Aĉaĵego

III: 12 Years Ago

12 Years Earlier

"Are you gonna sleep with us tonight?"

They were supposed to be asleep, but Floreca's eyes were open wide and eager. Karesema had shut her eyes tight upon her mother's appearance at the door, but Floreca's question had rendered her efforts futile. She opened her eyes to shoot Floreca a glare that the younger girl did not notice.

Their mother approached slowly and stopped down next to their bed. The girls rearranged themselves to make room for her, but she didn't join them. Instead she kneeled on the ground, bundling her dress underneath her to pad her knees, and rested her elbows on the bed, which sank under her weight.

"I'm sleeping with your father tonight, darlings," she said. It was too dark to see very well, but Karesema could hear the chastising smile in her mother's voice. "But first, I'm going to tell you a story and put you to sleep, so the giggling I've been hearing doesn't keep all of us up all night."

Karesema rolled onto her belly and planted her face in her pillow. "I was trying to be quiet, but Floreca kept laughing!" she huffed.

"Well, I don't imagine she'd be laughing if you hadn't been acting silly," said their mother.

"Franjo was laughing, too!" insisted Floreca.

"Shush!" Her voice was kind, but firm. "I'm not here to bicker with you two; I'm here to put you to bed. Your Paĉjo needs his sleep, and so do you two. Or do we need to work you harder, so you'll fall asleep sooner?"

"No!" Floreca cried out. "We already work hard!"

"Besides," Karesema said, hoping an appeal to logic would make up for her little sister's childish reaction, "being tired only makes us wanna be more silly. So if you work us harder, we'll just be sillier."

"Try explaining that to your father, when he's grumpy after a night of no sleep," she said, the pleasant kind of threat only a mother could pull off. A plea or a protest hovered on Floreca's lips, but their mother halted it with a stern look. After a pause, in which their mother looked from one girl to the other, observing that they were sufficiently humbled, she said, "Now! What story would you like to hear tonight, girls?"

"Aĉaĵego! Aĉaĵego!" All pretense of solemnity was lost as Floreca sat up to lean in towards their mother. "Please?"

"We hear the Aĉaĵego story all the time!" Karesema complained.

"Nu-uh! Last time it was 'Mardiino, the Salt Goddess!'"

"Floreca is right," said their mother, before Karesema could argue. "And Karesema picked it. So, it's only fair that Floreca gets to pick this time."

"She picks the same story every time!" Karesema whined.

"Well, she likes to hear the same story every time, just like you like to hear a different story every time," their mother mediated.

"Yeah!" Floreca echoed.

"But it's getting so boring!"

"Nu-uh!"

"Girls!" snapped their mother. "Knock it off. Or soon people will be telling a story about the time the Aĉaĵego came down from the mountain to get two naughty sisters who wouldn't stop bickering!"

Floreca squealed and rolled over and pressed herself against her older sister, as if trying to burrow under her to hide from the approaching Aĉaĵego, though she was still quite visible. Karesema simply pouted–she knew bickering wasn't a bad enough sin to get a person in trouble with the Aĉaĵego, and besides, she was older, so Floreca was supposed to listen to her. So if the Aĉaĵego did come down, it would come only for Floreca, and not her. But she sensed that her mother was just starting to get cranky, so she held her tongue.