The Blossoms of Sacrifice - Chapter 2

The next morning, the billowing, sparkling clouds gave way to downpour. The rain would give new life to the forest... and it would give Adsila an excuse not to tie flowers. This was her favorite kind of weather. It felt nice to walk barefoot through the sopping moss, listening to the raindrops plink against the leaves like the haunting notes of a xylophone.

When it rained, the only priority for girls was meaningful, devoted prayer to  Kala Tswali. The supreme deity and creator of the Clover Forest. The maker of the god-beings' existence. Who were they to be ungrateful? "Thank you, Creator," the family meditated. Gratitude for life and health. Gratitude for love and kindness. Kimimila's thanksgivings soon trailed off and she began to choke on gasping sobs. Her husband had taught her these Cherokee prayers long ago.  But Father died so long ago,  Adsila thought.  Why not celebrate those who still live?

All she needed was something to eat. When it rained, it took hours for a hunter to gather the soggy remains of mushrooms or berries... or whatever else he may have found. There was barely enough food to go around, even with the farm and the merchant posts. Adsila wished she could do something to help the poorer families, but rich as she was, she had nowhere near enough to share with everyone. She would just have to mind her own business.

Awinita, meanwhile, stared longingly at the vast expanse of woodland, deprived of the healing powers of the Clover Forest. If she'd had another tunic, she might have enjoyed dancing to the ghostly, melancholy sounds of the rain, the occasional rumbling of thunder providing subtle accompaniment. Instead, she pulled a thread through a needle, creating a head, then a chest, then arms and legs. Finally, she draped a cloth dress around the faceless doll. For a long time, she had been engrossed in her collection of faceless dolls. There was nothing else to do, after all. How could you spend your days praying to one god and still retain some of your vanity?

Adsila rolled her eyes. She couldn't care less about arts and crafts - she preferred to watch the rain. Something about listening to the rain pattering gave her a calm, warm feeling. Almost like watching a majestic sunrise on a serene morning, the rain cleared her mind and soul. She breathed in and opened her eyes, mesmerized by the gorgeous parallels between life and death. She was in a trance...

Floating...

And...

A wave of heat suddenly slashed through her heart. Her knees buckled. She clenched her teeth and fists. Her mind raced wildly, trying to find the source of the outburst. As her breathing grew noticeably shallow, Awinita swept her eyes over her sister, confused and growing agitated. Kimimila had gone to feed the hungry family in the next hollow. Everything, from the moaning of the old wood to the plashing of the rain on the ferns, struck her nerves and chewed on her anger. Possessed by her fury, Adsila rose to her feet. She grabbed a handful of nuts and seeds from  Kala Tswali's sacred offering and tucked it into the pocket of her tunic. Then she ran outside. She didn't care where she was going. She just ran.

She burst into the Central Hollow. "Chief Wapasha!" she nearly screamed. Her chieftain briskly looked up from the cradle, visibly startled. He knocked over a ceramic vase which held his prized China rose. A glass vial shattered and unleashed a pungent-smelling incense into the hollow, and Salalai looked on with curiosity. Onacona, their infant grandson, let out a shriek of childlike wonder, kicking his legs and flailing his arms. For just a second, Adsila could feel herself calming, hypnotized by the High Family's kind faces. But as she caught her breath, she felt blinded and feverish with rage once again. Wapasha, naturally, was the first to speak.

"What's come over you, my child? This behavior is not like you."

"I'm leaving. I've come to say goodbye."

"What are you saying? You wish to abandon the tribe?"

"No, of course not. I will return as soon as I can. Please try not to mourn my absence."

Adsila's legs moved of their own accord, dragging her out of the Central Hollow before Wapasha could say a word. The rain fell harder and harder, slamming against her head like falling needles. Anger subsided, and overwhelming despair appeared in its stead. She stopped to stare at the creek. The banks were swollen and rushing madly, spilling pools of water onto the grass. The murky water was filled with the bodies of animals who had been killed during the storm, dozens of them, squirrels and rabbits and birds and frogs, all gone in the blink of an eye. She held her hands together to pray for them, but when she did, she noticed a crimson energy pulsing in her veins. It crackled with fury, throbbing to the beat of her heart before dying back down. When she returned her steely gaze, those squirrels and rabbits and birds and frogs, the same creatures that had been drowned in the creek seconds before, were scuttling into the threshold of the Clover Realm or shelter. And as they did, a piercing shriek was expelled from the village. A man collapsed not twenty feet from where she was standing, foaming at the mouth and vomiting blood and convulsing savagely. A horridly fitting symbol was carved onto the dead man's forehead: the sign of  Kala Tswali's vessel of death, a wilted flower. His name appeared, letters in scarlet, on Adsila's wrist, where the energy had tremored:  Wohali. Another word appeared below it, an equally terrifying one:  Ayohuhisdi.

Death.

Adsila's heart raced wildly. Had she killed a man? Was this  Kala Tswali's doing? And what was this energy? She began to panic from the mound of unanswered questions... and then she faltered. What if this was some kind of poison or curse? Fear would only make it spread faster. She shook her head. Now close to overflowing, the creek's swift current would wash her downstream. For a brief flicker of a heartbeat, she thought about letting herself fall in. She would close her eyes and drift away, unshackled by the chains of this cursed, impure world...

No.  Adsila's fingers closed around the bundle of nuts and seeds in her pocket, and she remembered why she had forsaken the tribe in the first place. It was a terrible thing to die young, and it would only take a second. She shouldn't blame herself and take her own life. She heard distant shouts from the village: "Mother! Mother!" followed by Kimimila's distraught cry at the sight of the man, Wohali, who had been killed by her own daughter... she couldn't bring herself to glide back into her mother's fair breast and loving arms. She wanted to be as far away from her as possible. She began to run, and she didn't look back.  I hate myself. I hate myself. What have I done?

The temperature slowly dropped till solid ice crystals fell instead of rain, caking Adsila's eyelashes with frost. The hail froze the grass as she sprinted barefoot. The wind howled, roiling and seething, dropping thousands of tiny snowflakes that peppered her hair and limbs. The weather seemed to quiver with her mood. Within the hour, her beloved valley was a barren paradise of fluffy white snow.

Adsila collapsed in a snowbank and did not dare take in the desolate gem that surrounded her. She had run in the cold to the point of exhaustion. Was it worth it to survive here? Her stomach moaned with hunger. She reached into her pocket and popped three almonds into her mouth, and despite its small size, it was the most filling meal she had ever eaten. She breathed out, watching a hot silver fog drift on the snowy air. The wind would carry it far away, perhaps to the lavish kingdoms of England or the mountainous villages of the Andes.

It was at that moment that she decided.  I'll build a shelter,  she told herself,  and start a fire, and collect water from the stream. Maintaining her own survival was nothing short of a challenge. She leaned sticks and fallen branches against a tree trunk and covered it with leaves. She spent an hour digging in the snow to find flint. And only a small depression in the stream hadn't frozen over, so she filled her canister with water and gathered a few stray fish.

I'll be fine,  she sighed.  I'll continue my journey tomorrow. Just like the old life.  No, Adsila had not always belonged to the Clover Tribe. Up till her fourth birthday, she was part of a nomadic tribe that migrated with the seasons, marching from empty land to unsettled forests. Adsila was carried on her father's shoulders until she learned to walk, and after that, she kept a leisurely pace beside Awinita from dawn till dusk. A massacre among the nomads forced the family into the Clover Forest, where her mother found work as a merchant and her father as a hunter. They had found the life they wanted for themselves. They were even expecting a third child in several years.

The accident.  Adsila had been six at the time, and now she vaguely remembered her father's brown, bearded face and smiling eyes. "Papa!" she called to him as he was preparing to leave. The memory made her wince. She had burst into tears and hugged his legs, begging him to stay home and play with her and Awinita. But instead, he had patted her shoulder and promised to be home before supper, a promise he could not keep. Come noontime, Wapasha arrived at their hollow with a funeral procession, his face grim. Noya, a man no older than 25, had been attacked by an elk without warning. Adsila had covered her ears as the depressing, windy notes of a flute shattered the deafening silence of the memorial service. Awinita had not cried once - she was not known to cry, even when she was drowning in sorrow. After the accident, Kimimila had burned her cherished folktales and proverbs and devoted herself to prayer. Her curious, talkative spirit faded beneath a swirling black void. She went numb and sometimes refused to speak for weeks on end. She would become so distracted that she would forget to eat. Even now, Adsila would wake in the middle of the night to the sound of her mother's forlorn weeping. You never did come to terms with a loved one's death, did you? Even if you accept that they are gone, you can't shake the grief.

As the snowbanks were submerged in long shadows, Adsila pulled off her tunic and tried to use it as a blanket. Her teeth chattered till she could no longer feel her gums. The breaths from her flaring nostrils made tiny puffs of air. They faded. Their warmth filtered out. To stay warm, she would have to run as fast as she could, as far as she could. The gusts of wind whipped and slapped her face, but she did not stop. It would not matter if she ran a hundred miles or a thousand. After ten miles, the sky had turned the blackest black and the snow was still falling. Her lungs felt cold inside. Her running slowed to jogging, then to walking. It was too cold to keep moving. Not a light was in sight.  Wait... what is that, in the distance?