* * *
At midday, Tala comes to our hut with a wriggling Liral. She eagerly hands him over to Granny who is delighted at seeing her great-grandson. Mother offers Tala a bowl of soup, which she declines, saying she already ate and only came over to get me out of the hut.
Together we walk down to the beach of the bay with her holding onto me and me hobbling against her.
“So,” she says when we arrive. “What happened with you and Tarok?”
We sit down and unlace our boots. She stands to walk into the water while I inspect the blistered skin of my toes.
“What do you mean?” I ask absently.
“He left with you then returned without you.”
“What does it matter if he did that? It is not like we are intended,” I say struggling to keep the bitterness from my voice.
She frowns down at me. “And that is exactly what someone would say when something upsetting happens. Now talk, woman.”
A groan escapes my throat. “He brought me home, said that we could only be friends, and left with little insistence or prodding from me.”
“I figured it was something like that.”
“Why would you come to that conclusion?”
“Because he danced with nearly every unbound girl of age, including Namira.”
There are quite a few unbound girls in the tribe who are older than sixteen summers, which is the minimum age to go through the binding ceremony. I pick up a pebble and pretend to be interested in it. “He is free to dance with whomever he wants.”
“You gave me that look, Akari. Spirits know that look is only reserved for special things.”
“Special things are complicated now. And that special thing does not want this thing.” I toss the pebble out into the rolling waves
“Well this thing is very special and that thing is not.”
“Enough about this special thing, how is my favorite special thing?”
Her soft smile widens into a grin. “Well, her special thing may become a real thing.”
“You spoke with him?”
She nods joyously and comes to sit beside me. “He danced with me. Well, it was more of um… not really dancing,” she hesitates, “he was dancing while I was dancing. It was not really a together sort of dancing.”
“I saw him watching you before Tarok came to sit with me.”
Her face lights up. “He was watching?”
“Of course, Tala. Did I not tell you that because you always dance so beautifully that he would not be able to not watch?”
“I do not know.” She sighs. “My special thing is complicated, too.”
“Yes, but your special thing has not made it clear that there can never be more than friendship between the two of you.”
“I guess.”
“And if you would just talk with him, I think you will find that your special thing will become a real thing.”
Chapter Six