So Hide Your Eyes

Chapter FOUR - The Temple

Chapter FOUR

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My mama told me when I was young, "so hide your eyes when they come."

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MAMA GLANCED AROUND FURTIVELY. She pressed herself to the temple wall. Terrible occasions were bound to occur whenever the temple was full. And it was, tonight.

  The Khoel Temple began with their customary chants to ward off the devil. A cacophony arose, of strange and menacing mumbles in the runic language of Porn.

  She was very sceptical that the language could call up magic - or at least, not the sort of magic she was accustomed to performing - but she didn't say that to the neighbours. Or any Khoeleans in particular.

  The ridiculous 'magic' casting concluded, and Mama caught strings of murmurings. And a plot that shook her.

  "Someone keeps foiling our ambushes!" someone thundered.

  "Whatz? Who?" a sleepy man mumbled. Mama noted that he sounded like Loser, one of her frequent customers. He always lost at cards.

  She pitied him for having been settled with such a name.

  Once you turned fifteen, the village would gather in the temple for the Naming Ceremony and select your name based on their collective observations of you. And that was what you would be known for until the day they returned your corpse to the sea.

  Mama was once again, glad that she'd been rescued when she was younger to The City of Dyvuine where such peculiar customs weren't permitted.

  "Well, I don't know who!" the same man blustered. "But I know that we must kill it before that same person hides her away again."

  "Why can't someone else assassinate it at night? It's so troublesome to restrict ourselves to daylight," a man piped up.

  "And who will do that?" the first man retorted.

  "Not I!" The air vibrated with the vehemence injected into the two words. The villagers' unison in that reply did not impress Mama.

  "Exactly! So let's follow my plan," the first man concluded, sounding very smug. "We all kill it at dawn."

  "But dawn's in just a half hours' time," Loser complained. "I wanna sleep."

  "Man up!" the village turned to him to chide in chorus; even the hypocritical high-pitched children.

  "Any objections?"

  There was a pregnant pause.

  "None?"

  The first man yelled, apparently the leader, "then let us attack! To freedom from the devil's eyes!" 

  For a moment, Mama wondered where they'd get the weapons to murder her troublesome baby. Then she remembered: this was Khoel. Most Xenophobic village in Popheli.

  They'd actually been featured on one of the Gracious Emperor's Magazine issues. Her favourite magazine series before she'd been expelled from his harem and banished to this dump.  The villagers would have knives hidden everywhere, from beneath the floorboard, to inside their pants or pockets.

  Then the moment was over, and the villagers charged out of the temple's door like a crowd of harem sisters upon catching sight of Prince Jein.

  Mama slipped from the shadows of the boat and followed them. When she was a reasonable distance away, she ran.

  She bunched up her grey skirts and ran and ran and ran home to save her damn baby again.

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     I felt a hand shake my shoulder.

     "Wake up! Hurry, before they come!" Mama hissed. I opened my eyes. It was still dark outside, the grey moon smiling brightly.

Mama was whipping her head between the door and my bed. She pushed me to my feet. "Up up up, before the villagers come!" she whispered and grabbed my hand. She silently tugged it.

I followed her to a window. "Get out, then hide under the boat alright? Mama will settle this. Don't come out. If Mama doesn't return, swim to the nearest town; Likah. Just remember to hide your eyes." She said, her words slick, sweet and waspish.

  Our boat shack creaked and sunk a little. People were boarding. I didn't know what to make of that, or the fact that she was unknowingly instructing me to visit my friend.

So I stayed silent.

Mama petted my head, an affection goodbye. Then she snaked her arms around my waist and tried to fling me through the window, but I resisted because you could never trust Mama.

She could've been trying to kill me for the second time.

With my arms, I shoved myself away from the window. I turned to look at her.

Her eyes were wild and desperate, so terribly contradictory to her voice and attractive but washed-out face.

A gnawing came at my brain, and I thought I had forgotten something crucial.

My eyes burned, and I remembered far too late.

Mama's mouth opened to scream, but no sound arose. Held in the thrall of her pain, she had screwed her eyes, and clamped her lips shut. A large gash had open in her neck. Blood gurgled from the wound.  My ears pounded and slammed against my mind.

It was the first time I felt such abject fear. I hadn't feared my previous deaths much, because I hadn't cared for life. No one would miss me. But strong manipulative Mama - rendered to a broken porcelain doll on our rickety boat.

The fear crept up like a chill on my spine that spread through my body and froze me. I knelt beside her neck and tried scooping the blood into the gap in her neck, but it kept slipping and slipping through my fingers.

Finally, Mama took a hollow gasp - "Go go go! Run! They're coming to take your eyes." The life faded from her glassy eyes.

She was gone. A lump lodged in my throat. I heard footsteps and shouts of "Down with the Devil!" so I left Mama behind to crawl through the window. I climbed down and slid myself down the side of the boat and into the water. I took a deep breath and dived as deep as I could.

The pressure was torturous, but I kept swimming until I reached the metal boat which I knew would be deserted. I rose to take another gasp of air. Then I slipped underwater again.

I followed this routine for twenty minutes at least. My clothes were cold and clammy, and my body was growing numb. I didn't think I could swim any further. But I did.

Perhaps it was because my heart was too empty to care about anything except progress, and the ominously odd future without Mama. Eventually, I reached the edge of a sandy land.

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  I crawled up the shimmery shore and pushed myself up.

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A/N:

Thanks to everyone who voted and commented last chapter. Especially to MistressOP, and AHBaig! :)

Edited - Oct 6 2015
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