"Jessyka" by Jessica Lyn Thurber

Alone?  I have always been alone.  I know the word well.  I am the demon whelp, the bastard brat of the village.  It seems that every village must have one.  And some cruel twist of fate chose me, an orphaned child left on my foster mother's step, an unwanted burden on a house too poor to support itself. 

            I have always been different.  My snowy hair and golden honey colored eyes would have pointed me out in any crowd.  But it was my ears.  My ears, these cursed elven ears that made me a demon's child.  The humans had always feared Elves, but now, they had been causing new terror.  They were roaming in bands that were slaughtering any humans they found.  Their weapons were stronger and refused to break under any force.  They were obliterating whole villages with wanton cruelty.  Any survivors that were found were always mad with fear and couldn't even speak coherently about what had happened to them.  They were sensitive to light, though.  They cringed from any light.  The race of Man was at war with the Elves.  It was at this time, when the mere mention of the Elves caused fear and hatred that I was left in a human village.  And I, a tiny starving babe, with elf blood glaring out of my features, was the last thing that any home wanted.  To be caught harboring an Elf was death, and was to bring death to the whole village.  I was lucky to enter the village alive.

              But though I was scorned and spat upon by the others, I remember that my foster mother loved me.  She was afraid, and poor, and could scarcely keep her own children fed and clothed, but she offered to take me in when the village elders voted to throw me into the river, and forget they had ever found me.  She was a good-hearted woman, and I worked as hard as I could to help her.  Her name was Elamaya, but I called her Yama, too young to say her name, and too young to say Mother.  And she called me Jessyka, wealthy one, child of gold.  Perhaps she thought that I would be some sort of charm that would bring her family luck, and let them earn the money they needed to survive.  Better that she had called me Joslyth, accursed one in the Elven tongue, and Yama’s oldest daughter Corai’s favorite nickname for me.

            The second year I lived with Yama, a drought struck the village.  The elders blamed Yama for taking in the 'elf bastard'.  They decided that a sacrifice was needed to appease the gods and regain the rains.  They wanted me to be the blood offered to the gods.  But Yama, dear sweet Yama, wouldn't allow it.  I was one of her children now.  So the villagers drove her out.  I remember feeling their hatred of me and seeing it as if they were all engulfed in sheer red flames.  They killed her oldest son, Skye, burned her house with what few belongings she had and chased her and her two youngest children out.  They kept me behind, intent to sacrifice me anyway.  But my beloved Yama crept back that night and freed me.  I was three years old then, too young to understand, and she never would have told me, but Corai, the older of her two remaining children, was bitter about the loss of their home, and her older brother, blamed me, and told me what had happened. 

            Corai never liked me.  She was three years older than me and I think she was jealous that her mother seemed to love me, an outsider and an Elf besides, as one of her own children.  I remember her with a slight stain of red about her that made me think of the villagers' rage, and the strange red fire around them.  She always called me Jossie, little blight, a shortened version of Joslyth, mocking me.  Shelan, the younger of the two, was nearly a year younger than me, and he thought my white hair was beautiful, my ears were fascinating, and my eyes were lovely amber jewels.  He loved me as much as Yama did.  He insisted over and over again that he was going to marry me.  He would always add that because I wasn't really his sister, it would be okay.  I believed him, happy to have someone my age love me.

            Yama knew that we could never go back.  The villagers would be looking for blood after losing their sacrifice.  So we wandered.  This homelessness did not endear me to Corai.  She continued to blame 'that worthless Elf brat' for everything that went wrong.  Her favorite complaint was that it was my fault they had no home, and it was my fault that Skye was dead.  She kept begging Yama to leave me on the side of the road and that it would make everything better.  Shelan would start to cry and I would stand silent, looking at these three, the only family I knew, and prayed to Percia Mother Goddess that Yama would not leave me and that Corai would not hate me so much.

            Yama would never listen to her spiteful little daughter and would tell her to put such awful thoughts from her head.  I was her sister now, and she must learn to love me.  But it seemed that no matter where we went, we were never allowed to stay.  It was rare that we could even find a place to rest for the night.  They would see me and spit some kind of curse in my direction, and slam the door.  Sometimes we were met with anger, other times, with fear.  I didn't understand why these horrible people would treat us so badly, but I knew that it was because of me. 

            One night, I decided to run away.  I loved my family, even the vindictive Corai, and I wanted them to have a home.  So I snuck off in the darkness.  I thought I was helping them.  I was eight now, and a rather precocious child, as Elves are, but I did not have the strength to make it far on my own.  I walked further down the road until midday the next day, when my small legs gave out and I slept.  I awoke to Yama holding me and sobbing, scolding me for running off and telling me firmly to never do it again.  It was then that I finally realized how much Yama loved me.  I never tried to run away again.

            Finally, several hungry months later, we found an old deserted hut on the outskirts of a small out of the way village.  We cleaned the hut out and fixed it up, made it a home.  As always, Corai blamed me that we didn't have a proper home.  It was another black mark to my name on her already long list.  Shelan was delighted with it, and told me that we would live in a place just like this when we got married.  I smiled happily and helped Yama sweep off the dirt floor that never came clean.

            Our first day there, Yama took us into town, for food and blankets and everything else we needed.  I don't know where she got the money to buy these things, and I never asked.  We walked into the village market place and Yama stood straight and proud, but she seemed frightened.  I could see the fear surrounding her like a cold blue light.  I started to notice then that there was something strange about the way the people looked.  Yama grabbed my hand and pulled me along with her, but I looked around at all the people and noticed strange different colored light around them.  It was very very faint, but I could see it.

            Some were red, like the villagers at our first home, and a few were cold blue like Yama.  But there was every other color as well.  A merchant glowed faintly yellow as he gleefully counted a handful of gold he had just earned from some unsuspecting customer.  A harried mother showed orange as she scolded her energetic children.  And a few wicked looking men had a distinct black color around them.  I began to notice that the colors seemed to match the emotions of the person.  My Yama, frightened, was a color that showed how she felt.  The villagers' hate showed red.  Happiness was yellow, irritated was orange, and there were too many more to list.  Many colors were blended together in a confusing myriad of emotions.  It was very distracting and I stumbled many times, drawing a sharp reprimand from Yama.  I wanted to ask her about it, but she was too distracted.  I also noticed that as we passed and people saw me, the color around them faded to the icy blue of fear, or the red of hate.  There were whispers and curses and mutters.  Merchants refused to speak with Yama or sell her anything.  They feared the curse of an Elf.  Finally, Yama surrendered.

            “Corai, love, can you take Shelan and Jessyka home?  They’re too small to be here.”  She wouldn’t let me know that it was because of me the merchants wouldn’t speak to her, but I had already figured it out.

“Mamae!”  Corai cried, horrified.  “I can’t be seen with that!”  She pointed at me as if I was a pile of dung Yama had asked her to pick up.

“Corai!”  Yama scolded.  “You stop that!  Just take them back to the house, would you?”

“I’m not going to walk beside that stupid little jossie!”  She folded her arms and pouted.

“Corai, please.”  Yama sounded weary.  Corai turned on me and glared.

“You stay way behind me, Jossie.  You and that little wart can just stay so far no one can tell I’m with you.  Understand, stupid Jossie?”  She demanded.  I nodded meekly.

“Corai, stop treating Jessyka like that.  And don’t call your brother names.”  Yama sighed, as if she knew her words would have no effect on Corai’s spite.  Corai huffed and flounced off.  Before we left, Yama knelt down in front of me and took my hands.

            "Don't worry, my little Jessyka.  It isn't your fault."  She kissed my forehead and sent us off.

            Corai promptly ran off and left Shelan and I behind once we left the market.  I thought I saw a tiny streak of black in her usual red aimed at me, but I ignored it as a shadow.  Shelan promptly started to cry and I took his hand, trying to comfort him.

            "Don't worry, Shelan.  I know the way home.”  I assured him.

            "Really?"  He sniffed and wiped at his eyes.

            "Yeah.  We can make it without Corai."  I smiled at him.

            "Kay."  He answered my smile with one of his own and we kept walking.  I watched the color cloud around him change from the blue of fear, to a darker sad blue to a happy yellow.  His yellow was strongly tinted with pink.  I think that was his love.  I had seen the same color around Yama most of the time.

            We made it home all right, despite Corai, but she wasn't at home when we got there.  Yama came home well after dark, and still Corai wasn't home.  Yama was worried and so was I.  Shelan was put to bed early, but I couldn't sleep.  Even though she hated me, she was the closest thing I had to a sister and I loved her, no matter how she felt about me.

            Corai never showed up that night.  Or that day.  Yama went to the village and begged for help to find her daughter.  No one recognized her as the woman with the Elf child, because they had all focused on me.  They were good people and sent out parties to search for Corai.  But she was gone.  No one could find her anywhere.  The search went on for weeks with no luck.  A dark blue light always surrounded Yama and her face was so pale.  Shelan and I did every thing we could to make her happy, but all we could get was a horrible forced sad smile. 

As time went on, the searches stopped.  Yama refused to give up hope for the longest time.  She kept a candle lit on the window at night and she rarely slept.  She would fix meals for us, but she hardly ate any of it.  She became thin and wispy, and there was always a dark blue color hovering about her.  A year passed this way.  And another.  I watched me Yama become a ghost.  I was twelve years old when she finally gave up and died.  She held on for three years, sustained by my and Shelan’s love for her, but she couldn’t hold on any longer.  The villagers quietly buried her.  A childless couple adopted Shelan but I was told politely but firmly that they had no room for me.  All of Shelan’s tears and fits did nothing.  The village people were kind to me only because of my mother, and my welcome had just worn out.  They said I could rest there for one night, and in the morning they would give me whatever food I needed and send me on my way. 

I cried more than slept that night.  My Yama was gone and my brother was being torn from me.  I was once more an unwanted bastard brat.  I didn’t know where I would go or what would happen to me.  I was frightened and never had I dreaded any sunrise more.

The sun rose like it always has.  Shelan was not permitted to see me before I left, but I caught him with his nose pressed to the window of the house he lived in now.  Tears were streaming down his open face, and he was waving.  I waved back as my eyes started to burn.  Tears of my own fell as I turned and ran out of this village that had rejected me like so many others.

I walked through the morning, ignoring the path and where my feet were taking me.  It barely registered when I entered a thick forest.  Only when the canopy blotted out the sun did I finally look up from my own personal misery.