Divine Harassment

Softly she walks through her newly acquired home, a place she knew would remain empty save the most rare invitation. Atarah wasn’t a gregarious person, and this far out from the intentions of even the locals kept the promise of a quiet life in her future.

She breathes in the cold of the setting sun, and the world feels as small as her new home.

In a breath between moments on a farm far from here, she’d watched the sky, and counted the stars. She tried to see their shapes, their constellations, to read the future as they moved through the inky sky, though she could never have known their names.

She couldn’t read either way back then, it wasn’t something important for someone like her to know, so she simply didn’t.

All she can afford to remember of that time so long ago, was a sharp thought spared to those little lights falling true.

“I wish I could leave, like you.”

No matter the silence of this little want the star still fell to earth hard and fast. To spite the woes of fate and gravity, there was one single blight in her thoughts. Why do they still follow her?

Quietly the sun falters as night settles on. There were some who’d worried for her, “how can you live alone?”

But on a cold night like tonight, the only answer is, “how could I share the sheets?”

…

Atarah’s life in due preference was quiet and singular, her days divided from those who would seek to judge her for a past she didn’t dare share. She knew her place if such things were known of her, and found an ease of conscience in such avoidance.

There was real pain in being surrounded by people you could only ever trust half way, and Atarah was willing to work very hard to avoid it.

A bit too hard.

The persistence of her concerns had led to an injury, which led to a doctor’s visit, which led to her introduction in town square. Atarah Bizhan, the strange woman who hasn’t talked to any of her neighbors, managed to finally injure herself in a manner worthy of intervention and gawking. 

She backed away from the incident, with a tincture and salve and had hoped to disappear as was her preference. But this didn’t stop the strange new visitations. 

Missus Filittene was not a woman she’d waste time trusting, a careful widow, and too well known as a just woman to be anything less than a gossip. Atarah was less than interested in making room for such a person in her life.

Sadly the woman was one of the few on call by the doctor to attend to those with mildly complicated injuries, which left Atarah’s sense of privacy shaken. 

“You know most ladies can’t manage on their own,” she says one day, and Atarah almost wants to trust her before she continues, “you shouldn’t if you don’t have to.” Atarah knows the meaning of those words.

She’s trying to be kind, but the words were clear as day the proclamations of an inconvenienced widow.

And so she responds, “What did your husband offer you except in-laws when he died?” she’d have had millions to choose from, a sting in her cheek made a firm rebuttal.

“You’re right about one thing, there are generally two reasons to remain single,” There are times when there are only curses in her breath, she remembers Phailin saying, “You’d either never want such a thing as a partner, or it’s the only thing you’ve ever really wanted.” when a thought was all she needed to say her piece and hurt dearly for it. 

“You were only wrong in thinking that I was the sort you’d forgive.” Missus Filittene refuses the call after this, and Atarah couldn’t care less. She wonders if he thought she was more harmed by this quirk of nature, as if that was the perspective of fallen stars.

Maybe that’s why they found her? She thought all alone.

Her injuries settle and her health improves but it’s only on call by Arianell, a nun in training, she was made to understand by the girl’s ecclesiastic aspirations. She was courting the preacher, so as to not outstrip the virtues of her femininity.

She was also considerate enough, or at least self-involved enough to keep her tongue tied down in regards to Atarah’s status.

She could be thankful for that.

...

It would be later still when her thoughts wandered unbidden to those fallen things, it was really the empty drawback to lonely cottages. Like her home would be worth living in after that.

She finally leaves the cottage for pleasure’s sake, and while she’s thankful for the temperate nature of her new home, the region in which it was built, she’s still lost there.

Yoqut would’ve been disappointed in her, but only for his own ends as he wasn’t often in good spirits if aware of her wandering. To be fair, she’d never have thought of his perspective as sensible when he’d forced his way into her life, or really of either of his brothers.

They‘d been shambling approximations of humans, and it wouldn’t have been sensible to stay there anyway.

She didn’t want to stay where she’d been, and the fact that they’d lacked the sense to see her wishes wasn’t her fault, anymore than it could be her refusal of their nonsense back then. 

They’d fallen for her, and while that didn’t lack a double meaning, she would never let such idiocy become mutual. Fleeting before were her thoughts of them. 

Is she calling or are they close? Worry sometimes shares space with shame.

…

It had been a whole season's breadth since she’d been healed, and for whatever reason Missus Filittene was on her doorstep. A curious sight, the widow’s sorrow, whatever had her there without invitation or order. Atarah set to great attention, a meal of that hour’s allotment. 

Whatever had the woman on the edge of town, was worthy of distress, certainly, so she waited. If it were nothing she wouldn’t speak at all.

And then the widow does, “I’m beset, I’ve been told something that I can not carry alone. But I can’t share it so simply as in the square.” she says at least knowing her bavardage, “I know how my voice carries. but you, save for yourself, are quiet.”

She takes a sharp breath, and carries on for lack of response, “I know that I’ve been unkind, in turn of your way of life, but even at my age this is heavy.” the assumption being that the statement is good recompense.

Atarah looks back at the woman, haggard with her unspecific woe and thinks better of it. “Aren’t there better sorts to share this with? The preacher, all else?”

“I can’t confer with the preacher, lest he bare it untidily as a sin in common. It would only be a half-shame you know.” Missus Filittene supposes the same damned conscience that kept Atarah far from the town center. And so the thought was carved deeply, why not carry this one confidence?

This one secret, from a friend to a stranger.

Were the Stars not that to her once?

Atarah shares the thought in her breath, “Well, won’t you tell me already? Since, you’ve taken the walk about.”

She does of course, “I’ve been told in confidence about a great shame. A dear friend's past, too horrible and foreign to this town.” she can almost see what she’ll say before it’s said. Zafiris would chide her for her certainty.

And she’d feel damned by the thought.

“He was once without rights, and though he’s made his way since, I know with what regards those around me would hold him, if they knew,” There’s great shame for her fellow townsfolk in her saying, “I don’t know how she- his wife to be, would feel knowing this. Concerning one with such a past, I don’t know many in the parish that would not make him carry it, even now, were they to be made aware.”

“My niece deserves neither misfortune, but she so dearly loves him, and I would hate for her to grow sour knowing her other prospects,” whether she means age or morals she doesn’t say, but she says at last, “I will not shame my family with such gossip, but I don’t know how to proceed.”

It was a lot to say the least of it, but Atarah could only detail so much. “It’s good that you told me, but I don’t have much to confer. I’ve never had the luck of this kind of predicament.” 

“I might tell you to be clever, ‘does honesty matter?’ or to be shrewd, ‘does dishonesty matter?’, but really, I don’t quite understand the trouble on your end of it.” Atarah see’s her own past in the statement, a careful lie of omission. “I wish I could help.” a final honest word, with little prattle.

There’s a moment of peace, before the subject is changed, and a good day is had between strangers sharing this one secret. 

…

She thinks she sleeps better that night, the comforts of a stranger in daylight calmed her thoughts at least for that time. Though she’s trapped in her feelings upon morning light, she’d lied again.

How could she say ‘she wasn’t freely given’ when she’d been made willing for so little as words?

A voice and a right to it, was what they’d given her. Burning bright as they had falling all the same to this earth in the field of her dozing, the viscous want to disappear from this world as they had from the sky, so went the fields beneath their desire, a burning blaze made their bed. 

The first time they’d shared a bed.

The ashes of her day’s work, as her wish was granted at their convenience. She could’ve begged before, should’ve, she knew she was a fool against creatures beyond her. Refusal wasn’t possible against what she hadn’t understood, but who would’ve blamed her for begging fire not to burn?

Who was she to know that it wouldn’t dare touch her skin?

Could it really have been holy, if it burned the fields beneath?

Her dress for their desire?

Soon she is colder than the field, nakedness beneath the gaze of the stars, and she goes on with her day. They gave her a voice so they could disregard it, and she didn’t need to forgive them just to spite it all.

…

It would be too long after their talk that Missus Filittene would reappear with news of her niece’s wedding, of their concealed decision, an aware and much willing espousal. She’d made good on their discussion, no such idle gossip to dissuade the girl or her lover, and no strange lies to carry beyond the threshold.

She was happy enough for these strangers known and unknown, but it was still an odd thing to be told at all. She said as much earning as yet no ire from the Widow before her response, in great curiosity.

“I suppose you didn’t mean to, but you pretty much solved it for me. I’d thought I’d have no recourse, but I was honest and it didn’t come back to bite me.” Missus Filittene said appealing to what she thought was owed. “It’s nothing to thank you for that.”

Atarah wasn’t one to refuse praise, but what thought she’d given to the problem was lacking at best, and she really wasn’t sure how to respond. Though it may well have been her own mornings distortion of that day, it wasn’t all clear to her. 

“So,” The widow says, breaking her from thought, “You said something about ‘my end of it’ last time, and I’m not sure what you meant.”

Atarah, while unsure of herself, and her specific memory, knew what she intended, “I meant the outside of it.”

“Oh.” she pulled a sharp breath, and paused.

“I don’t mean anything by it, I don’t know what you’ve done before, I’ve just.” 

“No, I get it,” Missus Filittene had only so many options to assume, but she’d only continued when she had one, “So, how’d you leave it?”

“Do you remember the name of the prince in the sky?” Atarah says, there isn’t meant to be any mystery, but she’d started it, and while she was almost sure that it would spread, it was only fair to share her own secret. 

“There used to be three stars about his waist, they were beautiful from afar. When I graced them with my gaze, before I was allowed to know the name of god. And then they fell to me. As lovers, leaving the sky where they’d been meant, empty to all others.” 

She thought back to the fields, but such things are more than she could explain. How bad was life before that she’d stayed and followed after? “They gave me all that I’d had no way to beg for, and bound me again in all such ways.” 

“They freed me to their subjugation, and I ran from it.” She had, but she worked too. Far from the worries of masters or illiteracy, and then to the cottage … ten years.

“They’d fallen to me and I’d been flattered. I’d made sweet promise-lies held in common between my Stars,” Atarah had carried it for far too long, “and they still follow after.”

“I feel it in my bones.”

“So you ran?”

“Yes.”

Missus Filittene swallows the thought quickly, before they look away from their newly shared secret.

…

Missus Filittene isn’t discreet for strangers, and while Atarah should be upset, she isn’t. Whether she had meant to or not, she’d made Atarah’s life quiet even in her goings on so it was a fair trade.

“So are the rumors true? That you’re an abandoned woman.” a younger woman asks a bit too forwardly, she doesn’t recognize the girl but she responds too forward also. 

She laughs about it even, “So that’s what Missus Filittene has told everyone.”

She knows it was a mistake, and she knows that her world was too small right now to let her make those often, but such things were better to share even in part. She could’ve been angry at the confused looks of the town folk after trusting Missus Filittene, but she didn’t tell her anything so horrible to recount, and it was hard to be upset at the wide berth they’d given her since.

It didn’t matter that Atarah was never angry, that she didn’t bother. She was too sharp, and her voice was one that too easily grew barbs. 

“I’m sorry that I told anyone else.” were words she’d hear some time later, but it was like anything else for her. She didn’t care so much anymore that other people knew. It didn’t hurt like before, the notion of their ire, their judgement, their confusion.

There are things that hurt worse.

…

She is alone in her Cottage, like she ought to be warded and safe, but she sees three Stars in the Glare of the rising sun. And she isn’t. They still want her, and she wants to run on daybreak, to leave behind all they could hope to find of her, and be rid of their advances.

But she doesn’t. Atarah had worked too hard, and she couldn’t leave it be just for them.

They land on her work, fireless unlike the night she’d first known them, and she stands her ground. There is the luck of Missus Filittene, marching up one last time before they took her from the peace she’d so rightly earned.

Zafiris begs quarter, too close for how long it’s been, “Oh sweet Atarah, our Jewel. Please know your place with us.” 

Yoqut says no less fervently, no less careless, pulls her hand, her arm to his face, “Your breath is a blessing sweet as honey. Please come home to us.”

“We’ve been so long without you dearest, have you forgotten who gave you your words?” proposes Phailin, a threat as much as anything.

She looks to Missus Filittene begging witness, what should she do? They are so much beyond, sly and greedy, everything she’s weak to. “You’ve said before, you ran. But not why. I wonder Atarah, why did you run from those who now beg so sweetly for you?”, are the honest words of a widow.

Atarah is made lonely by the realization, left at the mercy of carnal rights by a woman who thought she’d run from nothing. 

She grieves when they eat together at last, in her house where she’d promised she’d sleep alone.

They love her like the moon loves her shepherd, full and thieving, and spiteful of sleep. Yet still she can’t refuse them, the Stars who fell for her.

…

She wakes feverful, strewn bodies on an island bed. Alone for once to breathe without their scrutiny. She let them in.

And she regretted it. Like the fires beneath her, and their touch on this earth.

“how could I share the sheets?” she thought again, as she pulls away from the Stars that burned her fields to make their bed, and kept hers whole just to hold her in kind.

She steps calmly beneath the gaze of the sun, the sun that had only parched her lips before, had shamed her labors, burned her skin. All is beautiful in the light of day, despite the crowded night before.

Atarah is pulled by the sun itself into the heavens, so divine is her spoiled interest in the fallen Stars below.