"Sashek!" The two young Evening maidens glanced up from their harvesting at Hallow's Creek, where the eldest had been wearily dragging her fingers through the river-bank in search of the season's straggling mushroom growth. Sashek had been at it for two hours and had barely found enough to coat the bottom of her harvest basket.
"What is it this time?" Sashek stood, gazing at the perpetual blackness of the night sky. A few dots of twinkling brightness sparkled between the two twin moons of Weema-- but this time, there was something different.
Young Amek hopped up and down and pointed excitedly. "I saw them!" she cried. "Two bright streaks, and they were purple, like fairy-sparkles!"
"Hush!" Sashek slapped the palm of her hand against the back of her sister's head. "I have been allowing you to assist my harvest now for the last seven days, and in all that time you still haven't learned that you mustn't speak in more than a whisper!"
"But--"
"There is no such thing as fairy-dust," Sashek hissed, shoving the basket into her sister's hands. "And in case you've forgotten, this is the most dangerous time of the decade! Don't you realize that those winged beasts are going to begin searching for us? It is the time of the Sacrfice! They are coming, and when they find the one of their choosing--"
"Mother says you aren't supposed to scare me." Amek pushed the basket back and crossed her arms, pouting. "We're still close to the village! Mother says we are safe if we stick to Hallow's Creek and harvest what we can. I don't have to believe your scary stories!"
Sashek huffed with impatience and looked around, the stress of her fear and near-constant hunger working overtime on her weakened heart. She was a lovely girl, but weak due to a heart birth defect that the Village Medicinal Elder, Pomoq, told her mother had resulted in two holes. Sashek actually remembered the day she was born...if only because Mother talked about it to no end.
"A beautiful child, but weak," the withered Elder, seemingly older than Time itself, had proclaimed. He'd wrapped the bloodied infant and handed it to the the frightened young mother. "This child will not be able to handle the stress of fright or starvation. She will be a prime target for Dragura's Sacrifice unless you work as hard as you can to keep her safe! She may not have been your first child, but she will almost certainly be your last if you do not heed these most important instructions!" He'd wagged a gnarled finger in the shaking mother's face.
"What must I do?" she'd asked, looking with great anxiety around their square-shaped lodge as her two older children and husband, the hollow-eyed Gormaq, huddled in the far corner.
"This evening of your child's birth is the dawn of the Sacrifice Dragura demands every ten years," he'd whispered. "She and her flying demon-offspring, the Draca, will be on the lookout for this infant. Only the weakest will do--and if she is not successful tonight, she will try again when your child is has reached the age of ten years...and still again if she is lucky enough to reach twenty. How many of our village's children are still alive to bless the place with laughter, young mother?"
She and Gormaq had exchanged tight glances. They knew the answer; they did not need to speak the words. Not many.
"Ah, yes," the Elder had agreed, "and farther and fewer in between are the young maidens that should be flitting through the place with laughter and charm, capturing the hearts of young men who cannot find wives because those vicious beings assault us as every chance!"
The young woman had looked down at the infant, still slick with birthing fluids, and gripped her tightly in a ragged swaddling cloth. "Not this one," she had asserted firmly, through clenched teeth. "Not my precious Sashek! I shan't let them make a victim of my daughter and further tear this village apart! I shall protect her, dear Pomoq. Gormaq and I will guard this new little one with our lives."
"Good," gruffed the old man, sweeping his billowy cloak about bony shoulders. Pomoq had drawn the hood over his age-spotted skull, from which scraggles of hair stuck out at odd angles, like patches of fur from a mangy cow. "I shall go. Remember my words-- and keep your girl-children safe. ...They are all girl-children, aren't they?"
"Yes. All girls."
"A shame. The earth dragons look for them, you know. Do not let them leave this place without a group of four! You won't want one of your precious girls coming home with a round belly before her tenth birthday. You know what that means!"
Gormaq stepped forward and grasped a supportive staff in his left hand; it helped deflect the weight from his one twisted leg, the result of a battle between him and the snarling, foam-lipped beast that had dragged his own sister away into the forest. She had not yet seen her eighth year, and he had not been able to save her.
"We know the reality of survival here on Weema," said the proud man stiffly. "I still have some sense beneath this ugly forehead and one good eye. I shan't allow my daughters to be defiled by those creatures. And I shall not have those beasts as-- grandchildren!" His lips twisted horribly at the thought. "Leave, Old Man. Tend to your duties, and allow a husband to care for his family with some dignity."
Pomoq had slung the dark cloak over his other shoulder, looked down his crooked nose at the weary family, and swept out into the night.
Gormaq and his wife had remained true to their word. The weak-hearted infant, now called Sashek, survived...and reached her tenth year. Then her twentieth. Gormaq's wife even blessed him with one more girl-child, the curious and lovely Amek. Dragura had been furious.
The People of the worn, beaten-down Village of Looks Thrice often glared upon the angelic Sashek with a mixture of awe and hatred. It seemed as if the the twin moons had truly looked upon her with blessing. As a result, Sashek's embattled family suffered in the eyes of jealous neighbors. It was perceived by some that their own children had had to stand in for Dragura's barbaric sacrifices. Other women had lost babies, young daughters, even a son when the efforts of the Draca to obtain Sashek had been fruitless, and their families had never forgiven Gormaq. As he passed them in the village square, dredging cold water from the communal well or retrieved his allotment of mushrooms, greens, and sustenance from the storehouse, their accusing eyes seemed to say:
Why did you not give up the weak-hearted infant to placate the miserable Dragura, so we would not have had to lose our own healthy sons and daughters?
Gormaq averted his eyes and trudged back home to his own lodge, shoulders slumped in weariness and defeat.
Now, Sashek grabbed her younger sister's hand, slipped the basket onto her head with a single, practiced movement, and began dragging her back to Looks Thrice.
"Enough of your insolence and silly stories. We haven't found many mushrooms, and it isn't safe to be out much longer. We must head back before Mother has an attack of the heart worrying about the two of us."
"But I saw purple shooting stars!" Amek insisted. "They looked like they fell below those trees up there--" she pointed with a finger in the direction of Old Hallow's Wood-- "and the ground shuddered. Didn't you feel it?"
"No."
"Stop dragging me." Amek pulled her hand away. "I can walk by myself."
"And let the earth dragons sneak up behind you? Don't make me strike you, girl. My belly screams with hunger, and my heart flutters with impatience from having to look after the likes of you."
"What if I said I want to go back there? In the morning, I mean? I want to see if we can find whatever landed. It'll be fun! And I'm so tired of being cooped up at home. Mother never lets me do anything. All Father does is grunt and groan and slam that old walking stick if we don't all sit down at the table together. I want adventure and excitement and--"
"Amek!" Sashek hissed in horror, turning to look her naive-eyed little sister in the face. "Do you know what you're saying? Who will go with you? Certainly not those little boys that sniff after us like village dogs! Now you're just asking for trouble!"
"But I want to be like you!" Amek whined. "You're so lovely. Everyone likes you, even the people who say they hate you. You have a weak heart and you survived. You lived all this time, for twenty whole years! I'll never be as pretty as you-- but maybe I can go on my own adventure and discover something fun!" Amek sniffled. "You don't understand me!"
In spite of her impatience, Sashek's heart softened. She knelt, the edges of her maid's dress brushing the moist grass at their feet. Amek was more than a handful. She was enough child to really be three daughters put together-- but whom else did she have?
"Amek," she said gently, "Mother loves you enough to shield you from the realities of what lies in wait. You are my sister. You are almost like a daughter of my own, and I tell you what the dangers are now to protect you. Do you understand?"
"Mother says-"
"I don't care what Mother says! There are monsters out there, Amek, real monsters. Ones that will pull you straight into the river if you aren't careful enough-- and ones that prowl, in the night, looking for a maid in which to plant their infernal seed. If that happens, Amek, it will be a fate worse than death. You will have one of them inside of you--"
"--and the village will send me out. Yes, I know that." Amek bit her lip and stared at the ground. Her little belly pooched under the white fabric of her pinafore, above which Mother had tied the prettiest lavender ribbon she could barter for to counter the pallor of the Amek's paper-thin skin. Wisps of thin hair, whiter than the clouds that billowed on a rare fine day, framed a gaunt face with coral lips and wide, up-turned emerald eyes. "Mother doesn't want me to know the monster stories yet. Why are you telling me? She'll get mad!"
"Because if you don't know what there is to fear, you won't be able to protect yourself. Father and Mother will lose their minds if anything happens to you."
"More like if anything happens to you," retorted Amek. "You are the coveted one."
"Bah!" Sashek rose to her feet and looked about them with slitted eyes. Behind her, she could already hear the clanking of dinner spoons and drinking mugs that heralded the beginnings of most families' meager suppers. Carefully, she scanned the skies: no immediate signs of any danger that could swoop down upon them unawares, and no dangerous tree-clusters where one of the Draca could hide pressed into the branches. Yes, everything seemed safe...but one never knew.
"Come. Let us go."
Amek reached for her sister's hand with reluctance. "And tomorrow you'll at least consider going to check out the purple fairy dust with me?"
"There is no such thing as fairy dust!"
"Is too. I saw it."
"Keep your mouth shut, girl," said Sashek with finality, but the corners of her mouth tugged upwards. She led the girl, whose ivory braids danced like reeds in the wind, back to the safety of home.
Her eyes never left the skies.
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