Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
And here, I find no men.
None but the two that were outside the door, anyway.
They crowd me in waves, each greeting me by clasping my hands and bringing my fingers up to touch their foreheads. I find amongst the many females, they vary in height so much so that I am neither the shortest nor tallest. I try not to get overwhelmed with the constant flow of hellos and new faces. I do my very best to remember all the faces and names, but no one seems offended or hurt when I don’t get it quite right.
And then a girl comes. She’s not quite young enough to be a child, but it’s obvious to me that she’s also not yet a woman.
Dressed in a smock and with beaded sandals on her feet, the crowd of Hallan women part as the girl walks forward with an armful of flowers that are bundled at the stem. All with petals of soft greens and blues. Once she reaches me, I instantly drop a bit to be at eye-level with her.
“Are these for me?” I ask, reaching back when she holds them out for me.
“I picked them for you this morning. Welcome home, Miss Selina. We are so happy to know you.”
I clutch the flowers, the same color as my eyes, closer to my chest as I try to keep the tears at bay. It doesn’t work. A blink later, and they fall.
“Oh, don’t cry,” someone calls out.
“I think these are happy tears,” Vabila answers when I cannot.
“They are,” I whisper. “They are very happy tears.”
Jozay explains how the Minas have made or collected items for me to wear, use, and treasure as a way to welcome me to Hallalah, knowing I would come with nothing but my unborn and my mate. Eventually, they get me into the warm water to bathe and relax before the train of offerings begins, and I once again try to learn names and faces.
It’s easier the second time around.
I also learn more about the Minas.
Every firstborn girl-child is a Mina. Every family has a head Mina that oversees, educates and trains, and cares for her kin and their children. But there is also a Head Mina, the oldest of all the Hallan females, her weathered face and old eyes seem to stare into and beyond mine when she greets me in the pool with hands held out, waiting for my own to reach back.
I do, without question.
“This is our grandmother, Sinad,” Vabila tells me.
“Hello, it’s an honor to meet you,” I say to Sinad.
“You look well, child,” the old woman replies. Somehow, I know she means the sickness that has stuck with me up until a short while ago.
“I feel a lot better.”
She winks and places a single hand over my middle under the water, murmuring, “There won’t be too much more trouble for you while they’re in here, anyhow.” She turns to look at Bothaki’s mother, telling Jozay, “Healthy and growing. Strong already.”
I can’t stop myself from asking, “How do you know that?”
Beside me in the pool, Vabila laughs. “Oh, Selina. We just do.”
The day is long, but I don’t really notice it passing us with another large meal shared between the females and a walk through the courtyard garden. A place, I’m informed, is cared for and maintained by the Minas. It’s the offer by Bothaki’s grandmother, who had touched my stomach earlier and spoke of my child not yet born, asking if I too would like to help learn to care and maintain the garden that makes me cry again.
The happiest of tears.
Later, as I sit between Vabila and Jozay in a ship, much smaller than the one that brought me here, as we enter the first massive pink cloud with a neon beam cutting jaggedly through the middle, I still can’t believe this is my life now.
How the light crackles and fills the fluffy pink around us, I’ve never seen anything so amazing. Or beautiful.
“Believe it,” Vabila says next to me.
I don’t even ask if I spoke the thoughts in my mind out loud.
It no longer matters.
“Soon,” Bo’s mother tells me, pointing out the window at the light beam striking past the thick glass, “that will be a light for your child, Selina.”
SEVENTEEN
The sight of Selina lifting from the tub carved from stone makes me smile. The hot springs or even the bathing hall are a better place to bathe daily, but I couldn’t resist making something for Selina and I closer to home.
Sometimes, she just gives me that look now and I know she doesn’t want me to ask if she needs any help. We’re beyond the point of her complaining how round she is because I never let her get too far into that moaning before silencing it in a way she always likes.