Unalome

By Kate Sparrows

My name is Eira.

My papa is the priest for the Unalome – both the village I live in and the one where the ancestors live. That’s why papa has to stay in the grove and protect the sacred hawthorn tree. It’s his duty. It also means his life is in danger. There always has to be a priest and – to become the priest – you must kill the current one. Papa killed grandfather to become priest, and I’m scared someone will kill papa for it one day.

There are many traditions and rites for the Unalome, and the priest makes sure they are followed. I don’t all of them, but papa said I will know all about them when I’m older. When I go to my lessons to learn how to be Unalome, I feel like everyone expects me to know everything already. All I know is that I like this boy named Uvul. I think he’s cute and I hope we get arranged to marry.

Warning: Contains abuse and sexual themes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kate Sparrows
• Release date: May 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781943797165

Kate Sparrows

Kate Sparrows is a Sassy Sue and a cynical, hopeless romantic. She dabbles in multiple genres, ranging from science fiction to mystery and romance. She enjoys leaving readers with unexpected turns and incorporating fringe subject matters. Aside from reading and writing, she enjoys playing video games, learning languages, and trying to sleep all day. She currently resides in the United States with her Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Roo.

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Unalome

Kate Sparrows

Copyright © 2020 by Kate Sparrows.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Kate Sparrows; [e-mail]

https://www.facebook.com/ksparrows

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Cover Design: ikaruna, https://ikaruna.design/

Unalome/ Kate Sparrows -- 1st ed.

ISBN 978-1-943797-16-5

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

From the Author

About Kate Sparrows

"No matter how dark the night, morning always comes, and our journey begins anew."

- Lulu, Final Fantasy X

Chapter One

No matter what, my little Eira, I must protect the hawthorn tree.

He motioned for me to come and sit on his knee as he sat on the large stone, in sight of the tree. I still can’t understand why papa would rather sit out here in the grove surrounded by trees all day instead of be at home with me and with mama – who is pregnant.

It’s just a tree, I point out. What makes it more special than me?

Papa smiled and shook his head at my petulance. This tree is our ancestors. It is sacred to the Unalome people.

That didn’t answer my question. It didn’t prove why the tree was more special than me and the new baby arriving. I wish someone would just burn that tree away or chop it up. All it did was take my papa away from me and put him in a scary place in the middle of woods filled with beasts.

It’s not our ancestors, papa. Ancestors are people. Just like my grandfather was. It’s scary to know my papa is a killer. Because he is priest to the Unalome that means that he had to kill the previous priest. My papa killed his father and, while I never really knew him, I can’t help but be sad that someone in my family is gone.

All of our important rites happen here, Eira. You will marry beneath this tree and you will be sent off into the next life below these branches as well. This tree bears witness to it all, and all the souls of our ancestors find peace being here. He pulls me into a hug. That must mean what he is about to say may upset me. When it comes time for a new priest, my blood shall stain the soil and be absorbed into the hawthorn, just like every priest before me.

I can’t stand the thought of someone hurting papa. His blood should stay right where it was – inside his warm body, so that he could always hold me. But why do you have to die? If the tree needs blood, can’t you just cut your hand for it?

It may have sounded like a stupid question, but papa didn’t hear it that way. I was just a small girl who loved her father. That is the way it has always been and always will continue to be.

I tried to push myself off his lap, but he held me tight. I didn’t want to hear him talking about dying and leaving. How could he say that when I was about to have a baby brother or baby sister? Mama needed him. The baby needed him. And I needed him. I needed to go find a way to keep papa safe forever.

Eira, do you know what Unalome means? He waited until I shook my head. "Unalome means the journey to enlightenment. When written out, it is a symbol of many twists and turns that remind us that the path isn’t always straight or perfect or even in the right direction. You are Unalome, as am I. We are all merely on a journey to enlightenment, and sometimes that means we may not understand the moments along the way and why they happen."

I’m sure that papa thought what he said was the answer that I needed to hear in order to make everything alright. It didn’t make anything alright. It was enough, though, to make papa think that things were settled and to allow me to slide off his lap. I pretended that I needed to fix my plain linen dress when I was really waiting to hear what he wanted me to do. I knew that he would send me home now to look after mama and to help cook dinner, but I didn’t want to go just yet. The woods did scare me because I knew what beasts roamed in there. But I didn’t get much time with papa, and I wanted to stretch that out a little while longer.

Hurry home now, Eira. He kissed the top of head then stood, walking back over to the hawthorn tree. I will see you in the morning when you bring me a meal.

My shoulders hung. I didn’t really want to leave now, but I could not disobey my papa. I didn’t want to make the long walk home with my bottom stinging at every step. It meant that I would suffer the pain of my disobedience only for mama to understand what I had done and punish me as well. It was forbidden to disobey the priest, and it was punishable to disobey a parent or elder. I would be doing both and deserved all the pain that would come my way.

Night, papa. I started to sulk off but stopped at the edge of the grove. I love you.

I love you too, my little one. There was that familiar sadness in his tender tone. I knew he did not like this anymore than we did. I just don’t know why he ever made the choice to become priest and kill grandfather. I probably would never know.

Mama was waiting with a torch outside of our thatched house when I got home. One hand held the torch of wood and burning cloth while the other rested over her large, protruding stomach. She doused the torch, leaving it to smolder by the doorway, and hugged me before bringing me into the candle-lit warmth of our home.

How’s your father? She always asks this first when I get home. I wonder if she’s not waiting to hear the news that a new priest is in the grove. I know that, either way, this is hard on her. Mama hasn’t been to the grove since she found out that she was pregnant again and stayed away out of fear for what beasts may attack her.

When my papa took over as new priest, it was a scary night for me. I was only nine years old and mama left me home alone so that she could go be with him on his first night. Rumors always went around that a new priest’s first night is when he’s most vulnerable. A scared man in the grove alone, weakened by the fight from earlier in the day. I’m not sure what mama thought that she could do by being there. I just know that I was left alone in our new home with instructions not to leave or let anyone in. I heard later that this was the night my baby brother or baby sister was made. To the other Unalome, it was a very fortuitous sign that prosperity would fall over the tribe while the new priest ruled.

He is well. He’s still watching that tree. I could see anger on my mama’s face for a moment, but then it disappeared. I know that I shouldn’t be talking about the tree or our beliefs like this, and I think mama knows that I’m just angry that papa can’t be home. It’s probably something I should decide to stop doing.

Grab something to eat and then right to bed.

I watch as she heads towards the back of the house and into her bedroom. There’s one wooden bowl left on the table and, judging by smell, it is wild hare stew. It was always papa’s favorite and he would spend all morning hunting the hares in the woods just so he could have a bowl of it. Mama must really be missing him to have made it, because she knows that I don’t really like it. It tastes weird to me, having that meat in a stew. I would rather have wild hare roasted on a spit over an open flame. I like the bit of toughness to my food.

I remember how hungry we were last year before papa became priest, so I eat it anyways. My bedroom is also another new thing. Before I would sleep on a mat next to my parents’ mat in the dirt. Our thatched home had been one room where we did everything together. Now, mama is in the room beside mine and I have a thicker mat to lay on. There’s even simple shelves that keep my few items off the ground and clean. I take off my linen dress and place it on the top shelf after it’s folded. Before I would have slept in it, not caring that it was wrinkled or dirty the next day. Life is different now.

Crawling onto of my mat, I pull a pelt over my body to stay warm. Mama says that our life got better when papa became priest, but I don’t see it. I would trade all this away just to have him home with us again. The only good thing that happened was that at our lessons, a couple of the other kids stopped picking on me. I try to think about going to tomorrow’s lessons instead of thinking about papa in the grove. I hope that Uvul will be there instead of out hunting.

Mama’s cries wake me before the sun can rise. I don’t know why, but they make me more scared. I hear voices all around the house.

We are not alone.

None of the voices are clear. I can’t understand anything that is being said outside my bedroom. I clutch the pelt firmly over my naked body and will whoever is here to disappear. They just keep getting louder as if more people are storming our home. I can’t help but think that they’re here to get mama and me.

If papa was killed, would they kill us too?

I’m shaking with the fear of knowing that could be very true. The new priest might order our deaths. We might be cited with making the harvest poor or the hunting scarce, and we would be sacrifices for the spirits in the hope we could gain their blessings again. Everything papa said about the hawthorn tree and our life comes back to me in that moment.

The door to my bedroom flies open and I scream. I don’t want to die!

Eira, hush now. Get dressed so you can meet the baby. In the faint light that flooded into my room, I could barely recognize the woman who spins cloth and sells it outside her house. She is far too old to be able to kill anyone, but the mention of a baby caught my attention.

It’s coming? I can’t believe it. I want to run and tell papa. He should be here for this birth.

Yes, child. She sounded a bit annoyed at my question, but I knew she was probably annoyed that I wasn’t in a hurry to get out of bed.

She was standing there, watching me. I knew that I was naked and I had never let anyone see me before. I didn’t want to start now, but it didn’t look like she was leaving the room without me. I knew that we were both women, but our bodies were clearly different. She was larger with stretched out breasts and I was small in every way and without curves anywhere. I did not want her to judge me.

I reluctantly dropped the pelt from my body and crossed the room to grab my linen dress. Slipping it on, I felt relief that I once again was hiding my body. It felt so wrong to feel someone’s gaze on my skin. I didn’t like it at all.

I see the head! Someone called from the other room.

The cloth lady and I rushed next door. I immediately stopped dead and tried to back out of the room, only to have someone’s larger body stop me. Mama hadn’t dressed before this started and now had two ladies holding her legs open. I could see all the private pieces of my mama that I never wanted to see in my life. And, more disturbing, it looked like something was trying to come out of her. Whatever it was, I knew that it was hurting mama and causing her pain. Someone needed to stop it from coming out.

Someone, push it back in! It’s hurting mama! I cried. To my horror, no one tried to help her and no one listened to me.

Push, Jaya! One of the women holding her legs apart kept chanting.

Almost there!

Just the shoulders now!

An ear-splitting cry pierced the air. What I had wanted pushed back into mama turned out to be the baby. I watched as my mama, tears running down her face, held out her arms to snatch the baby away from the woman who pulled it out.

Get the knife! One woman yelled to someone in the other room.

My heart flew out of my chest as I was pushed to the side to allow this knife-wielding woman into the room. I watched, frozen in place, as she walked towards my mama. I changed my mind about these women here to help mama and the baby. They only waited long enough for her to suffer and then for the baby to come so they could kill all three of us. They wanted to make sure even the baby was dead.

The woman sliced the cord connecting the baby to mama instead. The blood gushed out of the cord and I couldn’t stop fixating on it. There was just so much blood and everything smelled strange and it was so hot in the small room. I couldn’t hear what anyone was saying anymore. I just started to feel weird, like I wasn’t in my body anymore.

That was the last thing I remembered before it all went black.

I want the priest to be able to see his son. I was vaguely aware that mama was speaking somewhere nearby. The only way I know he could do that is if every man in the village promised not to try to take the hawthorn.

We can’t stop someone from challenging, Jaya. Not even the priest can end it. The person she was speaking with sounded tired. It is the will of the ancestors and the spirits. They need protection.

I slowly open my eyes, and I regret it. The light from the candle hurts my eyes and I’m reminded that, for some reason, my head is in pain.

You are the most respected man in the village, Hontur. If you ask the men to grant this tiny blessing, even for a couple hours, we will forever be in your debt. All I want is for my husband to see his baby son and to name him before his blood is given to the ancestors during the ritual, mama begged. Please, this baby is special. He was conceived the night the new priest took over and since then the village has flourished. Clearly, this baby is a blessing from the spirits.

I sat up slowly and tried to figure out what was going on. I had somehow ended up laying on the mat in the gathering room. A moment after I realized that mama was talking to Uvul’s father, I noticed that my dress was gone. It seemed like they noticed that I was no longer asleep at that moment too. For the second time, someone else’s gaze was upon my body. I hate it as much now as I had earlier – it didn’t matter than now it was a man. I tried to use my hands to cover myself but I didn’t seem to have enough hands to hide all of me.

I got up and hurried into my bedroom to dress in the spare linen dress that was kept on my shelf. That too was something new since papa became priest. I had never had more than one dress before.

Is your daughter well? I could hear Uvul’s father ask.

Yes, but I’m afraid that she wasn’t able to handle my son’s birth this morning. I believe seeing it was too much for her, at this age.

That’s a shame. I couldn’t understand why he would say that. Has she come of age yet?

No, not yet but we’re assuming soon. Now I could tell that my mama was hesitant with the turn of conversation. She is nearly ten and the age when I was arranged.

A chair scrapped against the floor. Well, hopefully she’ll come to handle a birth soon.

I couldn’t help but linger just inside my bedroom door as I listened to the adults talk. After all, it was about me. I didn’t understand any of it, other than something happened when my brother was born.

My brother.

The fear from that bit of knowledge was enough to make my brain forget about Uvul’s father. I had a brother. Papa was a son, once, and he has a brother. Uncle watched his brother grow up and kill their father. It was frightening enough to think that my uncle would challenge and kill my papa, but would my brother also want to kill him? Would my brother hate papa for not being here and kill him? Was that why papa killed grandfather?

Eira, you can come out now. I slowly stepped into the doorway and over to my mama. Sit down so that you can meet your baby brother.

I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to meet someone who might kill papa. I didn’t want my brother to stay with us at all, but I couldn’t tell mama that. I did as she commanded, taking the chair Uvul’s father had sat in. I watched her wince as she stood and hobbled around the table to stand before me. I could see that she was watching me closely. It was almost like she could read my thoughts and was worried that