Aviva
Ryan and I walked in our wolf forms back to the village by sunset, each of us dragging makeshift sleds fashioned from items we found at the abandoned camp to carry the meat and pelt from the goat.
While I wondered if we could mind-link somehow after I’d heard him call my name when I’d fallen, neither of us spoke. We arrived at the village shortly before the sun set when the sky was painted gold, and the moon had just started to rise again. We weren’t even the last hunters to arrive. The entire village was alight with music and dancing to celebrate a very successful hunt.
But I didn’t partake in the celebration. I left the pelt with Ryan and immediately shifted back to my human form and walked out of the village again, to the creek, where I splashed frigid water over my dirty, aching skin until I was clean. I then returned home and sank into the hottest bath I could handle, brushing out my braids, picking out the beads, and sinking below the surface.
Now, I blink at the early morning sunlight peeking through the circular window above my head. It’s another beautiful day. Warm and sunny. I shift my weight on the flat of thick furs and a few goose down mats that act as a mattress–a very common sleeping arraignment here in Endova–and Lora grumbles, snuggling closer to me. Shoshannah is at my other side, sleeping with her fist tucked under her chin, her wild red hair matted and covering half of her face.
The girls always end up in my bed. Even when I’m out hunting all night, I’ll come home to find them curled in the furs with a spot between them left just for me.
My heart sinks as I gather Lora closer and rest my chin on the top of her head. She smells like the lavender soap Mercy makes. Our older sister makes the most luxurious soap out of the animal fat I bring back from hunts.
I close my eyes again and breathe in familiar air, but the sounds of the village waking up for a very important day begin to drift through the window, through the earthen walls, and I know I can’t ignore this day forever.
I hope I made the right choice when Ryan asked me if he was taking me or Mercy back to Silverhide. I hope I don’t come to regret my decision. I hope, years from now, I look back on this day with nothing but peace in my heart, and not, “What if?”
It’s a full moon. I can feel the energy in the air as I rise and strip out of the cotton shift I slept in last night after my bath. I change into something comfortable and walk on bare feet down the snug hallway that every room in the house branches off from and turn into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. I notice Mercy’s door is already open, and her room is empty.
She has a big day today, doesn’t she?
I close my eyes and sip the tea slowly. I should eat, but I’m not hungry in the slightest. Nothing sounds good. Nothing will taste good, either, not when I feel like I’m going to throw up at any given second.
Eventually, the girls wake up and start whining for breakfast. I make pancakes, a favorite of both of them, and use the last of the blueberry syrup. “You’ll have to pick more blueberries this fall,” I tell Shoshannah as I shake the bottle for the last drop. Shoshannah’s lower lip quivers, but Lora is scarfing down her breakfast, gasping for breath between bites. “Chew your food, Lora. You’re going to choke!” I pour her some more milk, which she gulps down. “Lora!”
“I have to go, Veev. Shosh, too. We’re supposed to be practicing for the ceremony tonight.”
Shoshannah takes a single bite of her breakfast before sliding off her stool and allowing Lora to bounce her out of the house. I follow them to the door and watch as they join a group of young girls who call out to them with giddy excitement.
Shoshannah looks over her shoulder at me as I lean in the doorway, her dark eyes wide and wet with unshed tears. She’s old enough to understand this now. Women leave their packs and move on. We look forward to it, honestly. It’s an adventure, but it’s also a heartbreaking time for the family left behind. One day, it’ll be her turn to leave the nest. I’ll sit on the hill overlooking the ceremony grounds during her wedding at the Harvest Festival, watching her be bound to her husband under the light of the full, golden harvest moon. I’ll probably want to cry then, too.
When the girls move out of sight, I watch the villagers dart about with armfuls of food and meat, preparing for the wedding feast. Some hunters are still working on their hides and processing meat from the hunt yesterday. I sip my tea as I watch a few of Ryan’s men working on an elk carcass near the fire pit where several spits are roasting meat for tonight already. They laugh and joke with each other happily. Fulfilled. I don’t mind his people, honestly. They’re young and spirited. They’re respectful, which I hadn’t expected.
I’m not sure what I expected from Ryan, but it hadn’t been this. This feeling in my chest like I have to know where he is all the time. Like I want to hear his voice and hear him say my name. I tell myself it’s because he’s new and interesting. We also almost saw each other die, which I’m sure binds people together in a way, but we’re so… so alike. Hardheaded and bold, I’m shocked we worked so well together taking apart that goat rather than resorting to throwing punches.
I find him in the crowd as a flash of white catches my attention. He’s standing with my father as they examine the goat hide which is now hanging to cure. My father claps him on the shoulder and motions to Mercy, who is fluttering around helping out with the preparations. She smiles softly, shyly, at Ryan, and I immediately turn into the house and shut the door behind me.
I’m making the right decision. This is the right choice.
The only person who comes to call on me is Freya–two hours later. I’m picking at Shoshannah’s cold pancakes in the kitchen when she arrives, bustling in with a basket of ribbons and other trinkets. “Good Goddess, did you brush out your curls?”
I reach up and try to pat the frizzy mass of red curls surrounding my head like a fiery halo. “I just washed my hair last night.”
Freya groans, resting the basket on her hip. “We have some serious work to do. Come on.” She disappears from the doorway, but I catch up to her in moments. There’s one mirror in our house. It’s small, handheld, and belonged to my father’s mother. It’s a bit rusted along the outer edges but Freya props it up on the windowsill in my room nonetheless then sits behind me to start weaving my hair into something manageable. It’s going to take hours. Whatever. I have all damn day.
“Where’s Mercy?” she asks around the fresh-water pearl pin clamped between her teeth. Her fingers move with expert skill as she pulls my hair away from my face, twisting the curls the way she wants them before pinning them in place.
“I’m not sure. She has a lot to do today.”
Freya scooches closer to me, sitting crisscrossed behind me, her knees resting against my hips.
“Are you sure about this?” Freya asks.
I nod, watching my reflection in the mirror.
“What are you going to wear?”
“I haven’t decided.” I haven’t put much thought into anything, actually. After my brief conversation with Ryan before we left Fell Valley, I’ve let my mind go blank and totally numb. It’s the only way I can survive this day, I think. I’m not sure why it aches so badly to think about.
“Your blue dress with the deer fur along the hem is my favorite. I think you should wear that.”
“Okay,” I reply in a whisper, and we fall into silence for several minutes as she continues to decorate my hair with pearls and ribbons.
This is just a hand-fasting ceremony, but the entire village will be dressed in their traditional wear. After the ceremony, a huge feast will be held, and then dancing and singing around the fire will begin. I’ve only seen a hand-fast once, and I was thirteen at the time. A Teshkan hunter who’d come to visit his mother’s family ended up falling in love with one of the women from our pack and paid her bride price after a three day hunt that nearly took his life and that of his companions. They were hand-fasted here in Endova and married officially during the Harvest Festival. It was such a beautiful ceremony. All of the children, me included, sang an ancient song while a length of white fabric was wrapped around their joined hands, and we’d led them around the fire three times, all of us holding lanterns while the rest of the village was shrouded in darkness, the only other light that of the full moon.
It was also the first time it resonated with me that I’d marry and leave one day. Mercy, too, had gone through the motions with me, wondering why anyone would ever want to leave their village, and their family, for a man.
Freya rises and settles in front of me as the sun peaks in the sky and starts to fall back toward the horizon. Time is moving swiftly but also ticking at a crawl. I’ve never felt so strange. All I want to do is run away, hide in the woods, but I can’t.
“I have a feeling that once the Alpha and his people leave, the village won’t feel the same,” she says softly, rubbing a pale pink powder made of dried rose petals on my cheekbones. “There’s just something different in the air now.”
“Change,” I agree, meeting her cornflower blue eyes. “Everything feels different.”
She smiles sadly. “I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”
Freya takes her leave with a soft peck to my cheek, leaving me looking at my reflection in the mirror. I look the same but softer. My hair is still wild with curls poking out of the pins she spent hours sticking in place. But my cheeks are rosy, and my eyes are bright, and I look… ready. Ready for whatever comes next.
I hear the front door open and close with a snap, sending a soft rustle of outside voices drifting inside. Mercy’s footsteps pause at her door before she sighs and begins walking toward my room, slowly, as if debating something.
I turn, resting on my knees, as she fills the doorway. My eyes widen as I realize what she’s holding in her hands. “Mercy… where did you get that?”
She swallows hard and lifts the bundle of white and cream fabric. “Azalea kept it all this time. I had no idea until this morning. I’ve been cleaning it, mending it a little.”
Azalea was our mother’s best friend who lives with her family on the other side of the village.
I stand and walk toward Mercy as she carefully unravels the fabric, revealing a long dress made of woven white and cream wool. It has long, loose sleeves that taper at the wrists which are trimmed in white ermine fur. The off-the-shoulder neckline is trimmed in the same soft fur and decorated with pearls and moonstone beading that makes it look like raindrops are clinging to the fur.
It has a high slit on the side. I run my fingers over the fur trim along the slit, smiling to myself. “So she could still dance?”
“Yeah,” Mercy whispers, her eyes misting over. “I guess Father gave this to Azalea for safe keeping. I didn’t realize–I thought everything had been given away.”
My sister and I stare at each other. It’s been years since we could look at each other and not want to scratch each other’s eyes out. Again, there’s just an energy of change in the air today, so that has to be why we can suddenly be within a foot of each other. Memories of our mother sitting at the edge of her bed while Mercy and I played dress up with this very dress flutter to the forefront of my mind, nearly bringing me to tears.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell her. “It’s perfect.”
“I know. I have some alterations to make, I think.” She tilts her head down the hallway. “Can you help?”
“Yeah, of course.”
She smiles, hanging the dress over her forearm as she scans my face before turning on her heel and walking away, but her voice echoes toward me, lifted and sweet, “I’m going to fix whatever Freya did to your head, too. Grab some more pins and a bowl of water, we have work to do, Aviva.”