Page 6 - My FlipBook

e l izab eth t ammi

when her father and clansmen did trading missions, to
Constantinople and Dublin and Paris—or, Lena’s mother

claimed they had.
Now they raided.
Lena’s father insisted resources were thinning. That
rival clans were pressing in from all around. She’d never
seen evidence for either claim. A couple times a year,
their ship would return to their valley bearing the weight
of gold and jewels and fabrics they’d stolen from what-
ever poor monastery was brave enough to exist.
They mock our gods, her father would say. As if that

was justification. As if their people did not ridicule the
Christians. As if her very name—Magdalena—was not
derived from their language. Her father had always been
a hypocrite. Fierce and strong, she supposed. Attentive
and doting enough when he was actually home.
But a hypocrite.
“I’d better get Mother,” Fressa muttered. She burst

into a sprint toward the tight, winding mass of their vil-
lage, her auburn braid whipping behind her. The sound
of the horn had reached the village—people were already
emerging, their faces turned to the water. But Lena knew
her sister well enough to know she would push off this
reunion as long as possible.
Amal fidgeted as Fressa fled. His feet tapped the
earth with a pattern so aggravating that Lena finally
snapped. “What?”

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