The Women Who Marry Ghosts

The Surrender

When Uperi awoke, she fumed. How dare he, she thought as she threw her water jugs onto her back. What in the afterlife could keep him from me? She sloshed water everywhere at the well as she yanked the ancient bucket to the surface. Does he think I have time to wait around all day? Like a silly, love-struck fool? She flung grains into her pestle and ground them until they were the finest powder. If he will not come to me, I will bring him to me. She dropped her pestle in a plume of grain-smoke and stalked out of her hut.

At the Seer's hut, Uperi took a deep breath. Shook her head. Just do it. She walked in without an invitation. The Seer, sitting on their sleeping mat, looked up and smiled when Uperi entered.

"You're here," they said.

"I want to–" The Seer waved her off. Uperi's throat was dry and her words stilled though they continued to build in her throat and mouth, as they were wont to do.

"I know. Sit." Uperi blinked, then sat. The Seer fiddled with some old, clay cups, sloshing beer over the side as they poured. "Let us pretend," the Seer said, then groaned as they settled onto the ground next to Uperi with their shoulder pressed against hers. "That we are old, dear friends, and you're here to gossip with me about your new husband."

Uperi understood. If her husband was listening -- and how could he not be, after all the horrible things she said about him that afternoon – he'd think they were simply twitting away, as old friends did about their partners. Harmless. Non-conspiratorial.

"Yes," Uperi said, although she didn't know where to begin.

Guiding her, they said, "Tell me about your husband."

"Ok." Uperi took a sip of her beer while she thought.

Bleached skulls chimed against precious stones as a breeze sauntered through the hut. The two of them inhaled deep.

"Rain," the Seer said, in part because their weighty conversation needed something inconsequential to cleanse the heaviness but also because the breeze carried such a promise. Spirits, please, give us rain, Uperi prayed. I am so hot. The constant heat cocooned her in a sheen of sweat from dawn to dusk. She brushed droplets from her forehead.

"My husband, he–" Uperi looked around, as if expecting to see him leaning against the hut, smirking and raising an eyebrow. "He was handsome, in life. I -- I had known him since I was a child." The Seer leered, sipped their beer. "I didn't think much of him, if I'm being honest. But on the morning you announced our names, I agreed to him. I thought we had -- I thought we could --" She hurriedly drank her beer. All of it. "Anyway. He vanished, or died. And so we couldn't. But then he visited me on our wedding night."

"Did he open your heart, as well as your legs?" The Seer's laugh sounded as if they were choking on dust.

"I did not expect to want him. I did not expect him at all. He was --" Tired of all the formality, the Seer sighed in impatience.

"You were irritated by him in life, you are surprised he pleasured you in death. I get it."

"Well..." Uperi blushed. "And last night he...he did not." The Seer grabbed her thigh. She felt their nails sink into the meat of her leg. She resisted the urge to pull away.

"And you desire his return?" The Seer asked in her ear.

"I demand it."

"Then you know what to do."

"Then I need your help." The Seer finished their beer.

"If you know the cost, I will do this," the Seer said. Uperi helped the Seer to their feet. "You do know the cost?"