The Others

Chapter Five

I run out of the temple, quickly put my worn-out shoes back on and run to Keira straight away. Keira is an older lady, a widower, who owns a small shop with things-and-that. She has almost everything, and I help her bring her sold goods around town, or I help her restore older items. She’s a lady that knows everything, from everyone. And she must know who my mother chose.

When I reach Keira’s house, I immediately turn the corner to go to her backdoor. I notice Carl, but it’s already way too late. ‘Auch’, he says when I bump into him. I put one of my hands on his chest, and the other on my painful head. It hit him right in his shoulder.

‘Carl’, I say. ‘I am so sorry.’ Carl starts laughing.

‘Where are you running to, to Keira?’ he asks me. Carl is Keira’s oldest son. He’s almost ten years older than me, and the town’s silversmith. He travels a lot from city to city for raw materials, and is not home in Qwerth, our town, very often. But when he comes home, he always brings little things from his travels to his mother, who then sells it in her shop. She always speaks of him as her most loyal supplier.

I started helping Keira in her shop, when I was very young. Maybe six, or seven years old. My mother needed the extra cash, and Keira took me in. Sometimes I would stay there for weeks at a time, and Carl always looked after me. It’s because of him that I have my love for nature. Sometimes he’d even take me camping, and show me what berries you can eat, and which you shouldn’t even touch.

When he started leaving town more and more, I was pretty upset. The last three years I have barely even seen him, and it’s created quite a big distance between us. Not just because we did not speak a lot, but also because I grew up. I’m not the kid I used to be anymore.

‘Yes’, I say. I’m a little embarrassed for running into him like this. ‘I did not know you were back in Qwerth’, I change subject. ‘How long have you been home?’

Carl shrugs. ‘A week, maybe a little longer. It’s not strange that you did not know, mum says you haven’t been in the shop for at least a month.’ And with a smile he adds: ‘Nor the temple.’

I smile innocently back at him. ‘Yeah it’s been crazy busy at the farm.’

He puts his hand on the top of my head and tosses my hair, like he used to do when I was a kid. ‘No doubt about it’, he says sarcastically, showing me he does not believe me even a tiny bit.

‘Now get out of my way’, I push him away from me. ‘I need to go to Keira.’ Carl laughs.

‘Tell her I said hi’, he says, before I run past him and into the backdoor.

‘Maya’, Keira screams when I startle her. ‘What did I tell you about using the backdoor? You might scare an old lady like me to death one day.’

I run to Keira, grab her by the shoulders and give her a quick hug. ‘Who is it?’ I say. Keira looks at me surprised.

‘Who is what, my child?’ she says. ‘Nice to see you Keira, I know it’s been a long time, but I am just a silly little child that keeps forgetting about you’, she says, trying to re-enact my voice.

I walk past her to the tray of cookies behind her, grab one, and then take place at her dining-room table like it’s my own home.

‘Please don’t let it be the butcher’s kid’, I say. ‘I know for a fact he’s got his eye on me, but Keira he’s so not my type. He’s lazy, and does nothing other than eating.’ I stuff the cookie in my face.

‘Or Pear? I know Pear’s been looking for a wife for about a decade, but he is so old Keira. I know, he’s not as old as you and I do not mean anything with it… but come-on, you know he’s old. I can not be married to someone as old as him. Besides, he never leaves his house. What am I supposed to do? You know I still want to see the world, I want to continue going to the woods. I can not be stuck at house dusting off his old furniture and bearing children like some well behaved mare.’

Keira laughs, I see she opens her mouth to answer, but my excitement takes over and I continue to rattle. ‘And I swear, if it is him, I will run away. I will go barefooted to the mountain and find a hole to spend the rest of my life in.’

‘Maya!’, Keira screams. ‘Calm down, girl.’ She walks to the table, and takes place next to me. ‘It’s not Pear. And no, it’s also not the butcher’s boy.’ She lifts a finger. ‘Although, he would be quite a good match, if you ask me. He’s your age, healthy. Yes he might be a little chubby, and his one and only subject of good conversation is where to cut the animal after you murder it, but he might be a very good husband.’

I feel the blood going from my face. ‘So it is the butcher’s boy?’ I say.

Keira laughs. ‘I just told you, it’s not Porty.’ She grabs my face with her hands and presses a kiss on my cheek. ‘It’s not my job to tell you who your mother has accepted.’

I jump up from the table, escaping her embrace. ‘My mother has a horrible taste’, I say angrily. ‘She will accept anyone, as long as they provide her with another cow or two.’

Keira’s smile vanishes. ‘That’s not a friendly thing to say about your own mother’, she says well-deserved. I still pout.

‘But Keira’, I say, my voice calmed down a bit. ‘I do not want to be married.’

Keira shrugs. ‘You’re a woman. And not to forget, you’re not a magician. You’re a farmer’s daughter, who’s turned eighteen not very long ago. You can also be grateful that your mother has not betrothed you a couple of years ago.’

I pout, and make a sad face at Keira. ‘Are you really not going to tell me who it is?’ She shakes her head.

‘All I’m going to say, is that you should not be worried. Now, grab those three packages. They need delivery, and quickly. Or didn’t you come to earn some extra coin?’