Babayaga

unsure.
    She rode on the stallion with the trader, listening for the roar of the sea for as long as she could until the horses led them up into the mountain trails. Finally the surf’s sound disappeared into the folds of the wind and her childhood vanished back behind an arbor’s bend. Then she felt alone. The horses climbed on. When they finally stopped, he walked them off the trail and made camp. There was no fire. The waning, bloodred light was slipping behind the distant dry peaks as her new husband set out their bedding. Frozen with fear, she lay down. He was not gentle, and the moments that followed were worse than any nightmare she could imagine. Her mother had never warned, or even intimated, that this is what marriage could bring, and her father had always been reassuring and gentle with her. As Elga screamed out in those dark hills, the most unbearable pain she felt was that of her parents’ betrayal.
    Two days later they reached her new home. Her husband, Oman, came from a shepherd clan, with three brothers who tended their goats together. Life was not easy; she was the only woman working for the four of them and the chores were onerous, endless, and came with no gratitude. She labored hard at backbreaking tasks, receiving no tenderness from her husband, a man who was absolute, resolute, and methodical in his actions.
    Soon she bore a son, and this pleased Oman greatly. The arrival of a child into their home brought the tender side of Oman to the surface. After his work was done, he would sit out in the field with their son for long periods, watching the light leave the day.
    Life was still brutal and hard, though it was only after she was pregnant a second time that the absolute horror of her existence arrived in full. She gave birth on a feast day. It was a painful, tearing birth, and when it was over she held the baby girl for only a few moments, watching her squeak and cry at the new light of life, before Oman took the child from her arms and told Elga to rest. When she awoke, her husband and the baby were gone. Her brother-in-law told her that the child had died in the night and her husband had gone to bury it.
    Over the next five years, three more sons were born, each of them healthy, and two more daughters came who did not live a day. Each girl she briefly held and comforted, and each one was taken from her hands. In the morning, the men always told her the same story. But by then she had been living with the tribe for nearly a decade, she knew their trades and how they bartered and dealt with the strangers passing by. She knew how to read her family’s eyes, and this was a tribe of bad liars.
    Oman’s youngest brother, Elon, was a sweet, foolish man. He was the one ready with song and drum when the wine was poured. She would work chores with him and gossip about the family. One day, as they were combing wool for the looms, she gaily chatted and led him down to her trap. “You are so good at this! I think I’ve changed my mind, I agree now with what my husband says.”
    “What does my brother say?”
    “Oh, you know, how he grumbles and says, ‘Bah, women are a waste of food.’ I say, ‘No, Oman, though I do not mean to dispute you, I say we women are very useful.’ Now, look at you, Elon, you are showing that he is right, you are so much better at even this chore than I am.”
    “Well, I am certain you women are better at some tasks.”
    “In the towns, perhaps. But not here. We need men for all our tasks. I can help with cooking and the wash, but you only need one woman for that. Too many women would be more useless mouths to feed, right? And even if our neighbors could pay enough for a wife, we get too few visitors looking to strike that kind of a bargain. Why, look how far my husband had to journey to find a woman.”
    “Yes, he went a long way and he still got a fat, ugly bride,” Elon said and both laughed.
    “Yes,” she said, “I am only good for making him sons.”
    “You have given him strong sons.”
    “I know. It is good too that those daughters of mine did not live. My husband did the right thing there.”
    “Yes, he did,” said Elon. He was about to say some other words, but stopped himself. That was when she knew the truth.
    “It is all right, my friend,” said Elga, shaking her head as if it were nothing. “He is a wise man, he is very wise. But tell me, where did he bury them? He never told me.”
    Elon was silent for a moment and then he answered her