After the Evening Bells

9

Her blood did not come on the usual day that month, although she hardly noticed at first. It wasn't until later, when she saw Megah, that she remembered. Megah and Kellah's blood would usually come near the same time and when Megah, on her way to the bath, complained about the pains in her abdomen, it crossed Kellah's mind that her own blood had not yet come.

She mentioned this in passing to Megah and the girl looked at her as if trying to read something in her friend's face. "You said you and Haman were only kissing in the field, yes?"

Her cheeks grew warm. She looked away.

Megah put her face in her hands. "Your father... He will be furious."

"You don't understand," Kellah said. "I can't be with child. He..." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "He never put his seed inside me."

"How can you be sure?"

"I... he... said..." She started weeping.

Megah placed her arm around her friend's shoulder. "Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the blood will come. We just need to wait."

But the blood did not come. Not that day nor the next nor all that week.

At night, Kellah could hardly sleep as she imagined what Haman would say. He wouldn't be happy about this, but at the same time, they had on occasion discussed the children they'd one day have and so maybe a part of him would be excited at the prospect of "one day" coming sooner than they'd anticipated.

It did not evade Kellah's father how tired his daughter suddenly seemed, and several times, when taking a break from his candle making, he caught her sleeping in the front room when she was supposed to be accomplishing chores around the house.

"My dear," he would say as he gently woke her up. "What is the matter?"

"Nothing," she'd say. "I just didn't sleep well."

She thought to tell him. He was a kind and loving father. And yet he was also a man of tradition—a man who took his honor and the honor of his family seriously. She couldn't tell him.

Over the next two weeks, she saw Haman several times in passing, yet never had sufficient opportunity to speak to him alone. She would just have to wait until the full moon.

In the meantime, everywhere around town, it became obvious the Redcloaks were leaving. The watchtowers that had been erected at the four corners of their camp had begun to be disassembled and anytime one walked by the old temple that had been transformed into the Redcloak administrative office, they could see a host of wagons being loaded with supplies, weapons, and other goods the Redcloaks had brought.