So Hide Your Eyes

Chapter SEVEN - Wife

Chapter SEVEN

____________

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

____________

WIFE'S HOUSE WAS TINY. I'd expected a grander house, befitting Demon's wife, but it was rather disappointing. Just a small, round hut with a roof of layered dried leaves.

Demon pushed open the wooden door and we stepped in.

The room was cramped and empty. Demon closed the door. Darkness seemed to haunt the room, and I couldn't see past it. I gave an experimental step forwards, but Demon immediately snatched my shoulder and yanked me back.

I heard clicks, like the chatter of snapping jaws. Despite the heat, goosebumps were rising on my hand where they clasped together to carry our fruit.

"Get away from her," he ordered.

I wondered if it was for my sake, or his wife's.

Still gripping my shoulder, he stretched a leg to the door and kicked it open. Light streamed into the room, and I instantly wished he'd left the door closed. The after image of a ravenous young woman felt as if it had burnt itself onto my eyes.

I closed my eyes and drew closer to him in instinct.

I squinted and rubbed my eyes to erase it. But it was futile. I could still see her ashy silhouette imprinted on my eyelids, so frightening in her closeness.

If I'd taken a step further, she might've leapt up and devoured me. A strange sort of gladness rushed through me, when I realized his instructions had been for my benefit.

I'd never been particularly afraid until now - Mama's death, and now this monster. Before the day I'd met Demon, I'd been relatively safe. No thoughts of death, because I hadn't believed there was any chance of it.

Now, it felt as if some barrier had broken and all the horrors the world had to offer are making up for the lost time and dashing at me. But it was worth it. Demon's friendship is priceless. To even be offered the chance to trade your first-born for it would be an honor.

I kept my eyes closed. A cursory glimpsed had been frightening enough, and if I didn't obscure my sight, I was afraid my curiosity would overwhelm me and I wouldn't be able to help myself but stare unabashedly at her milky dead-fish eyes, and her teeth. Then her terrible afterimage would truly remain.

"Come closer," he said softly.

I thought he was speaking to me, until I heard two excited clicks. A rustle came from the ground. The sound of a skirt brushing leaves and sticks.

I felt a weight leave my arms. He'd lifted the fruit.

"Come on wife!" Demon cajoled in an excessively joyful tone.

I imagined him beckoning her with his finger, and her biting it off. I looked to the floor and swallowed.

"Here's your coconut."

I hadn't realized that when he said we were sharing it, he'd meant to share it with Wife.

'Coconut coconut coconut,' I chanted inwardly in my haste to internalize the name of the brown fruit. Demon might think me useless if I couldn't adapt to island life.

He already had his disturbing but powerful wife, who could protect him while I can't even shave plants right. If he decided that I was more trouble than was worth, he'd retract his offer for shelter.

And where would I be then? Mama's dead. She can't save me anymore.

There was a loud thump. Then savage scratching and hollow knocks of nails against a shell. He must've thrown the coconut into her cage.

We waited. I didn't know why we were waiting, but I remained silent. Sometime later, the sunlight grew unbearable, so Demon closed the door. I opened my eyes.

It was dark again. His wife was, fortunately, shrouded by the darkness. All I could see were unfocused shifting contours.

There were several thuds. The sounds reminded me of Mama's chopper flying down in rage at her less savory customers, sinking past octopus meat and into the wood, and I flinched.

I reached to rub my eyes again. They felt a little damp.

We waited for at least an hour more, before I the silence buzzing in my ear grew too uncomfortable.

"What's your wife's name?" I asked.

"Wife," he said shortly, clearly sore about the subject.

There was a somber lull in our conversation. I didn't remember him being as temperamental in the sea. Perhaps the sea calmed him while the village's heat enraged? Or it was just Wife.

I glanced to Wife, feeling sudden sympathy and sorrow towards her. So his village - even the nice fishermen - were actually that sort of people who believed that women were animals that became the property of men after marriage.

Once your true name's been picked, that's all you'll ever be.

To possess a literal name like Wife would be unimaginably demeaning. To be honest, I was glad the villagers had selected Devil immediately after my birth, instead of something more embarrassing.

In Khoel, a girl who'd once stalked me - I didn't know her personally, but I knew of her - had been quite ruthlessly and unanimously named Rabid on her fifteenth birthday.

Her possibility of a prestigious career in the Empire was destroyed in a day. No one would take her seriously if they saw Rabid on her papyrus.

After that, I never saw her lurking behind walls and spying on me with that hungry twinkle in her eyes again. Last I heard, someone had found her hanging from the rafters of her mother's boathouse.

The villagers must have hated Wife, to have bound her to this single identity, to have condemned her from ever becoming anything more. I chewed my lip to stifle a tiny smile. She was just like us. Wings clipped and barred in a cage while she kept wanting and wanting like an insatiable shark. What a curious monster Wife was.

The silence was suddenly broken. "So you like her!" Demon cried in delight. He was grinning. His toothy smile glinted, so I could see it even in the dark.

He placed his hand back on my shoulder and pushed me towards the cage. I complied and shuffled towards her. I hoped he wasn't going to sacrifice me.

"You can talk to her," he informed me, still inexplicably happy. "The coconut helps with her Murgi - delirium, if you don't already know," - he emphasized 'already' - "so she's a little saner now."

He headed for the door. I stared at him, confused how he expected Wife - who, despite all her beauty, was most certainly an animal - to talk.

Demon looked back and beamed. "Don't worry. I'm just getting the weapons." Then he added in case he was wrong, "As I've said. Wife can't bite. So take care of her until I come back."

He left the door not entirely closed since it was evening and the temperature had cooled. Even if the sun was still high in the sky. I wrung my fingers and slowly looked at her. The sunlight streaming from the gap beside the door illuminated her. My heart skipped a beat.

Demon was right on both counts.

She was saner.

She was smiling.

She was holding up a knife, and she really couldn't bite, considering her lack of any teeth.

________

A/N:

Hope you enjoyed this story! If you have some time, please take a second to vote if you enjoyed it. :)

Double update will be posted after 50 votes - 8 more to go! Story's just warming up, still pretty light ATM. Next chapter will be a fun one. Promise. ;)