There was a small cut on her hand where the side had scraped against the stone windowsill. Saia looked in shock as the tiniest drop of blood surfaced on her brown skin.
“It's nothing,” she said out loud while she covered the cut with the other hand.
And it was nothing, really. She'd been leaning out of the window in hopes to see her dad's boat on the glimmering sea of the bay. The village's clocktower had stricken the third hour, startling her, and the hand had slipped on a portion of the windowsill that hadn't been properly levigated. She'd barely registered it after all the excitement she'd been feeling since waking up that morning. It didn't hurt, it had already stopped bleeding. But to the goddess, it didn't matter.
“You have to be more careful, my child.”
The voice would have been soothing, had it belonged to anyone else. Saia retracted her clasped hands, but the air pried them apart. The cut stung a bit while it closed.
“Thank you,” Saia said, hoping the goddess’s attention would be captured by something else.
“You were lucky I was paying attention, or you could have fallen.”
Saia glanced at the window: she had been careful to keep both feet on the floor, and she just wasn't tall enough to lean that far.
“A bad fall could ruin your future. What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Saia remembered her mom's advice: ‘be vague’. Obviously she couldn't explain her why, with the goddess listening to every word, but she didn't need to.
“I don't know yet.”
“Well, I need a reader for the thirdday ceremonies. You should start coming to the temple after school, so I can hear you practice.”
Saia strained not to make a face.
“But.. but I thought the reader was Taide”.
“She needs more time with her family. You'll find that being a reader requires a lot more effort than it seems.”
“But I don't want to be a reader.”
Maybe it was just her fear, but the air in the room became slightly colder.
“Well, you need to do something, child. I’m giving you an option, a very important job, the opportunity to serve me and the whole village to the best of your abilities. It's very selfish of you to tell me 'no' without even trying.”
Saia didn't know what to say or how to react. She looked down at her hand, now perfect as if she'd never slipped.
“It's not complicated, you'll just have to read. I've heard you in class, you have a nice voice and you’re faster than the other children. You can learn to do even better.”
Saia stepped back towards the wall, her round eyes open wide. She wanted to run away, past her and her sister's beds, and go to the pond alone, but her mom had told her to wait for her return. Besides, that wouldn't have been enough to get rid of the goddess.
“I want to be a fisher,” she blurted out. “I want to catch sea snakes like my dad.”
The instant of silence made her regret everything.
“You're too young to make this decision,” the goddess said, voice cold in Saia's ears. “I’ll talk to your parents.”
Saia waited some more, but the voice didn't come back. She felt relief, but knew better than releasing it with a sigh. The goddess never truly left.
“Saia!” she heard her mom's voice from the window.
“I’m coming," she answered.
She checked her clothes one last time before leaving the room: the tunic she was wearing was made of two pieces of cloth sewn together, one blue and one orange, with laces joining them at her upper back. There were four laces in place of each sleeve, and even if she had seen the pattern dozens of times on her sister, she wasn't sure she had managed to weave it correctly around her arms. She guessed not, since the first thing her mom did after hugging her was to fix the laces on her shoulders.
“Almost perfect,” Lada said, adjusting an orange lace over a blue one. “I just want you to be at your best for the first day. Turn around, please.”
She checked the laces at the back and nodded approvingly at Saia’s hair, tied in four rows of braids close to her scalp. She closed the front door of the house, took Saia's hand and started walking towards the northern part of the village.
The road became steeper the closer they got to the mountain. Saia looked up at its peak framed by clouds: the sacred texts always talked about its holy nature, of how dangerous it was for humans to leave its protection and even more to climb its flanks. The light reflected on the rocks as if they were sea waves, making it difficult to look at it for too long.
Saia blinked away the spots in her vision, focusing on the street. It became a stone staircase at every turn, then a normal street again, when the ascent was gentler. The houses at the sides were large, each built of wood and stones to host multiple generations of the same family. They became more sparse while Saia and her mom approached the junction: to the left, a path cut across a field, climbed a hill of grass, curved towards the very edge of the forest and completed its ascent in front of Vizena’s temple. To the right, a gravel path continued towards the daisies pond.
Saia perceived her mom's gentle grip on her hand become imperceptibly stronger.
“I’m sorry, but I'm bringing her to the pond today. My daughter has completed her training as a secret keeper.”
Saia realized she was talking to Vizena. She looked back to the cylindrical shape of the temple, with its large windows and giant doors: she could only see a glimpse of the statue inside. She turned around immediately, scared that the goddess could notice her looking.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“She's never expressed any desire to become a reader," Lada said. "I'll bring her to you immediately as soon as she does.”
There were two people standing on the side of the path: Saia recognized her friend Ceila and her father. He was talking to the air just as Lada was, but with less determination in his voice.
“A dancer? Sure, if it's your will…” He glanced at Ceila, and she glared back. “She's not much of a dancer, though. Maybe you should look for someone else... Yes, I understand. Yes.”
He trailed off, shoulders hunched in defeat.
Saia greeted Ceila. She waved back, making the line of bracelets on her white arm tinkle gently. She was wearing a green and black tunic, her blonde hair braided around the head. She tugged at her dad's arm, pointing towards the pond, but he only made two steps forward before stopping, overwhelmed by the conversation with the goddess.
Lada greeted them with a nod and a brief smile, still answering the goddess’s questions. She kept going, bringing Saia with her, until Ceila and her dad had disappeared behind a mound of earth. Saia wasn’t sad for long, because now she could see the daisies pond in the distance. It was small, with shallow water that bubbled with frogs and tadpoles in spring. Children in colored tunics were sitting in silent rows on the grass full of flowers.
“I know you consider it a stupid tradition, I know that to you it’s just useless talking, but I beg you," Lada said, lowering her voice. "Let Saia come here after school. It's important.”
Saia couldn't guess what the goddess’s answer had been, because Lada leaned forward to kiss her on the head.
“I’ll be back in two hours. Don't worry and do what the other kids do.”
Saia nodded. She watched her mom leave, then approached the rows of sitting children. She recognized two of her friends from school, but when she got closer, all of the children pointed at the far end of the last row.
“Order of arrival,” a kid said with an air of superiority that betrayed how he was repeating the words of some adult.
Saia found her spot next to a boy she didn’t know, with a pretty braid of black hair and a pink and purple tunic. There were more people on the other side of the pond, half-hidden by tall grass and canes. She could see two old people, each sitting in front of a different child. They seemed to be talking, even if she couldn't guess about what.
After a while, one of the kids in front of the old people stood, immediately imitated by the first of the children who were waiting. They walked along the pond in opposite directions, one towards an old woman, the other back to the waiting children. They all shifted until no empty spot was left in the first row.
More children had arrived in the time it took Saia to finally reach that first spot. Ceila was now sitting two rows behind her, so they could only smile and wave at each other. Then, a child on the other side of the pond got up, and Saia realized it was finally her turn. She was too bored to worry at that point, so she ran towards the elder that was waiting for her.
“You're new,” he said, greeting her with a smile.
Saia nodded. He gestured for her to sit in front of him, and she obeyed.
“What do I have to do?” she asked.
“We will only talk, but I want you to do more than just listen. Pay attention to what's being said, and what is not being said. Maybe you won't understand immediately and you'll have questions. Don't ask them.”
“The teacher says to always ask when we don't understand something.”
“And you should always do that, but not here. Just speak as you normally would and pay attention. And remember your training as a secret keeper.”
Every hint of a smile disappeared as he said the last sentence. It only returned after Saia nodded.
“Good,” he said. “Tell me about your family.”
Saia relaxed a bit when she realized that the question was very easy.
“There is my mom, my dad, my two brothers and my sister. But I have more family that lives in another house.”
“So you live with five people.”
He traced a horizontal line with his right index finger on the back of his left wrist. Saia was unsure if he had done that on purpose or he was just scratching his hand, but she couldn't ask, so she waited.
“Tell me about your father. What's his job?”
“He's a fisher. He goes on a boat with my brother and catches sea snakes.”
Obviously they didn't only catch sea snakes, but they were the most interesting prey, with their black and red body and long teeth.
“A fisher,” the elder repeated, raising and lowering his bent index finger.
This time, Saia recognized the gesture. Or better, she remembered she had already seen it somewhere, but couldn't pinpoint exactly where.
“And your mother?”
“She's a sky watcher. She studies the sky and the stars and always knows when it rains.”
The elder's eyes became narrower and he didn't do any gestures. At first, Saia thought she'd said something wrong, or that he disliked sky watchers for some weird reason. Then she realized he was just trying very intensely to remember something.
He shook his head.
“We'll talk about her next time. But it's a good thing that she always knows when rain comes.”
And he raised an open hand at his side, always the right one for some reason, then let it fall, as if he had no more energy to keep it raised. This time, Saia was sure she'd already seen that gesture. One morning, after waking up earlier than usual, she’d seen her parents in the kitchen, immersed in a discussion that was more animated than usual. Her dad kept repeating that he had to go, that the goddess wanted to celebrate the midsummer festival with a dinner of fish for the whole community. Every time her mom answered that if it was the goddess’s will, she couldn't stop him, but she'd be worried sick until he came home. With her right hand, she repeated the same gesture of the elder. She stopped as soon as she saw Saia standing in the doorway.
From that day on, Saia had started noticing the weird gestures everywhere: her teacher used them with his colleagues, her grandma while talking to the neighbour, and strangers when they haggled at the market. But as soon as she got closer, they stopped and kept on talking normally. Those gestures were very different from the words of the sign language they studied at school: they were always done so quickly that they could be exchanged for other things, like scratching or trying to catch an insect in mid-air. As if people weren’t actually supposed to see them.
She had many questions now, but she pretended it was a task of her secret keeper training, like hiding a pretty blue stone in her pocket for months without showing it to her friends or not telling anyone about the piece of cake that the baker gave to anyone who knocked on his door twice at noon.
“Now,” the elder said, “give me three blades of grass.”
He repeated the first gesture he’d made, the index tracing a line across the wrist. Saia tore three blades from the grass she was sitting on and gave them to the elder. He raised them to his eyes, quickly counted under his breath, then let them fall between them.
“Thank you,” he murmured, but his eyes were serious. “Now I want six of them.”
And he repeated the gesture.
Saia obeyed, but the reaction was the same. Even if he was thanking her, she could sense he wasn't happy with what she was doing.
“Four,” he said, gesturing again.
This time, Saia took five blades of grass. The elder gave her a large smile.
“This is not the right number, child,” he said, his tone gentle.
Saia wanted to protest, but he seemed happy, so she concluded that he wanted her to give him the wrong amount of grass. She couldn't understand why he didn't just ask for five blades of grass. She didn't like having to guess, just as she didn't like that her mother had to be polite with the goddess and couldn't tell her to leave her alone.
“I think it's enough for today,” the elder said. “You'll continue next week, either with me or someone else. If you come here a little earlier, we can talk about your mom's job before the lesson begins.”
Saia nodded. She greeted him and returned to the other side of the pond, to wait for her mother with the other kids that had finished their lesson, as the elder had called it.
Her mom seemed happy: she gave her a warm hug before they headed home.
That night, at the kitchen’s table, Saia saw for the first time her parents and siblings use the quick gestures while they talked. They didn't use them a lot, just one every few sentences. They all looked happy for no apparent reason, and their happiness seemed to be directed at her, but nobody explained her why. It was as if they'd let her on a big secret, without anyone telling her exactly what it was. She wanted to ask, but she was a secret keeper. So she just observed the gestures, trying to guess their meaning inside her head, and kept the silence.