Her mother's candle sat on the tabletop alone and untouched and every day Lakal passed it with a stone in her stomach. The guilt ate her away and some days she refused to leave the inner room simply so that she would not have to pass the damned thing.
It was impossible to think of the candle and not of her mother nor the months of effort that went into carving the intricate thing. Her mother's soul sat lingering in that place between the earth and eternal life and each day the candle remained unlit served as a reminded of that fact. In a perfect world Lakal would have set foot with the candle after her mother's body had been given back to the sea. The longer it sat there on that table the longer her mother's soul remained tethered to this world and the less likely it seemed that her soul would achieve the peace of the eternal.
But a perfect world it was not. The candle – cleanly carved and patiently waiting to be delivered – was not the only thing her mother had left in Lakal's care. The other slept with her at night. Accompanied her throughout the day. It was a living, breathing bundle of sounds that hungered, wailed, and soiled itself in a repeating pattern. If the candle was important because her mother had carved her soul onto it then the life her mother had birthed in the waning of her own was surely just as important.
The village women were more than capable of caring for the child but the babe had been born of her mother. The moment the birther placed Sira into her arms Lakal looked into eyes that she just seen close for the last time. The village was capable but the child was hers to care for and to protect. She could not leave the newborn to be introduced to her father or brother by someone that was not herself. They would be reunited as a family.
Lakal had a story to tell. A story about her mother and her newborn sister and a candle that needed to be burned.
