A Girl Named Calamity (Alyria 1)

I nodded, and she let a long piece of leather drop out of her closed fist. “When a woman attends a Sylvian festival, she must show whether she is available. A taken woman will wear a piece of leather on her ring finger that ties around her wrist. A woman who is . . . accessible wears the leather around her upper arm.”

“Why the upper arm?” I asked while she began to tie it around mine.

“Because it’s easy to grab hold of,” she stated.

I blinked. “What?”

“It’s tied leaving a loop so that it would be easy for a man to grab it . . . and pull you in.” She smiled.

I frowned. “I don’t want men pulling me in.”

“Relax, Amity. They won’t unless you want them to.”

“You really shouldn’t tie that on my arm because I’m not available.”

“You are taken then?” she asked while she continued to tie the leather in an interesting way. She smelled like lemons and patchouli, herbs my grandmother used often.

“Well no . . . but I’m not available right now.”

“You are either taken or available; there is no in between.”

I sighed and let her finish. I didn’t need the attention of men right now, especially them pulling me in, whatever that was supposed to mean. No man would have wanted to follow me across the country and get involved with my problems.

A smile tugged at my lips as I realized one already was. I hadn’t seen Weston since he took off after he had gotten us rooms. A part of me was worried that he was just going to leave me somewhere. The other part didn’t think he was the type of man to run off. If I was wrong and he did strand me somewhere, then I would have made it work. I might have been a total mess in the mountains, but I wasn’t a total weakling.

I could handle myself.

I liked to think.

CHAPTER TEN

UNWILLING OMEN

The festival was in the heart of the city. We walked down the maze-like dirt streets for a long while until we entered a large open square. Wooden tables covered the area, and people milled around, stopping at all the vendors and booths set up. The dark night was lit by the moon’s light and the surrounding torches. The Star of Truth was as bright as the night I left Alger. It was a comfort only to look up and be able to find my way home.

A dancer ran past us with a baton, both ends on fire. I watched as more joined, and a beautiful dance made of fire began. At the end of the performance, the dancers threw their batons up in the air, and I jumped at the small explosion. Fire that spelled, ‘Sylvia,’ was the only thing left as the orange flickers drifted away and diminished.

A couple of men walked past me, and one stopped in his tracks. I swore that he sniffed the air.

In a flash, the situation with the soap came back to me. I expected the man to grimace and walk away, but instead he walked towards me and introduced himself.

I had to extradite myself from the conversation, as he didn’t seem as though he was going to leave anytime soon. Rosa smiled and helped me get away. I tried to ask her about the soap, but she cut me off and pointed at some vendor’s stand while prattling on about what she wanted to buy. As we walked around and looked at the wares, I noticed more strange reactions. Some men did grimace and walk away.

Just when I would begin to feel self-conscious, a man would crowd my space and it was a painful experience to escape his attention.

I tried to push my irritation at the awkward situation aside, and when Rosa offered me the traditional Sylvian brew, I didn’t hesitate to accept. I blamed the old lady in the bathhouse; she had driven me to drink. I hoped I ran into her so that I could coax an answer from her about the soap, but wasn’t too hopeful with her sneaky ways.

When I wasn’t having to dodge men who seemed too interested in me or having to weave past men who seemed less than interested, we talked and drank. I watched a dance of women who all had leather on their upper arms while the men stood in a straight line.

“If you are interested in finding a man, you should go dance,” Rosa said over the music and revelry. I shook my head at her and watched the dance. It seemed similar to Alger dances where the women weaved around the men, their left leather-clad arm towards them. I watched as a man slipped his hand around the leather on one woman’s arm, the dance slowed for a moment before the woman nodded her head, and then with the man’s hand around the leather, they left together.

Ah, so that was being pulled in. A lot tamer than I had assumed.

“Where are they going?” I asked Rosa.

“To get to know each other,” she replied.

A song played, and I could feel the emotion within it as the rhythm sped up and slowed down. The feeling of sadness from happiness to passion was a jarring effect. I didn’t feel anger, and I assumed that would have probably put a damper on the crowd.