18. Mad Maba’s Unfinished Song

Dindi (Lost Swan Clanhold)

Once the guest left—and took all the excitement with him—everyone else slowly left the kitchen too. One by one, they finished eating, burped, and went out. Soon, only Dindi and her mother were left.

The kitchen felt hollow and empty without three dozen people inside. The smell of farmer sweat still hung in the air, mixed with the spicy smell of food and smoke from burning dung.

Dindi sniffled.

“Lady of Mercy,” Mama said under her breath. She muttered to herself as she went to the oven. She took some bean mash from a storage pot and placed it on a piece of flat bread. She added cheese, folded the bread into three corners, then used a pottery shovel to push it into the oven. The oven stayed hot all day.

When the pisha was cooked just right, Mama took it out and pressed it into Dindi’s hands.

“Eat, eat.”

Dindi pushed it away. She hid her blue face against her pulled-up knees.

“You’re acting like a child,” Mama said. She lifted Dindi’s chin. “But you’re fourteen now, sweetling, and you’ve passed your moonblood. If you lay with a man, you could become a mother.”

“I know I’m a burden to everyone. I try to do what’s right, but everything I weave turns into a mess.”

“There is still a chance you’ll be chosen.”

“Great Aunt Sullana clearly doesn’t think so.”

“What does she know?”

“Maybe something I don’t,” Dindi said. She raised her head a little to look at her mother through wet eyelashes. “You weren’t chosen.”

Mama stopped moving. “No. I wasn’t.”

“But everyone said you could have been the best dancer of your time. Then one day, instead of choosing you to dance magic, they told you that you could never dance again!”

“It…wasn’t as bad as all that,” Mama said. “By then, I had your father. Soon I was trying hard to have a baby. Sometimes you have to let a dream go.”

“I just want to dance.”

“Oh, Dindi.” Mama put down the pisha. “If you won’t eat, then let me clean you.”

She walked to the corner shelf. She looked through some jars, and came back with a rabbit skin cloth covered in sharp-smelling goo.

“Come here, my little blueberry face,” she said. She held Dindi’s chin and began to wipe her cheeks. She scrubbed. Hard.

“Ow!”

“Stop moving.”

“Are you cleaning me or peeling off my skin?”

“If you prefer, we can rub blue soap all over you. Then at least your whole body will match.”

“Mmmrrff,” Dindi said, as Mama wiped her mouth.

“My mother loved dancing too,” Mama said. She meant Mad Maba. There was old pain in her voice. “She loved it more than she loved me. Soon after I was born, she left me to dance with the fae. They caught her in a faery circle, and she danced until she died. Her sister raised me instead. That’s why your great aunt worries about you so much.”

She lifted Dindi’s chin again and looked carefully for any blue left on her skin. She must not have seen any.

“I understand you love to dance. I do, Dindi. You can’t know how well I understand.” She touched Dindi’s cheek. “But I would never choose dancing over you.”

“Why can’t I have both?”

Mama was quiet for a moment.

“My mother used to sing me a song. The night before she left me forever, when I was still very small, she told me it was part of an old tama. She said if she could finish dancing the tama, she would never have to leave me. She didn’t know how the song ended, so she failed her Initiation. But she never stopped trying. She thought the fae could help her learn the rest… I didn’t understand that she was saying goodbye.”

Mama began to sing in a quiet voice:

Came a faery cross some kits

Suckling at their mother’s tits,Pawing, kneading with their mits;

Ma, content to laze‘neath these tiny, mewling bits

Hid in a row of maize.

Cat and kittens were all a-purr.

Their mama licked and cleaned their fur.

Cat met the faery’s eyes, demure,

And yet with pride ablaze.

Strange the mood that crept on her,

She watched them in amaze.

 

To her came her darkest sister,

Put her arms about her, kissed her

Drew her to her in the middle

Of the twisted ways,

Whispered in her ear this riddle:‘

Chose the Windwheel or the Maize!’

Chills ran down Dindi’s back. A soft echo of the song stayed in the air for a few seconds after Mama stopped.

Mama let out a deep breath.

“Over the years, I’ve asked everyone I know about that song. No one knows it. A long time ago, a woman from the Green Woods tribe—she was running from the Whistlers who ruled the Rainbow Labyrinth back then—told me maybe the Zavaedi with the Singing Bow would know the tune. But the Green Woods Tribe hides in their forests.”

She shrugged.

“Maybe we’re worrying too much. I really hope you’ll be chosen to become a Tavaedi. And if not…”

“I’m sorry, Mama,” Dindi said. Her jaw hurt because she was clenching it so hard. “I think I’m more like Gramma Maba than like you.”

Mama touched her cheek.

“Eat,” she said. “Eat, already.”