1st 5 Pages October Workshop - Harris Rev 1

Name: Lynn Harris 

Genre: Young Adult fantasy 

Title: Valista

Why wasn’t it you?

Father’s words carve through my flesh like a knife.

Kneeling beside his pallet on the floor, I blot his feverish brow with a damp cloth. His body shudders as he coughs, a wet sound that deposits blood on his lower lip. When the hacking stops, he gurgles on his inhalation. I wash the red droplets away, something I’ve done for weeks now that he can’t, and rinse the rag in a bowl of water beside me.

Why wasn’t it you?

I swipe my sleeve across my own sweaty brow, despising this shadow that haunts me still. Father only said it once, on the first full moon after the summer solstice, the day chosen to celebrate my birth, staring at me with eyes blurry from cactus wine. I was barely five, but I remember his voice, thick with alcohol and torment.

Perhaps he later regretted the lapse, yet the damage was done. I knew my father hated me. He provided the required food and shelter, but mostly he sat, eyes unfocused, accusing in his silence. He’d lost his beloved wife to childbirth, their energetic bond broken, ripping away the closest intimacy two people can share. A lethal blow. It’s just taken him sixteen years to succumb.

Staccato raps sound on our door, snapping me from my thoughts, and my heart trips. The village healer. She’s seen fit to come.

I cross the packed-dirt floor and open the door. The healer’s expression is aloof, but her emotions rifle my body as if they were my own. She’d rather be anywhere but here. I step from the threshold. “Please come in.”

She enters, saying nothing, her satchel slung over her shoulder. She glances around our mud hut with a grimace, and my gaze follows hers. A single room. Thread-bare rugs. Sleeping pallets on the floor instead of the usual cots. Nothing like the lavish quarters of a healer.

My lips tighten—I know it’s sparse. I don’t need her to remind me.

The healer kneels by Father and places a hand on his forehead. The faint flicker of our fire illuminates the goddess tattoo at the pulse point on her neck. Pulling her satchel forward, she retrieves a poppet crafted from coarse fabric with a simple painted face and places the doll on my father’s chest. She slides a necklace from inside her shirt, kisses the dark, jadeite stone lashed to its leather tie, and lays it on the poppet.

I wrap my fingers around my own necklace. We all carry them, these green minerals found in the mountains far to the north. We keep them close for comfort and small healings, but the healer uses a large one, one free of imperfections. Even from across the room, its pulsing energy thumps against my skin, dwarfing the gentle throb of my own stone.

The healer rests a hand on her gem, another on Father’s chest, and begins to chant in the ancient language of our people, using the stone as a conduit to remove the sickness from my father and transfer it to the poppet. I slip out the open door into the desert sunshine.

Leaning my back against our hut, I close my eyes and suck in the fresh air, the dry heat is as familiar as my own skin. The sounds of our village drift to my ears. Women bargaining at the market. The rhythm of small feet at play. An occasional old man’s laugh. Sounds so normal they make my chest ache.

A hint of a breeze brings me the familiar smell of hay and dung from our barn. I should tend to our neglected sheep while I can. Stealing away while Father slept has allowed me to feed and water them, but there’s a pregnant ewe that needs watching.

My shoulders stay pinned to the wall, and then stiffen when the healer calls my name.

Adanya. I don’t hear the name often. It’s ironic I carry it. It means ‘Her father’s daughter.’ Father never uses it. He calls me Girl.

The healer repeats the call, her tone harsh. I don’t move, my fists tight to my thighs. She joins me outside our hut, and her face is creased in a deep frown. “It is not good,” she says.

I choke on the lump in my throat. Our relationship is not much, but my father is all I have.

She hands me the poppet. “I’ve transferred what sickness I could. Burn it to cleanse your hut.”

Sensing her eagerness to be done with this business, I hand her the bag of wool I placed outside the door days ago, hoping she’d come. She hurries away as all villagers do when forced to visit us. They’ve been this way my whole life—distant, disinterested, dismissive of Father and me.

Clutching the doll in my hand, I wrap my arms around my stomach and enter the hut. The stench of sickness hangs in the air. A few steps take me to the fire, and I toss the poppet into the flames. It crackles and hisses when it ignites. Its smoke turns a bright green and forms a tornadic vapor that swirls out the smoke hole in the ceiling. The poppet disintegrates into ash.

When I return to my father, his dark eyes are open. I dampen the cloth in the bowl and mop his face and chest. His gaze, glassy with fever, locks onto mine, and he mutters, “Farai.”

I freeze at the use of my mother’s name. Before his illness, he often lamented how much I resemble her, his anguish seeping from every pore. He strokes my hair, hand trembling. “My Farai. So beautiful.”

Love flows from him in a way I’ve never felt, and I squeeze my fingers into a fist around the cloth. This emotion is not for me.

Why wasn’t it you?

His hand drops, his chest racks, and blood spews from his mouth. I dab the mess, but it keeps coming until he lies back on the pallet, eyes closed, barely breathing. I drop to my backside on the floor and cover my face with my hands.

The rare sound of hoof beats interrupts my tears. I wipe my cheeks and walk to the open door. Two warriors ride the village’s allotted horses not far from our hut. Goats crying in distress are tied across their mounts in front of them, and bulging burlap bags dangle from the horses’ flanks.

This is happening more often. The lack of water in our irrigation canals has forced people from outlying areas into our village in search of food. We’ve pooled our resources, but the stress of feeding all the newcomers is forcing raids on enemy Andvari farms. We’re allowed only two warriors to do this task by the Honani leader. The rest of our young men train with her deep in the desert, leaving those of us along the border—old men, women, and children—defenseless against the Andvari.

The riders stop in front of the village chief’s home and dismount. My neighbors congregate around the men, their voices loud and animated, congratulating the warriors on their success. A young woman my age, Zandela, pushes through the throng and pulls the warrior Jai’s head down for a kiss.

The other warrior, Nikhil, eyes the pair, shaking his head with a smile, a scar on his jaw blazing crimson in the heat. He slaps Jai on the back and enters the chief’s hut with the bags.