‘What have you carved?’ her aunt whispered as she placed Curl beneath the blankets. Curl opened her hand to show her.
In her palm lay a simple figurine the size of her thumb, a woman of plump, fulsome curves. There were few discernable details in the carving, merely the vague contours of shape. The breasts were big. The belly swollen.
Her aunt smiled. Kissed Curl’s forehead.
‘Your mother would have liked that,’ she told her. ‘It’s a fine ally indeed. Now make sure you wear it always, and may it look out for you when you most have need of aid.’
Curl slept, knowing she would remember this day for the rest of her years.
Later, during the coldest nights of deep winter, her father began to visit Curl while her younger sisters feigned sleep across the room.
And so their world changed once more.
For Curl it was a winter of bitter dreams and darkness, marking more loss in their lives, not least of all a father.
In the spring of the following year, they found him hanging by the neck from the rafters of the smokehouse. They stood there, all three of them, gazing up at his gently spinning body clad in his old and handsome wedding garments, his shoes freshly polished, his hair neatly combed across his balding head.
Against his chest hung the wooden dolphin charm once carved and worn by their mother.
The morning the soldiers came, Curl was out gathering sixbell in the fields that overlooked the town of Hart, where her aunt had taken them to live following their father’s demise.
She was hoping to ward off the chance of pregnancy with the little blue herb, for she was secretly seeing a man in the town by then, a married wagoneer more than twice her age. That morning she wandered far, ranging over the hills in her searching, spending quiet hours slowly filling her pocket.
It was only upon her return that she noticed the smoke filling the sky ahead like storm clouds. Hitching up her skirts, she hurried over the crest of the last hill and gasped in incomprehension at what lay before her.
The town was on fire. White specks of soldiers surrounded it, and they were moving inwards.
The screams of its people fluttered like bird cries on the wind.
Curl thought of her aunt and her sisters down there. She thought of their faces as the soldiers and flames approached them. She doubled over in anguish and thought she would be sick.
Curl hid all day in the grasses, listening to the sounds of the town’s folk dying even as she pressed her hands to her ears. At times the shame of her guilt became too much, and she would try to rise as though to go and help them. But each time she froze, unable to move any further. She wept until she could weep no more, and then she grew numb, and silent.
The soldiers left in the fading light, marching out with their wagons loaded high with booty. Behind them, the town was a smoking desolation.
Curl waited another hour before she could bring herself to venture down to the ruins.
Blinded with tears, choking with grief, she was unable to find her family amongst the smouldering pile that had once been their house.
She lived a feral existence after that, wandering aimlessly amongst the pyres and ruins of her homeland. Her mind was a little gone by then. Her sense of time stretched into an eternal moment.
One day, Curl was walking along a beach when she sighted the man ahead of her, large and thickly bearded. She retained enough sense to fling herself flat to the ground.
Too late, though, as it happened. The man came to where she lay with her face pressed against the rough grasses of the dunes.
‘It’s all right,’ he said to her gently. ‘I won’t harm you, girl.’
She looked up into a tired and weather-beaten old face. His voice sounded strange, though it was only that she hadn’t heard another’s voice for so long.
‘Come with me,’ the man said, holding out a hand. ‘We must leave now.’
Curl climbed to her feet and turned to make a run for it.
Go with him.
At once she faltered in her tracks.
‘It’s all right,’ he said again, taking her carefully by the arm. ‘Come now, we need to be gone from here.’
He led her down to a cove and a small beach of shingle. A fishing boat bobbed in the water. Men and women were wading through the waves to climb aboard.
The man led her out into the water. Curl convulsed from the bitter shock of it against her thighs.
‘One more!’ he hollered to someone already on board, and a few heads turned to acknowledge her. She saw men and women with reddened eyes, hair askew, faces sagging. No one spoke as they helped her into the boat. Curl found a space amongst the bundles of goods and sat down and huddled with her knees pulled up to her chest.
‘Is that everyone?’ asked the man.
‘Aye, skipper,’ replied another. ‘Now let’s bloody well get away from here while we still can.’
Two men pulled on oars, slowly dragging the boat out through the waves of the cove into the breakers beyond. The sail was unfurled, snapping as it caught the offshore wind. After a time they were shooting across the choppy water, with all eyes turned to the distant island behind.
‘That fool Lucian and his rebels,’ spat a small bald man, glancing about him with a set of black eyes. ‘He brought it down on all of us, and damn his soul for it. Damn your soul, I say! ’ he bellowed, shaking his fist at the land.
The rest of the group sat in silence. They continued to gaze upon their homeland as it faded into the distance.
The old skipper shouted a command. At the rudder, a young lad turned the boat so that the sun wheeled behind them.
The bald man calmed himself by steady degrees, his muttering diminishing until he was silent. He sobbed for a while, the other men looking away in embarrassment. One by one the women began to cry too, though Curl only stared over the side of the boat, still numb.
‘You’re a lucky girl to stumble across us like that,’ said the bald man, his eyes dry now as he shifted across to sit beside her. Curl inched away from his touch. ‘Perhaps your ally there was looking out for you, hey?’ And he chuckled drily to himself in mockery.
‘Leave the girl alone,’ snapped the old skipper. The man scowled, but he let her be.
Curl heard the women beside her talking amongst themselves.
‘Where are we going?’ asked the youngest.
‘The Free Ports,’ replied the oldest. ‘They are free, still. And they are not so hostile to refugees as Zanzahar.’
Refugees. Curl tried the word against her tongue. So that was what she was now. She thought it was a small word for all that it meant.
Curl looked back at the island of Lagos, a mere smudge on the horizon now. In her hand she clutched the piece of wood that was her ally, rubbing it with her thumb as the lean wind cut through her body, piercing her to the heart.
‘Enough of that, now. I don’t want the children hearing you.’ Rosa spoke in an exaggerated hush, and bustled to the kitchen door to close it before she returned to folding the children’s clothing on the table.
‘What?’ exclaimed Curl, sitting across from her and watching the woman work. Exasperated, she glanced through the open window at some of the half-wild urchins in the backyard, where they were enacting street robberies for play.
Rosa’s movements were stiff and angry. The table rocked whenever the woman leaned any weight on it, so that its legs clattered against the wooden floor and transmitted the urgency of her frustrations. They were alone together. Breakfast had been served long ago, shortly after dawn, and the assorted lodgers had eaten their small portions of gruel with the sound of the guns on the nearby Lansway fuelling their talk of invasion and war. Even now, across the room, the main dining table squatted in silent accusation at Curl. She eyed it with distaste, the filthy oil-cloth that was never removed from it, not even when eating, the debris of used bowls and platters and cutlery of the lodgers. It was Curl’s turn this morning to clean up after them all. Try as she might, she couldn’t rouse herself to start it.