May, 1945 CE

The Village of Ash

Once there was a story and no one to tell it.

As Grandmother spoke, the girl settled herself closer; the pair were excused from the work of women and girls in their village lest their strangeness spoil the bubbling disks of injera as they baked or taint the healing essence of the plants hanged to dry in the African sun.

“Tell about the tree and the bird and the girl by the sea,” Asmeret begged.

9 July, 1960 CE

Tree, on the Red Sea

Once a year she startled awake, gasping for breath. Reached for him as he slipped away. Wait! Wait.

When she was younger, Asmeret could still see his blue-black-blue face, the color of the ancient kings and queens of their tribe. Smell the blood of their mother on him. Hear his breath. Feel his heartbeat next to hers as it had been for the time in their mother’s womb and the no-time in the no-place before that.

1949-1953 CE

Somewhere on the Coast of Eritrea

The little dog growled softly, backing away from the tracks. “Stick close to me,” Asmeret cautioned her, “I won’t let it get you.”

Asmeret squatted, laying her palm flat and spreading her fingers wide, trying to fill the print. The girl glanced around and sniffed at the air. The stink of the animal lingered. It was nearby.

1953 CE

The Road to Asmara

Asmeret walked out of the woods as the sun came up to her right. North. How far, how long a walk, how many hours or days before she should turn west, into the mountains? She opened her mouth to ask the question aloud; closed it again. No bird or dog to hear.

1953-1960 CE

The City of Clouds-The Village of Ash

Asmeret wandered between tents; her head hurt again, yet she could think. Remember. The cavern of gold, the river, the singing of the ghost animals falling, falling, arrrrraaaaaaaaa, the ravens pulling them from the river where they bumped up against her, the zebra, the rhino—bloody stump where they’d hacked off the tip of its horn—climbing the staircase behind the boar. Her.

RETURN

There was still breath in the little black dog when the hyena showed up. The snake that had taken the cur to the edge of its life had slipped into the grass, leaving no trace.