Seasons passed and Narina’s parents continued to wait for her to speak, but with new-found understanding and patience. Finally, it happened: tentatively at first, but soon the floodgates opened and Narina found her voice, filling the house with eager babble. At this point she was about eight or nine, and one could say she was making up for lost time, constantly picking up new words and testing them on her tongue, much to the delight of her parents.

When her father, now firmly in his middle-age with his hair beginning to recede and turn gray, bends down to kiss her in the morning before heading out:

“Stop it, papa! Your beard is too coarse and harsh, it tickles me! It’s so itchy-scritchy-scratchy! I say, if you wish to kiss me, cut it off at once, for otherwise you reduce me to uncontrollable giggles!”

When her mother, hair pulled back and hunched over the wash basin, asks her hang up the linens:

“Why of course, mama! As I bring it to the clotheslines, let me shroud myself as if it were the bridal veil of a great Northern queen! See how it billows, full of invisible air like a sail, and I am an Egyptian ship!”

Her parents couldn’t help but smile and laugh, and it filled their hearts with joy to see the quiet Narina transform before their eyes into a child full of exuberant imagination. Narina was of course encouraged by this positive reception, and sought to fill the hours with more and more of her winding soliloquies.

Then there were the times when the words simply didn’t come out, her tongue frozen as the world shifted around her. Usually it was small things, soft whispers at the edges of her perception, or an object that would glow with an invisible aura, suddenly much more real, more vivid than anything else. It is a struggle for us to describe these moments now, just as it was impossible for Narina to contextualize these sensations, to put them in the words of her native tongue.

Once it happened as Narina was helping her mother carry feed to the animals. Walking across a field of half-grown barley, she sensed something behind her and turned around. There was nothing there, simply the expanse of the field meeting the edge of the forest. But despite there being nothing, Narina knew that there was something, and somehow that contradiction, between there being something and there being nothing, was not a contradiction at all but made perfect sense within her mind.

“Mother,” she said softly, for Fatima was only a few paces ahead.

“Narina? What is it?” She turned around to see her daughter staring at thin air.

“There is...something,” Narina whispered, trying to explain the contradiction in her mind. But at the same time, the thing moved. How could it move? It was nothing, only something can move. Yet it moved nonetheless, but it did not move north or south or in any other physical direction. It moved without moving, shifting through some plane of existence beyond what Narina could fully comprehend. It began to not-move towards Narina, or rather not-Narina, and as it did her mind began to fill with an indescribable feeling. It was like the opposite of feeling: a feeling outside of feeling, of something feeling her, yet at the same time it was she who was feeling it. It was like when you brush your hand against your forehead, but instead of your forehead feeling your hand, you feel only the fingertips because your forehead is a separate entity that is somehow still you and you have actually become not-you. And you realize there is this strange separation everywhere in the world, it is what reconciles the thing with the no-thing, the Narina with the not-Narina, and when you focus hard enough, the separation doesn’t dissolve but only becomes bigger, growing until you are staring at a void, or rather a not-void, a negative which lies at the center of the universe, things and no-things hanging on at the fringes of the not-void, momentarily existing before the void engulfs it all, and you are once again neither thing or no-thing but simply void, nothing at all, a rare and peaceful emptiness...

“Narina!” Fatima screamed in anguish, lifting the limp body of her daughter where she had collapsed on the ground. Her eyes widened and the world seemed to go out of focus as she panicked, shouting louder and louder. “Narina, where did you go? Come back! Wake up! Please!”

Suddenly Narina awoke, gasping for air as if she had been drowning. She emerged out of darkness, overwhelmed as the world flooded her senses: The harsh light, the freezing breeze against her skin, the distressed Fatima who now held her in shaking hands. It all proved to be too much, and Narina began to cry.

“What happened, child?” Fatima drew her in close, kissing the tears from Narina’s cheeks, relieved yet still shaken by the incident. “Did you see something?”

Narina tried to speak, but her tongue felt large and clumsy, she could scarcely understand how she had ever moved it before. Whatever she had experienced eluded her grasp. It was like trying to describe a dream after waking; it melted into air, the memory of that other place so incompatible with the waking world that it fled her mind. All that she could do was cling to her mother in fear and confusion.

They stayed there for a while, mother comforting child in the middle of the rustling field.

“Poor, blessed child,” Fatima cooed. “Why must the gods put such a heavy burden on your shoulders? Your father told me that we should consider ourselves lucky that our child has been chosen, singled out in such a holy manner. That you would bring us honor and fortune. But why must I stand by and watch helplessly as you suffer? What sense there is in this, this so-called divine will, I will never understand.”

—

Why do things happen? The priests of the temples would tell us that everything happens for a reason, that the gods may test our faith with misfortune, but persevere and you will be richly rewarded. All is a matter of divine will.

This line of thinking is obviously quite foolish: it is absurd to think the gods would pore such interest into each and every mortal life, and besides, how might one determine a divine will when the gods constantly feud and undermine each other? No, to grant all that power to Providence would be unrealistic, yet many still do: It provides a certain sense of comfort, thinking that at least someone knows what the future holds.

To others, the opposite is necessary. For if they held the gods responsible for the cruelty of their circumstances, they would simply succumb to despair. When life is reduced to little more than suffering, it is easier to think of it as meaningless rather than the work of an evil god.

This was the case for Narina.

The time was winter, in those brief weeks of respite after the harvest. Dusk had fallen. Teshat was already laying down in bed, arms crossed behind his head and eyes closed. Before the fire, Fatima was spinning wool, her face bathed in red light. Narina was beside her, leaning against her mother, half asleep.

Something pricked her. Whispers. Almost imperceptibly quiet. Narina stood up.

“What is it child?” Fatima’s voice was absent minded, her eyes still focused on the string in her hands.

Narina didn’t respond. She kept searching for the source of the sound. Towards the back of the house she went, to the little table by the entrance. To the teraphim.

The teraphim. The little household gods Fatima had inherited from her late father. The forms of the spirits and deities carved in wood and stone, superstitious idols meant to ward against bad luck.

They whispered to her now. Or rather, one did. Towards the back of the collection, a curious little child with the head of a dog, a statuette of dull metal with patches of green.

She crept up to the statue until she stood right by the table, eye level with the little god. In the darkness, Narina thought she could see it turn to face her.

“Young little soul, an unusual little soul that crosses the threshold. You heard my whispers, your ears caught heed of me through the long, narrow passage of the idol, for you would not believe how far my feeble voice traveled to reach you.”

The voice was so faint, barely a whisper that seemed to emanate from within Narina’s head. Were it not for the strange aura of the idol, the presence which enveloped her, Narina would have assumed that the whispers were merely her own thoughts.

“Dusk has come, that strange occurrence where light alternates with darkness. But it is not true! Light is afoot, in the forests, in the fields, but it is a ghastly, unholy light, sacred light warped by hunger and lust; a devourer approaches, a cursed monster of spirit and flesh…”

“Narina, is everything alright?” Fatima was at the door with Teshat behind her. They were little more than shadows in the darkness, but her mother’s voice was full of concern. “Why are you looking at the teraphim?”

“...it will taint your souls: They will wander for a thousand years, bleeding from ghastly wounds, spreading malice and evil. I cannot lead such souls to peace, you will be blind to the dark gates of the underworld…”

“It’s...speaking.” Narina forced the sounds out of her throat, enchanted by the endless stream of words that appeared in her mind.

“What...is it saying, Narina?”

“Something is coming.”

Something was coming. Narina could feel it, another presence, like the dog-boy, but much stronger. It was like a black sun, spreading a sickly warmth that was inescapable. At first it seemed like the all-consuming void she had sensed before, but that wasn’t quite right. It felt unnatural, not simply void but something evil and sick that existed behind the all-consuming hunger. Narina felt a rise of nausea, beads of sweat forming on her forehead.

“Narina, what’s happening?” her father interjected, “is something wrong?”

“...release is near, my special little soul. Can you feel the monster approaching? That is a rare thing, and unfortunate too, for most who face its wrath die before they know, a much more merciful release, to not have to smell its foul stench…”

She nodded, too weak to speak.

“What do we do?” Teshat tried to hide the fear in his voice.

Narina grabbed the idol. She held it in front of her face, though by now it was nearly pitch dark and she could barely make out the shape of her hands.

What do we do? Tears were streaming down her face as she addressed the dog-boy.

No answer. The copper idol was silent, dead like stone in her hands. The only thing she could feel was the black form intruding into her mind. Narina felt her vision going in and out as she sensed the thing approach, trudging through the edge of the forest. The ground was marshy and wet, covered in interwoven roots. Then it was in the fields, trampling through the weeds and dried grasses. It stopped, looking back and forth before seeing the little house of clay. It kept walking.

Teshat turned towards the window. He said something. Fatima cried out.

Narina only heard muffled echoes. She had fallen onto the ground as her mind seized.

Darkness.

Blinding light.

Then nothing. Nothing at all.