The Extraordinary Accounts of One Lost Girl

-13-

Instead, there was a whitish ribbon of glitter in the night sky that extent ended from the horizon to the top, like a rainbow. I say it looked like glitter because they looked different from stars. The individual particles were larger than stars and didn't blink. That day, I simply sat on the ground on a cushion, staring up at the sky. After that day, every day I would wake up at night to watch the sky, wondering where the moon went.

There wasn't a moon.

This world didn't have a moon.

Even to ask Zharu about the moon, I had no idea if the people even knew what a moon was.

Dinner with my supposed mother grew awkward and the glare my supposed sister was giving me grew more intense. My supposed mother could only hold a conversation with me at least three months after my first arrival.

'I am your mother,' she simply said. 'Can you understand?'

I nodded. But she didn't seem satisfied until I said, 'Yes.'

'Good.'

Other than Zharu, I practiced talking with Mara and Shalom as they thought me the correct pronunciations. I gradually learned who my mother was. She was the Head Priestess of sort and held the power equal to that of a queen. Also I must admit, I have never worn an attire of a different colour ever since I've arrived to "Malhawd."

Malhawd was a city and it was a kingdom of its own.

Green was the colour the high priestess wore, pale blue the lower novices and apprentices like Shalom and Asith. Even if I didn't follow their religion, I was expected to wear jade green to show my status. My mother for my relief, didn't force their religion into me. Even Zharu didn't. But my attendants always tried to teach me. They say the world was long ago ruled my gods and goddesses and that their city was founded by the god of war and a goddess of fertility in an agricultural and reproductive sense. And it seems there was an underground stream running under the city and that there was actually cultivation going on underground. I wasn't allowed to go out of the temple, but I have always noticed holes on the ground that was covered with wooden meshes embedded to the earth. At first I thought that it was drainage, but it hardly rained to act as drainage. It seems there was agricultural ground underneath and that the pot holes were for sunlight to nourish the plant life.

In other words, the city was larger than what the surface showed. And it was true, for most of the aristocrats and the royalty lived underground, away from the smoldering heat. The temple was a structure than ran down deep and also up the surface as the temple had to represent the common people as well. But my mother preferred to live up it seemed.

As I was saying, the god of war and goddess fertility were couple. But they were a strange couple since they had children separately. The descendants of the god of war became royalty while that of the goddess of fertility's descendants were continues through the blood line of the head priestess. The god of war defended the city through flames while the goddess of fertility looked after basic needs. Well, the goddess of fertility seemed to be the one who was famous enough to earn a whole temple for herself. It seems men were not so dominant in the society as the temple only allowed woman devotees to enter, any men in the temple were given special permission for duty.

The day I learned that story, I could not help but wonder, if I was really the Head Priestess's (they called her "Alra") daughter (I wasn't hundred percent willing to believe it until I get a maternity test report) does that mean my ancestor was a goddess?

Also, being a descendant of a goddess gave one powers. From Zharu I learned that the Head Priestess was able to foretell the future and that the power was passed from mother to daughter; to one daughter also, not everyone. Precognition seemed more like an esper to me (as I had heard of an esper who can predict the outcomes of various actions in the future), and I didn't try to question anything because how can I explain science to people who had never heard of science. Still, I was obviously skeptic to believe the stories to which everyone in Malhawd believed to be was fact.

Still, my inability to believe didn't cause much of a problem. I remember one day, it must have been the time where Zharu was teaching me adjectives that his wife and his three year old daughter came to the temple. Zharu watched from the back of the temple at his family, his face showing the gentlest and happiest smile I had ever seen as his wife offered flowers and lamps. His daughter placed a white flower on the altar.

Zharu's wife, noticed him staring at took her daughter in her arms, deciding to whether leave or not.

I wondered why she was not coming. Instead of her coming me, Zharu went out of the temple while I followed behind like a tail.

Zharu's wife bowed to me and said the greeting I've heard so many times even I memorized it saying, "Glory to the goddess who left her grace on the earth."

Zharu introduced his wife in only three words, 'Wife. Hana.' And had the cheek to teach me a lesson by saying, 'Hana is beautiful.' I recognized Hana's name and obviously knew that he was trying to describe her. Adjectives were tricky. Zharu would point at a tall man, and I would think that he was trying to tell that the man was big. So to make certain that the adjective Zharu was saying was that was in my head, I would match the adjective with a noun, just to certify that we both were thinking of the same meaning.

By the way Hana's looked down inn embarrassment and snapped at Zharu, I pretty much guessed it must be beautiful. I said looked at the sky. It was almost sun set and the sky was in a brilliant shade of pinks, purples and reds and I said, 'Sky. Beautiful.'

Zharu looked up and nodded in approval. His daughter looked up at the sky, pointed and yelled, 'Pink!'

When Zharu tried to teach me colors, he mostly used fruits, since they were brightly colored.

Zharu took his daughter from his wife's hand and softly tossed her up, the girl giggling in delight as she landed and hugged her father's neck and yell words like, 'Daddy! Daddy! Again! Up!'

I realized that Zharu must have felt like teaching a two year old to talk when he was teaching me.

Yet, seeing that family of three made my heart feel all fuzzy and warm and yet cold and hard at the same time. I don't know why, but seeing him and his wife flirt shamelessly as their daughter jumped up and down excitedly made me feel rather sad. I tried to figure out why I felled so sad, only to realize that I always wished as a child that my mother and father back on Earth would get along. They never acted like a couple. They didn't have a reason to actually, since it was an arranged marriage. But there was this small, "what if?" inside me that was always there when I read stories about families with parents that acted lovingly even when their children were old enough to leave their homes. Then I realized that I had no right to wish about such a thing since I was not even their daughter. That realization ruined my mood for a while.

Zharu's family started to visit the temple after that after realizing that I didn't oppose much. I could only say to the young man one day as we watched them leave, 'Your daughter is very lucky.'

At that time, I could speak sentenced quite well, with the provocation of my three nosy attendants.

I felt Zharu's gaze on me, it was almost sympathetic.

'With authority come a lot of sacrifices,' said Zharu.

'Authority isn't with it,' I said.

'Maybe,' replied my teacher.

'Don't forget it.'

'Am I the teacher? Or is it you?'