1st Excerpt from Two Sisters

The mountains trembled under the boisterous clap of thunder and palm leaves quaked restlessly under the flashing streaks of lightning. Sung’Pei shrunk nervously into her perch on the dirt outside her mother’s hut, wringing her fingers and wishing the loudness of the storm would drown out the noises that escaped the hut. Her father sat next to her, praying to the gods. She should be bowing to the gods as well but her anxiety rose and fell with every gust of wind and she could not focus on the exact words to appease the heavens above or pacify the demons at her throat.

“Let it be male…. let it be male,” she heard her father’s supplication. Those words intensified her ominous mood.

There is a law on this paradiscal island that forbids more than two offspring to one hut. One male. One female. No exceptions. All other babes were given back to the gods in exchange for peace, prosperity, and more entitlement to the chief. Sung’Pei had grown through twelve rain seasons, and this would be the season for her to begin her apprenticeship as a servant and priestess to the gods. To uphold the demands and laws of the ones who ruled above and the chief of Pahn.

This decree to limit children was enforced after Chief Pahn’Seik defended his throne and glory from his eleven brothers for ten consecutive and bloodied rain seasons. The earth bled with crimson before all eleven choked on their greed for the throne and power over the chiefdom. One male to rule and lead the home. One female to continue and ensure the posterity of his people. Anymore would encourage war and strife in families. This was the chief’s wish; it was the job of the priests and priestesses to appease these wishes.

“Let it be male…let it be male,” Sung’Pei listened as her father’s pleas grew desperate and hopeful. She was a petite but sturdy girl with fast feet and a fast mouth. Her hair hung in a harried frizz below her waist and her legs and thighs were thick and strong. She was like a small bull wrapped with a simple but charmingly pretty face.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!” her mother’s scream jarred her out of her deep, preoccupied thoughts. She had been sporadically moaning in pain for the last eight hours, yelling out sharply every now and then. But this scream-it was shrill and mournful.

“Sung, get ready,” her father stood and painted a red circle around his left eye. He picked up his tools. They entered the hut. It was dark except for a fire in a corner.

“It is female…” her mother was pale but trying to wrap the girl in coarse cloth. There were no tears but the pain shone fiercely in her eyes. Not birthing pains but a mother’s pain of regrets and inexplicit sorrow. They knew what needed to be done.

Sung felt a familiar heaviness in her heart. Another sister. This will be the third. Her pain trickled two at a time down her cheeks and across her chin. She quickly ran her arms across her eyes and rubbed her cheeks clean. She knew what had to be done.

“Bahpa, I will make the sacrifice this time…I’ve practiced the chants,” she blurted the words out. She knew what had to be done. Her father looked down at her, his nostrils flared with both pride and sadness. Sung was always the obedient if stubborn.