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9 mo. ago
ForgottenWell
Today I'm going to be wed to a stranger against my will.
I couldn’t sleep. My hunger pangs were too sharp. I tossed and turned for a while, but decided to get up and walk around instead. Maybe if I tired myself out I could finally fall asleep.
I cracked open the door to my bedroom, but stopped when I heard my parents arguing in the kitchen. It had to be around midnight. How long had they been at it?
“There must be another way,” my mother begged my father.
“What other choice do we have? We’re gonna starve. At least this way we might have a chance at surviving the winter. We have to give her away.”
I closed the door to my bedroom and fell to my knees.
They had the same argument the last time our crops were failing.
Arranged marriage.
My family doesn’t have a lot to offer. We’re humble farmers, and when the crops don’t grow—we don’t eat. However, we do have one thing of value.
My hand in marriage.
The town we live in is small, and “celibate women” like me are a hot commodity. There are more than a few men in this village who would pay a hefty dowry to be my lawful wedded husband.
When I was seventeen I was almost wed to the town’s dentist, a widower who was thirty years my senior. I begged my parents not to go through with it, and my mother pulled out of the marriage at the last minute. I’ll forever be grateful to her for that.
But that was then, and this is now. We’ve never had a drought as bad as this, and at this rate we’ll all starve when winter comes.
I laid down in bed and pulled the covers over my head. This time around, I can only pray that they marry me off to someone handsome and kind. I would even settle for just kind.
I woke up to my mother shaking me in bed.
“Get up, my beautiful flower. We’ve got somewhere to be.”
I pretended I did not hear her argument last night.
“What’s happening today, Mama?”
My mother hugged me close.
“Better you don’t think about it. Get dressed, we’re going to the old chapel.”
I put on my Sunday finest, brushed my hair, and put on what little makeup I had hidden away. We all walked to the church together and there was already a crowd gathering.
All this for me?
“Well,” I said, “where is he?”
“Where’s who?” My father asked.
“My husband. I’m to be wed, am I not?”
“Oh dear,” my mother said, “you’ve got the wrong idea, it’s a little more ‘old fashioned’ than that.”
My mother and father walked me into the church, hand in hand, where an altar was waiting for me, and a priest was standing by with a large blade in his hand.
“What’s going on?” I asked, and my parents tightened their hands around mine.
“We need rain, dear,” my father said, “and you’re gonna help us get it.”
👶🤽♂️🌋