Jeanne G'Fellers - Sister Lost, Sister Found (2 page)

This is the tale of one such sister, a Taelach born between two worlds, one that abhors her very existence, the other that fears what she has become to survive. This is the first tale of Rankil, a sister lost, a sister found, but a sister never to be forgotten.

A Creation Story from the Serpent Clan teaching tales

The Mother Maker grew lonely in her singular existence and longed for a family. There being no male she dared leave the heavens for and no magical means by which she could conceive, the Mother Maker began to cry, the tears landing in her hands as glass seeds. She placed each of these seeds in the bodies of Autlach women and from these women and the descendents of these women, Taelachs were born. The Mother Maker delighted in her creations and granted them the gifts of empathy and telepathy. These skills, along with the Taelach’s diametric appearance to the Autlach, took their toll, and the Mother Maker soon found her daughters ostracized by their Autlach kin. Taelach infants were slaughtered in the name the Raskhallak deity, and the ones who did survive to adulthood were either enslaved or driven high into the mountains in order to survive. Fearing for her children, the Mother Maker took pity on her delicate, pale-skinned daughters, creating a physically stronger daughter, a broadback daughter to assist and love the gentler form of her creation. But, in return for her gifts, she expected her daughters to obey a single request: They were to respect nature and all things wild, including their enemies. They were to love the barbaric Autlach and try to be at peace with them.

Some things are easier said than done.

We lash out at that which we don’t understand.

—Taelach wisdom

They named her Rankil, odd enough name but one she rarely heard. More often, they called her Ugly, Stupid, or simply Rank, like her smell offended them. She answered to any of them because they all meant the same. They wanted her to do things no one else would—clean, lift, carry things far heavier than any child should. Of their blood, she served them as a slave and nothing more, the middle child of the family, a mark of sin on their otherwise prominent position within the isolated farming community they called home. She bore their anger, suffered as the vent point for their frustrations. Rankil was light among the dark, too tall and skinny to be one of them, physical evidence of the long-forgotten human influence on their planet—a Taelach child in an Autlach world.

***

Whack! The sweeper handle landed square on Rankil’s lower back, sending her sprawling to the floor.

“Stupid girl. I taught you to brush the floors better than this. You won’t be lazy, Rank. Earn your keep if you expect to eat today.” Rankil’s mother Meelsa raised the sweeper handle for another blow. Fifteen-pass-old Rankil, in a dirty dress and bare feet, cowered, unsure what she had done wrong.

“You see this?” Meelsa pulled her to the front door and shoved her face first into the space behind it. “See the dirt? You sweep behind the doors. How many times must I tell you?”

“Too many?” The answer earned Rankil another blow. The question must have been one of the many her mother asked that expected no answer.

“Bite your tongue.” Rankil cringed as the handle rose again but, instead of another blow, Meelsa handed the sweeper to her eldest daughter Tessa, who’d been watching her snow-headed sister’s abuse with unbridled amusement. “Here, Tessie, do M’ma a favor and brush the floor proper. I’ve another chore for Rank.”

Contempt exuded from Tessa’s brown eyes as she narrowed them at Rankil. Tessa’s friends routinely teased her for the resemblance she bore to the family’s slave and the outgoing Tessa blamed Rankil for the taunts. “Why do I always end up fixing her messes? She forgot the door. Let her sweep!”

Meelsa’s graying braid swayed with the rhythm of her shaking head. “I’m sending Rankil to gather cress for tonight’s sup. It’s high season, and your dah wants some. She’ll go, unless you’d rather climb for it.” Rankil’s heart soared. She loved going cress gathering. No one bothered her in the hills. She could laugh and play, be happy, be Rankil.

“Ugh!” Tessa rolled her eyes at the thought of harvesting the stone-clinging, crevice-growing plant. “I’ll tend the floor and then work on my dress. I’ve all but finished tatting the collar lace. Jin says fancy collars bring out my eyes.”

“Jin would,” mumbled Meelsa, all too familiar with the ideas driving the young man’s flattery. “The dress and Jinwall Mustin can wait. Sweep more and talk less, Tessa. Your dah wants his house clean.” Meelsa grabbed a carry sling from the hooks and tossed it to Rankil who nursed her stinging back. “Don’t you bring back any over-big leaves. You know what size they need to be. Danston will beat you if his greens are bitter again.”

“Yes ma’am.” Rankil scrambled to her feet, snagged her wide-brimmed sunshade from the hooks and ran out the door. If she found a good patch, cress gathering wouldn’t take more than an hour or two, leaving her time to roam. She could ask for a slice of bread to eat while she worked. Meelsa would probably give her that, but she knew she’d do better foraging in the hills. She should have her fill of cress up there as well. There would be none for her that evening.

So, her stomach twittering, Rankil trotted across the courtyard, past her uncle’s family’s cottage. Uncle Tisph had eight children of his own, six of them boys, each more inventive than the next in the cruelty they demonstrated for Rankil. As mean as they were, she still preferred them to her uncle. Tisph always looked at her funny. He never acted mean in a hitting way, just the opposite. He would be too nice, his hand quick to pat her behind or run a path across her chest. He’d even kissed her once, a sucking, full-mouth kiss like her father gave her mother. Rankil wouldn’t have liked it even if Meelsa hadn’t caught them at it. She had been so furious with Rankil that she had beaten her all the way back to the house, swearing something about birthing a white witch with whorish wiles as they went. What were wiles anyway? Rankil knew what a witch was, she’d been called one enough times, and she knew the word whore meant something bad too, but she had never heard the last word before then. The next day she’d asked Tessa to explain, but her sister had said it’d been her own fault Tisph had kissed her. This only furthered Rankil’s confusion. No one ever showed her affection, then when someone did it was wrong? She pondered that fact for a while, deciding she would do best just to keep away from Uncle Tisph. His touch made her feel sort of sick inside and besides, she didn’t want another beating—there were plenty of those as was. Time made her quite adept at staying clear of him in almost every situation and in the presence of others when she had to be near him.

Keeping close to the garden to avoid attention, Rankil had almost cleared the compound gates when her Aunt Quyley, Tisph’s perpetually pregnant, quarrelsome wife shouted to her from beside the garden shed.

“Rankil!” Quyley’s voice had become gruff from screaming at her children. “Come here, girl!”

“Yes, ma’am.” Rankil took a few more steps before she slowed to a stop, afraid she’d end up gathering for her greedy cousins as well as her own family. “I’ve been sent picking.”

“Good!” bellowed her aunt, pushing the woven shade from her round, sweating face. “Take Archell with you. He’s getting on my nerves.”

Archell? It could have been worse. If anyone had to tag along, Rankil preferred it be Archell. Everyone else considered him simpleminded, but she knew better. Archell had a unique way of looking at things. He lived in his own version of reality, one far removed from the pain of this one. If Rankil had one friend in the world, it was seventeen-pass-old Archell.

“Yes, ma’am. Where is he?”

Quyley swiped her nose on her blouse cuff. “Are you stupid, ugly,
and
deaf, girl? Can’t you hear his singing? He’s in the barn combing down them nassies. Swears they like his voice. Go get him and make him help.”

The barn!

Rankil began to shake, her knees knocking so loud she knew her aunt could hear them. The barn was her uncle’s favorite escape from his noisy family. If she were lucky, he wouldn’t be there.

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll get him now.” Rankil turned toward the building’s open bay doors, her feet pushing up little dust clouds as they dragged along the ground. She peeked around the corner then drew back, her whisper almost inaudible above the nassies’ greeting shuffles and snorts.

“Archie?”

His answer came as it always did, in song or rhyme. “Oh my my pretty Rankil—too tall girl with the skinny ankles—Archell sees you from nassie Blue’s bright stall.” Blue’s stall stood third on the right. Rankil slid into it and gave the curly-coated gray work nassie a pat of reassurance.

“Want to pick cress with me?”

Archell shook his great unkempt mop of black hair. “Brush, brush nassie Blue—will not quit until I’m through.”

Rankil grabbed the brush from his hand and placed it on the top stall board. “Blue looks good enough. Come on. Your m’ma says you can go with me.”

Her cousin smiled as she took his stubby hand. He was no taller than her, but stood twice as broad in the shoulder and was capable of strength he wasn’t always able to control. “Where to, Rankil dankle?”

“I just told you, silly, cress picking.”

Archell’s hand dropped faster than his expression, both withdrawing from her with the same hurt reaction. “Archie not silly willy, Rankil dankle.” She sometimes forgot he suffered as many insults as she did.

“I’m sorry.” Rankil glanced down the stall row. The nassies, with their tri-toed hooves and short tangled fur, were far too quiet for her liking. “I’m just in a hurry. You know I don’t like the barn.”

With a sullen draw of his lip, Archell turned her face to his. “Archell knows what Rankil fears—dah’s big hands will get too near.” She’d never told him, but he knew. He always knew what went through her head.

“Yeah, Archie, that’s why I hate the barn. Can we go?” She tugged him from the stall and toward the open back entrance.

“Let’s run, rangle dangle.” Archell stretched his arms and jogged out the breezy rear doors, his run awkward but quick. “Let’s go find a redberry tangle.”

Rankil laughed, threw the carry bag over her shoulder, and skipped after him in one of the few, short-lived happy moments in her life. She’d reached halfway across the barn when a shadow darkened the alleyway behind her. The lively mood halted, as did Rankil.

“Rankil, sweetheart, where you scurrying off to? Come give your Uncle Tisph a hug.”

She started running, white hair streaming, skirts billowing at her knees, bare feet scraping across stone, manure squishing between her toes as she slid across the upper paddocks. She kept running, running as hard and as fast as her legs would carry her.

Tisph pursued her to the edge of the barn then stopped. “Get back here now, you damn whore!” His fists tightened around the halter he carried. “Long-legged bitch. I’ll catch you sooner or later, just you wait.”

Rankil caught up with Archell, and together they ran across the high fields into the foothills where cress grew best. They didn’t speak as they gathered the clustering plant from the slopes. It wasn’t necessary. Rankil hurt inside and nothing Archell said or sang would change that.

When they had filled the sack, they took it to the nearby sweet brook to rinse the leaves. “Rankil dankle?” Archell’s whisper roared in her swimming head. “Dah’s big hands, they’ll reach again—but Archell’s here—he will defend.”

Rankil shook the water from her handful of cress and set it beside him so he could trim the leaves. She remained silent for a moment, then smiled. Archell had enough problems without being concerned for her safety, too. “I’ll be all right, Archie. I just need to stay out of his way. He don’t bother me when I do. Outta sight, outta mind.”

Archell pursed his lips. “Run, run you did today—but safe you cannot always stay.”

“I know, Archie, I know.”
How can someone considered a lack-wit know so much,
thought Rankil as she rinsed another handful. She pinched off a leaf and popped it in her mouth, savoring the delicate flavor. The cress
was
best this time of year, sweet and crisp, just perfect to go with “Redberries!”

“Berry time, Rankil dankle?” Archell grinned at her, revealing the cress between his front teeth. He’d soaked his tunic front as well, but that was typical Archell; he’d never shown much concern over his looks.

“Yep, Archie, berry time.” Rankil gave his soggy stomach a teasing slap. “Come on. I’m starved.” They found a nearby patch and ate their fill, then lay back in the summer grass, head to head, each resting on the other’s shoulder.

“Rankil dankle is good to me—makes me see things as they should be.” Archell reached up to pat her head. “Pretty pretty Rankil roo—wish you were not always blue.”

“Blue?” Rankil’s older cousin’s analogy eluded her. “I have a few redberry stains on my hands, but I’m not blue.”

Archell cast one of his wise-beyond-his-years looks, his tan face creasing with concern. “Sweeper marks they bruise your back— heart broke in two from dah’s attacks. Rankil dankle is blue.”

Rankil sat up. “How’d you know about the sweeper? It happened just before I got you.”

“Rankil’s dress is getting small—welts they show through cloth and all.” He touched the lowest mark on her back, drawing back when she cringed. “Rankil hurts, and I do, too—Rankil, Rankil—” He stopped his musical lament to wipe away the tears trapped in the tired hollows below her eyes. “Rankil cry?” As fast as he could rise to her aid, she collapsed against him, shaking hard. “Rankil scared?”