Dindi

Once the guest was gone, taking the excitement with him, a general exodus out of the kitchen followed. One by one the others finished, burped and left, until only Dindi and her mother remained. The kitchen was very hollow and empty without three dozen bodies filling it with life. The smell of farmers’ sweat lingered, mixed with spicy food aromas and smoke from the burning dung.

Dindi sniffled.

“Lady of Mercy,” said Mama under her breath. Muttering to herself, she went to the oven, where she placed a dollop of bean mash from a storage pot onto a piece of flat bread. She laid cheese on top, and folded over the three corners of the bread. She placed it on the pottery bread shovel and pushed it into the oven, which was kept stoked all day. When she decided that the pisha was crisped to her satisfaction, she pressed it into Dindi’s hands.

“Eat, eat.”

Dindi pushed it away. She hid her blue face against her drawn up knees.

“You behave a like a child,” Mama said. She lifted Dindi’s chin. “But you’re twice seven years, now, sweetling, and past your moonblood. If you lay with a man, he could make you a mother.”

“I know I’m a burden to everyone around me. I try to do what’s right, but everything I weave gets tangled.”

“There is still a chance you will be chosen.”

“Great Aunt Sullana obviously doesn’t think so.”

“What does she know?”

“Maybe something I don’t,” said Dindi. She lifted her head just enough to peer at her mother through tear dewed eyelashes. “You weren’t chosen.”

Mama stilled. “No. I wasn’t.”

“But you could have been the best dancer of your generation. Everyone thought so. Then, one day, instead of choosing you to dance magic, they told you could never dance, ever.”

“It…wasn’t as bad as all that,” Mama said. “By then, I had your father. Soon I was trying hard to have a child. Sometimes you have to let a dream die.”

“I just want to dance.”

“Oh, Dindi.” Mama put down the pisha. “If you won’t eat, at least let me clean you up.”

She went to the shelves in the corner. There she fiddled with various jars, until she returned with noxious, sharp smelling goo on a rabbit skin cloth.

“Come here, my little blueberry face,” she said, taking Dindi by the chin. Mama wiped the ick on Dindi’s cheeks and scrubbed. Hard.

“Ow!”

“Stop wiggling.”

“Are you washing me or flaying me?”

“If you prefer, we can just rub blue soap over the rest of you, so at least you’ll match.”

“Mmmrrff,” said Dindi, while her mother wiped the cloth over her mouth.

“My mother loved dancing too,” Mama said. An old hurt quivered in her words. “She loved it more than me. Shortly after I was born, she abandoned me to dance with the fae. They caught her in a faery circle and she danced herself to death. Her sister had to raise me in her place. That’s why your great aunt worries so over you.” She lifted Dindi’s chin and inspected her face for any trace of blueberry. Apparently she found none. “I understand you love to dance. I do, Dindi. You cannot know how well I understand.” She stroked Dindi’s cheek. ”But I would never choose dancing over you.”

“Why can’t I have both?”

Mama was silent a moment. “My mother used to sing me a song. The night before she left me forever, when I was still just a tiny child, she told me it was part of an ancient tama, and if only she could dance that tama, to the end, she would never have to leave me. She didn’t know how the song ended, so she hadn’t performed the tama correctly during Initiation, but she never gave up trying. She thought the fae could help her learn it…. I was too young to understand that she was really saying goodbye. The unfinished song began like this:

Came a faery cross some kits

Suckling at their mother’s tits,

Pawing, kneading with their mits;

Ma, content to laze

‘neath these tiny, mewling bits

Hid in a row of maize.

Cat and kittens were all a-purr.

Their mama licked and cleaned their fur.

Cat met the faery’s eyes, demure,

And yet with pride ablaze.

Strange the mood that crept on her,

She watched them in amaze.

To her came her darkest sister,

Put her arms about her, kissed her

Drew her to her in the middle

Of the twisted ways,

Whispered in her ear this riddle:

‘Chose the Windwheel or the Maize!’

Chills whispered down Dindi’s spine. A reverberating hum of the song echoed in the room for a few seconds after Mama finished signing.

Mama expelled a heavy breath. “Over the years, I have asked everyone I know about that song. No one knows it. A long time ago, a Green Woods tribeswoman, fleeing the Whistlers who ruled the Rainbow Labyrinth tribehold in those days, told me that perhaps the Zavaedi with the Singing Bow would know the tune. But the Green Woods tribesfolk have retreated to the Hidden Forest.” She shrugged. “Perhaps all our worries are wasted. I truly hope you will be chosen to become a Tavaedi. And if not….”

“I’m sorry, Mama,” said Dindi. Her jaw hurt, so hard did she clench it. “I think I’m more like Gramma Maba than like you.”

Mama touched her cheek.

“Eat,” she said. “Eat, already.”