SHIELD OF THE GODDESS

CHAPTER ONE

SHALA

SHALA WAS TEN when she started hearing voices in her head.

It began on a spring morning, when she was walking alone from her family’s hut to the workshop where she worked with her mother each day. She had overslept. A man’s voice shouted “Hurry!” So she did. But she realized there was something strange about the voice, it was too close, as if it was shouted in one ear. She stopped, turned around, but no one was there.

Confused, she walked on, and when nothing else unusual happened that day, almost forgot about it. Then, a few days later, it happened again, a child’s voice this time, yawning, but no one was nearby. From that time she started paying attention, and trying to understand.

She knew that the world was full of spirits. Every hill, stream, or tree had a spirit, and could speak to a person any time they wished, so the storytellers said. If these were spirits, they did not seem to be talking to her.

One day she heard a person close to her think a word just before they said it, like an echo coming before a shout, except that only Shala had heard it. She realized that she was not hearing spirits, but the thoughts of people around her.

Sometimes she overheard thoughts that people did not say. That happened a lot when she played with other children. When one of her friends had an unkind thought, and didn’t say it, Shala would answer back as if they had spoken, confusing everyone. After a while most children stopped playing with her.

By her thirteenth year, Shala could overhear entire streams of thought, even though she didn’t want to. The only escape was to get far away from people.

One winter morning, she told her mother she didn’t feel well, and needed to stay home. Instead, she filled a small leather bag with dried meat and bread, put on a heavy coat, and walked to the hilly woodlands above town until she heard no thoughts but her own. She rested against a tree and looked back where she had come from.

Tinath was a harbor town, with clusters of round stone huts covered by conical thatched roofs and smoke rising from hearth fires inside. Shala’s hut was near the center of town. The workshop where had learned to weave sails, sew nets, and make charm necklaces to protect the sailors, and worked each day with her mother, aunts and many other women, was near the shore.

Shala’s father worked on a fishing boat. He left early each morning, and sometimes he would wake Shala early and invite her to come down to the shore with him. He would answer her questions on the way and tell her stories. She loved to watch the pea-pod sails go out to sea, father waving to her until he was too far out for her to see him.

That very morning he had asked her to come with him to the shore, but she had declined. Why had she done that? She never had before.

Shala felt sad from the burden of what she was carrying alone. Now she felt sorry for lying to her parents. She resolved to tell them. Then she drifted to sleep.

When she woke it was almost twilight. She ate some of the food she brought, then ran home. When she reached the edge of town, she was overcome with sadness again. She heard a little girl crying in her mind, and realized this sadness didn’t belong to her, but to the little girl, wherever she was.

Shala walked more slowly, listening, until she found the girl, who was about six. “What’s wrong?” asked Shala.

The girl said a boy took her toy and ran away. Shala consoled her, and soon felt better herself. 

She asked where the boy had gone, and went that way. As she approached, she heard the sound of boys laughing.

She found a large boy tossing a straw doll into the air with two smaller boys. She had seen them in town but didn’t know their names.

“Give it back!” Shala commanded.

“Make me!” answered the large boy, holding tight onto the doll.

Shala wondered how she would do that. She was small for her age. If she fought them, she could get hurt. She didn’t care. She crossed her arms, defiant. The large boy laughed at her.

Shala became angry. Somehow, that feeling opened a door that had been closed to her. She felt for the boy’s mind, found it, and touched it, not to hear his thoughts, but to make him hear hers.

I said, give it back! she shouted into his mind.

The large boy screamed, dropped the doll, and ran away. The other boys ran after him. Shala picked up the doll, returned it to the girl, and walked her home. The girl’s mother thanked Shala.

Shala ran home again, and sat down by the hearth fire. Mother was there. “Where have you been?” Mother asked.

“I needed to be alone. I walked into the hills and fell asleep. Where’s Father?”

“He hasn’t returned. He told me last night he might be gone for a few days.” 

Shala nodded. It wasn’t uncommon for the fishing boats to spend several days out to sea.

Mother handed Shala a bowl of hot soup. Shala let the heat warm her hands, then consumed it greedily, slurping every bit of it. It tasted wonderful. When she was done, she put her hand on Mother’s arm. “I have something else to tell you. Something important.”

Mother smiled, and listened. Shala watched her face. At first Mother seemed doubtful, until Shala repeated Mother’s own thoughts back to her. Finally Shala sent her mother a thought of her own, like she had done to the boy earlier.

I love you, Mother.

Mother became quiet. Even her thoughts did. Then Mother started crying.

“I believe you, Shala. Come here!” Mother said. Shala cried in Mother’s arms until the joyful tears finally stopped for both of them.

“We’ll tell your father when he returns. Until then, promise me you won’t go off on your own again.”

“I promise,” said Shala.

“Good. Those boys may not tell anyone what happened. What they did could get them in a lot of trouble. But if the elders find out they may want to ask you about it.”

“But why? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Of course you didn’t. But what you did is something the elders probably haven’t heard of before.”

“Why haven’t they heard of it?”

“Because most people can’t do that, Shala. Touch other minds. I don’t know anyone else who can. I haven’t even heard stories about it. You might be the first in the world.”

Shala was stunned. It was obvious that most people in the town couldn’t do what she did. It had never occurred to her that maybe no one could.

“But why do I have to be like this? I don’t want other people’s thoughts in my head all the time. I just want quiet!”

Mother sighed. 

“Everyone is different, Shala. Sometimes differences are easy to see, and sometimes they are hard to see, like yours. All differences are gifts from the goddesses and gods. Yours is too.”

Mother got up and stood before their family altar. In the center was a small wooden statue of a woman with flowing robes carrying a round shield. Mother sang.

Daughter goddess, brave Kitani 

Guardian of town and field

Send your strength down to your people

Save us with your mighty shield

Mother was silent for a few moments, then spoke.

“First Daughter of Mother World and Father Sky, wise protector, help my daughter Shala to learn what she longs to know about herself. Help her to find peace. Watch over her and guide her in the years to come.”

Shala stared at the statue, wishing that the goddess would tell her what was happening to her. But Shala heard nothing.

Mother sat down again.

“Know this, Shala. You are my daughter. This is your home and always will be. Whatever path you must take, that will never change.”

Shala gave Mother a hug, and felt a deep sense of relief.

*****