Prophecy

Chapter 6

Two weeks had passed before Dara was able to make it all the way to the temple. She refused to name her child until the monks met her, and Sothiya understood why. The first thing Dara brought up was her daughter's eye color. They weren't dark brown like her own and Sothiya's. Instead the baby's eyes were of a striking shade of pale green. Mama Fha told her to be happy, it could be a good sign. In China, children with green eyes were considered to bring luck. Dara didn't believe that nonsense for a moment, and had it only been the unusual eye color Dara wouldn't have given it a second thought. However, her daughter had other attributes that stood out. Dara's baby had the ethnic traits of Khmer Chen, the part of the Cambodian population with Chinese descent. It was odd. Dara's family was Khmer through and through, and Sothiya was descended from Khmer Ioeu from the highlands. They both had traditional Khmer characteristic features. Her daughter did not look traditional Khmer at all. After years with severe oppression of Chinese minorities, having the visual appearance of such – when not actually belonging to and enjoying the protection of it's community – could become a serious problem for her child as she grew up. Dara hoped her daughter's skin would darken and her features dim as she grew older. Although certain people would question whether Sothiya was the father, this was not even something Dara worried about. People could talk all they wanted about her, as long as they didn't talk about her daughter.

Another thing also worried Dara. It was much harder to put into words and even if she really wanted to, she hadn't discussed it with anyone. She felt a bit silly. It was probably something common, harmless, something about babies she should know about. If she told anyone, they'd probably laugh at her. So, she kept silent, but she worried, nonetheless. She worried because the very first time she breastfed her daughter, something had felt terribly wrong. Afterwards she'd read through Sothiyas books, searching for anything describing the sensation. There were absolutely texts about women experiencing anything from ecstatic joy to intense depression, but nothing really fitted what she'd felt every time since that first moment with her baby at her breast. By now she was prepared for it, and it didn't quite shock her as it had at first, but she doubted she'd ever get used to it. By now she was sure what she experienced wasn't normal.

It came suddenly. That first night, after the dramatic birth, Dara had put her baby to her breast. She'd latched on with instinct and Dara had felt that sensation she now knew was her body responding to it. But then she'd felt something completely different. It was like her vision darkened. Cold creeping in from the corners of the room. Cold sweat started to break out, shivers all over her body took hold. She felt a fear so intense it froze her to the spot. Waves like electricity shot through her, she suddenly had trouble breathing, she wanted to scream for help, but nothing came out. It was like the baby was not only feeding on breast milk but on Dara herself. The baby had control over her body and mind. Maybe not consciously, she was after all just a baby, but that's what it had felt like. It felt like a bad omen. Like Dara was being warned.

As soon as she entered the temple, she sought out Visoth, the monk who'd known her family all her life. He had been in the temple for as long as she could remember and was one of the few monks and priests who survived the Khmer Rouge. She found him in the temple garden, busy picking flowers to be used in ceremonies later that evening.

"Paun Dara!" The monk's eyes sparkled as he saw her. "Who is it I see with you?" He straightened his back and walked up to Dara with the limp she by now was accustomed to. The monk had been taken from the temple and set to work in the rice fields. In that aspect he'd been lucky, as many monks were simply executed. He'd survived four snake bites, malaria and a severe infection. Unfortunately, the infection had led to muscle degenerating, now presenting itself in this limp. Dara greeted the man with the customary gesture: palms together, fingertips to her forehead right about where her brows met. But then she couldn't resist any longer and threw her arms around the old man, not caring if anyone saw them. Touching a monk, especially as a woman, was strictly forbidden.