“But the desert wind battered her wings with sand, and the threads broke apart. She fell down, down, down into the tamar tree, and she died as she hit the branch where her egg sac lay. At that moment, the egg sac hatched, and with the food from her web and the food from the mother spider’s own body, all of her children survived.”
Jidali lifted his face toward her. “That is a horrible story.”
“Of course it is,” she said, “for the spider. But it’s good news for you.”
His cheeks were stained with tears and smeared with the dye that had leaked from her skirt. “What do you mean?”
“At least you don’t have to eat me.”
From the doorway, her father roared with laughter. Her brother started to smile, just a little. “Liyana, you have the strangest sense of humor ever,” Jidali said.
“I love you, too, Jidali,” she said. She hugged him again, wiped his face, and whispered into his ear. “I’ll wait for you in the Dreaming. You will never be alone.”
He wasn’t crying when he left, and she knew the clan would pretend not to notice the puffiness of his eyes or his dripping nose. He could remember the day with pride at his strength—and at hers.
After Jidali left, it was her father’s turn. He knelt and kissed her palms.
“It feels strange for you to kneel before me,” Liyana told him.
“I will honor you every day of my life, as I always have.” He kissed her cheeks and then departed. Her mother entered the tent next.
Mother halted by the cooking fire pit. She put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips. Unlike the others, she didn’t kneel. Instead, she briskly nodded once. “You’ll do,” Mother said, as if approving a cut of meat for dinner.
“Of course I will,” Liyana said. “I’m your daughter.”
Mother’s lips twitched. “A valid point.” Solemn again, she studied Liyana a moment longer. “I am proud of you.” She then swept out of the tent before the tears caused by that unexpected compliment could prick Liyana’s eyes. Liyana blinked fast, sucked in the increasingly hot air, and composed herself to face her family’s midday meal.
She was given a lunch of sugared dates, flatbread, and dried mutton. Aunt Sabisa added Liyana’s favorite yogurt to dip the bread and meat in, and one of her uncles contributed his finest tea, steeped in mint water. Her cousins draped her in napkins, which turned out to be a good thing since they caught drips of the tea and a smear of yogurt. Every time she thought of anything but eating, it became impossible to swallow. So she focused with deep intensity on the gritty sugar in the dates that stuck to her teeth and the spices in the yogurt that pricked her tongue. Clustered around her, her family ate sparingly. They’d feast tonight, after the ceremony was complete, to welcome the goddess to their clan. The feast would also serve to remind the goddess of what it felt like to eat and that she would need to feed her new body in order to live. Liyana wondered if someone would have to show the goddess how to chew. Or how to perform other basic functions. She doubted that deities in their transcendent form ever had to pee.
She got herself through the day that way, thinking of mundanities and focusing on the needs of the moment. At times the heat inside the tent threatened to choke her and ruin her careful placidity. At every opportunity she drank water from a silver pitcher that a cousin continually refilled. She did not have to ration herself today.
At last it was dusk. Talu, the clan’s magician and Liyana’s teacher, came to claim her. Liyana’s knees creaked as she stood—she’d sat for too long. She was more used to scrambling after the herds, hauling water from the well, and helping out with the myriad of tasks that kept the camp functioning. As a vessel, she had no specific responsibilities aside from preparing for the summoning ceremony, so she had poked her nose into everyone else’s business. She’d never had a day like today. But then again, she supposed that no one in the clan had ever had a day like today, at least not in the last hundred years.
Talu rushed to Liyana and clasped her hands to her own heart. “Oh, to think I am here to see this glorious day!” She hooked Liyana’s arm under hers and led her out of the tent. “I was there on the day you were born. You nearly died. The cord was wrapped around your neck.” She drew a line across Liyana’s neck to indicate where the umbilical cord had strangled her. “I sliced it away. Your first breath was an indignant scream. You were so angry that the cord had dared to stop your breath that you screamed for three hours. Your poor, tired mother nearly put you out with the goats so she could sleep.”
“What calmed me?” Liyana asked, even though she had heard the story at least a dozen times. Up ahead, she saw that the torches were lit in a ring. Voices drifted through the evening air, as if buoyed by the heat that still filled the breeze.
“A sandstorm,” Talu said with a chuckle. “You heard the wind batter the tent and the sand wolves howl, and you fell fast asleep.”
Picturing her mother threatening her with the goats, Liyana was able to smile as she was led to the heart of the oasis. The entire clan waited for her around a bare circle of sand. Her smile faltered as she stepped into the circle, ringed by everyone she knew and would ever know.
“Breathe, child,” Talu whispered in her ear. “You are strong. You are ready.” She kissed both of Liyana’s cheeks. “Honor us.”
Seated north of the circle, the elders beat drums with the heels of their palms. Slow and even, the drumbeats spread across the darkening desert. With measured steps, Talu walked in a circle around Liyana. Liyana rotated with her, watching as Talu dragged her toes to etch a line in the sand, symbolically separating Liyana from the rest of the clan. As she turned, Liyana saw familiar faces. Cousins. Aunts. Uncles. Friends. She lingered on a boy’s face, Ger’s. He’d also been born in the Year of No Rain, but his dreamwalk had showed only desert horses racing across the sand. He’d been apprenticed to one of the riders, and she’d heard he rode well. Beside him was Esti. She and Liyana had been friends as children. They’d chased sandfish lizards in the shade of the date palm trees, and they’d made necklaces of woven dried leaves for each other. Liyana noticed that Esti held tightly to Ger’s hand. She’d heard they planned to announce their claim at the next festival. She should have remembered to wish them well. Continuing to turn, she focused on other faces in the crowd, family and friends. She wanted to shout over the drumbeats. She regretted her silence during the farewells. There were so many things she hadn’t yet said! She’d thought she’d had time before, but now it didn’t seem like she’d had any time at all. Days had slipped away. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to think of one day, an ordinary day, and fix it in her memory: waking in her sleeping roll in the cold dawn, breathing the scorched air of the afternoon, playing ball with Jidali by the goat herd, taking lessons with Talu, sharing the evening meal with her family, tasting the night tea. She imagined holding that day inside her as she opened her eyes.
Talu had completed her circle.
In the center of the circle, the magician lowered herself to her knees. She crossed her arms and began to chant. “Bayla, Bayla, Bayla.
The drums beat louder.
Listening to them, Liyana felt her muscles loosen. Her feet, encased in the soft shoes, rocked forward and then back. She lifted her arms, and her sleeves fell to her shoulders, revealing the markings. She flicked her palms toward the darkening sky. The air was still hot on her skin, sucking out moisture and wicking away the sweat left over from a day inside the stifling tent. She swung her hips.
