LITR 3731: Creative Writing
Student Fiction Submission 2003

Brandie B. Minchew

She Who Dances

            "None of those dresses will do, Melia," Carolyn, their stepmother, protested, looking at the styles Melia had pulled off the rack and laid out for Ella to look at.

            Melia, bride-to-be, blushing, blond, and beautiful, as well as Ella's sister and best friend, furrowed her eyebrows.  "Don't you like them?" The question was directed more towards Ella, but it was Carolyn that answered.

            "It's not a question of liking, dear," she said in a patient tone.  "You have to be sensible.  Ella is the biggest of all the bridesmaids.  She has to be the control subject for your choice, as whatever you pick has to flatter her."

            Ella, pretending not to hear, flipped through dresses on a rack at the far side of the store.  The petite rack.  It was impossible, in that small store, to keep from hearing this conversation for the umpteenth time.

            "She's a size fourteen!" Melia protested.  "There's nothing wrong with her weight!"

            "She was a size nine just a year ago," Carolyn shot back.  "She knows your wedding is coming up, and she's not even trying."

            The delicate fabric of the size six silky red dress crumpled in Ella's hand, and she bolted out the door.

            Long after she left her sister and stepmother behind her, the words were still circling like vultures in her uppermost thoughts.  On the city sidewalk, people shoved up against her though she tried to avoid them, and in her mind's eye she was wider than the sidewalk and just as cracked.  Twilight was so cold this time of year.  She wished she had a sweater that would fit her. Even her winter coat from last year didn't fit anymore. 

            Grotesque reflections blotted out all the pretty dresses on the shapely mannequins as night came swiftly, as winter nights do.  Neon and fluorescence poured over her skin, bringing out every flaw, and she shuddered away from the shop windows. 

            Where did I go? she wondered.  Things were much better than they had been a year ago.  Endless days of sobbing wretched hide-under-the-blankets self-hatred had come to a close, and she had acknowledged the truth that her engagement to Jacques had ended through no fault of her own.  On the other side of the tears, she could see how terribly ill-matched they had been, and how foolish she had been to cling to the hope of mending their relationship.  Except that when she'd finally come to terms with herself again, she found that although the destructive emotions were gone, the chocolate and comfort foods she'd consoled herself with were still very much with her.  And days like today made her spiral back down into a helpless self-loathing that bit at her like a kind of crazed and frightened animal.

            Desperate to get away from the crush of people on the main sidewalk, she veered down a side street.  She hadn't gone down it very far when delicious aromas surrounded her on all sides.  She wanted to turn around, but it was too much trouble to go back, even though the last thing she needed right now was to stuff her face.  Several restaurants with open air patios strung with colored lights had doors standing open.  Scents of strange, exotic spices indicated Middle Eastern and Indian fare, of which Ella was particularly fond. 

            She was aiming for a brightly lit establishment at the end of the street when a sinuous drumbeat entwined around her, coupled with high, breathy flute-like notes.  She looked around, trying to determine which restaurant the music pulsated from and saw a festively hung door across the street.  Little lights twinkled in the garlands of red and gold ribbons. She crossed the street and pushed open the door.

            Down a short, dark hallway, she found what she thought was the main room.  It became immediately apparent that this was not a restaurant.  Or, if it was, it wasn't being used for that purpose tonight.  Sharp, spicy aromas from various exotic dishes made her eyes and her mouth water.  Large cushions of deep, vibrant colors were strewn about a thickly carpeted floor.  Incense of roses and sandalwood mingled with the food smells. The alluring music threaded through a multitude of loud, laughing voices, accented by the occasional shrill squeal.  Women dressed in bright costumes of some mid-eastern culture lounged on the cushions or stood talking in groups or delivered food to several of the low tables around the room. 

            Astonished and embarrassed, Ella started to back out to the street, when a bony hand gripped her wrist, and she looked down, startled, into the face of a wizened old woman who smiled up at her.

            "Come in, come in and see," she said to Ella in a thickly accented voice.

            "Oh, no, ma'am, I'm sorry," Ella protested, but the woman didn't let go.  Instead, her hand still gripping Ella's wrist, she pulled her forward into the room full of women.

            Heads swiveled, some decked with bright scarves, others with pretty ornaments.  Jewels snapped in the low light.  Ella's cheeks burned and she tried gently to free herself from the vise-like grip that drew her forward.  The old woman cackled and spoke rapidly in another language, and one of the younger women, a girl of perhaps Ella's age, rose gracefully from the cushions.

            "Ah, Granmama, you caught another one!" she laughed, winking surreptitiously at Ella.  The girl had a high forehead and hair as black as a calligrapher's first stroke.  It was twisted in a clip and tumbled down her back.  Her bright blue costume drew out her deep olive complexion.

            "She wants to see, Mahta," burbled Granmama, and the idea seemed to amuse her. She dropped Ella's wrist, then, and took her hand in both of hers, patting it for a moment before wandering off into the crowd.

            "I'm sorry," said Ella, quickly.  "I was looking for a restaurant. I didn't realize this was a residence until I came down the hall. I am very sorry."

            Mahta regarded Ella for a moment, then spoke, and she had no trace of an accent. "Granmama just arrived for the wedding about three months ago," she said. "She thinks that American women need to be educated in the proper ways of being women."

            Knowing what to say was difficult.  "I... she was very kind. I tried to tell her that I didn't want to intrude, but I don't know if she understood."

            Laughing, Mahta shook her head and intricate gold earrings danced on her shoulders. "She understood. But young women do not know what is best for them. That is for the older women to tell them.  And no doubt if you tried to leave, she'd see you and raise a fuss. So I guess you'd better stay."

            "Oh, no..." protested Ella.

            "Oh, yes," said Mahta.  "Come." She seemed to take it for granted that Ella had nowhere to be at the moment.  She swayed gracefully through a crowd of curious onlookers and led Ella to a group of women seated around a low table.  The woman in the center of the crowd wore a red outfit covered in glittering jewels and a diaphanous scarf flowed over her hair and down her shoulders.  A woman sat in front of her and worked delicate designs on her hand with a tiny paintbrush.

            "This is my sister, Suri," said Mahta, and the woman moved only her eyes to smile at the two girls. "She's getting married tomorrow."  This statement brought a flurry of chatter and laughter from the women surrounding Suri, and Suri cast her eyes down and blushed. Mahta chuckled throatily as well.  "What's your name?" she asked.

            "Ella," Ella replied.

            "Suri, Granmama captured Ella at the doorway, and I'm keeping her for awhile," Mahta told her sister, who smiled again but had no time to say anything before another woman sought her attention.

            Mahta grabbed Ella's hand and dragged her away.  From a side table, she loaded a plate with tidbits of strange foods as Ella stood uncomfortably nearby.  Then they sat down on two cushions amongst some other women, who smiled at Ella shyly, even as she smiled shyly back.

            "Tell us why you were crying," Mahta demanded as Ella bit into a spicy pastry. Ella nearly choked but managed to finish the tidbit and looked up. Her eyes were watering again but from the seasonings not unhappiness.  Still, the looks all around her held compassion, and one older woman handed her a handkerchief.  Astonished, Ella dabbed her eyes before making a reply, which seemed to please the giver.

            "Well, my sister is getting married, too," she began, and was interrupted by outbursts from several of the women, though she couldn't understand what they were saying.  Mahta shushed them, and they all waited for her to speak again.  "We were picking out dresses in the shops, and my stepmother, Carolyn, said..." Here, she hesitated.

            "Where was your real mother?" Mahta interjected.

            "She's dead," said Ella, and, to her surprise, honest tears welled up in her eyes this time.  It had been years since she'd cried for her mother, but she realized that was what she had been wishing for all day - to have her mother there instead of Carolyn.

            One of the women asked a question, and Mahta translated rapidly.  The looks of compassion deepened, and an older lady put her arms around Ella.  "Poor baby, no mother," she said.  Ella wanted to sob out all her troubles to this woman, but she kept her composure as best she could.

            "And your stepmother is not kind?" asked Mahta, determined to have the whole story out.

            "She means to be," replied Ella, "but... she... says I'm too fat, that I'm not trying to lose weight, and that I'm ruining Melia's wedding."

            Mahta, who was about the same size as Ella herself, looked stunned, and Ella wondered if she had offended her.  Then the girl burst out laughing and set her earrings to dancing once more.  She spoke rapidly to all the women, who also laughed.  It was contagious. Ella smiled, too.  "Watch," said Mahta.

            She leaped to her feet and called across the room. "Granmama! Granmama!" The old woman hurried over with a tray of sweets.  Striking a dynamic pose with one knee bent and a hand behind her head, she asked, "Am I beautiful, Granmama?"

            Granmama replied in a string of liquid syllables that made Mahta and the other women laugh.  "Vanity, vanity," Granmama muttered.  "You are too fat," she said, pinching Mahta's stomach where her midriff was visible underneath her blue top.  "You'll never get a husband with so much fat."  She gave Mahta an admonishing poke with her finger but left the tray of sweetmeats and pastries on a low table nearby. 

            Everyone was laughing. And it was indeed funny, because there was no denying Mahta's beauty. 

            "You have beautiful skin," said the woman next to Ella, who had given her the handkerchief.  "Like moonbeams."

            "Get up, let's look at you," said another woman.

            "Oh, no," said Ella.  But they made her get up and stand in the middle of them all as they looked up at her. 

            "Good hips - she'll have babies," cackled one woman, setting off another round of laughter. 

            "You should let your hair grow," suggested another, standing to touch Ella's short, dark hair that fell in a cloud around her face.  "Men like long hair."

            "Her eyes are good eyes," added another.  "Such a pretty blue, like sapphires. Not pale, like some."  This statement brought a general murmur of agreement.

            "Mahta, you do need to be thinner," scolded one of the women, as Mahta bit into a succulent piece of baklava.  "You'll be married after your sister."

            "Nah," replied Mahta around a mouthful of pastry. "I'm going to University to be a doctor." This brought a storm of protest from the older women.  "But..."  She wiped her mouth delicately on a napkin.  "I don't need to worry about my weight as long as I can do... this!"

            She bounded over to a corner where a small stereo was placed and turned up the volume.  The enchanted music that had first drawn Ella into this dreamlike room washed over them all.  Mahta raised her arms above her head and began to dance.  It was like no dancing Ella had ever seen.  She twisted sinuously, her hips moving separate from the rest of the body.  She rolled her fat from underneath her top to hang over her skirt, and instead of being disgusting, it became beautifully female as she oscillated before them. 

            "She who dances moves the world!" shouted Mahta, and she was sound and light and motion.

            The other women were shouting encouragement, and the attention of the entire room was drawn to Mahta.  Other women, of all sizes, joined her, and it struck Ella that here was a dance just for women, just to celebrate the female body in all its forms.  A moment later, she was surrounded by gyrating, undulating forms. 

            "Shameless girls, shameless!" said Granmama at Ella's elbow, but she said it fondly with a chuckle.

            Mahta grabbed Ella's hand and pulled her into the center of the crowd.  Ignoring Ella's objections, she pulled Ella's t-shirt out of her jeans and rolled it up so that it was tucked just beneath her breasts and her midriff was exposed.  "Like this," she said, demonstrating a hip roll.  "Just listen to the music and don't worry about your body."

            Self-consciously, Ella raised her own arms and tried to imitate Mahta's movements.  The other women, busy with their own dances, shouted encouragement and suggestions, some in English, some in their native tongue.  Mahta turned the music up louder, and a moment later, Ella, entranced, felt her body moving in ways she had never imagined before.  For the first time in forever, she felt not only female, but sexy and alluring and beautiful. 

            Suri, the bride-to-be, joined them in her heavy finery, her hands decorated in leafy coils of intricate designs.  She and Mahta bumped hips and shimmied in circles around each other.  Ella thought of Melia.  In a moment, she would go home. She and Melia would pick out dresses, and she would pay no more mind to Carolyn's words than Mahta would.  For now, the whole room throbbed with the drums, jewels glittered like stars, veils swirled, hips swiveled, and bellies rolled.  In  the center of it all, Ella raised her hands to the sky and danced.

Prologue: By Any Other Name

Scent, a nauseating, sweetish odor, woke her first. Torchlight played over eyelids that felt weighted down as she tried to open them. She raised a weak hand to her head and found that her eyelids were, indeed, weighted down, with golden coins, one for each eye. With a gasp and shudder, she sat up and shook the filmy shroud from her body.


Jul thanked whatever gods might be listening for the burial customs here in the Spice Lands, and that her own people found it less difficult to follow the local customs than to insist on the customs of their homeland. If she had been sealed in a crypt, her secret life after death would have quickly become a moot point.


Shaking her head to clear it of the drug she had used only added to the throbbing ache in her temples. Carefully, she swung her legs over the side of the low stone slab, and tried to stand. It wasn't until that moment that she realized her plan had gone badly, badly awry.


At the foot of her slab lay a young man, dressed in the clothes of homeland nobility, his facial muscles contorted in that deathly rictus that poison leaves behind.
Jul's hand flew to her mouth, as the sight of his body and the sickening smell of death in this crypt combined to heave her stomach upside down. "No," she whispered. "Oh, no. You fool, you stupid fool..." Even she didn't know who she was calling fool - herself, or the misguided yob who had died by his own hand at her feet.


She knelt beside him, brushing soft, black hair from his eyes, which were filmy white by now. She had been asleep longer than she had expected, if he was so long dead. "Fool," she said again, gently, and reached back for the gold coins that had fallen from her eyes moments before. She lowered his lids, and long black lashes brushed his cheeks, and even in death, he was beautiful. She laid the coins in their place. "Rosemary would have taken care of you, fair Romeo, had you only given her the chance," Jul said softly, and her eyes welled with tears.


Rosemary! Jul stood up with the shock. Her mind felt full of cobwebs, she wasn't thinking straight. She was still half in the drugged dream that was part of a price paid for her freedom. Rosemary would be here in minutes, should have already been here, and she would find her love dead at Jul's feet. Stepping over Romeo's form, she turned to survey the situation. And saw that she was too late. Rosemary was already here.


Rosemary was dead.


No. No, no, no, no, no. Jul's thoughts became a suffocating whirlpool of dread and terror and despair. At Romeo's feet lay Rosemary, childhood friend, companion, accomplice, confidante, almost-sister... Her eyes were open and their expression was hideous, her mouth twisted in agony. Blood was everywhere, everywhere, and Jul was standing in it, and Rosemary was dead, dead, dead...


Hands pressed tightly to mouth to stifle screams that welled up and would not be silenced entirely. To any hearer, they might have likened the sounds to tiny mouse squeaks, but to Jul, they were louder than the cry of a desert blood-wraith and twice as horrible. Tears followed screaming, and finally Jul gained control of her body once more. She knelt in her friend's blood, by her side, and gently turned her over. Her arms were slit from wrist to elbow, both of them, the desperation of thwarted love somehow having given squeamish Rosemary strength of will and body to end her own life.


Jul moaned and sobbed and pressed her face to Rosemary's breast, willing the ending to change, wanting the gods to take it all back. If they would only take it back, she would be a dutiful daughter, she would marry Romeo, she would do anything, even if Rosemary hated her, if it only meant that these deaths would be lifted from her conscience. Romeo's death she could bear. Rosemary's could not. Oh, gods, take it back, take it all back, she prayed as she sobbed. Take it all back.

Her Appearance, Fair Seeming

Reham al'Almahdi was packing his daughter's school lunch when she came downstairs at her usual time. He hastily tucked a little cake and a card into her lunch bag and closed it up, before she came skipping into the kitchen. Today was Nissa's fifteenth birthday. Reham looked at his daughter, resplendant in her quiet, grey high school uniform, her long dark hair shimmering against the golden skin of her face. She smiled at him, and he realized something about her was different.

She had begun to look like her mother.

Nissa was beginning to lose her baby fat, and her face, which had been round in childhood, was now accented by high cheekbones and a pointed chin. She had always been slender, but overnight, it seemed, her limbs had taken on a look of fragility, as if any strenuous effort would destroy them. And yet, underlying the seeming frailty were the lines of wiry muscle. Last, he noticed the most profound change - a new translucence, an appearance that was almost unearthly.

She looked like her mother.

Reham's breath caught, and fear for his daughter clamped down upon him. It lasted only seconds, and when the terror loosed him, he felt an aching sadness settle in his heart. How could he protect her? He had hoped that she would not show signs of changing. But in a week, maybe two, no one could help but see. And They would see. And Nissa... His daughter, all that was left to him of his beloved Niobe, would be taken from him. Even if he managed to hide her safely, he would never see her again.

"Father?"

Nissa al'Almahdi almost floated into the kitchen. She felt so amazingly happy today! Did every girl feel so wonderful when she turned fifteen? Nissa could feel the difference, in her heart, in her body, in her mind. Every color seemed brighter today, every sound had new clarity, every thought had new meaning, and she felt an irrepressible sense of joy bubbling up within her. It was inexplicable, but Nissa didn't dwell on it - it just was.

Her father was in the kitchen, as he always was, preparing her lunch bag. Dear Father! He had taken such good care of her, all of her life. Other girls at school complained bitterly about their parents, and especially the fathers that wouldn't let them do this thing or that thing. Not Nissa.

She felt a kinship with her father that she had with no other person. It was the two of them against the world, or it seemed that way sometimes. He helped her with her schoolwork in the afternoons, and in the evenings, after supper, she helped him with his work, writing code for small modules that he would later incorporate into larger computer programs. She knew that he sometimes worried that she spent so much time alone, but she was comfortable being alone, being quiet, just listening, as she called it. Listening to the world. She found no companionship in her schoolmates. They didn't tease her, nor were they unkind, but she had nothing to share with them, nor they with her, so she held herself aloof. It didn't bother her. Even when Father had to be gone for a week or two, she never felt lonely. It was a gift that she had always been thankful for. But she knew he worried.

He was worrying about something now. She could see it. She had watched his face go ashen for a moment, but now he just looked sad. "Father?" She kissed him on the cheek and he put an arm around her shoulders. "Is something the matter?"

"La, my heart," he replied, shaking his head. "It is nothing, except that I am not well today. Here, take your lunch - you are late this morning." His eyes scolded her. Being late for school was a definate transgression. They might be a team, she and her father, but he kept his team member up to snap with firm discipline where school was concerned.

Nissa frowned, knowing that he wouldn't tell her any more. She accepted that, but it annoyed her. If he was sick, he should see a doctor, but that was another thing that Rahem al'Almahdi was stubborn about. It was no good to stand here and argue though - she would only be in for a lecture, otherwise. So she let him hand her her lunch bag and kiss her cheek, and out the door she went.

As usual, her father stood on the porch of their little house and watched her to the end of the street, and as usual, she waved back at him before she turned the corner. Today, somehow, her vision was sharper than normal, and it almost seemed as if he had tears in his eyes.

The school was not far from where she lived. Even in a city the size of Token, each individual community had a school within walking distance for the children. The city was divided into hundreds of small communities, all clustered around the inner ring. Public transport was also within walking distance and was so efficient that no one needed to own a personal transport vehicle. The public transport system was also completely free - all you had to have was your i.d. bracelet, and you could go anywhere in the country. When a person found a need for a private transport, small vehicles were available for rental at a good price. No vehicles were allowed into the communities, though, so as not to put pedestrians at risk.

It hadn't always been like this, as Nissa's history teacher tried to strongly emphasize. It wasn't so long ago, only half a century in fact, that the millions of people in Token, indeed, the billions on the continent, had lived in relative squalor, and crime was rampant, and people were starving, people were repressed, books were censored, people were condemned for their beliefs, and, and... Mr. Henri would go on and on to list the dozens upon dozens of other reasons why they were so lucky to live in this great enlightened age, under this great empire, where not only technology was valued, but also the free thoughts of a free people. She and her classmates were so bored with the repetitiveness of it all, hearing over and over again the same things they'd been taught since kindergarten, that they usually tuned out whatever teacher was proselytizing the joys of the Valhrani Empire that day.

Still, every single one of them stood and repeated with fervor their vows to give allegiance and service to the Empire which gave so much to them. Nissa, perhaps not quite as loudly as the rest, did the same. Something in her told her that it was the thing to do, although it was only words to her. She could not feel any connection whatsoever with this "great Empire" that had given it's citizens their freedom. The only time she ever felt lonely was when she watched the other children pledging their allegiance to the Empire, for, although she also said the words, she did not feel them as the others seemed to do.

She just barely made it into her seat before the first bell, too hurried to notice the odd, quick glances that the other students cast in her direction. It was not unusual for her to speak to no one through the whole morning, so it did not disturb her that no one tossed a greeting, as some occasionally did. She took her homework from her schoolbag and laid it properly on her desk. Thanks to her father's strict ways, she had never had the shame of a scolding in front of the class for not having her homework ready, a fact that Nissa was proud of, although she tried not to flaunt it, as some children did. It wasn't that she was proud of doing better than the others, but that she was proud of herself for meeting a goal. It was another thing her father had taught her, that pride.

Mrs. Whitaker bustled into the room, plump and rosy as she was every morning. She smiled brightly at the students and took role, calling each name in a vibrant voice. She was the school's music teacher as well as a Literature professor, having once been an opera singer in Fialdor, a city even bigger than Token. She had discovered Nissa's voice when Nissa was seven years old, and she had high hopes that her star pupil would someday take a scholarship slot in the big music conservatory in Fialdor. Nissa wasn't sure that she wanted to do that, but it was an option, and she was considering it. So she had told Mrs. Whitaker last month, and Mrs. Whitaker had agreed that it was best to keep all one's options open, although that agreement had come with a strange glance. This morning, as Mrs. Whitaker's smile beamed in Nissa's direction, the glance was more than strange. It was almost... disturbed. Nissa wondered if a bird had flown unnoticed over her head. The pigeons, after all, were becoming pests in the school courtyard, and occasionally unlucky students came into school bearing tokens of the birds' affection.

When Mrs. Whitaker came around to her desk to collect the homework pages, she looked down worriedly at Nissa and laid a gentle hand against her forehead. "Are you feeling quite well today, dear?" she asked.

"I've never felt better, Mrs. Whitaker," replied Nissa, confusedly. Only then did she begin to notice the carefully averted eyes of the students around her. "Please, what..."

"I really think," her teacher interrupted, her eyes wide with concern and something akin to sadness, "that you should visit the nurse, dear. Let me write you a pass."

"Really, I feel fine," Nissa protested, uneasily.

Mrs. Whitaker was already at her desk, writing on a hall pass. Instead of handing it directly to Nissa, she instead folded it over and sealed it. "Take this and show it to the nurse, Nissa," she said firmly.

"Yes, doña," Nissa capitulated. She took the pass, gathered her schoolbag up, and opened the door to the hallway. After the heavy door shut quietly behind her, she could still hear an outburst of chatter, and Mrs. Whitaker pounding her desk for silence.

In the familiar, deserted corridor, suddenly, unexplainably, Nissa was afraid. The euphoria that had accompanied the morning of her fifteenth birthday was now dissolving into something terrifying. She seemed to be in high gear, her instincts heightened, poised for... for what? What was so awful about the way she looked today that it could make her father cry, disturb her teacher, and disrupt a classroom? Quickly, she ducked into the girl's bathroom for a quick peek at the mirror.

Nothing unusual, she thought, as she looked herself over. No bird poop, at least. To be honest, she looked better today than any other day of her life. Her hair was shiny and thick and lively, and her skin was almost luminous. She pushed her hair back behind her ears, the ears that were Nissa's favorite feature. They just barely turned up into points at the tips. Father said that she inherited those ears from her mother. Looking closely, Nissa admitted to herself that by today's standards of beauty, she was stunning. It didn't mean anything to her, really, but it was nonetheless true. So why would her appearance unsettle Mrs. Whitaker and make her think she was sick? Nissa's brow creased worriedly. Maybe... maybe she should just go home.

She left the bathroom, but back in the hallway she was still undecided. Home, or the nurse's office? If she didn't obey Mrs. Whitaker, if she left school without permission, it would mean trouble, and her father would certainly be angry at her for ruining her perfect record. But... something just felt wrong. Something inside her made her want to run, fast, to get away.

And there was another thing. A feeling, a sense of something just outside herself, non-threatening, something waiting, or rather, something ready. Ready to be used. Used for what, she wondered? She could feel it, but she couldn't see it - it shimmered at the corner of her mind, just like something in her peripheral vision. Except that there was nothing to see. The unknown somethings, both the terrible thing and the non-threatening thing, caused her to delay her decision a minute too long.

As she stood indecisively in the hall, heavy footsteps turned the nearby corner, and she found herself face to face with Mr. Pavani, the headmaster. He looked at her sternly, as he would any student standing idly about when classes were in, then peered at her more closely. She tried to lower her head so that her hair would fall over her face, trying to hide whatever it was that seemed to be upsetting people so, but it was to no avail. After a fleeting look of shock crossed his features, Mr. Pavani's expression turned to something that Nissa could only class as sinister.

To Be Continued...