Harmindon's Finest

Chapter 1 - Living On

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"Jeddah, please. You must look at me."

Mother took my face in her gentle, frail hands, and looked at me with an intensity I didn't know she had in her. Her eyes moved slowly, taking in every detail of my face. She picked a strand of blue embroidery thread out of my knotted, messy hair, playing with it reverently. A thin, shaking finger traced over my eyebrows, touching the tip of my nose, wiping the tears from my eyes.

"My brave girl. You know what you must do now, little mother," she said, making a genuine effort to smile. This referenced the many months I had spent caring for her, helping her dress when she felt well enough to sew, bringing her sweet tea and broth in bed when she did not.

She was looking at me for the last time, and we both knew it, even though I was only an ignorant little girl of twelve. She was dying.

Then she transferred her attentions to my baby sister, Miarka, four years old and clinging anxiously to my skirts - already devoted to me, bless her loyal little heart. Mother took Miarka's thumb out of her mouth and handled her childish face with the same reverence as she had mine, stroking her short, fluffy hair affectionately.

Poor little Miarka. She didn't know what was happening. All she could understand was Mother was behaving very oddly. She had grown horribly thin during her illness, with a gaunt face and black shadows under her eyes from lack of sleep. Her hair had grown thin too, and although I tried my best every morning to brush it as carefully as I could it would not stop thinning and falling out, and so Mother often covered her head with a shawl.

When Mother tried to smile again, it was too much of an effort. She started to cough, terrifying, racking coughs that shook her entire body and made tears stream from her eyes. Miarka hid her face in my skirts, which upset Mother even more, and I stroked her heaving shoulders and whispered soothing words until she calmed down a little.

"My dear, sweet girls.... live on."

It was the last thing she ever said. She died that night, and secretly I was glad for her, because she wasn't suffering anymore. That awful illness practically tore her apart, and it was almost worse to see her living with constant torture than be at peace.

It affected Miarka worse than I. She was in despair for weeks, often bursting into tears randomly and taking fits of melancholy. I endured this for a while - she was, after all, only a baby - but at some stage I lost my temper. I shouted at her to get over it, to stop crying the whole time and making life difficult for everybody. We were the two of us shocked into silence - I had never in my life before shouted like that. It was not her fault – she should not bear the brunt of my anger and grief. Of course, I gathered the poor girl into my arms and apologised over and over, stroking her hair, silently hating myself.

The problem that we now had no adult in the household was solved quickly. The local women minded Miarka and I after Mother's funeral for a while, but they made it clear that this was only a temporary arrangement. Then Grandmother arrived.

She was our father's mother, but I had a suspicion she loved our mother more. Even when Father was alive, he wasn't home much, always travelling, and all I could remember of him were his eyes, which were so dark they were almost black. He could smile with those expressive eyes of his as well as any mouth. But he never got on with his mother, and one day they had a row so terrible she went back to her hometown, the neighbouring tribe of Pazghar.

The point, however, is that Mother was always her favourite. Grandmother always admired her kindness, her way of putting others before her even when she was on her deathbed. Mother was not a conventional beauty, but it was her expression that made her remarkable- it was always warm and welcoming with a friendly smile. Because Miarka and I resembled Mother in almost every way, apart from those expressive eyes inherited from our father, she doted on us and adored us every time she came to visit.