Balancing Love

This is a novella-length idea, but I don't have it divided into chapters right now, so I'll post what I right now.

            Perspiration stung the chocolate brown of her shining eyes.  Her already sunburned face reddened with the effort.  Tan skin turned white where large stubby fingers with soil under the nails applied pressure to her forearms.  Blood pounded mercilessly in her ears while she balanced upside down.  Her father’s bushy black mane shone with slicked down sweat under her own coarse straw-colored hair.

            Toes pointing to the summer sun, she straightened her thin legs and then separated them in a split to the sky.  Her left arm was released from her father’s loving but vice-like grip.  She swung it free and caught and twisted her ankle behind her back.  The fingers on her right hand tingled.  They crept up the stocky arm till her palm rested on his.  Suddenly, she pushed herself off of his arm onto his head.

            She wavered, desperately trying to regain her balance.  She fell before her father could catch her.  “Tricante!”  The ground met her face-first.

            Lying there crumpled and humiliated, she determined she had cracked her nose and sprained her wrist.  Tricante pushed herself onto her knees.  She looked up through two small tears at her father, who frowned at the blood-spattered, dusty ground.

            “My peti’ one,” he rumbled softly.  “Go an’ wash, an’ we’ll pu’ a splin’ on tha’ wris’ before dinner.  Min’ you, wash well.  Your momma’ll be mad enough as is.”

            She lapped up the familiar lilting tones of his lightly accented voice, then left the practice meadow.  Faint footprints emerged from the sandy soil as she walked toward the stream.

            Hardwoods towered over Tricante, the petite one.  Aptly named, the slender twelve-year-old stood no higher than four feet, five inches tall.  Yet her spirit made up for her height.  Anger sparked explosive, fiery; grief when she had felt it a dark, looming thundercloud; and content radiated an aura of languid pleasure.  She was bright, funny, clever, and gifted with the talent of her people: acrobatics.

            She danced a hop-skip over a few scattered stones next to the water.  As she knelt to drink from the clear mountain stream she marveled at the cool, delicious freshness, which never failed to amaze her.

            Giving thanks to the beautiful world around her, she stepped into the deep pool in the stream.  The cold rushing water stung her sprained wrist, but she let it soothe her sore muscles and wash the blood from her face as she slid beneath the rippling surface.

            Underwater was a different world.  Here she could look up, rather than down, to see the waving ferns.  Fish took the place of stags, darting in front of her and away to hide under the rocks.  A turtle, his snub-nosed face painted with streaks of red, orange, and yellow paddled toward her with his small webbed feet until they briefly touched noses.  She laughed and tickled him under the chin.  Blinking his eyes in mild puzzlement and surprise he swam slowly away.

            Her lungs began to beg for air.  She kicked with her legs until her head broke the surface.  Diamond like drops filled with rainbows were flung from her short hair.  Tricante shared a smile with the sun and pulled herself out of the pool with one hand.

            The warm green grass crawling with insects felt good to her wet, calloused toes.  She danced away along the trail, retracing her footprints.

            When she reached camp her father was leaning against their caravan, carving a stick to make it smooth and straight.  She bounded up and grinned at him.

            “Well, don’ you loo’ be’er!”  He tapped her nose gently with his finger.  “Tha’ll heal up on its own, but we bes’ do somethin’ abou’ your wris’.”  He gingerly took her arm and laid it into the splint.  As he bound her wrist in place, Tricante traced designs in the sand with her toes.  “All righ’, tha’s be’er.  Go on.”  He gave her an encouraging nudge in the back with his knee.  She hopped up the plank steps into the caravan.

A familiar intoxicating fog of incense enveloped her as she swept through a dangling curtain of beads, bells, shells, and bits of glass that jangled pleasantly.  Reflections in hundreds of mirrors hanging on the wall stared back at her.  The red-globed kerosene lamp cast a mysterious flickering light over the single room.

In the corner nearest Tricante was a plain dark wooden table, smooth and soft from constant wear.  Behind the table was another door, through which her mother had just entered with the dinner dishes.  The aroma of roast chicken seasoned with herbs she did not yet know the names of mixed with incense, smoke, tea, and a certain homey smell she could not identify the source of.

Her mother straightened up and turned around so swiftly that Tricante had no time to hide her bandaged wrist.  “Vat did chou do to yourr arrm?” she asked in an exasperated voice.

“Nothing,” Tricante said evasively.

“Den vy arre derr schticks on it?”  Her eyes narrowed disapprovingly as Tricante’s father sidled through the door hanging.  “Yoof been tossing ourr daughterr like a rrag dool!” she accused.

He and his daughter hung their heads in mock guilt and found something interesting to look at on the old wood floor.  He mumbled thickly, “We was jus’ practicin’ our papa-daugh’er ac’ for the fessival.”

The festival!  Tricante shivered with delight.  Just the thought of participating in the annual event made her giddy with excitement.  Every year all of the Clauco family groups traveled to Venidel, the capital of Pangeo.  The first day of activities marked the summer solstice.

First, Tricante would help her mother set up her wares.  She sold herbs and potions to the Latuxe women who rode their mind-powered flacos out onto the grassy lawns surrounding the high-walled city.  She would entice them over to her tables with a smile and a wave to have their palms or tealeaves read.

Next, Tricante would run off to greet her friends.  They would romp over the grounds for hours, playing tag and hide-and-seek around and behind the parked caravans.  They were often scolded by the women, but in their juvenile bliss they ignored disapproving glances from both Clauco and Latuxe alike.

As evening came the men emerged from the forest carrying cord after cord of wood.  With these they would build an enormous bonfire.  At midnight the Latuxe would flock to the grounds to watch the Clauco throw different herbs onto the fire.  Young couples would throw to the flames for children and for long happy marriages.  Older couples would throw for prosperity for their children.  Young girls would throw lavender and daisies into the fire, hoping the flames would form the first letter of their true love’s name.

The chink of silverware on dishes brought Tricante out of her daydream.  A plate of golden-brown roast chicken bedded on steaming wild rice had been placed before her, as well as a smooth white mug of hot green tea.  The food tasted delicious, but it was over quickly.

Tricante’s father went out through the bead curtain.  He closed the outer wooden door and tied it shut.  Then he untied the old brown horse’s leather traces from a poplar branch and led her to the caravan.  After hitching her to their moving house, he went around to the kitchen side.  Through the door to his wife went the big black kettle, a spoon, a ladle, a knife, a griddle, and several glass bottles of spices.  He closed the last door, jumped onto the seat and snapped the reins.  The horse whinnied complacently and the caravan lurched to a start down the rough trail to Venidel.

Inside, Tricante again sat down at the table with a wooden stylus, a beeswax tablet, and a small lit candle.  She inhaled deeply as the stylus cut into the wax to release a sweet honey smell.  She wrote out her letters carefully, Aa Bb Cc all the way to Xx Yy Zz.  Then she held the tablet over the candle to melt and smooth the wax back into place.  She wrote slowly, concentration wrinkling her forehead.

            lavender        cloves         tea         leaves         nose

       thyme         chives        finger        turtle        wrist

Her hand shook at first, but became steadier with greater confidence and a smoother road. 

Soon the steady chirrup of a thousand crickets could be heard above the creaking of the rocking caravan.  Tricante’s mother blew out the candles one by one.  Then she lifted her sleepy daughter from the table and half-walked, half-carried her to her hammock.  Tricante’s eyelids closed as her mother began to sing.  Her pure alto voice filled the caravan and floated up through the night clouds.

In the morning Tricante pulled back her green flannel covers and padded to the window in her nightshift.  A cool breeze tickled her face when she undid the iron latch.  The forest lurched by slowly with the movement of the wagon.  Her mother, Dila, prepared porridge for the two of them.

The lumps in her porridge resembled the shapes of the violet-tinted mountains in the distance.  The sky gleamed pale blue graced with butter-gold clouds.  Birds sailed through the morning, twittering gaily. 

At lunch time Dila and Roran, Tricante’s father, switched places, she to take up the reins, he to venture inside and prepare cold sandwiches for them all.  Roran and Tricante sat with heads together at the dark wood table planning their act.  After the herb bonfire ceremony the Clauco would gather together in groups and perform feats of acrobatics.  Their acts would be judged by a panel of Latuxe acrobatics experts.  Tricante and her father were looking forward to the competition, but it was Tricante’s first public performance.  Roran knew precious experience time for his daughter was slipping quickly away, but he would not rush the healing of her wrist.  Instead, they went through the act verbally, step by step, over and over again.

Many days passed by until Roran removed Tricante’s bandages.  She flexed her wrist experimentally and made a cartwheel down the path.

That evening Tricante and her father practiced their act for Dila by the light of the campfire.  All was going well until the final trick.  Perspiration stung the chocolate brown of her shining eyes.  Her already sunburned face reddened with the effort.  Tan skin turned white where large stubby fingers with soil under the nails applied pressure to her forearms.  Blood pounded mercilessly in her ears while she balanced upside down.  Her father’s bushy black mane shone with slicked down sweat under her own coarse straw-colored hair.

            Toes pointing to the stars twinkling in the ink-black sky, she straightened her thin legs and then separated them in a split to the moon.  Her left arm was released from her father’s loving but vice-like grip.  She swung it free and caught and twisted her ankle behind her back.  The fingers on her right hand tingled.  They crept up the stocky arm till her palm rested on his.  Suddenly, she pushed herself off of his arm onto his head.

She wavered, desperately trying to regain her balance.  She fell…

… into Roran’s waiting arms.  She rolled off his forearms onto the ground.  She did a front roll and landed sitting in front of her mother.  Dila clapped her hands, her face beaming with delight.

“Dat vas vonderrful!  I am zo proud of you!”

“We did it perfectly!”  Tricante could hardly contain her pride and excitement.  The single revision enabled her to fall smoothly in case of a balance failure.

“Ah es’ima’ we ah abou’ three days from Venidel an’ the festival.”

A shiver of electricity shot up Tricante’s spine.  She lay awake in her hammock listening to the familiar comforting sound of the caravan creaking on its wheels over the bumpy path, wondering what surprises the festival might have in store for her.

Sure enough, the morning of the third day, just as the golden sun rose up above the distant hills, the stone skyline of Venidel did the same above the tree line.  Tricante jumped out of the caravan and trotted along with the old horse in the dew-wet grass, limbering herself up in the cool morning air.  By midday they had reached the main lawn in front of the gates of the city.  An imposing edifice, the high wooden gates and the stone wall they were set in thoroughly separated the Clauco and Latuxe worlds.  But not on festival day.

Roran stopped the horse and caravan near others belonging to families with whom they were friendly. He climbed onto the roof of their caravan and passed several boards and two sawhorses down to Dila. With them she made a table and covered it with a dusty old purple cloth with gold tassels. On top of that she laid out their lunch of cheese, bread, and apples.

Author's Note

Please keep in mind that this is just the very beginning of a possible novella!

Reviews

[Tia]

wow!
that is real good! continue....

[DaughterNature]

Thank you! What specifically do you like about it? What do you think of my dialogue (it's my weak point right now)?