Poor Girls

 It hurt, but there it was. The sooner people finally recognized that, the sooner they understood to stay away from her. She was no artist with words, often she destroyed more than she created; which is perhaps why Zahara had never formed alliances with ease before. Yet she had survived practically on her own all throughout her life, so why would she possibly need allies now? Zahara stared incredulously at the woman who had been her mentor, her companion, guide, and unfortunately her savior although she never relished admitting it. Was this really what Greta wanted? Or just a passing breeze flitting through her head one moment and leaving the next. Those were becoming all too frequent.

 “Did you hear me?” the old woman continued, perfectly coherent at Zahara's dumbstruck expression.

 “You don’t mean it. Lay back, I’ll get you the medicine.”

 She waved her hand at Zahara dismissively. “I’m beyond help. You’ve known that for months. I need you to fulfill this one request.”

 “But-"

“You will understand with time, Zahara," she continued as if the girl hadn't spoken. "If I could remain on this earth for longer, this could wait." She paused, her eyes closing in unspoken pain. Her wrinkled face looked paler as of late and she had taken to having fits in bouts spontaneously in the day.  "As it is, we must not tarry. Time is precious and unfortunately working against us.”

 “Even if I were to extend an offer to other girls to come live here, how would I possibly convince them? They would not leave the comfort of their lifelong dwellings so readily. It’s all they’ve known.”

 “Hah, you speak to me of comfort. Their dwellings are nothing more than hollow trees, empty caves, and braving the bitter wind on muddy roads. They will come. Do not make the mistake of judging a warm bed lightly. They will come.” All of Zahara's life with Greta had been a constant pain to her. It was plain to see in the etched lines in her face and the callous tone Greta was quick to take when speaking to the child. And Zahara was fully aware of that. Yet the old woman was the only one who truly knew the girl.

 Zahara's mother had been one of the few, so determined to keep her baby, female or not that she bet her life against the gods. The majority of women in her village were eventually convinced otherwise, usually after the threat of torture or certain death. But her mother had been wise and had not hinted of her plans to a soul. None suspected her of defiance, so soft-spoken was she to all.The night Zahara was born she gathered her few possessions together beforehand and planned an escape to the hilly cliffs outside the village where she took shelter for the remainder of her life. Back in that time, the rocky outskirts had been rejected for settlement and were treachous to venture onto, easy to stumble and break your neck on the deceivingly treacherous rocks and slip down the slick grass into nothing but air. Nobody questioned her disappearance, the father had been dead two months and she would have been forced to leave shortly after the pregnancy to another village anyway. Without a doubt, one where she would be cast aside. Out of the natural course of things, another family moved into the abandoned one-roomed shack after she had evacuated it.

The family no doubt inherited the mutt as well, which was more wolf than helper and a constant burden on the owner. She always said he was more wild than trained. Her companion, Zahara's father, had traded with a passing caravan that considered the beast evil, at the time Toki was two months old and black as a raven.  They insisted that meant he was cursed. He gave them two handcrafted dinner tables for the mange although surely they would have accepted less if the man had been of a bargaining sort. Zahara's mother had always said he had been more trouble than he was worth. Although realistically he had kept evil, overreaching men at bay at the very least.

The birthing ritual would have meant making the journey with the village shaman to the vast edge of the town's boundaries. It had become a spiritual process, one which all revered to be the holiest of all. The woman had indeed traveled with him. And when the time had come when he dangled the baby over the cliff to say a prayer of blessing, after which if it was a boy they were returned safely to the mother’s cradling arms and if not the newly born simply was dropped, she grabbed Zahara and pushed the holy man over the edge. An offense so horrifying, the punishment would to be striked down by the gods.

 People feared it so, it could only be assumed no one had dared attempt it before. Perhaps her ugly fate was only delayed until eight years later when a demon in the form of a coyote killed her. Zahara knew she owed her every breathing moment of her life.

  The mother had done nothing more but knit and cook for men most of her life. Women had no ambition in those times. Among the years she had been married, she had ventured out here and there and explored, like the few other women settled with a man were allowed to do a few times a month. It was said to increase fertility when women ambled about in nature more than not. And perhaps it also increased the chances of having a son. Or at least that had always been the unspoken hope. Apparently she made more use of her infrequent trips to the ravines than most. Unearthing berry bushes, wild onion, and even a thin trickling stream near the cave she eventually came back to settle in. This woman dared to tread where no one else would. It was what she formed her plan on.

And she raised Zahara by herself. It couldn’t have been easy. The girl was impossible to deal with even at a young age. It didn’t help that her mother laughed at her every antic rather than punish the child. Curious and unreserved are the affectionate terms she laid on her daughter whenever she did anything ridiculous, unprovoked. The facts were that Zahara hardly remembered anything of that part of her short life. In her eighth year, her mother was attacked and slain by a ravenous coyote while the girl was off fetching water from the cool stream in the valley beyond. It was difficult understand why or how the coyote had made the journey to that hidden cave atop the hill of boulders. Few animals ever managed it on their own and those that did were born to dwell on the mountain such as goats or rams. Coyotes were more liable to break their legs on the rocky path, that one had in fact. Yet somehow it managed to find the imminent strength to continue on to murder the only person Zahara had ever known or cared about.

She died within a week from the fever. Those could have been the darkest days of the young girl's life, helpless to the grey death that slowly stole her mother into the night. But worse was still to come. Zahara might have turned differently if she had been raised at all. A constant counter Greta would use when she reminds the girl of how difficult she was. Three days after, she drifted down to the village, a ghost in rags, thin, cold, and half-dead from hunger. At that age she knew next to nothing about the village that had all but cast her only kin out but  praying all the same that they would take pity on her. She waited at the edge of the road, swaying back and forth unconciously from her ever-growing hunger, in the streaming rain and only approached the houses after she spotted a scrawny, slightly older boy, wrestling with a chunk of bread.

Zahara's mother had often spoken of a village without girls but she had never spoken against talking with boys. A weak sound came from the starving girl's mouth in attempt to get his attention, then there was a whispered “Hello,” when he appeared oblivious. That made him startle. “Who’s there?” he trilled, spinning around nervously. He spotted the little figure before him but at first, paused as if he was still puzzling something out in his mind. “What’re you doing here?” he mumbled distrustfully with eyes narrowed, like a snake's.

“I-I- my mother, she’s…” The girl's eyes filled with pathetic tears and she looked down suddenly feeling less confident that this was a good idea, yet positive that she didn't want him to see her weakness. “I’m hungry,” she said instead, hoping this would provoke more kindness than a pitiful story. Zahara dared not look up, afraid he might hold it against her for doing so. Just then something hit the little waif's head, hard. The poor creature wished with all her sad body that it was the bread, it didn’t occur to her until the second rock struck her ear that it wasn’t. The girl screeched in pain and forced herself to look up into the eyes of the boy, with anger and bubbling hatred seething through her veins.

Instead of just the one boy’s pair of eyes staring back at her, she found herself meeting four more from boys all of looming statures. All seemed to wear the same triumphant smile on their faces and all of them gripped rocks that filled their hands.