Copyright © 2019 by Désirée Nordlund

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  First Printing, 2019

  Cover design by Rebecacovers

  More by Désirée Nordlund

  Talk to me

  Waking up to Reality

  Sunlight

  Caged Warrior

  Quickfinger

  The boy who came from the desert

  Vepresila sat on her heels in the shade of the bush and picked the small spiny berries with experienced fingers. She was hungry, but even if the berries were edible as they were, she did not touch them. It would shame her mother if she used the uninhibited access to common assets that was hers, and the last thing she wanted was to subject her mother to more than she already had to deal with. There was no shame in giving birth to a future priestess. The problem was that Vepresila was an only daughter, which meant no one would be around to take care of her mother and help her in old age once she left.

  She wanted to trust that the Goddess would ensure Sinita’s future too, but she knew the world was not a fair place. As the day for her departure to the Temple inevitable approached, she found herself thinking more of her mother’s future than her own. Chosen by the Goddess herself, her fate was in safe hands and something she knew she could not control. She could not remain with her mother, the person who still constituted a major part of her world.

  Vepresila was fourteen, and she knew the day she would be forced to bid farewell would come at any time. She got up, took the basket and went to the next bush. Their dwelling was truly a blessed place. She was grateful when she saw her bin would be full. There may have been a shortage of game for the men, but women and children were always busy taking care of what the land had to give them.

  The oasis was protected like a bowl made of red sandstone rock that reached towards the sky to the north and, from the oasis, looked like it was shielding their home with two arms. To the south stretched the desert, like a rocky blanket. Hills and mountains were not scarce, but between them, there was nothing but dry sand and pebbles. The mountains were not much more than red formations in soft curves that stuck out of the ground, desolate places without water or vegetation.

  Had Vepresila had the privilege to bring knowledge of the past thousand years with her, she would have been able to tell about the water that had leaked and formed the mountain and oasis and the extensive cave systems they lived within. However, no one had such ancient stories and Vepresila, like all the others in the tribe, believed that the mountains were shaped from clay by the Gods themselves when the world was first created.

  Vepresila rose again with the basket and passed one of the small farmlands. She threw a pebble at her little brother when she walked by. He was on all fours weeding. He looked up, but as expected there was no more than a furious glance. Zollam knew better than to start arguing with her when the other boys were present. She had honed to perfection her ability to behave inappropriately and insult him in front of others.

  As a future priestess, no one bothered to teach her proper behavior. Why would they? She was to be priestess for life, and her fate would stay inside the sanctuary walls. Vepresila did not have much sympathy for boys and even less for men. The only person Vepresila had full respect for was her mother. Everyone else belonged to the sad crowd of people who had to be denied the proximity to the Gods that only priests and priestesses enjoyed. She waited eagerly for her new life in the Temple.

  With the basket under her arm, she walked through the cave’s winding passages. Inside, in the darkness, the air was cool. Here and there were small lanterns, but everyone knew the aisles inside and out and was able to get around with sparse light. Light cost fuel and gave an unwanted heat in an already sunburned world. The soft, reddish sandstone had been shaped by generations upon generations of residents. Steps had been cut out of the stone, narrow passages widened, floors leveled out, and rooms made larger.

  Vepresila reached the grand hall that was used as a cooking area. It was the only place where an open fire was permitted. A crack in the rock above led the smoke out and made it bearable to be there. The tribe’s women sat scattered around the room and prepared food for their families. Vepresila went straight to Sinita who, being the wife of their tribe leader, had the best and biggest seat in the room. It was not just because of status and rank that she had this privilege. With the position followed a responsibility to take care of the tribal’s food resources, an incredibly important responsibility.

  Vepresila sank to her knees and handed the basket to her mother and got a smile of thanks. Sinita was the only one who endeavored to always be nice to her. Everyone knew everyone in the small community, but even an outsider could quickly tell Vepresila was different, abandoned and closed off from the other females of the tribe. Other young girls had embroidery and beautiful stones sewn on their clothes. Everyone but Vepresila. No one ever wanted to waste their time and wealth on someone who would never had to be beautiful and married off, not even Sinita.

  If she was not sent off on an errand, Vepresila, like any daughter, followed her mother like a shadow. For the past two or three years, she had dragged on the time when she was away somewhere. She would never have a use for the household knowledge her mother passed on, but the primary reason for her prolonged absence was because the atmosphere between her and Sinita became more and more troubled and tense.

  She became increasingly aware of how poorly she was treated by all the members of the tribe. To be alone, away from the others, was a relief she took advantage of to greater and greater extents. Many nights she sneaked out when everyone was asleep. It was not because of the night’s cold air, but because it was unseemly. Because the world that met her out there, at night, was her own.

  That night the tribe’s men came back from the hunt after several days out in the desert. The reason for their early return was not due to filled bags, but because they had found a boy half-dead of thirst. Vepresila crept through the shadows, into the cave’s darkness without being seen. She had appeared so innocent and slept in the girls’ room when Sinita tiptoed inside and woke her up.

  They hurried through the aisles to the men’s domains and the chambers where guests could stay. On a bed lay the unconscious boy. He appeared to be around her age, and had long raven hair. It was loose and was neither braided as a man nor in a hard tassel as a boy. Sinita immediately began to nurture the boy’s burnt skin with ointments and wet cloths. Vepresila did not, of course, lay a hand on him. She was chosen after all and could not be tainted.

  Not only were men not allowed to touch her, but she was not permitted to touch them either. Small boys were an exception, as well as her father, but he had hardly acknowledged her existence for years.

  When she sat next to her mother, she wondered where the boy came from. He was not one of the tribal boys, and she hardly believed he could be from any of the other tribes in the desert either. His precarious situation alone told that this boy had no habit of walking long distances.

  They had not found his water bottle, and he had wrapped his shirt around his head as a headdress and left upper body naked. She looked at the red, flaming skin that flaked in huge chunks from his body. While Sinita worked with her damp rags, Vepresila slipped her hand into the jar of ointment. She raised her fingers towards the boy’s skin, too curious to resist, constantly watching her mother. When the lotion on her fingertips met its goal, Sinita grabbed her daughter’s wrist and pulled her hand away. She saw the warning in the other’s gaze and looked down at the floor. Resigned, she used the ointment on her own hands instead.

  Sinita loved her daughter, and although she knew the girl’s fate from birth, she had attached herself to the little baby. She could not understand the women who could hold their newborn at a distance and not give them love. Small children were so dependent on care and a parent’s presence. It felt so wrong to deny them that, no matter if the Gods had selected them.

  She had always known Vepresila would leave her and had decided that the time she had with her daughter would be worth something for them both. But as the day of the girl’s childhood began to reach its end, she had felt the anxiety growing more and more intense. It was not just that she would become older and stand without the help all women needed by age, but that she would lose a beloved child.

  Vepresila would certainly not die, but for Sinita the difference was marginal. To see her daughter go away without ever coming back, was basically the same thing as having to bury your own child. She would not even know if Vepresila lived and was well. When the entourage that would bring her daughter to the Temple returned, they would speak of the handover. But that would be the last she would hear about her child’s life and destiny.

  Sinita kept it to herself, but it had been a long time since she ceased believing in any of the Gods. If they existed, they certainly would not be friendly creatures and did not deserve her worship. Within, the civil and patient Sinita had made revolt against the higher powers. But it did not help her to keep her daughter by her side. What good would it do if she tried to do something radical like flee with the girl? They wo