The Women Who Marry Ghosts

The Request

"That does not matter."

"How can I do this?" She swept out a hand, gesturing to their entire village. It had always seemed...not big or small, but substantial. All-encompassing. And now, suddenly, she couldn't breathe. "Now that I know the truth, how can I do this?"

"You do not have to." The Seer said it loudly, not even trying to hide their conversation from the apprentices. Uperi was only half-aware of their buzzing and whispering as she worked through what the Seer meant.

"That is impossible," was all Uperi could possibly say.

The Seer was silent for a long minute. Then, they turned and fit their mouth against Uperi's ear.

"Apo's brother paid me." Uperi felt her jaw clench. "His pride wouldn't let Apo have you, even though the spirits told me you and Apo should have been matched."

Uperi had been in a few fights as a child and as a young girl. They always happened before she realized what she was doing. One minute she was sitting by the Seer and the next she was grabbing the old leather of their tunic.

"How many more?"

The Seer shrugged. "Hundreds."

"Why me?"

"Because he paid." The Seer leaned closer. "And because the spirits told me to accept." Uperi threw them from her and stood.

"You're no better than them." Her hands were shaking. Again, the Seer shrugged and closed their eyes, leaning back against the hut.

"You said you knew the cost."

Before Uperi turned to leave, she saw a few apprentices whispering to one another, eyes wide. The Seer told me too much, it occurred to her later. Despite her disgust with the old mystic, Uperi was unsettled by the thought of what the elders would do when they found out. In a strange way, only the Seer knew her now.

--

A few days later, the rains returned in a torrent, breaking the fever of summer. Around that time, the Seer went missing.

"They have gone to be with the spirits, their true home," an apprentice announced to the village. Uperi wasn't fooled, but she said nothing.

They found out, was all she could think when she mended clothes with Swesor. Which means they know I know, was the thud in her head when she and Mehter fetched water. Which means I must be next, was the snake that slithered through her thoughts when she ate with Apo and his wives, pulling tender meat apart with her fingers and then not eating it. Which means they must know about Apo and I. And if they can kill a Seer, they can kill him, too.

One night, she couldn't sleep. The dead Seer's words, You do not have to, went around and around in her mind. Alone in her hut, watching as smoke curled into the night, Uperi suddenly remembered. On the other side of the mountains where she claimed her womanhood was water. And if there was water, there would be animals. A way to grow vegetables. She could hunt, build a new home. They would think Apo's brother carried her off in a fit of jealousy, tired of sharing her with the village. I could make it look like that. Scatter some of their wedding gifts. Leave most of her things. Most of what she left she could remake, but not everything. Like her water jugs, some tools. She was just beginning to drift off as she made her plans, half in jest, half in earnest, when a rat awoke inside her and nipped at her belly. Maybe Apo would come with you.

And she laid awake the rest of the night, painfully aware of every beat of her heart, every breath in her lungs. Her snake and her rat snuggled next to her, cozy in her warmth.