alone and made off with you!”

“Well,” said Papa, “You’ve been wondering how we’d get Dindi married off.”

“I said I wanted her married off, not carried off. Elli, can’t you put a leash on this man’s tongue?”

“If I had married a goat, I could leash him,” Mama said.

“Instead you had to marry a boar.”

Papa just laughed.

Great Aunt Sullana turned to Zavaedi Abiono. “You see what I have to put up with, Zavaedi.”

Zavaedi Abiono glanced at Dindi, at her sticky blue face. He emitted a non-committal cough. She wanted to die.

“I gave up on taking that wild child in hand long ago,” went on Great Aunt Sullana. “If her mother won’t do it, I can’t. And her mother won’t. Will you, Elli?”

“She’s still just a child, Aunt Sullana,” Mama said.

“Not for much longer,” said Great Aunt Sullana.