A Girl Named Calamity (Alyria 1)

My eyes widened as Grandmother grabbed a leather bag and filled it with bread and a water canteen. She was going to send her away? Regardless of the way I felt about my mother, she still needed help. We’d never turned someone in need away before, and we wouldn’t start now. Besides, considering her current state, my mother wouldn’t even make it down the road.

“Grandmother, you can’t send her away.”

She gave me a forlorn look, her brown eyes softening. “I’m not sending her away, Calamity.”

My mother lifted her head, her brow furrowed. “You actually gave her that name?”

“I didn’t name her. You did, Reina,” Grandmother replied while putting a small blanket in the leather pouch.

My confusion couldn’t decide between why Grandmother was packing and what they meant with my name. I had always known it was strange. I thought Grandmother wanted me to be different; she had always been about teaching lessons. When one of the neighborhood girls had called me a tragedy, I shut her up with my fist. I learned a lot with the name; I wouldn’t change it now. I swallowed hard, my chest tightening. Knowing that my mother had named me after a tragedy was, surprisingly, the most painful truth of the night. I wanted to feel indifferent to it, but I couldn’t help but feel as though someone had just punched me in the stomach.

Reina weakly shook her head. “I wasn’t serious, Mother. I can’t believe you would do something like that. No, actually, I can. You were always unforgiving after Father passed.”

Oh, what a relief. She’d only been jesting.

“Don’t berate me. We can both see the mess you have made of yourself,” my grandmother told her before she looked at me. “Cal, put these on.” She shoved some clothes at me.

I lifted a pair of pants and a long cotton shirt. “Why on Alyria do you want me to dress like a man?”

“Because you must look like one.”

My grandmother’s riddles on top of being punched in the gut were not something I could handle simultaneously. “Stop being evasive, Grandmother. I’m not putting them on until you tell me why.”

She turned to me, her gaze serious. “They know where you are now, and you need to leave before they get here.” She tossed some tall leather boots at me, but I only glanced at them as my unease grew and I wondered about her health. The horse and now this?

“Have you been drinking too much of your medicinal tea, Grandmother?” I asked as she rummaged around her tables with jittery movements.

“This isn’t a time for jests. I’ve told you a thousand times: if one of those cuffs came off, something horrible would happen.”

I wanted to say that this wasn’t the best time for my mother to steal from me either. But I bit my tongue. “What? What’s going to happen?” It was the middle of the night; surely she couldn’t be serious about us going anywhere.

“We don’t have much time. Put the clothes on now! They could be scouting the area already.” Her voice was shaky, and I could feel her anxiety surround me like a cloak. She lifted a floorboard and grabbed a pouch out of the hole, then looked at me intently.

Her eyes narrowed when I didn’t move, and with a sigh, I pushed my thoughts aside and finally obeyed, slipping the pants on. I pulled my nightgown off and switched it for the linen shirt. I had never worn pants before, and they were awkward as the rough material chafed against the inside of my thighs. When did she even get these?

My thoughts were interrupted when Grandmother came at me with a knife. My heart jumped and I took a step back, putting my hands up to ward her off. “What are you doing!”

She grabbed at my hair, and I realized then what she was planning. I pulled my hip-length strands out of her reach. “No! You’re not cutting it. Your mind has obviously been addled with old age!”

A horse and insane ramblings were one thing; cutting my hair was completely crossing the line.

She tried to grab at it again. “You have to look like a man, Cal.”

“Okay!” I said. “I’ll braid it and tuck it into my shirt.” I only hoped that she would get far away from me with that knife. I’d never even seen a woman with short hair. And I wasn’t going to be the first.

She grabbed a black cloak and threw it at me. “Keep the cloak on, then. All of Alyria will see you coming with your flaxen head like a virgin to a sacrifice. It’s not safe for you to travel as a woman; you must take all costs for others to think you are just a man passing through. Don’t take the cuffs off either. That is how they can find you.”

My mouth dropped open when I realized she wanted me to leave alone. “Are you mad?”

“No,” she answered.

“Oh, no, you really are.” I shook my head, my heart beating in unease. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She didn’t even raise a brow at me while she double-checked what she had put in the pack. “You’re going. Otherwise, you’re as good as dead.”

A chill crawled down my back. What was she talking about? And how was I supposed to travel alone? I had never left Alger; I didn’t even know the basic direction to Cameron, the closest neighboring city. My chest tightened in fear, and I shifted on my feet. “Have you not heard the stories of travelers not coming home, Grandmother? And you want to send me out there alone?”

“You have a chance out there; you have none here. You will do what I say.”