The Ash Girl
by A’Lis Bly
For my daughter Claire
Hun Vedverte
Chapter XII
1953-1960 CE
The City of Clouds-The Village of Ash
Asmeret wandered between tents; her head hurt again, yet she could think. Remember. The cavern of gold, the river, the singing of the ghost animals falling, falling, arrrrraaaaaaaaa, the ravens pulling them from the river where they bumped up against her, the zebra, the rhino—bloody stump where they’d hacked off the tip of its horn—climbing the staircase behind the boar. Her.
Chapter XV
Goddesses’ Basecamp
I turned toward the clackclackclack of something trotting across the ice and a haruff behind me. The smirk on the goat’s face caught my eye first. So familiar.