The Gods took Tade. Where is Spring?

Content caution: ritualized murder

They took my tade away in clanking chains. They took him with weaving reeds in his fists. They let him kiss my head and smooth my braids, let me pull his fur cape around his shoulders. The Gods allowed him a last tug on my chin—I couldn't stop it from trembling—then a deep bow to my mutta, a nod to all the village. "I wish you Spring," he said. 

The Gods took Tade, so where is Spring?  

When The Sun peeks out of The House in The Sky, Winter melts from the roof of my house. Drip, drip, drip. Then my heart thump-thumps and I throw up my hands and yell louder than a girl should, "Thank you, Tade! Spring has come!" 

But Spring doesn't stay. When The Sun goes inside, cold returns. There is snow and more snow. 

My tade was a good tade, a careful weaver of roofs. No storm ever tore the reeds he wove together. We were warm. Every elder in the village, every hunter and planter of grain, every woman round with baby was warm inside their houses.    

Men knew the worth of Tade's weaving. They paid him well: a cow, sheep, fat pigs, finger rings, and a woven gown with flowers in blue thread around the bottom. Swirling in it, Mutta said, "I am as fine as any chieftain's wife." 

And there was a necklace of yellow beads. Tade put it around my neck. He showed me a tiny winged thing inside one bead and laughed at my surprise.    

When The Sun peeks, the roof drip-drips into a puddle in the doorway of our house. Each drip makes a gentle ripple. 

I think Tade made no more than that. Did not thrash like the white ox I once saw sent to The Gods. Strong men dragged it deep into The Pool. How it bellowed as they held its head under. When he was sent, I think Tade was quiet.   

Mutta finds me sitting in the doorway. She gathers her cloak. Hops the puddle. Turning back, she bends low and pulls my frown up into a smile. "A girl should be a happy creature. A lamb leaping in the meadow."

I am not. I ask her, "Why was Tade not enough to bring Spring, to please Spring?"   

"Sssshhh." Mutta speaks in hushes. "Elov, you—" she begins only to swallow the words. Her eyes are behind me, and I know Cinge the Sacreder is there. 

"Blasphemous girl!" He speaks in hisses. 

This Sacreder took Tade to The Pool, then took his house, and us. 

He lies with Mutta every night. I can't sleep for the groaning, so must leave my mat near the fire for the cold corner of the house where the animals are. Tade's cow complains when I elbow it to make room for me. The sheep scold. Better the grunting of pigs than his. 

Cinge the Sacreder hisses again—"Do not doubt Spring."—and leaps the puddle to keep his pointy shoes dry. They were Tade's. 

In the village, there are whispers that Cinge came from beyond The Pool in the marsh where the land becomes water. Came, I think, very ragged for one chosen by The Gods. 

Now, he wears what Tade wore and eats more than any man or god-man should. Too much of the porridge Mutta stirs over the fire, all the sweetest berries I pick in the woods. Cinge, say the whispers, once feasted on a deer meant for The Gods. When I told Mutta this, she hushed me. 

"Elov is a lamb," Mutta tells him.     

Growls Cinge, "A lamb wandering from the fold."   

"Elov does not doubt The Gods." 

I dig in the puddle in the doorway and, splashing like a baby, splatter the pointy shoes with mud. 

The god-man reaches down, grasps my braids. "Pretty," he says. "As red as leaves at the end of Summer, their last blaze before falling forever. Shiny like moonlight on The Pool." 

In a voice smaller than my own, I thank him as a girl should.  

"Such fine braiding. Befitting a daughter of a weaver of roofs." 

His grip on my hair is strong. I can't pull free.

"A weaver so good that the people were warm in their houses and did not seek Spring."

In a voice softer than my own, I say, "Tade wanted Spring." 

"Did he? Spring beckoned me here because he was disloyal." 

I put my hands—cold and muddy—into prayer and raise them to my lips. "Sacreder, shouldn't The Gods give something great in return for so great a tade?" 

He's silent. He smiles a cruel smile. "Braids are a maiden's glory. A man will pay to marry you."  

I churn the bottom of my puddle into a deep sleep."Would I be enough to bring Spring?" 

"Perhaps," he says, a finger tapping on a dagger of Tade's he wears on a rope around his thick waist. "The Gods might then favour me even more and replace your value." 

At The Witnessing Place, Mutta is still. But when I bow to her, wish all the land Spring, she drops to her knees in the gown with blue flowers, and throws dirt on her head. I demand the strong men help her. They won't have to drag me into The Pool. I demand chains as heavy as Tade's. 

The Sacreder slaps my face. "Give me her necklace," he tells the men. 

I want to offer it to Spring myself, but they rip it away.  

"Tie her braids around the neck until she moves no more." 

And so I fall and fall. Fall past the ox which wanted to live, but was sent to The Gods. The great beast floats like the tiny winged thing floated inside the bead in my necklace.  

"Where is my tade?" I bubble to the ox. Round brown eyes stare and I fear it remembers me from that day. Tade had brought me to The Witnessing Place and set me near The Pool to watch my first ceremony. Does the ox blame me?

No. The animal is kind. It points its snout downward. Down. Go down. 

Through the murky water, I sink until he appears below me. He lies on the reeds he carried into The Beneath World, wears the cape I snugged around him. Across his chest is The Sacreder's chain.  

"Tade!" 

Eyes flutter and open and are as they were in The Above World—bluer than The Sky. But he doesn't smile his crooked smile when he sees me. My tade's face becomes like I've never seen it—blacker than The Sky in a storm. He wails. I'm tossed on waves of "No! No, no!" 

I call out, "I join you because Spring hasn't come." 

A new god has.  

Tade rises and floats to me. He loosens my braids and lays them on my shoulders, touches my broken throat. "Elov, you were Spring."