Dindi
"Dindi!" Gwenika called from the woods. "Where did you go?"
Muck and mercy. Dindi jumped down from the log. She rushed to put on her outer wrap and backbasket. She managed to sit calmly on the riverbank just as Gwenika reached her.
The travelers had stopped about an hour before sunset to eat and make camp by the river. The adults were in two groups, busy talking to each other. They didn't care if the Initiates broke the No Talking rule. The boys had all gone hunting.
Dindi had hoped to be alone for a while. But Gwenika had found her, like always. And now Dindi heard more Initiates walking toward the log bridge.
"Your mother is a Zavaedi and you dance just as well as she does," Jensi was saying to Gwena, the older sister. Kemla was there too, along with five or six other girls. "They say you'll be asked to join the Tavaedi for sure."
"So you're that good, are you?" Kemla cut in. She pushed her way into the talk. "What can you do? Let's have our own little Vooma."
Gwena looked shy. The Tavaedies were out of sight, behind trees around a bend in the river. "You know we're not supposed to perform tama."
"Who said anything about tama? I just want to see what you can do. See that log? Can you do this?"
Kemla ran to the log. She cartwheeled across it and raised her arms in a V on the other side. "Well?"
"That's so easy I can do it with one hand behind my back," said Gwena. She flipped over the log with one hand on her back.
"Who needs hands?" Kemla said. She rushed back across the log, did a no-handed cartwheel, then landed and did a handstand off the log, dropping to the bank. She crossed her arms and smirked at Gwena.
"Fa!" said Gwena. "A baby could do that. Try this."
She bent backward and flipped twice in a row over the log in back handsprings.
Kemla followed with a round-off and a back handspring.
Gwena replied with a full-twisting double back leap. She spun twice in the air and landed several steps past the log.
"That's nothing," Jensi said loudly.
Kemla and Gwena both turned their heads toward her.
"You think you can do better, Jensi?"
"Not me. I'm not crazy. But I've seen Dindi do flips like that on a branch half as thick and twice as high. Haven't you, Dindi?"
Dindi turned bright red. "Jensi, what are you doing?"
"You're better than both of them together. Show them!"
Dindi wished the ground would swallow her. "Um."
"Yes, Dindi, show us what you can do," Kemla said, her voice sweet but mean.
"Sure, Dindi, give it a try," Gwena said, more kindly. "It's just for fun."
The other girls urged her. Dindi stood up. She ran toward the log.
"Dindi, wait, don't you—" Jensi started, but her warning came too late.
Dindi flipped into a handstand at the end of the log. Then she realized—she still had her shoulder basket on. Upside down, the basket flap broke open. Everything inside spilled out—over her, down the log, and into the river.
She gave a squeal and fell out of the handstand. She rolled in the soft mud to break her fall. It didn't hurt, but it must have looked worse than it was. Jensi screamed. Kemla laughed. Gwenika gasped, "Mercy! Are you all right?"
It was a mess. When Dindi stood up, river slime covered her face, her hair, and her white wrap. Worse, her beautiful white dancing costume had fallen into the river. It was stuck in the shallows and covered in mud. Some of her heavy stone tools had rolled into deeper water. She had to wade in, up to her thighs, to find them.
Was that everything?
The corncob doll.
She didn't see it. Not on the bank. Not in the water.
She was just starting to panic when Kemla let out another laugh.
"Fa la, Dindi, is this your totem doll?" Kemla asked, holding up the old cob by its ripped dress.
"Give it back to me," Dindi said. The river weeds tangled around her legs as she tried to climb the bank.
"Just look at it! Have you ever seen an uglier doll?"
Kemla threw the doll to Gwena.
"She's bald!" Gwena giggled.
The girls played keep-away, tossing the doll back and forth as Dindi tried to catch it.
"She has no face!"
"All the beads are gone!"
"It looks a hundred years old!"
"What a disaster of a totem!" Kemla shouted. "How—perfect!"
The other girls laughed.
Even Jensi.
Not Gwenika, though.
"This isn't funny," Dindi said. She jumped to grab the doll, but Kemla caught it and did a one-handed cartwheel over the log, holding the doll in the other hand.
"You have to come get it," Kemla said. "Cross the log—on your hands. If your feet touch it, I'll throw Baldy in the river."
Gwena led the other girls in a slow, steady clap.
Clap.
Clap.
Clap…
None of them would help her. They thought this was just a game.
If Dindi told them the truth—that the doll was dangerous—they would just laugh more.
She had no choice. No clever words came to her mind. If her fae friends were here, she'd have someone on her side. But the only faery watching was a blue-haired rusalka lurking in the deep center of the river.
Her eyes glowed with wild joy. Her water-weed hair floated in the whitewater. Rusalki were cruel Blue fae who liked to drown humans.
Fae weren't always kind either.
Dindi placed her hands on the log and flipped into a handstand. Her muddy skirt fell down, showing her loin girds. The girls giggled again. She gritted her teeth and kept going.
Palm by palm, she walked on her hands across the log. The moss made her hands slip, but she held on to the rough bark underneath.
It had felt easy when she practiced alone.
Now, with everyone watching, she felt slow and clumsy.
"You have to ask nicely," Kemla called, as Dindi reached the middle of the log.
"Can I please have my totem doll back?"
She was upside down, covered in mud. She felt like a fool. But she had to get the doll before it hurt someone.
"Sure, Dindi. Here it is!"
Kemla threw the doll as hard as she could—right into Dindi's chest.
Light burst all around her.
No, not now, Dindi thought.
Then she fell into the water—
—and into the other mind.