Smaranda's page

About Smaranda

One of the last pair of hands holding up the casket is rough and calloused, not something you'd expect from the lithe girl whom it belongs to. If the gleaming wooden box is pressing heavily on her small frame, she shows no sign of it. The expression on her dark face is closed, her gaze turned inward. She lowers the casket with the others and the thump it makes as it reaches the ground has a sad finality to it. She straightens up in silence, hands clasped over her layered purple skirts, likely the most sober colour in her wardrobe. Black braids rest sedately on her white blouse, the parting of her hair making her bowed head resemble a coffee bean.

There is an air of unease about her, the way she stands slightly aside from the others, her head fractionally turned away, the flat lines of her mouth. As one by one they tell their stories, she grows a little restive. Her hands relax their grip and being a small, long-fingered dance in the crinkly folds of her skirts. One hand darts up to tug at the end of a braid, floats back down. She scuffs tiny marks in the dirt with the tip of her polished black boots, then sweeps a foot over to erase them. Black eyes flicker from behind lowered lashes, darting among the other mourners, picking out the details of their clothes, their faces, their thoughts. The foreign-flavoured accents draw her interest and she listens intently, one ear turned to the speakers as if to better catch the subtleties of their speech.

At last, after almost everyone else has said their piece, she speaks. Her pitch is low and rich, but the words are poor, strung along like recalcitrant goats. "Am free now." Her chin lifts, almost challenging. "Ent I?" When her statement is met with only silence and puzzled glances, she grimaces and continues. "Mulo master, he took me up. When dei died." Her hands clench on the fabric of her skirt. "They killed her, the people in the village." She swallows hard, rage and grief briefly showing in her face. "They wanted to kill me too, but master stopped them, took me with him. Raised me, fed me, taught me how to do letters and ciphering. And other things." She stares at the coffin for a long moment. "For this, I served him to the end of his life, like I promised. So I'm free now, no?" Her eyes rove over the faces, seeking confirmation, a silencing of her doubts.