Kara

Chapter 4

My mother's stern and disappointed face reached me across the river, along with the two guards and the High Matriarch. I held small rings of tendrils I gathered to at least seem like I was doing what I had told her I was going to do, but that didn't feel like enough. They pushed on the vaulting pole and it landed on my side of the bank, lightly bouncing off of the soft grassy soil. The flames buried within her gaze, that hidden anger, were all I could see in her eyes among the two torches that stood beside her. I grabbed onto the pole and jumped over to her side, surrounded by disappointment. "Make sure she wasn't followed," The High Matriarch ordered the guards beside her. They quickly carried their spears and jumped over the river and crouched into the bushes as they drifted off into the glowing darkness of the forest. "You misguided child. You have defiled these sacred grounds. You ignored my warnings, and potentially endangered our tribe."
I had no idea what to say, my mind was fixed on the creature I saw. Its smooth, featureless face, haloed by a compass-pointed ring. "Kara!" My mother snapped in my face, trying to get my attention. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
"Nothing..."
"Not even admitting you lied to me?"
"What?"
"Garo's too smart to just send someone unblessed, and inexperienced, to gather Mother's blood." She snatched the tendrils out of my hand. "Mother could wipe us from history because of this. Not only that, but you also risked your life for this, and I don't even know what you were really looking for."
"I wasn't looking for anything..." The metal creature held every corner of my mind.
"You're never seeing that man again. You're not doing any more of this dangerous craft work again."
The High Matriarch nodded in agreement. "That man will also be dealt with. 'They sought to control nature, and learn beyond the world they were given.'" She quoted a line from the Matriarica.
"You can't! He hasn't done anything wrong!" I protested
"This isn't the plan I had for you. I never wanted your life to go this way, Kara." my mother turned away from me, covering her mouth.
The drums for the ceremony rang through the air and resonated in my ears. The depth of the booms pulls in all the members of the tribe to the pavilion. My mother grabbed my wrist, dragging me but refusing to look at me. We passed Garo's shop, and he wasn't sitting outside. I resisted my mother's pull, my heels digging into the ground, but I was too small to stop her march. "What are they going to do to him?"
"I- I don't know." She pulled harder.
"You do!" I stomped down and turned my body the other way giving more resistance. She slowed, but I was still too weak.
"Kara, I shouldn't have let you learn from him to begin with. He's just odd! He doesn't respect any of our rituals, he shows no respect for our sacred grounds, and he even worships the Oonagi!"
"He doesn't worship them! He knows what they do is dangerous!"
"Then why does he try to mimic the technology of the Erased?" She stopped. "Why does he entice you to go out into that forest despite the warnings and teachings you've received? Mother's judgment is on all of us, and even you. Right now it is my job to teach you and guide you in her light, and you make it so difficult!"
"Ma, there's just so much out there! I want to see it and be who I want to be! You decide so much of my life and I've barely gotten to live it!"
"Kara, you're a child!" She looked back at me, her eyes welling up. Her face contorted to hold in tears, wrinkles from her scrunched nose and squinted eyes branching up to her forehead. That wave of emotion she was holding in, was something I could only imagine. "I'm your mother, and if I see a man teaching my daughter to lie, and go out to do dangerous things, I'm going to keep her away from that man. I need you alive, Kara."
I had never seen her like this. There was a war within me that was just starting. As if my mother had ripped out part of me and I had ripped out part of her. Each of our strongest desires rests in the hands of one another. I went quiet; feeling the words I wanted to say but not hearing them in my mind to say. Like they had lodged themselves in my throat, or sagged in my mind. My mother looked away from me and pulled again. I walked with her to the house.
She creaked open the door for me, and I moved inside. She looked at me, skeptically trusting I wouldn't do anything else. "Please..." she pleaded with me, before carefully shutting the door to this clay prison. The thud of the drums thundered through the house as I stood there, still unsure what to do. I needed to go back, but I couldn't leave. I just couldn't leave, it would ruin her. My head was swelling, pulsing with each low ring of the drums. If I go, I didn't know if I could come back. She could disown me, or what if I get banished? What about Garo? I had no way of knowing. Deep breaths. I needed to breathe, but the uncertainty was choking me. Suddenly I was out the door.
My breathing was still fast, and my head- Mother my head, but I had no time to waste. I needed to know. The fire was burning down at the square, and everyone has gathered around, all while a new soul was being dedicated to Mother, and entering our tribe. Once they turn five. Once you hit that birthday you enter a world that never changes. Clutching my spear, I charged down the path towards Garo's shop. The puddles of rainwater had dried, so with each step, the ground gave a solid thud. The farms were still, all the animals put away, and the crisp crackle of torches filled the space between each boom of the drums. The tent stood there and the shack was empty. I didn't know if he was gone.
The drums stopped. I walked into the tent, carefully moving the flap to make as little noise as possible. The walls were bare. Empty. The whole place was empty except for a single gear left on a chair in the corner. It had to mean something. The tower.