The woman held her breath as she approached the high walls of the village. The walls shimmered with heat. She walked toward them slowly with the great desert at her back, two of her three young children stumbling along behind her. She carried the sleeping nearly-five-year-old on her shoulders, the weight lodging a painful kink in her neck that pinched and trailed down her spine under the merciless sun. The woman's name was Amani. In one hand, she held a bow, and her back was bent under the weight of a large satchel she wore slung over one shoulder, all their possessions. When she reached the wall, she found that it was taller than her and made of thick stone. She placed her free hand on the wall and flinched as she felt the demon magic seething within it. Her shoulders slumped, and she pulled her hand back from the wall. Beside her, her six-year-old boy whimpered, and at the sound, her eyes flitted to him and his sister, seven years old now, though when they had started their journey, she was still six, and he was five.
The two of them stood leaning on each other, dusty tear tracks showing on the girl's cheeks, which were much hollower than a child's cheeks should be. All three of Amani's children were so thin, no matter how much of her own food Amani put into their wooden bowls at mealtime. A slender, white-barked tree stood nearby. Amani knew the little ones couldn't walk much longer.
"Here, sit in the shade. Isika, you sit there," she pointed to a spot that seemed clean and soft. "There's room for Ben too. That's it."
Amani carefully lifted the sleeping toddler from her shoulders, laying the tiny girl in a hollow between two roots of the tree and unwrapping her long headscarf to cover the little one.
"Wait here a moment," she told the two older children. "Mama is going to take a little look at this wall. Have some water. Drink carefully and share!" she said, then smiled at them. "Play the water game." In the water game, the sister and brother took turns having sips of water, the tiniest they could manage, passing the water skin back and forth between them. It used up time and kept them from gulping water, which could be dangerous in the scorching desert that had been their home for many months.
Isika's eyes lit up at the mention of a game. She was the older and braver of the two. The woman stroked her daughter's hair and touched her cheek gently, and tapped the boy on his chin softly with her knuckle, before straightening and turning, her eyes on the wall.
The walls that surrounded the village made her sick to her stomach. The city they had fled, many months ago, had also been surrounded by walls. Amani had hoped to find a new home, free of poison, but it didn't seem possible here.
She approached the high barrier again, one hand on her belly, which went before her like the prow of a ship. The baby moved heavily within her, and she flinched as an elbow or foot knocked her ribs. She knew it wouldn't be much longer until the baby demanded to come into the world, and she felt the familiar tendrils of panic reaching along her spine and flickering into her mind.
She walked along the length of the wall, ignoring her fear and exhaustion, looking for any sign of a breach. She only wanted to see within—she didn't want to be seen before she was ready to show herself. She walked a long way, searching, and it was after her children were out of sight that she found it: a large crack in the wall, just enough of an opening to gaze through. She put her eye to the wall, registering a market square with stalls of food and goods.
She gasped, drawing back, one hand on her heart and the other on her belly. After a moment, she laughed at herself. It was silly to be afraid of any person. She heard the words of her deceased mother in her head, chiding her for being scared. But these weren't the people she was looking for.
For seven months, Amani had been searching for her mother's people, the place where Amani had been born. This wasn't it, even at first glance, Amani knew it because the people she saw through the wall had pale white skin. Amani stared at her own hands on the wall, as dark against the sandstone as black tree branches against the dawn. She lifted a hand to her face and looked again through the crack in the wall. The people were the palest Amani had ever seen. Of course she had seen white people in the walled city, but one or two maybe, and at a distance. Never so many at one time. Her courage faltered. She wondered if the people of this village had ever seen a woman with black skin.
There were about a dozen men, women, and children, in the market square before her. The women wore heavy, long dresses that covered their bodies from wrist to neck, neck to ankle in dark, dull material. They had long, straight hair that didn't look real to Amani. She wondered whether they were wearing wigs, to have hair in such strange colors, hanging limp, like a cloth on a clothesline. She reached a hand to her own head, where her short, tightly curled hair was slowly growing out after she had shaved her head to make it easier for the journey.
Amani stared at her hands again, seeing the way her wrists jutted from her thin arms. Her hands looked impossibly large. They had been walking for so many months with little more to eat than the occasional rabbits she could kill with her bow. The baby shifted in her belly. She sighed, and the sigh came from the deepest part of her. This was the end of wandering. She couldn't go farther, she had no more strength. She had run away from the walled city, desperate to protect her children, and here they were, at this village that reeked of demon magic.
It was this or death. She only hoped that they were merciful here, merciful to those who looked different, merciful to strangers. It didn't appear that they were kind, she thought, craning her neck to look at the broken glass stuck along the top of the wall. But she would have to use everything she had left within her to gain their trust.
"Help me, Mother," she whispered, feeling the familiar ache of loss. If only her mother was still here—she would know what to do.
The reaction of the villagers was even more intense than Amani had feared, though thankfully, they did not become violent. As Amani and her children walked through the main gate of the village, the littlest girl on Amani's hip and the older two holding hands tightly beside her, people stopped what they were doing and stared, terror plain as daylight on their pale faces.
The village children wailed, and a few women picked up babies and ran headlong, in a panic. Amani thought wryly, that, seeing their reactions, she had been right to wonder whether the people of this village had ever seen black people before. She was almost certain they hadn't. She stood as straight as she could, her head high.
"Do you see how silly it is to be afraid, children?" she asked in a low voice. "You must never give in to fear."
"They look so strange, Mother," her daughter replied in a whisper.
"Don't fear what is different, my love," Amani said. "This is another game. A chance to learn." She cast her eyes around for someone who might be brave enough to offer a cool drink and answers to Amani's questions. She spotted a tomato seller at a stall nearby, who was standing her ground, though her face was pale and set. She had hair of a color that Amani had never seen before; bright orange, pulled behind her, curling in tendrils like the creepers of bean plants. Amani walked toward the stall, and though the woman took a step back, she didn't flee.
"Greetings," Amani said. The woman nodded swiftly, tears standing in her blue eyes. "Don't worry," Amani said. She couldn't help herself. "I'm only a person as well. Not a demon or a ghost." The woman lifted her head and dashed at her cheeks with the backs of her hands. She gave a short bark of laughter, not meeting Amani's eyes.
"I should be ashamed of myself. Please, mother, sit. You look as though you've traveled far." The woman fetched four cups of water from a bucket behind her while Amani sat. For once, Amani didn't make her children play the water game. She watched in silence as they gulped. Now that she was seated, weariness crashed into her with such force that there was every chance she would not be able to find them the shelter they needed.
Summoning her strength, Amani asked her question. "Who is in charge of this village?"
"The priest," the woman said, her eyebrows shooting up. She glanced away and used her chin to point somewhere in the distance behind Amani. "But you won't have to search for him, because here he is, coming to us."
Amani looked. In the distance, a building rose from the earth—a strange red cube—and from it strode an old man. He wore deep black robes that contrasted heavily with his pale white skin and even paler hair. Amani felt stirrings of understanding within her, and she bowed her head, taking a long, deep breath to ready herself for this last effort to save her children.
