High Priestess- No Man's Servant Read online

  “That is good to hear.” Nora picked up a roasted sweet potato from a bowl made of coconut shell. “When your father is well, please ask him to visit our village. Even though there was no marriage between our families, I would love to see him again someday.”

  “I will surely tell him. I think he would love to, if he is not busy and his body is well.” Jinja also picked up a sweet potato, peeled the burnt skin, and ate it.

  Nora looked at him closely and thought that Jinja was a very dangerous man. His innocent act was really rather convincing, even in front of people who knew his true colors. He seemed to be able to make people doubt their memory of him, and she was glad that Kenda had escaped her nuptials to him.

  “If I may ask now that all is paid, where is Kenda, by the way?”

  Nora stiffened at the mention of her granddaughter. She summoned a sad face, even though she knew that Kenda was alive. “No one from Daa has seen her since the day of the wedding. I just hope that she was able to survive. There was no news of bodies being found, but there was also no news of her coming back or people seeing her, either.”

  “I hope she is alive,” Cesar said, participating in the talk. His voice was full of hope.

  “Well, I hope that when she comes back, she will see that marriage is the best option.”

  Nora couldn’t help but stare at Jinja sharply. “My granddaughter has suffered enough. Should she return, I will not force her to marry.”

  Jinja’s kind countenance disappeared. “That’s all well and good, but you may have to protect her if she doesn’t. I’d hate for hungry wolves to come for her without the protection of a husband.” He stood and waved for his men to leave, and without another word, he marched from the house.

  “That snake just showed his true colors.” Cesar clenched his fist, his pale face red with anger.

  “I had better go and talk to Goni. We have to make sure that Kenda does not come back alone, or she will be in danger when passing Taa.”

  “Do you mean that Kenda is really alive?” Cesar’s anger suddenly dissipated.

  “Yes. And more importantly, she is gifted. She saved Goni from The Great Fall.”

  Cesar’s eyes filled with tears of joy. “I knew the girl was strong. And she’s so stubborn, too. A gift surely suits her, and I hope she uses it against the people of Taa.”

  “But Kenda is just a girl. She is not familiar with how to use her gift. Hell, I don’t even know what kind of gift she has! Goni only said that she could command nature. If she had not taken control of the water—”

  Cesar leapt to his feet in joy. “My granddaughter is the Bringer of Equality!” He almost shouted but caught himself and covered his mouth.

  Nora turned to him, suddenly remembering what Goni had told her. “What? You know about the curse? But how?” Nora moved closer to her husband.

  “It has been passed down to us for generations.”

  “But I thought that it was only passed down in one family? Goni’s family.”

  “Yes, and did you forget that Goni’s father and I are cousins?”

  “But you are not their immediate family.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Come here. Let me show you something.” Cesar hurriedly went to the kitchen. There, in the corner of the kitchen, was a big box where Cesar stored several long knives.

  Cesar untied the vine holding the box shut and rummaged inside. He pulled out a long knife kept in a wooden sheath. The sheath was dark and very old.

  “Come here, dear.”

  “It’s just a knife. I’ve seen it countless times,” she said, but Nora squatted on the floor regardless. As Cesar passed it to her, she looked closely but saw only designs common for expensive knives.

  “What do you see?” Cesar asked, his tone urging her to think.

  “I see designs, but nothing out of the ordinary. It is common for expensive blades because they add detail.” Nora sounded annoyed that Cesar wasn’t getting directly to the point.

  “Look closely and tell me what the designs represent.” Nora did so, and she saw figures etched onto the sheath. She saw a woman… no, it was a girl holding her hand up. There was a swirling wave of water meeting her hand.

  “I see a girl… Wait, is this about the curse?”

  “Yes. I made this sheath. When the prophecy was passed on to Goni’s father, I was there, but the rest of the family didn’t know. If truth be told, at that time, they barely took any notice of me at all. The first thing that was said to him was that people who have told the prophecy would forget it as if it was never spoken to them. Only their family would remember it, so I immediately started drawing on the ground to ensure I would not forget. Even though I was not their immediate family, I was closely related to them by blood, so I did not forget completely. I transferred the drawing here after some time to preserve it. Whenever I look at this drawing, I remember the details of the curse. I am sure that Goni has forgotten some of the details, but this drawing made sure that I did not.”

  “You did great, old man.” Nora stroked Cesar’s long beard. He grinned proudly, showing his minama-stained teeth. Minama was a mixture of bitter leaves and ashes of freshwater shells. When chewed, its pulp would become red, and people who chewed it were distinguishable because of the staining of their teeth, no matter how frequently they cleaned them. “We still have to talk to Goni, though,” she continued. “He is the only one that might be able to find Kenda.”

  “How about if you just talk to one of the deceased and ask them to talk to Kenda? Wouldn’t that be faster?” Cesar stroked his beard again, thinking hard.

  “No, Kenda has no experience of talking to the deceased. I’m afraid that it will frighten her, and she will not be able to communicate well.”

  “Good point. Come on then, old woman.” Cesar smiled. “Time to get moving.”

  “Bring that knife. It may help to trigger Goni’s memory.”

  Cesar hurriedly picked up the knife, and the old couple walked from the house side by side. The two would usually bicker, but today was different. Being united in a common purpose felt much more gratifying than the constant bickering that seemed to liven up their life.

  Goni’s face brightened as they approached. “Father! Isn’t this your first time to see this prison?”

  “Indeed, but we have to hurry. We came here for an urgent matter.” Goni opened his mouth, but Cesar did not give him a chance to speak. “Please use your magic to contact Kenda and make sure that she will not return here for now. It looks like Jinja is not giving up on making her his wife, even though we have paid them already.”

  Goni looked at Nora in surprise.

  “Yes.” Nora confirmed the truth. “He knows that our granddaughter is alive.”

  “Well, I have never done this before, so I am not sure if it is going to work.”

  “You have to try. Kenda is in danger.”

  “Because Kenda is the Bringer of Equality.” Cesar completed the thought for Nora, holding up the knife in its sheath.

  Goni frowned. “How did you know about this? You were supposed to forget.”

  “It’s a long story, but to cut it short, I was there when your grandfather passed down the prophecy. Your father and I were young boys back then, and I was hiding from my mother because she wanted me to have my afternoon nap. I drew the information on the ground to stop myself from forgetting it. I transferred it to a leaf and then a bamboo, and later on, when I was older, I carved it on this sheath.” Cesar handed the knife to Goni between the prison bars.

  Goni marveled at the drawings on the sheath. “Now I feel like the day my father passed on the information was only yesterday.” He ran his fingers over the curves of the drawing. “A prophecy was revealed about the curse and the Bringer of Equality.” In a low voice, he recited the prophecy.

  “The Bringer of Equality will be born to make women stronger. She will command the staff and will be the most powerful of all. She will open the door that stops women from coming to life, free the cursed, and m
ake sure that no woman will ever be in service to men again.”

  Goni’s eyes glistened with tears after saying the prophecy aloud. “That is the prophecy. I can remember all of it now. Thank you, Father. I wouldn’t have fulfilled my duty if not for you.”

  Cesar patted Goni’s hand in acknowledgement. “Now, please hurry. We don’t know where our granddaughter is, but wherever she is, it is safer than being here.”

  “High Priestess, this might put our village at risk. You know that this prison is locked with magic. If my gift works, there is a possibility that the guards will know that I have used magic.”

  “I am willing to pay the price. I am willing to risk my life as the high priestess.”

  Cesar put his hand on top of hers.

  “I don’t have any of my things to aid me right now,” Goni said. “Firstly, we need water.”

  “They supply you with water here, do they not?”

  “They do, but I meant a source of water. Something that travels from one place to another. It can be small, or water that comes from under the ground. That way, it can connect to other bodies of water.”

  Nora and Cesar immediately stood to look for wet areas near the prison cell. There was no guard present because the cell was locked with magic and, in the event of escape, Goni could be traced, so they did not worry about anyone spotting them.

  After almost ten minutes of looking, Nora returned without any luck.

  “Here!” Cesar shouted. He came running back like an excited boy, breathless by the time he reached Goni’s cell. “I found moist soil. It’s not much, though. At the base of a small tree.”

  Goni offered Nora the bamboo receptacle filled with water from within his cell. “High Priestess, I need you to make a trail from here to the water source. Just sprinkle enough to wet the soil, and it should make a connection. Please be careful as it is far and the water they gave me is supposed to last for a week. It is already midweek, so I will have to make do with what will be left.”

  Nora immediately began making a line with droplets from the container, using the water sparingly. “Don’t you worry, boy. We will bring you water after this.”

  “Father, do you have anything to carry the water?” Goni was conscious that he could not use his drinking container without running the risk of the magic consuming his weekly ration.

  “No, but…” Cesar looked around. “We can use leaves for that.”

  “Yes, that will do.”

  Cesar cut a big taro leaf. He fashioned it into a crude bowl by sewing the edges with twigs.

  “Thank you, Father.” Goni accepted the leaf. He dug into the soil with his fingers and made a hole as big as the taro leaf to support it. Cesar went off to collect the water from the base of the tree, and once he had returned with the leaf brimming with fresh water, Goni placed it into the ground, making it look like a small well.

  They waited for a while for Nora to confirm she had finished making a line to the water source. Once confirmed, Goni connected the tip of the line to the water in the taro leaf.

  He murmured a few words and closed his eyes in what seemed like a prayer. Smoke came billowing out of the leaf, and Cesar did not move his eyes away from it, eager for his granddaughter’s face to show among the smoke.

  * * *

  Kenda picked up one more straw and put it into her basket. Each day, she was able to find fewer and fewer straws, which on the one hand meant that she would soon need to think of other materials to use when making her Christmas lanterns, while on the other it represented that the river was becoming progressively cleaner. She lifted her basket up and estimated that she could maybe make two Christmas lanterns from what she had collected.

  With the sun burning her skin, she had decided to walk home when the water suddenly seemed to glitter in her peripheral vision. She faced the river to make sure that she wasn’t imagining things and, sure enough, the water was indeed glistening. But how could it be? She had not asked the river for gold.

  She ran to the river but jumped back when she saw a spectral face forming on its surface.

  “Kenda! It’s your uncle.” The voice was quiet but clear.

  Kenda stopped herself from bolting.

  “It’s Goni.”

  “Uncle Goni?” she said, almost to herself. “You are alive!”

  “Yes. Come closer to the water, Kenda. I am using it to communicate with you.”

  Kenda walked back and squatted on a stone near to the water’s edge. She realized that the face was not solid, moving with the water as if it was traced in oil upon its surface.

  “Kenda!” Nora exclaimed. Kenda was thrilled to see her grandparents together. She was surprised that her grandmother had convinced Goni to use his gift. She didn’t think that her grandmother believed in him.

  “Grandma? You look thinner. Grandpa! I missed you so much. I’m sorry that I made such a mess by running away.” Kenda felt like she was back to just being a kid again, with just her grandma and grandpa taking care of her.

  “Don’t say that, child.” Tears began to fall from Nora’s eyes. It was the first time that Kenda had seen her grandmother crying, and she struggled to keep herself from crying, too. Goni and Cesar sat back, giving Nora the time to communicate with her granddaughter. “I was wrong, and I was foolish. I have always thought that I make the best decisions, but this one has got to be the worst one I’ve ever made.”

  “You were only trying to keep me alive, Grandma, but I never wanted that option. That’s why I ran away.”

  “Good, child. Good job for being braver than I ever was. I didn’t think that you could ever survive far from our village, so I thought the only choice for you was to get married. Now I know how foolish I was. Thanks to the spirits, you have escaped life with that bastard, Jinja. And thanks to your Uncle Goni, we saw his true colors when he told his men to attack your uncle at the Great Fall. Believe it or not, he tried to pretend that he was kind when he collected our payment!” Nora spat to the side. Nora would spit every time she had something horrible to say, but she only ever did it when no one outside the family was watching.

  “You paid them back?” Kenda exclaimed.

  “Yes, but that’s not important right now.” Nora waved her hand as if it was nothing.

  “But…”

  “Listen, child. There is something urgent that I have to tell you.”

  Kenda listened.

  “Where are you right now?”

  Kenda hesitated. She trusted her grandmother with her life, but after she had promised to marry her off without her knowledge, a seed of doubt had started to grow inside her.

  “It’s okay, Kenda.” Goni slowly came forward into view. “You can tell them where you are. We are trying to keep you safe from Jinja and his family.”

  Kenda let out the breath that she was holding. “I am in town.”

  “Thanks to all the good souls that kept you safe,” Nora said.

  “Grandma, no soul kept me safe.”

  Nora shot her a look that even the distance and the distortion in the water was not able to hide; the look that would always be followed by a pinch on her leg when she was a kid.

  “Okay, okay,” Kenda laughed. “Maybe they did. I just didn’t know it. How would I know? I can’t communicate with them. My cat, Lucy, is better at talking to me than them.”

  Lucy came closer to the river at the mention of its name.

  “Cats only meow, you silly girl.”

  “No, Grandma. This cat and I can communicate. It helped me to understand the townspeople. I don’t know how I would have survived otherwise.”

  “That is fascinating!” Cesar gently pulled Nora back. “The prophecy only said that you command nature. It didn’t mention animals specifically, but I guess they are a part of nature, too.”

  “Hold on, Grandpa. Did you say… prophecy?”

  “Yes, that’s why we needed to contact you in this way. You need to stay where you are and not return here. Jinja’s family is not giving up on the ma
rriage. Jinja looks like a poisonous snake waiting to attack.”

  “I would have thought he might have taken the hint,” Kenda said, grimacing. “Fortunately, I am safe here. A kind lady offered me shelter in exchange of work, even though she’s not rich herself.”

  “That is fantastic news. I hope that we can pay her back someday.”

  “I’m trying to right now, Grandpa. I’ve been making Christmas lanterns. You know, those things that people hang in their houses at Christmas. People love it! I’m proud to say that I’m famous now!” Kenda grinned.

  “Well, I think we can forget our worries after hearing that. Keep doing what you’re doing. It seems as though you are doing better than we are here.”

  “Grandma, if that snake, Jinja, bothers you again, contact me. I will try to keep a bowl of water next to me when I’m not near the river so I can contact you. I will make him regret it if he does. Did Uncle Goni tell you that I can tell the water what to do?”

  “Yes, I did,” Goni answered on their behalf. “And you can do more. So much more. I wish I was there to help you discover more about your talent, but I can’t be. In the meantime, try to hone your gift. Try to communicate with as much of nature as you can to practice and discover yourself. When the time comes that you can return to us without Taa intervening, I will try my best to help—”

  Kenda raised her hand to stop him. A loud, blaring sound demanded her attention. “Something bad must have happened. This kind of sound comes from a car carrying sick people or a big truck carrying water for when there is a fire.” Her heart started beating fast as she looked over at the market. Thick smoke rose into the sky, and angry orange flames filled her vision.

  “Fire!” Kenda shouted. “I have to go and check on Lita. Her store is near the fire!”

  Kenda scrambled to her feet without waiting for their response. The crowd became thicker the closer she got to the market. She pushed people aside without saying sorry, not bothering to see if they got angry. Her heart sank when she finally saw that Lita’s store was on fire. People were carrying buckets of water, trying to put out the flames, but the fire was too strong. The narrow dirt road was too small for the fire truck to drive down. Kenda’s feet moved back and forth, torn between going back to the river to get water and moving forward to save Lita’s fruit.