“More than satisfied, my dear Agatha!” He gently wraps my hand with both of his. “Now, it’s about time we cleaned you up and introduced you to my father.”
2
“How lucky!”
“The family is blessed!”
“Marked twice!”
The villagers are whispering to each other, huddled together around the house where six Maras, their scarlet cloaks standing out against the snow, are gathered to meet their new sister. And I am among them.
That’s because one of us died of old age last week. And as soon as she let out her last breath, we all felt that a new sister was born, the one who is to take her place. And it is the first time I’m welcoming a new member to the family.
We are already a few days into the first winter month but snow has taken its sweet time this year. The landscape stayed grey and brownish with rotten leaves and sticky mud covering the earth, the legacy of frequent rains, for what seemed like an eternity. But no sooner than we set off on our journey, what does it do? Start snowing – heavily, all day and all night, blanketing the ground and slowing us down.
When we finally arrive at the village, it is after midday. The sky is a dazzling blue, the sun is high and its rays are reflected off the painfully white shroud of snow. The villagers freeze when we brush past them in our scarlet cloaks and the ground is crunching under our boots. I’m thirteen and till now I have been the youngest sister.
I became a Mara three years ago, a week after I turned ten. It happened the same way it does to all of us. Only ten-year-old girls with jet-black hair can discover these powers.
“Are you happy, Agatha?” asks Irina, whose hand I’m clinging to.
Irina is my mentor. It is she who is responsible for my training. She must be around seventy years old but looks no more than thirty. Maras live longer than ordinary people. Up to nineteen, we grow just like everybody else and then our aging process slows down significantly. Or so I was told. That’s why even the oldest of us, who has turned one hundred twenty-three years, looks about fifty.
Irina, like other Maras, has long black hair, a beautiful face and a pleasant smile.
“I’m nervous,” I mumble. “Do you know who she is?”
“No.”
“And when you came to take me, you didn’t know either?”
“We didn’t. You feel that invisible thread… we all feel it as if she’s summoning us,” I nod and she smiles at me. “So, we follow the thread till we find her, our new sister.”
“Why is everyone whispering?” I mutter again, looking around me.
I’ve hated being the center of other people’s attention since I was little, but now thanks to my garments and my powers, everyone notices me, wherever I go.
“Who knows… they might have an idea about who the new sister is,” says my mentor, a mysterious smile playing on her lips.
We arrive last, the other sisters are already gathered in front of the house. We are not going to enter though; everyone knows why we are here. At this very moment the parents of our new sister must be wrapping her in warm clothes and packing some food for her journey… and saying their goodbyes. They must be doing the same things my parents did a few years ago. I’ve never seen them since.
Even if I’d wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to see them because they left our village. That’s another rule. After a girl is taken by Maras, the family must leave. It keeps newly marked Maras from running back to their parents’ home in the first few years of living in the temple, before they get accustomed to their new family.
You can’t run to your parents if you don’t know where to run.
The villagers, too, start gathering around the house. They stand behind us, buzzing with anticipation, casting occasional glances at the closed door. Some people are wondering out loud how beautiful the girl is going to be. Everyone knows she’s going to have a fair complexion and jet-black hair, matching Morana’s. But all Maras have different eye-colors, so there’re no rules here. The Goddess herself is said to have dark-brown eyes, almost black. Irina has hazel eyes and Kira – brilliant green, like dewy grass on a summer morning. My eyes are blue, as cold as ice so my mom used to say. Like beautiful half-transparent ice.
The sisters stand in complete silence, waiting for the family to finish their preparations. I am the only one shifting my weight from one foot to the other, trying to keep warm. I’m looking round a small vegetable patch in front of a simple one-storey house, the lopsided roof of which, like everything else around it, is blanketed in snow, making the walls look almost black. The curtains on the windows are closed, allowing no curious glances inside. White smoke billows from the chimney showing that the family is at home. By the time the door opens, my hands are freezing. I breathe the tiniest cloud of steam onto my cupped hand for the last time and look up.
“Mom…”
Irina gives my left hand a gentle squeeze. She is still holding it in hers but doesn’t resist when I pull it out and take a few steps forward.
“Agatha!” My mom gives a sob.
I hesitate. I’m looking at my parents who are standing in the doorway not daring to take a step towards me. They are not sure if it’s allowed. I glance at the house again, not knowing what to believe, if it is even possible. Peering out from behind their backs is my little sister. She is wearing a blue, winter fur-lined jacket. We were never rich; I would even say we were pretty poor, and this simple winter jacket must be the most expensive item of clothing my sister owns. It brings out the color of her eyes, which are also blue, like mine, but a darker, deeper sky-blue. Our mom often told us that we were beautiful, but even back then I knew it wasn’t true. My sister is the real beauty, you just can’t take your eyes off her. Her complexion is fairer and her hair is darker and shinier than mine, and she has enormous eyes. She always looked like a fancy doll and she still does.
Our mom opens her arms, still sobbing, and without any further hesitation I run up to her and fall into her embrace. Then I hug my dad. I also try to pull my sister in but I can’t reach her.
“That’s true then…”
“The second daughter in the same family!”
“What a blessing!” the villagers are whispering louder now, watching us with rapturous attention.
I look back at my sisters, Maras, and I see them smiling. But these smiles are thin and sad for, unlike the villagers, they realize what a tragedy it is for the family. They know people only talk about the blessing till it comes to their own house and forces them to give up their own child.
And my parents have to give up a second one.
I feel a treacherous joy rising up in me, mixing with bitter disappointment. I know this pain of separation, I know the lessons my sister will have to learn the hard way, the destiny that awaits both of us. We are destined to live a lonely life, devoid of love of our parents or a husband. We can’t marry, our lives are dedicated to ridding the world of evil. I don’t want that for my sister. But the warm feeling that I’m no longer alone is already spreading inside my chest.
“Anna,” I reach out for my baby sister again and now, she presses against me like she used to when she was a baby.
My father wipes away the tears before they fall, but my mother is not trying to hide hers. She cries openly, gently stroking my hair. They don’t say anything to the other Maras because they know that no pleas or threats will stop them. Anna will be taken away no matter what, even if she has to be prized away from her parents’ arms.
They say there used to be families that tried to escape and save their daughters from their destiny. But it would always end the same way. The girl would be either given up voluntarily or taken from the arms of already dead parents. So now, no one even tries to resist. No girl who was marked by Morana has ever managed to escape her fate.
But no family has ever been ‘blessed’ with two Maras either. I glance at the Maras again and it hits me. Anna must be special.
Irina steps forward and gives me her hand. I grasp it like a straw and follow my mentor. My other hand is still grasping Anna’s, so I’m dragging her away too, to some new, magical world that she’s only heard of from the fairy tales and legends. The world that will become her new reality, so different from the one we used to dream of, huddled together around the fire on cold, winter evenings.
3
I grit my teeth when Prince Daniel orders his men to find a white steed for me, even if they had to turn the whole village inside out in the process. The more time I have to spend in his company, the more annoyed I become. His childish enthusiasm and the way he talks about the old legends, which for me are (or rather used to be) harsh reality, are really starting to get to me.
“I don’t need a white steed, Your… Highness.” I add the last word under Dariy’s intense and hostile stare. I’m doing the best I can not to snap at him that the dislike is mutual.
Daniel turns to me and his lips break into a ready smile. Either he doesn’t notice the way he sets my teeth on edge or he’s doing it on purpose, just to have a little fun at my expense. And judging by the fact that his smile that doesn’t stretch to his observant eyes, I’m gravitating towards the latter.
