Last updated on December 8, 2022
Notes: The story below was a response to a writing prompt on Reddit. I present it here only a little polished. It may appear in a future anthology.
Content warning: non-graphic references to sexual assault.
“Lo, as the gods of the New Age decreed, thus shall it be!”
Anya hated the ritual. She hated the Church. She hated the irony that the “New Age” had been going for ten thousand years. She hated that her parents had forced her to be here.
The one thing she did not hate is that tomorrow, she’d be able to leave.
Anya walked down the center aisle of the Cathedral, head held high. The usual whispers started. She couldn’t hear them over the music of the organ, but she could see people leaning in, saying things into one another’s ears. She could see people’s companions fluttering from shoulder to shoulder, passing messages to those who could not sit in the same pews.
What they were saying was no mystery:
“White? She has the audacity to wear white?”
“Such a shame.”
“Ruined when she was only a girl.”
“There were four of them, I heard. Four! Four at once!”
“Should have been exiled. Does not deserve forgiveness.”
Anya ignored them, though internally she wanted to set the building on fire. For two years, the humiliation was a constant buzz around her at every public gathering, at every market day, at every feast after penance.
A memory of the day flashed before her eyes. The way Colin had been so kind that day. The way she’d looked forward to riding. His three friends in the stables. The hours of it all turning sour and painful and vile. The way that everyone had looked at her once the altar boys had confessed a pale shadow of their sins before the congregation and looked to her to do the same.
The way everyone after had looked when she refused.
Anya was finally at the altar. She stared into the eyes of the priest, shoving the knowledge that among the sixteen altar servants, Colin and his merry band were among them still.
Thankfully, all grew silent. The priest cleared his throat and began.
“It was on that day that the voice said ‘I shall give unto you a sign. Ye shall not walk alone, but ye shall have a servant, a sign unto you that you are loved. You are cared for. You are given aid’.
“Will you, Anya Marie Corrine Riverward, take this sign?”
“I shall,” she spat. And none of you will own me. I will have my freedom. I will be your peer, not your pity.
The priest extended his hand. She took it lightly. There was murmuring in the pews. Apparently, people lost bets that she did not instantly light ablaze nor did the roof collapse.
The priest led her to the cauldron.
“Water and soil, fire to warm it and air above. Now, the last. Will you give the cauldron your blood?”
“I will.”
“By your own hand!”
His ancient, liver-spotted hands produced a knife, as if by magic.
Anya took it. She briefly thought of shoving it into the neck of the priest, into the vein of the Church for how it had failed her. That, though, would not lead to her freedom.
She put her finger to the tip. She felt it go in. Three drops, just three, fell into the bubbling water.
The organ music rose to greet her companion. Her family crest was a dog, a great wolfhound. That would be the most likely. Birds and mice were quite common. The priest’s own companion was a horse.
The congregation held their collective breath.
The lights dimmed. The cauldron’s contents turned to vapor. The choir raised their voices to greet the companion.
Then everyone stopped.
A head of dark hair came up out of the cauldron. Then two enormous brown eyes. Round cheeks followed. Finally, throat, shoulders, and a naked body.
The priest stammered, “It’s… it’s a girl?”
You could hear the collective gasp as the congregation saw that there was, in fact, a girl standing in the cauldron. She looked no more than seven. She looked out at them all, past Anya, with indifference.
A woman, the baker’s wife, stood up from the first pew and shouted, “She’s a bastard! A sin child!”
A man said, “No, a demon! She’s summoned a demon in our church!”
Anya’s father held her mother as they both began to sob.
The whole congregation burst into bedlam, shouts, and shrieks.
“FINISH THE RITUAL.”
Everyone went silent again. The child had uttered her first words, it seemed.
The priest stepped forward. His voice was barely a whisper and he shook like winter.
“Um… yes… Do… Do you, Anya, recognize this grace?”
“I… I do.”
She could not believe the words coming from her mouth, but they came as easy as exhaled breath.
“Extend your hand that she may know your… your scent?”
The words didn’t seem right. Yet Anya, as if sleepwalking, raised her hand the way she had in the half dozen practices. The child crawled out of the cauldron; the priest didn’t even try to help. She plod on bare feet to Anya and smiled. She then bent forward and nuzzled her hand.
The priest said, “The Companion is yours. Glory… be… to the Gods of Sky.”
He then fainted.
The Church erupted once more. The Deacon, frozen before, unstuck himself and swept up, extending his cloak. He wrapped it around both Anya and the child and pulled them into the back. The next moments were a blur. A garment was found of the girl, a choir boy’s uniform. People were shoved out. The priest was carried in back and given brandy.
“What can we do for you?” Someone asked Anya.
“Just I… no, we want to be alone.”
They were taken to the priest’s office. Everyone was kept out, as requested. Anya was alone with her companion.
They stared at each other for a long while. Finally, Anya spoke.
“What should I call you.”
The child shrugged.
“Are you really my companion?”
The child nodded.
“Oh… wow. I… this…”
“Shh.”
The child was smiling as she shushed Anya. Her voice sounded like that of any other child.
“I am your companion. Not daughter. Not sister. Not sin. I will serve you as the others do. I will be by you, like this, all your days. You will have me with you always. I won’t speak very much, but when I do, you should listen.”
Anya stood. Tears began to form. She balled up her fists and began to pace.
“So, I’ve got a little commander. This is such a joke. The gods wouldn’t help me when I needed it, but they’ll tell me what to do. I was… I’m going to be free today. I’m leaving here. Going far away. You can be with me or not, but no one is telling me to stay. I leave tonight.”
“Tomorrow.”
“What?”
“You should leave tomorrow.”
Anya’s mouth hung open. The child’s face was serious. A pit formed in Anya’s stomach that felt like nothing would ever fill it.
The door swung open. The priest was there. So were her parents.
“They’ve come to take you home.”
Anya could not find the strength to argue. A tiny hand took hers. The child was smiling now. Anya was not.
Neither her mother nor father said anything to her on the ride home. They had said enough when she’d told them the night before that she was leaving. Mother’s ferret and father’s wolfhound snuggled with the child.
Anya mused to herself that was the only reason they weren’t trying to leave her new companion by the road.
When they got home, Anya asked the servants to send food to her room. She went up. The bed she’d prepared for her companion seemed comical now, a pillow on the floor and a pile of blankets. Anya went to her bed instead. She invited the child to come with her.
She stood by the edge of the bed and held up her arms.
Anya bent over and picked her up. They both sat cross-legged, looking at one another for a long time.
“Do you need food?”
The child shook her head. No other companion did, but she figured it was polite to ask.
There was a knock at the door. Anya answered it. The maid, Gayla, dropped off a tray of food, destined to remain untouched. With it came a small bundle of clothes.
“For… um… her.”
“That will be all. Thank you.”
Anya brought them over. They were obviously her own dresses from when she was much younger.
She said, “They’re yours if you want them.”
“For tomorrow. You should sleep now, my mistress.”
Anya shook her head at the honorific. She could not argue that she was tired, though.
Anya changed into nightclothes. She laid on the bed. Her companion watched her but did not move or change out of the altar boy clothes.
Anya laid down and asked, “Do you want to rest, too?”
“I don’t sleep, mistress.”
“Oh. Of course.”
The child did sit by her, on a pillow, sitting up against the wall. As Anya drifted, the child sang to her.
Anya woke a different song.
She cracked her eyes and saw Gayla, who was shaking. She was by the bath and the child was in the water, humming a happy tune and scrubbing her hands. Anya mouthed the words, “Everything okay?”
Gayla’s eyes flitted to Anya’s dresser. She looked over.
At the foot of it was a blood-soaked choir boy uniform. On top of it were four hearts. Human. Four.
Anya found herself strangely happy.
It was noon when they set out. No one stopped them. No one whispered. At the edge of town, on foot with nothing but what Anya had in her pack and the clothes on their back, they prepared for Anya’s journey.
“May I call you Faith?”
Anya’s companion looked up, “I’d like that.”
Hand in hand, they took to the road.
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