Chapter Five

Mean Gossip

Sunlight wanes across the monolith, like the glow from a low-banked fire.

Inanna runs a hand across its surface, marvels at the fact that it is both warm and cool beneath her fingers. Magic, she thinks. It is a work of magic. She glimpses Nany from the corner of her eye, watches the brown-haired girl stare blankly into the forest, with her back to the road. She sits atop of her luggage, her velvet dress agleam for the faded blush of the coral-colored sky.

“How long are we supposed to wait?” Inanna asks, letting her hand fall from the obelisk.

Nany huffs, but does not respond.

“Don’t you think it's strange that they had us brought here?” Inanna says, once more trying to bridge the divide. “Especially, since the Bacchanal begins in a few days. How are we supposed to make it to New Uruka in time?”

Nany turns to face her. “What are you trying to say?”

“None of this makes sense. . . .” Inanna hesitates, then goes on in a quieter voice. “There are rumors that say that not all that are chosen as Tributes of Flesh make it to New Uruka.”

“Mean gossip is all that is,” Nany replies, her tone icy with disdain. “Spun by ugly hags with no chance of ever being chosen. Only a fool would pay any attention to them.”

Inanna nods, as if in agreement, takes a step toward the other girl. “Perhaps you’re right. But still it is true that not all those who are chosen as a Tribute of Flesh return home.”

“More mean gossip.”

“No, it’s not. Eight years ago, Ipip, my older sister, never returned home. She was chosen as a Tribute last Bacchanal. All we ever received was a letter.”

“Accidents happen,” Nany says, but her voice is less certain. “What of it? Everyone knows that Mutnas are accident prone. You’re all so simpleminded.”

Inanna is slow to anger, another trait of her bloodline, but when the emotion comes it shimmers in the background of her consciousness for hours, adding a red tint to her view of the world. She can feel it now coiling through her gut, vexed and serpentine, but she bites back her angry retort, forces herself to just breathe. It would not do to punch the other girl in her stupid face.

Ipip, I wish you were here.

Inanna’s older sister always knew just what to say, always had the perfect cutting remark for every situation. Inanna’s memories from those early days are faint and faded, but she remembers sitting clasped in her sister’s shining arms, listening to her trade barbs with their father. Inanna would squeal in delight every time their father’s eyebrows twitched as she ran small fingers through her sister’s ivory mane.

She can still picture the knowing wink Ipip would send her, the one that made her seem so beguiling that it hurt. Inanna had known then that Ipip did not belong to her little world, that her older sister was much too precious a treasure to be housed in Dilgan’s provincial backwaters for long.

“Hello?”

Inanna blinks, notices that Nany is snapping her fingers before her face. How? She must have lost her sense of time and place in inner reflection. How long?

“I didn’t break you, did I?” Nany asks.

Inanna shakes her head. “No. I was thinking.”

“Good. Well, can you do me a favor? The next time the urge to think takes you, make sure you’re facing away from me. It’s creepy having you stare at me without blinking for minutes on end.”

An over exaggeration. Inanna knows she has not been standing and staring for minutes. It was thirty seconds at most. Nonetheless, she smiles in apology, tucks a strain of white hair behind her ear.

“My father is a Blackcloak—” she begins.

“Congratulations!” Nany interrupts. “Mine’s a businessman.”

“Yet,” Inanna continues, not allowing herself to be flustered, “neither his rank nor his connections got him anymore information than the letter revealed. Think on that.”

“Whatever.”

Inanna turns her back to Nany for fear of what she might say or do to the other girl. Her heart lams her breast as her hands grasp the sides of her dress. What could she have possibly done to warrant such hatred and disdain? Why did other girls always have to be so cruel?

Tears dangle from her eyelashes, refracting light like tiny prisms. She glimpses a point of distant illumination down the road. Slowly, it blooms into a carriage lantern, but she cannot hear the sound of wheels rolling across dirt for the blood roaring in her ears.

“Hopefully, this one is less talkative?” Nany mutters under her breath.

Inanna snorts. “Hopefully, she’s less of a twat.”

“What did you say?” Suddenly, Nany is standing beside Inanna, glaring past narrowed eyes, arms akimbo, nostrils flaring.

“I said,” Inanna replies coolly, “hopefully, she’s less of a twa—”

Nany pushes Inanna.

Inanna staggers back, taken by surprise. Yet her astonishment last only a half a second, an instant where the air is windless, then she lunges at Nany. They slam to the ground, roll across the grass and loam, biting and pinching, punching and snarling, yelling and grunting. . . .

“Let go!” Nany cries as Inanna yanks her hair.

“You first,” Inanna hisses, then slams a fist into the girl’s side.

Nany wails.

Coarse laughter bursts across the bend, booming for its masculine tenor.

Intertwined, with Inanna on top and Nany at the bottom, the girls freeze, their eyes jumping to the stopping carriage. Inanna squints up at the roguish smile of the carriage driver. A girl with snow-white hair sits beside the man, wearing a yellow sun hat the matches her wrinkled dress.

“Evening, ladies,” the driver drawls. “Hope we’re not interrupting. . . .” His eyes twinkle and his voice trills with scandalous implications. “We can take a quick ride down the road and give you two time to finis—”

Inanna and Nany release each other at the same instant and stagger to their feet, brushing the dirt from their soiled dresses. The driver’s laughter once again cuffs Inanna ears, and she feels her face burn. Suddenly, the man’s mirth transforms into a wheezing cough as his passenger punches him in the side.

“Ouch, Ruia,” the man says, rubbing his ribs. “That hurt.”

“That’s what you get for being mean.” Ruia jumps down from the carriage and begins pulling her large trunk onto the ground.

“Let me give you a hand with that, love.”

Ruia waves the offer away, plops the trunk onto the ground with a grunt. Wordlessly, Inanna helps her pull it away from the carriage. Nany scampers out of their way, thumbing her bloody lip.

“Thank you,” Ruia says, looking up from their shared labor. She blinks with a wide-eyed intensity that sets Inanna’s chest fluttering. “By the High Lady . . . he will choose you for sure.”

Inanna straightens. “What?”

“Hons, isn’t she the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?” Ruia calls to the driver without looking away from Inanna.

The sound of a snort. “The second most maybe.”

“Awe. Isn’t he a charmer?” Ruia slips a hand into Inanna’s own and giggles.

“Well, ah . . . I better be going.” Hon’s blushes under the prick of Ruia and Inanna’s combined gaze. “Good luck.”

Ruia blows him a kiss. “Thanks for the adventure.”

The man’s cheeks turn a deeper crimson and he whistles his horses into motion. Dust rises into the air, kicked up by dancing hooves. Carriage and driver fade into the scrawling gloom.

“Thanks for the adventure,” Nany repeats, miming Ruia’s voice. “What are you a highborn floozy?”

Ruia turns to Inanna with a deadpan expression and says, “I didn’t know we were allowed to bring servants.”

Nany snarls, but before she can respond light and sound clank the air behind them. All three girls jump and spin to face the obelisk. A Nun stands on a pathway, where Inanna could swear before their was none, holding a lantern. Her dark habit ripples like a silken sheet. Her remote eyes study them from an impassive face.

“Come,” the Nun croaks, turning around.

Inanna feels Ruia’s soft hand squeeze her own, remembers to breathe. She shares a hesitant grin, taking comfort in the other girl’s presence. Perhaps it is there shared bloodline, but she senses she has at last found a female friend.

“Can we be friends?” Ruia asks, as if reading Inanna’s mind.

Inanna smiles wider. “I’d like that very much.”

“Wait!” Nany’s voice cries out behind them.

The Nun turns back. “What is it?”

“Isn’t anyone going to come and help us with our luggage?” Nany asks, gesturing at the three heavy bags laid out before her.

“No. Leave it if you can’t carry it.”

“But-but—”

“Enough. Come or stay, the choice is yours, but the way won’t stay open for much longer.” With that the Nun strides down the path, her lantern bobbing watery light across the base of massive trees.

Inanna grabs her leather bag and hurries after the Nun, still holding hands with Ruia, who grunts under the weight of her much heavy trunk. The sound of weeping lashes Inanna’s ears, and she glances back, sees Nany wringing her hands as she stares at the ground with a forlorn expression.

Her steps flounder for a pang of sympathy pinching her gut.

“What is it?” Ruia asks, raising a white eyebrow.

“We have to help her,” Inanna explains, letting go of her hand.

“But she’s a bitch.”

Inanna snorts in agreement, then runs back to Nany’s side. The brown-haired girl looks up and blinks in surprise, her green eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Inanna grabs one of the girl's bags and begins lugging back toward Ruia along with her own.

“Here wait,” Nany cries, catching up to Inanna, dragging the two other bags......