I know I’ve been absent for nearly a year (seriously, like 200+ days ago…), but I’m back! Life has made a bit of a pivot for me. I’ve recommitted to writing, and writing a monthly blog is (one teensie) part of it. I’ve joined a year-long writing challenge (more about that later), and within my writing group the monthly challenge I’ve laid out is: 1 month, 1 prompt, 1,000 words. September’s prompt inspired the story below. I hope you like it, and always crave more.
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The Dansari
By Melissa Gale
This is the last of it, the water that is. I shuffle toward the water’s edge with the others from my village. The last for their animals and my people, and that’s why she came… The Dansari.
“Sabina!” my friend whispers excitedly. “Look at her! She’s so young!”
Bare feet make a shushing sound on the dry ground as everyone shuffles solemnly toward the edge. The leaves of the pettle tree crackle as the breeze touches them. The sound of bees buzzing around the edge of the water, louder in the unnatural quiet, is mesmerizing.
“Mailys, you have to be quiet!” I hiss. “We can’t make any sound. You know what happened last time!”
Last year a small boy cried while he was walking to the water’s edge. He stepped on a bee near the water and his foot had swollen to twice it’s normal size. His father stood with the boy in front of him, covering his mouth and nose to keep him quiet. I still wasn’t sure if the boy’s death was a punishment for the offense, or if the father had caused it himself. You do not insult the Dansari.
She comes once a year, near the end of harvest as the plants and water are drying up, to perform The Supplication. The ritual that puts the plants to sleep, protecting them from the cold that comes with the dark, and opens the sky to allow the water and snow to fall again.
“She’s supposed to be more than a hundred wintercress harvests!” Mailys whispered, a little quieter this time.
“That’s just what our parents tell us. They’ve been saying that since I was only five harvests, and when the snow falls I’ll be 16. They only say that because they think the fear of being chosen as the next Dansari will keep us quiet,” I say, looking fondly at my friend. “and clearly that doesn’t work on you.”
“Don’t you think it would be amazing? You know, to be chosen as the next Dansari?”
“Living a hundred harvests while you travel to other lands to bring the sleep and rains? Watching as your family ages and dies before you? Never having the chance to say ‘goodbye?’ That does not sound amazing to me.”
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Mailys looks longingly at the woman in the center of the pool. Her long, dark brown hair cascades over her shoulders and breasts as she looks down, avoiding eye contact with any of the villagers approaching the edge. Not that the villagers would try to make eye contact. Over the last few harvests I have been hearing more often that the Dansari choose their own replacement.
“No one knows when the last sleep will take us, Dansari or not,” I whisper, “and nobody knows how the Dansari are chosen.”
“Well, maybe this really is the year,” Mailys whispers. “You’re just into birthing years, like me, and also never lain with a man.”
“That’s because no man will have us!” I laugh. “Ow!”
The sound of father’s hand is loud enough to make the other villagers turn. Looking at my feet, I rub my arm. Feeling the heat rise in my cheeks, I don’t need to look up to feel the anger on father’s face. The Supplication is an important ritual. Probably the most important ritual, and I was disrespectful to the Dansari. I will have to pay for the shame brought to my family.
We arrive at the edge of the water. The pool is pretty small this late into harvest, but there’s a small island of sand in the middle that’s just under the surface. That’s where the Dansari stands. I inspect her more closely. She has a trim body, probably from walking to all the villages she has to visit. Watching from the edge, I see her wiggle her toes in the shallow water that covers the island. It gives the unsettling illusion that she’s standing on top of the water.
The Dansari looks up and makes eye contact with the village elder, focusing only on him, and nods. He starts to bang his stick on the ground, bang… bang… bang… bang… creating a tempo for her. His wife sits to his left, and begins to circle the bronze bowl in her lap with the leather-wrapped mallet. The sound is hollow and numbing, it paralizes all thought.
The Dansari clasps her hands at her chest, closes her eyes and tilts her head back. Praying to Vetur for the safe transition of the plants to their sleep, and for the rains to be sent here once again. Listening for his answer.
The villagers bow in unison. They stand and begin to rub their hands together, making the sound of dry paper being rustled.
Bang… bang… bang… my head spins as the air is permeated with bees, ringing and static. Grabbing the sides of my legs to steady myself, I watch as the Dansari drops her arms and slowly rolls her head in a circle as she starts to dance. Her movements are slow and beautiful. As fluid as the streams in early spring.
Bang… bang… like a tapping inside my head, the beats come faster now. A few villagers have started to stomp in time to the rhythm as they rub their hands. The earth vibrates under my feet as I watch the dancer move gracefully, stepping lightly across the island while lifting her arms to the sky.
You never know when the last sleep will take you. It’s the same for everyone, and everyone needs the water. I look up at the sky searching for the rains, willing the skies to open and release their water. Closing my eyes, I feel the vibration of my people, and will the rain to come to me – to my people. They’re all my people.
Bang… bang… faster still. All of the villagers have joined in the ritual now. The first drops of rain begin to fall, wet drops on my face as I begin to sway. With my eyes closed I reach out to her… and surrender.