10 Days Later

The priests were lording their power over her, insisting on unnecessary formalities just because they could. That was the only explanation for why they'd made her appear before the judging priests to make her case for why she was a fit guardian for Jadinda. It wasn't like they actually cared about little orphan girls, after all. Not once had they shown any interest in Jadinda's well-being before all this happened. They just wanted to put Karesema in her place. She tried not to worry about it, even though the sight of those judges all standing around her staring at her like they did back when they decided she would die made her sick. She tried not to let her nerves show, and give the priests the satisfaction of knowing their intimidation tactics were working.

There were a lot more people in the audience this time than there had been the first time she'd been in this room. Her aunt, uncle, and cousin Sunbrila were there, which was kind of them. They were in the village already, arranging a marriage, but of course they'd also heard about Floreca and the Aĉaĵego and had stopped by Karesema's house to hear the truth of it. Besides them, the audience consisted of orphanage nuns, and nosy strangers. There were a lot of nosy strangers these days. People gawking at her every time she went into town. Jadinda had been getting a lot of attention too. Apparently, all the orphans wanted to hear about what Floreca had been like before she "became an angel." That was the story the priests had been feeding to everyone; Floreca herself had become an angel in the service of Terdiino and used her new angelic powers to "tame" the Aĉaĵego. They'd even bestowed a new name on her: everyone was supposed to call her "Dresinto" now, not Scivolemulino. Just like the Aĉaĵego's original name had allegedly been lost in time. It was completely stupid, such an obvious cover for their own lack of authority. Floreca herself would be horrified if she knew about it.

"So, Ridemulino," said the head judge, an old man. She recognized him from being sentenced to death, but didn't remember his name. "You're here to claim eligibility to adopt an orphan."

"I'm here to take back my sister," Karesema corrected.

"Once she's in the care of the temple, she must receive the same treatment as every other child in the orphanage, and we don't let children without true-names leave unless we're certain they'll be going into a better home than we can provide. Potential guardians must appear in court and make a case that they're an ideal home, especially unmarried women. No exceptions."

Before Karesema could say anything to this, the judge gestured towards an elderly nun, who Karesema recognized from the days they'd needed to take Jadinda to the temple orphanage to be nursed. She had always seemed like a kind woman, so Karesema held her tongue. "Please don't offended," said the lady. "There have been times when young mothers – women who have gotten pregnant out of wedlock, to be frank – have left their children in our care, come back and claimed them years later... only to bring them back when they get pregnant with a legitimate child by their husband. You can understand how devastating that is for a child, and why we've learned to be cautious."

"This isn't like that at all!" Karesema snapped. The audience broke out in murmurs, and she realized she looked like the monster in this scenario, yelling at an old lady. But it shouldn't matter what others thought of her. Jadinda was her sister. How could they possibly convince themselves she'd be better off in an orphanage than with her?

"Enough," warned the head judge. "Let's proceed. Please, Ridemulino, explain your circumstances."

So, Karesema told her side of the story yet again. But it wasn't really her side – she never really told her whole side ­– she had to tailor each retelling to her audience. She didn't tell Jadinda how worried she was about Floreca, she didn't tell Sunbrila's family how the priests had tricked her or how the guards had threatened her, she couldn't even tell Floreca that she hadn't gotten Jadinda back home yet. She hated having to lie, having to reign things in. She wished she could scream at the top of her lungs about how the priests were liars, how Floreca was alive but mortal and in danger, how she hated everyone in this whole town because she knew how disposable she was to them, so they could all go die and as long as they left her and her sisters alone, she'd be happy. But she couldn't.

So she told the sanitized version: she'd been chosen as a sacrifice, Floreca had volunteered in her place, the Aĉaĵego agreed, and she'd been sent home to raise Jadinda, something Floreca couldn't do if she died of her illness. She left out as much as she could of the strange "friendship" between Floreca and the Aĉaĵego; she was sick of talking about it and it had nothing to do with Jadinda.

When she was done speaking the head judge said, emotionlessly, as though he'd decided on his question before he ever heard her speak, "So. You are the eldest sister in your family, and you committed a crime. Your younger sister petitioned to take responsibility of your crime, and be punished in your place. You left her behind, and now you've come to claim your youngest sister."

She caught the hints of accusation in his voice. She wasn't surprised by it. Everyone accused her. Even her own aunt seemed horrified when Karesema had relayed the story to her. "You left her there?" she had echoed, as though she couldn't quite believe that was the end of the story.

"The Aĉaĵego wouldn't let her come with me," Karesema said, an excuse she was tired of making. Though she kept on the defensive, the truth was, others' accusations were nothing but echoes of her own guilt. Though the rational voice in her head kept reminding her she wasn't given a choice, it didn't make it any less wrong for her to be safe at home while Floreca was alone in the mountains with that monster.

"As you say," said the judge. "But you see why such a failure at your familial duties doesn't help your case."

Karesema opened her mouth in protest, then closed it. Why were they making this so difficult? "Didn't you have to approve of Scivolemulino taking my punishment in the first place? She told me the reason you agreed – it's because she had a familial duty to Jadinda. To let me live, so I could care for her when Floreca... couldn't."

"Yes," the judge agreed. "Those were her duties. They don't exempt you from your own."

"That doesn't make sense!" Karesema protested. "You can't condemn me for following your own decision!"

"The will of the goddesses do not always make sense to man," interjected Saĝulo.

All the heads in the courtroom turned in unison when the pious man, who had until that point been posed like a sculpture in the corner with his head down in reverence, finally spoke. He lifted his head, redirecting his attention from the earth goddess's domain below to his followers. His mannerisms were so thorough that Karesema remembered why people thought him sincere, why she had thought him sincere. It disgusted her.

Saĝulo continued, "Please forgive what may seem like a non-sequitur, but – I had the pleasure of knowing this young lady's mother quite well, you know." He gestured towards Karesema grandly, kindly. "She grew up in this very orphanage. I had the honor of bestowing upon her a true-name – Dolĉulino. She was such a kind-hearted young lady, the name fit her well. But we all called her Bela, her child-name, for this temple is truly a home for these children, and Bela was truly a dutiful daughter to all the priests and nuns that served Terdiino within these walls."

It was a non-sequitur, Karesema thought, and it made her furious. If he cared about her mother so much, he should have protected her. From drowning, and from marriage.

"Bela wanted to be a nun," Saĝulo went on. "She was so kind and faithful. But Terdiino had other plans for her. She was married, and had three daughters, and then, tragically, died when the youngest was just a suckling babe. Fortunately, Jadinda is alive and thriving, thanks to our generous wetnurses."

Karesema remembered carrying baby Jadinda back and forth into the temple each day, always bearing eggs from the chickens and fruit from the grove as a tithe, watching the coins her mother had left dwindle. Fortunately, she didn't run out until Jadinda was old enough to drink milk from sheep and goats and eat mashed fruits. She remembered having to lie to her father, to say that the wetnurses fed motherless babies in exchange for the tithe alone – if he knew about her mother's coin stash, she feared he would have taken it all away and let Jadinda starve.

"It seemed such a waste. I wondered why Terdiino would let go of such a faithful servant, to let her marry when she would have been a wonderful nun, and to let her die at such a young age. My sorrows were renewed that night, several weeks ago now, when I went in unto the prisoners to be told that Bela's oldest daughter had committed theft. I thought, surely, had Bela lived to raise her daughters to adulthood, such a thing never would have happened. I would not have had to condemn this young lady to death."

You wanted to condemn me, liar! You tricked me into confessing! Karesema barely managed to hold her tongue. And it occurred to her that they would always have to condemn someone, even if no one ever committed a crime again.

"I should have known," Saĝulo continued graciously, "Terdiino, like life itself, is ever-changing. We cannot understand her ways. Sometimes she lets go of those it seems she should hold on this earth as long as possible. Today, Terdiino shows me how foolish I was to doubt her. After the final blessing had been given to Ridemulino, the intended sacrifice, my presence was requested by Bela's other two daughters – Scivolemulino, and of course, little Jadinda. Scivolemulino was demure and reverent, but she was grieving. As you all know, she made an unconventional request – to be taken as the sacrifice in her elder sister's place. I was loathe to allow such a thing, as were all our judges. It was even harder when innocent little Jadinda clung to her, and begged her not to go. But, I could tell that she did not ask such things out of nihilism or a lack of understanding of responsibilities – she asked out of pure, inspired love for little Jadinda. She wanted to make sure Jadinda would be cared for her, when she herself could not. I could feel the answer in my heart, as clear as if Terdiino had appeared to me directly, that I should allow her to go."

He finally made eye contact with Karesema then. Instinct told her this was a challenge, she had to fight or flee, but she held his gaze steady. "I'm sure you've all heard differing accounts of what happened after that day. Even I was more or less in the dark, until last night. Terdiino came to me in a dream, with answers."

A chorus of inhalations sounded across the room. People in the audience sat up in their seats, bracing themselves for the important news that was to come. It wasn't often that high priests claimed they saw a goddess in a dream. That was something that happened in stories, not lifetimes.

"I saw, in a dream, that Terdiino had planned this all along. When she chose to give those daughters to Bela Dolĉulino, when she told Bela Dolĉulino that she had fulfilled something great, she had already taught her daughter Floreca well, and was free to leave this earth and join her own parents in the heavens, a good soul which Ĉieldiino might accept as a peace offering... I saw that Terdiino had suffered for many years much in the same way we have suffered. At first, yes, the system of sacrifice was necessary, our only way of keeping sin at bay. But people have grown, and learned to not sin as direly, and the tradition had come to cause more suffering than the sinners would have caused, had they been allowed to remain among us. Terdiino loathed to send those souls away, when, if only given a little more time, they might have repented and become agents of good in this world. But, the Aĉaĵego, her angel, had changed during his transition from humanity to immortality... just as his form had changed after the death of his mortal body, so had its soul grown beastlike, as was necessary to adapt to his role. It was not yet ready to become humanlike again, to lose its hunger. And then, for the first time in a very long time, it met an innocent soul.

"Scivolemulino came to him with no serious sins, no selfish ambitions, no excuses, no guile. It recognized this. And yet, it knew her fate was to die, and it hungered for her, just as it hungered for every mortal. So, it sent her sister away. And then... it took her up in its mouth and crushed her."

The audience murmured. Karesema winced, almost forgetting that there was no truth to his words.

"But her soul," Saĝulo continued after the briefest pause, "did not leave this world to go unto the heavens. And her body was not destroyed, but transformed. The Aĉaĵego at last in this girl saw all the potential in every person it had ever slain, all the beauty in every person that might yet be slain, all the humanity it had once known and loved and forgotten. It was overwhelmed by what it saw. It no longer wished to destroy the bad, but to preserve the good. It begged the innocent soul for forgiveness. It begged Terdiino to give it a new role, a kinder role. She appeared before him and the girl's lingering soul, and she said, 'You have always had the ability to fill that role. But only now that you've seen the goodness of humanity do you have the will.' At last, she turned to the soul of the young girl before her and said, 'Young woman, I have observed your virtue since you were only a child. I have allowed you to struggle as a mortal because I knew that you, unlike most, even unlike your own sister, would withstand the pain and stay just as pure as you were as a baby. You have done me a great favor, and now is your reward. No longer will you be Scivolemulino, the meager orphan girl. Now you will be known as Dresinto, the one who tamed the Aĉaĵego, and my newest angel.'"

The audience burst into a chorus of excited whispers. The name was not knew, but the story was. Karesema made eye contact with her aunt, but even Sunbrila seemed caught up in the story, listening with the same wide-eyed fascination with which she had listened to her mother's stories as children. At least she snapped out of it when she caught Karesema's eye, returning Karesema's grimace with a curious look that said she would ask again for Karesema's side of the story later.

And the voice in Karesema's head was telling her that something was wrong. She wasn't surprised that Saĝulo would make up a ridiculous story, or that he'd try to make her look like a neglectful sister. He'd done both of those things already. What she didn't understand was why he would choose to debut this story now, when she was petitioning to take Jadinda back home. She thought he would tell the story for the first time later, at a bigger gathering. If he wanted to punish her, it would be a greater shame to tell this story in front of more people. And that way more people would hear the story directly from him, which would end the rumors he didn't approve of, and ensure that everyone knew the "truth."

"As you can see, this is bigger than just a young lady trying to take her younger sister back home. As I've gotten to know Jadinda these past few weeks, I have seen her sister Scivolemulino's impact on her. She is a faithful, obedient, and kind-hearted child. She, without a doubt, deserves a home which will encourage her to further develop those qualities. But now that Scivolemulino, her strongest influence, has left mortality behind... I do not believe that her remaining sister will be the best option to meet that need."

He smiled at her in just the same way he smiled after sentencing her to death. It was like she was restrained and being carried away again. She couldn't speak. You can't just steal my sister! she wanted to shout. But she was gagged by her own inner voice asking her why, why would he want to do such a thing in the first place? He was a liar, a monster, but even monsters had reasons for what they did. He wanted to put her in her place, she knew that much, but he could have humiliated her without taking on another mouth to feed! Why would he want to be responsible for Jadinda until...

Until adulthood.

The realization that hit her was like being thrown against a wall. The present blurred, leaving her eyes to focus on the memory of that summer day, the last story her mother had ever told her. "...The only option was to get married, but your father was poor, and couldn't afford to pay the bride price..."

The bride price. Which would have gone to the temple, because her mother had grown up in the orphanage.

And what kind of price would a certain sort of man be willing to pay for the younger sister of an angel?

"No!" Karesema finally managed to say. "You can't have her!" But Saĝulo didn't even acknowledge her. He was looking at the audience. They were chanting in agreement with his statement; even her uncle cheered, and her aunt did not try to stop him. Can't you see he's lying? Can't you see how monstrous he is!? Don't you understand why he's stolen my sister!? she wanted to scream at them all.

But they didn't understand. They never would understand. Just as they hadn't known how she'd been wronged when they had tricked her into confessing. The guards didn't need to gag her or drag her away from town. The people would never see. They'd never hear. They'd never care.