Dragonfly Song Read Free Page B

four or five or six she could huddle there as long as she liked, safely alone with her thoughts and fears. At seven the space started getting tight, but when she was eight she saw that if she squeezed along a little way further, under the bump that’s jammed against the sanctuary, there was another gap where she could stand up straight.
    Now that she’s twelve, she’s an expert in shinning up that gap to the top of the boulder. As long as she’s careful to slide on her stomach once she’s up there, no one can see her from the market square. And Aissa is always careful. It’s the only way she knows how to be.
    ‘Aissa is always hiding,’ the other servants say, ‘Always spying,’ as if they hate her sharp eyes even more than her silent tongue. But when you’re the cursed child, hiding is the safest thing to do. And when you’re hiding, you spy.
    The top of the boulder has two spying places.
    The first is a chink in the south wall. If she presses her face to it she can see out to the wide world, over the hills and the shadows of distant islands far across the sea. Mama is out there somewhere.
    Remembering Mama
    hurts
    because Aissa doesn’t know
    when they’ll find
    each other again,
    though Aissa’s done
    what Mama said,
    not made a sound –
    and if she hasn’t been
    still as stone
    she’s been as quiet.
    But thinking of Dada
    is worse
    because Aissa knows
    that she will never
    see him again.
    And all that is left
    is the memory
    of his tickling beard.
    She checks the chink in the wall in case there’s a sign of Mama, but when she’s watched for a while, and can see nothing on the hills except the brown dots of goats and nothing on the sea except the grey smudges of fishing boats, she wriggles on further.
    Halfway along the boulder, on the side next to the sanctuary, is a hollow about as long as Aissa. Once she slides into that, not even an eagle could see her.
    It needs to be safe, because this is where she is truly, dangerously, spying. From here, she can see straight into the sanctuary.
    The goddess likes her home dark, so there are no windows, just a slit under the eaves. Aissa is not onlythe first person to ever look in through it; she’s the first person who’s wanted to. The gods of this island are tricky beings – it’s best not to make them angry by peering into forbidden places. But this is the one place where Aissa has never felt afraid, and because no one except Kelya has ever really talked to her, she doesn’t know that she should. She just knows that she loves to stare into the darkness of the sanctuary, and the darker cave at the back where the snakes live. And since the only safe time to slip into her hiding place is before everyone else is awake and busy in the square, what she loves best is to watch the dawn ceremony as if she was in it herself.
    By the flickering light of the torches on the walls, she can see the Lady select a pot from the snakes’ cave, and drop in an offering: a frog maybe, or a lizard. As the chosen asp eats its meal, the Lady begins to sing, quietly, so that no one can hear beyond the closed sanctuary door. No one except the snakes and Aissa. Sometimes, as she lies on the cold rock listening to the strange, high notes, Aissa imagines that the Lady is singing for her.
    But at the last new moon, Fila began her initiation into the mysteries. Aissa should have been struck deaf already for listening.
    In the eight years since Fox Lady abandoned her at the gates, Aissa has grown from a shy four year old to sharp-faced twelve. The Lady’s daughter Fila, two years younger than Aissa but half a head taller, has grown from sweet-faced toddler to sweet-faced girl.That’s just one of the differences between them. Aissa sees Fila every day, but Fila has never seen Aissa, not actually seen her, not looked in her eyes and wondered who is behind them. She doesn’t need to. Aissa will always scurry out of her way if she is sweeping or scrubbing or cleaning the privies when