Second Daughter
Eugie Foster
Navah
was born second daughter to her house, a disappointment to her mother and
father, who had expected another son.
Her mother died of shame when she realized she had birthed a second girl
child and her father named her Navah, which means "regrettable."
The
only one who was kind to Navah was her brother Alsieb. Navah would sit with Alsieb while he
wove his warrior's shirt and as his hands twisted and pulled at the thick
strands of yarn, he would also spin fabulous tales for her about cunning monkey
kings, sly fox women, and her favorite, the fearsome witch who lived in the
forest. She barely dared to
breathe for fear of disrupting the luck charms his fingers twined into the
cloth, but she never missed a single word.
Now
Alsieb was sick, the poison from a bandit's lance working its way into his
heart. The brigand had stricken
off one of Alsieb's charms at a crucial moment and the green tip had stabbed
into his side.
The
aunties said the wound was cursed and would not heal. Navah overheard them as she stood peeling the vegetables for
dinner.
"It
was bad magic!" Aunt Yegane
said as she poured rice into a cooking pot.
"A
demon perhaps," Aunt Hadara agreed, rolling out flour for dumplings.
"Maybe
it wasn't a demon," Savina said.
"Maybe it was Navah.
She sat with him while he wove.
I saw." Savina was
first daughter and delighted in tormenting Navah, who, after all, was lowlier
than her, being second daughter.
The
aunties glared at Navah.
"Cursed
second daughter," Aunt Hadara hissed. "Alsieb will surely die because of your
thoughtlessness!"
Navah
shrank within herself, feeling the harsh glares that fell on her back as though
they were rods. She dropped the
half-peeled radish and ran out of the kitchen, ignoring the indignant cries of
the aunties. They would surely
pinch her and beat her later, but she didn't care.
Navah
snatched up her ragged mantle, climbed through a low window, and stepped out
onto the lane. It was a cold
night. Lady Moon wore a thick
shawl of dark gray clouds rimmed with faint stars. Navah could barely see her feet on the white-stoned
path.
"Mistress
Moon," Navah said, "I am just a second daughter, but I am on an
errand to save my brother. Won't
you smile upon me so that I may find my way to the witch woman?"
Lady
Moon winked at Navah and let her shawl slip. She didn't take it off, for she was shy tonight, but it was
enough. A fragile beam of silver
glimmered down and touched the path with a pale brilliance.
Navah
hurried along, but the trees grew thick in the forest, and their branches
tangled over her head so that they blocked out Lady Moon's face. Navah stopped and looked to the left
and right. She wasn't sure of the
way.
The
black eyes of a night hare glittered at her in the shadows.
"Master
Rabbit," Navah said. "I
am just a second daughter, but I am on an errand to save my brother. Do you know the way to the witch
woman?"
The
hare flicked his long, black ears and twitched his shiny whiskers. His hind legs kicked out and he soared
through the hedges.
Navah
ran after him, her heart pattering in her chest. Again and again she thought she'd lost him, but then she
would catch a glimpse of his sparkling eyes or the shimmer of his flashing
paws. And suddenly, before her was
a lopsided hut. But surely this
couldn't be the witch's house already?
In Alsieb's stories there were always three companion guides--one for truth,
one for fortune, and one for honor.
There should have been a talking bird of paradise or a rhyming boulder
to deliver her to the witch woman, certainly?
The
night hare bobbed his head to peer at her.
"Thank
you, Master Rabbit," Navah panted.
The
hare flipped his tail at her and vanished into the forest.
Navah
had never seen anything like the hut before. It had five sloping sides, which was very unlucky. Everyone knew that five was an evil
number. And the path led straight
to the door, without a single bend or curve. Surely it was an invitation to bad spirits to have an
unbroken line leading to one's door?
Finally, not a single lantern hung over the entry. Did the witch not know that a shadowed
doorway meant ill fortune? Truly,
it was the most poor-omened house Navah had ever seen.
She
stepped up to the door—painted dark green, green for sorrow no
less!—and lifted the heavy bronze knocker. She struck it three times, the number for prosperity.
A
lilting, musical voice called from within: "Strike the knocker once more,
if you please."
Four knocks? That was unheard of!
But Navah did as she was bid, and with a trembling hand, raised the
knocker one final time.
The
door swung open on noiseless hinges.
What of the lucky squeak to frighten away goblins? All these contrary omens! But Navah did not dwell long on the
silent hinge, for the witch woman, her hostess, caught up her attention.
She
was not at all what Navah had expected.
She was young for one, a lady, not a crone, and quite beautiful for
another. A waterfall of ink-black
hair cascaded, almost to the floor, around a smooth, round face. She wore a simple wool dress with a
flaxen girdle that emphasized her supple waist and graceful arms. But the wool had been dyed a deep gray,
almost black, a very unlucky color; it was the exact hue of a death shroud.
The
woman beckoned her inside. Within,
the room was hung with herbs around a blue-stoned fireplace and a single round
window let in the night sky. Navah
struggled not to dwell on all the perils a window with no corners might
attract.
"Are...are
you the witch woman?" she asked.
Amber
eyes twinkled at her, tilted at the corners, cat-slitted. "Call me Lady Isahr."
Navah
gasped; isahr
meant "ill-met." She
bowed. "I am Navah."
Lady
Isahr laughed. It was a bright,
merry sound, full of sunshine and sweetness. She took Navah's arm and tried to coax her out of her
obeisance. "What brings you
to my door on so cold a night, unregrettably?"
Navah
bowed lower. "Please, Lady
Isahr, my brother Alsieb is sick, maybe dying. It is my fault, my bad luck that caused it. The stories say you are wise and can
lift curses. Will you help
him?"
Lady
Isahr knelt and wiped Navah's cheeks with a corner of her death-colored
gown. Until that moment, Navah had
not realized she was crying.
"Tell
me what has happened."
Navah
sobbed out the tale in a rush of misery and guilt. Lady Isahr listened, her smooth face somber, until Navah was
done. Then she lifted Navah to her
feet and ushered her to a five-legged chair by the fire.
"Child,
I may be wise, but it is your courage that is needed tonight." Lady Isahr pulled several herbs
down. "I will make a draught
for you that will let you walk with the spirits. I fear your brother is caught in a ghost web."
"I
will free him."
"You
are brave, but there is peril."
Lady Isahr plucked up a knife that glistened like a slender star. "I must open your vein to anchor
your soul to your body, but if you do not prevail before you are bled white,
both you and Alsieb will be lost."
Navah
trembled, but she said again: "I will free him."
She
watched as the witch woman mixed a bitter potion in a tawny, heavy bowl. When it was done, Navah lifted the bowl
to her lips and swallowed every drop.
Lady Isahr pressed the silver knife to Navah's throat. "Remember, you must make
haste," she said, and the bright metal flashed.
Pain
blossomed like an orchid of fire at Navah's throat. She recoiled from the agony and was astonished to see her
body still slumped in the five-legged chair. Lady Isahr bent over her, catching the stream of blood in a
honey-teak cup.
"Fly,
Navah," she heard the witch woman call. "Quickly."
The
pain flared in her neck, and with a thought, Navah was outside and back on the
path. A night hare blinked at her
but she did not need his aid. She
ran, her feet skimming the ground, her neck a torrent of fire. Fast as worry, she retraced her steps
and slipped into her father's house.
Within,
she found Alsieb in a strangling web of spirit knots. Strands thick as despair looped his waist, while razor fine
threads of disharmony twined his hands and feet. Alsieb lay as one already dead, his face slack and
pale. The trap was so tight that
not a flicker of light shone through the coils.
"Alsieb!"
she cried.
His
eyes opened. "Navah," he
whispered. "Beware. It is a bad luck web. Come no closer."
Before
he finished speaking, tendrils reached out for her. One jagged strand wrapped around her ankle and tugged her
forward. It was icy against her
skin and the chill of it vied with the fire still ablaze at her throat. She felt dizzy, a wash of sickness in
her stomach. But she also saw that
as the web clutched at her, the knots around Alsieb loosened.
She
waded in, welcoming the lashing cables of discord with open arms. Their touch drained her strength,
crushed the breath from her chest.
But still she moved forward, until she stood beside Alsieb. She wrenched her hands free from biting
knots of misfortune and shoved him with all her remaining strength. The tangle around him had become so
slack, distracted by new prey, that she was able to push him free.
As
soon as he was loose, he sat up, the color returning to his cheeks. He reached for her, but she staggered
back with her burden. She was
second daughter and of no consequence; she would not let Alsieb become tangled
again.
How
she made it outside and onto the path, she did not know, but there she
was. She fell heavily, her feet
snarled and her limbs too numb to respond.
A
black hare appeared by her head.
"Silly girl," he said.
"How can you be strangled in ill-fortune if you are a second
daughter?" The rabbit reached
out with a sharp paw and swiped at Navah's neck. The burning pain from the cut flared anew, like a fire behind
her eyes, eating her up, and thawing through the cold. She cried out and found herself back in
Lady Isahr's five-legged chair. A
black rabbit preened its silken ears by the fire.
"Quietly,
child, you must rest," Lady Isahr said. She set a cooling poultice against Navah's neck.
Navah
looked up into a face as beautiful as the full moon and into eyes as kindly as
the sun. Surely this woman was
brimming with good luck.
But:
"Lady Isahr? Are you a second
daughter?" Navah cringed at
her own temerity.
Lady
Isahr only smiled. "Of course
I am, child. Didn't you know? Second daughters are very special. We make our own luck."
Navah
thought on Lady Isahr's words as she drank fragrant tea and nibbled sweet bean
cakes until the last of the chill faded to a muted tingle. The black rabbit escorted her to the
boundaries of her father's house.
The
household was rattling lucky chimes and setting food out for good spirits in
thanks for Alsieb's recovery. She
stepped over the incense sticks and walked straight to Alsieb's room without
adding a single curve or twist to her course.
Alsieb
greeted her warmly and embraced her in his arms.
She
felt his strength and heard the vigor of his voice and rejoiced. But she was also sad. "I am going off to make my own
luck," she told him.
Alsieb
pressed his cheek to hers.
"Don't go, little sister.
You have always been my lucky charm."
Navah
kissed Alsieb's warm forehead.
"And you have always been my sanctuary. But I must make my own house now. Perhaps one with five walls."
Alsieb
bowed his head sadly, but let her go, promising to visit her often. And even though the hinges on Navah's
door didn't squeak and the walls were a most unsettling green in color, it was
a lucky house. And no one who knew
Navah thought the acquaintance to be at all regrettable.
Eugie Foster is an active member of the
SFWA, winner of the Phobos Award, and has an M.A. in Developmental
Psychology. She shares her writing space in Metro Atlanta with her
husband, Matthew, and has been seen occasionally with a brown-and-white skunk
named Hobkin, trotting at her heels. When asked about her unusual companion,
her reply is inevitably "he likes broccoli."
Eugie's fiction runs the gamut from
children's folktales to science fiction to horror. She was recently
nominated for a British Fantasy Society Award, has sold over fifty stories, and
her publication credits include tales in Realms of Fantasy, The Third Alternative,
Paradox, Cicada, Cricket,
and the anthology Hitting the Skids in Pixeltown, edited by Orson Scott
Card.
Eugie is also the managing editor and a
fiction reviewer for the four-time Hugo-nominated publication, Tangent. For her complete bibliography
and current updates, visit her online at eugiefoster.com.
Cover:
"Science Station Alpha 1"
Copyright 2005,
Bill Snodgrass
