Olan Thorensen - Cast Under an Alien Sun

“Oh, they’re just boys.”

With a coy smile, Anarynd transformed into a young seductress, sashaying over to the cluster of boys. They parted like water before a gale, hovering just out of touch. Maera followed. She couldn’t hear whatever Anarynd said to the boys, but within seconds, one of the older ones was showing her how to hold the crossbow. She fired, and the crossbow quarrel arched high above the targets.

Maera choked back her thought. Merciful God, I hope Anarynd doesn’t skewer some person or animal wherever the quarrel lands .

Instantly, a second boy handed another cocked crossbow to Anarynd. The next five minutes or more, Anarynd fired many a quarrel without coming close to a target, not that any of the boys noticed. Finally, she turned to Maera, “Do you want to try it?”

The closest boys noticed Maera for the first time, with an irritated look she interpreted as, Why would we be interested in her?

Maera flushed, angry at the boys, at Anarynd’s act, and at the world in general. “Well, I couldn’t be worse at it than you,” she snarled.

Anarynd turned red. “Okay, Miss Smart Mouth, let’s see what you can do.” She handed Maera the last loaded crossbow.

A rustle of discontent rolled through the gathered boys, and the tight cluster that had been around Anarynd expanded, as the level of interest waned.

Maera took the crossbow, eyed the target forty yards away, and raised the stock to her shoulder. She looked over the quarrel at the target and pulled the trigger Twang! sang the string as the quarrel leaped out in a flat trajectory and buried itself within six inches of the bull’s-eye. The stunned silence was deafening, followed by exclamations.

“God above, did you see that?”

“What luck. She didn’t even aim.”

“Whoa, nice shot.”

“Why are we letting girls shoot?” another said, along with similar and less polite comments.

Anarynd stared at Maera for a moment. “I guess you have done this before.”

Maera held the bow out to the boy who had originally handed it to Anarynd. “Not a bad bow, but shoots a little to the left.”

“Try it again,” said the impressed boy, to the disgust of the boy standing next to him, who looked like a family relation.

“Hell, that was just a lucky shot,” said the second boy.

Peeved again, Maera stood the bow on its point, pulled out the cocking lever, and pumped to recock the string. The first boy handed her another quarrel, which she slotted into the bow stock and notched it to the string. With a smooth motion, she raised the bow and sent the second quarrel three inches from the bull’s-eye. Proof that the first shot was not a fluke reanimated the group of boys, and during the next fifteen minutes, Maera sent further quarrels into the center of various targets. Several of the older boys tried, without success, to match her marksmanship. By then, the group had split into the boys who disassociated themselves from a female competing with them and those who admired her skill. The latter group wanted to discuss the merits of various bow styles, pull-strengths, and quarrel lengths and asked whether she had done any hunting. The episode ended with Anarynd’s mother and coterie finding them and swooping them away from such unseemly activity.

Later that night, after the evening meal and after socializing to the limit of her boredom, Maera lay in bed. She’d just closed her eyes when there was a knock at her door. Anarynd let herself in, crossed to the bed, and sat. A surprised Maera sat up.

“Maera . . . no one listens to me.” Anarynd’s voice bespoke a resigned sadness.

At first, Maera was uncertain what to say, though she wondered why the girl was telling her this. The silence dragged on.

“Uh. . . what do you mean no one listens?”

“Oh, they listen, but they don’t listen .”

“You mean they hear the words but not the meaning?”

Anarynd nodded. “To my parents, I exist, but only to do what they expect. My brothers treat me as a sister who should know her place. Iwun, my younger brother, and I are near in age and played together when we were younger. He listened then, but everything changed a year ago when he began spending more time with older boys and our father and our older brother.”

“Learning the way he was supposed to treat you, I bet.”

“Yesterday, the boys at the bow range, they listened to me only because of how I look and how I flirted with them. I could have been saying anything , and they wouldn’t have noticed or cared.”

“You knew that would happen before we went over to them.”

“It’s what I do. It’s the only way I can get people to listen!” Anarynd exclaimed.

Maera sighed. This wasn’t how she’d planned on spending her sleep time, but Anarynd obviously needed to talk, something Maera too often missed in her own life. She knew her parents loved her, but somehow she never talked to them as much as she wished she could. To turn away someone else in need didn’t seem “right.”

Anarynd continued, “They listened to you yesterday. You didn’t flirt with them. You showed them you could do something as well as them or better.”

“Some were okay with it, but some left,” Maera said with a grimace.

“But many did listen,” insisted Anarynd. “I wish I was more like you. That I could make people listen to me.”

“I don’t know if you can make people listen as much as want to listen,” Maera said.

“How do I do that?”

“What can you offer them except your looks?”

Anarynd was silent for moments, then shook her head. “Nothing I can think of.”

“Then maybe that’s the problem. You need to have things to say and show you can do things. Do you read much?”

“Read?” echoed the other girl. “I don’t read much.”

“Well, what do you read?”

Anarynd flushed. “I already said I don’t read much.”

Oh, Graceful God, she can’t read!

“Anarynd . . . you can’t read, or at least not much at all, can you?”

The blonde’s face reddened more, and she shook her head to confirm. “It’s not considered necessary for a woman to read, as long as she knows how to take care of her husband and family. Is it different in Keelan?”

“Yes. Not all girls go to school as long as the boys, but that’s the choice of the family and the girl.”

“Girls don’t go to school at all in Moreland. I know a few words that my brother Iwun taught me. He would come home from school and want to show me what he’d learned that day. I wasn’t interested most of the time. Then he stopped sharing with me.”

“That’s something you need to do—learn to read.”

“How? My family wouldn’t let me go to school, and if they did, I’d be with six-year-old boys. Mother can’t read, and father and my brothers wouldn’t think it worth their time to teach me.”

“ I’ll teach you,” asserted an annoyed Maera, before she took the time to think about it. “I’m here for another month. How much do you know? The letters? Any words at all?”

“Iwun taught me the letters, and I know the words for some things like animals, food, places, and peoples’ names.”

“Good. You aren’t starting from nothing. I think if we work very hard the next month, you might be able to read simple texts. Then, when I’ve returned home, we can write letters to each other for you to practice. I can also talk to my teachers and family and send you books as your reading gets better.”

“Do you really think I could learn?”

“You’re not dumb, Anarynd, just stupid for letting other people tell you who you can be.”

As if I’m all that different. I’m put into roles, but at least I have more freedom than this blonde blank spot.