“Perhaps then I’ll need you to protect me,” I laughed, hugging myself, knowing myself so much better than he. “Do you think you will?”
“You know I’ll have to try,” he said, and for some reason he sounded angry. Without warning his hand came to my arm, and I was pulled away from the top of the mountain and down a foot or so to face him. “I’ll probably die right along with you, but that won’t stop me from trying. Don’t you care that we’ll both be dead?”
“I won’t be dead!” I spat, struggling to free myself from his grip. “They all know I’m special, and they won’t dare hurt me! You’re just saying that they will because you’re jealous of me, because you can’t fly! Why don’t you leave me alone!”
“If /leave you alone, you really will be alone,” he said, his light eyes sad. “There’s no one else in this whole world who feels the way I do about you. Why do you think I bother, when it would be so much easier just leaving you to your fate?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head against his nonsense. “I don’t know why you bother when I’ve made it so clear that I want nothing to do with you. What do you hope to gain?”
“Why must you insist that I want something?” he came back, his eyes now annoyed. “Do you think so little of yourself that everyone who shows interest in you has to be seeking some sort of gain? Isn’t it possible that all I want is you?”
“It may be possible, but it isn’t very likely,” I retorted with a snort. “Untalented people interested in talented people usually want to share a special standing among the rest of the untalented that they’d never achieve on their own. If you think you’re good enough to match me, try this.”
By moving suddenly I managed to pull away from him, and immediately ran toward the mountain top again. He was no more than a step behind me, but where the top of the mountain was as far as he could go, it was just the beginning of the journey for me. I plunged over the edge and let myself fail, my wings spreading out and quickly catching at the unbelievable mix of air currents. The fall became a lazy, circling soar, my arms back under my wings, my hair flaring out backward to the caress of the stream. Most of me aimed backward but ahead was where I was going, beyond anything those others had done, beyond anything they had even dreamed. I tipped away from the ladder of air and beat skyward, glorying in my strength, sending a laugh of victory down toward the tiny figure still standing on the mountain top. He could never match me, never be my equal in a million lifetimes, and I would prove it to him over and over until he had no choice but to believe it. He would learn how outrageously he overstepped himself by aspiring to me, and in learning he would finally go away. I didn’t need him or anyone, not when I could fly!
I spent hours playing alone in the skies, and when I finally returned to the top of the mountain, he was nowhere to be found. That gave me a good deal of satisfaction, and I strolled back to town and my house with a pleased smile on my lips. The others in the house knew I’d been out flying, and their awe kept them silent as I passed, giving them their voices back to whisper only after I was no longer near. I stole food from the kitchen without my aunts knowing it, ate it among the shade trees at the back of the house, then lay down in the grass for a nap. My sisters and cousins could take care of the chores around the house, even the ones that were supposed to be mine. I had better things to do with my time.
When I awoke from my nap and returned to the house, I was furious to discover that there was one chore I couldn’t avoid. It was time for my family to bring its share of the growing to the central depot, and afterward draw its share of the made things. Everyone in the family went but my mother and aunts, and even my mother’s protests would have been useless against my father. My mother knew I was much too good for menial chores, but my father had never agreed with her. He called her treatment of me pampering, and saw to it that I did my chores when he was about. Happily he wasn’t about much, but even his occasional appearance was more than I cared for.
The sacks containing our growing were already in the carts, but the carts had to be pushed to the center of town, and then they had to be unloaded. I sweated in the hot afternoon sun, straining at a cart that I almost seemed to be pushing alone, annoyed by the laughter and foolishness of my cousins and sisters and brothers. They considered going to the depot a holiday rather than the drudgery it was, one where they got to meet the flirt with the young members of the other families. I had no interest in meeting those others and even less in pushing the cart, but I couldn’t afford to turn and walk off, or even to shirk. Although my father and uncles had stayed at the house as always, my brothers would be sure to notice what I did and report back later. My brothers were jealous of what I could do, and always made as much trouble for me as possible with our father. One day I would leave that place, and never have to be bothered by any of them again.
It took long enough to get to the depot, but once we were there the boys took over unloading the carts. My sisters and girl cousins stood around watching them and sending covert glances toward the males of other families, and I was able to melt back into the rest of the female crowd and then hurry away. I’d taken an uninterested look around When we’d stopped our carts, and had seen him busy unloading with his brothers. As soon as he was through he would come looking for me, and I didn’t want to be where he would find me. He had nothing to offer but a place in his family, a place that would mean work and more work, a drudgery I had no intentions of becoming a part of. I could do something no one else in the whole world could do, and somehow I would see to it that my position in life was just as special.
Once I was past the edges of the crowd, it was easier to move faster. My bare feet added dust to the air that had only just been cleared from all the carts going by, and I hurried toward the circle of shops in the market area around the depot, glad the shops were always closed on depot day. No one would need very much for a couple of days after evening out, and the shop people knew it and took the time as a holiday. That meant I could circle the depot area behind the shops, and that way get back to the hill-mountain. Since the work was all done, no one would miss me except for him; missing me he might try to follow, but by then I’d be beyond the top of the mountain. Let him try following me there!
The first of the shops was no more than twenty feet away when I dragged my thoughts out of the waiting skies to notice that the area wasn’t as deserted as it should have been. Three men holding thick branch-cuts stood ahead of me in front of one of the shops, and I didn’t recognize any of them. By their short wraparounds and metal jewelry they certainly weren’t town men, not even from the other towns that lay one or two days travel away from ours. Those town men wore long wraparounds the way our men did, and wouldn’t have strung themselves with useless trinkets any more than ours would have. I didn’t know why they had come to our town, but they had certainly picked a good time. The only ones around to stand against them were boys, and if their intentions were to do mischief, I pitied the town. It was, however, none of my concern, and I immediately began to turn to my left to avoid the three, but there were three others of the same sort standing there. Quickly turning my head to the right showed another four, and it suddenly came to me that they were more interested in me than in the town. The thought was somewhat unsettling, but not unduly worrying; I didn’t have to go around them to get away from them.
“A good day to you, girl,” one of the three directly ahead called, stepping out in front of the other two. “It’s clear you’re the one we’ve come after, and you’d be wise not trying to struggle. If you’ll keep silent we’ll be gone with none the wiser; if you scream and alert the others, you’ll be beaten once we’ve got you away.”