Calix turned to step back inside.
The storm within her erupted. She kicked out at the back of his knee and brought him crashing to the ground. Calix snarled and scrambled to his feet as she struck out again, this time with her fist, catching him in the stomach. He staggered backward into his door, the breath wheezing from his lungs.
“Unnatural am I?” Danae aimed a blow at his jaw.
Gathering himself just in time, Calix dodged and tackled her around the waist, hurling them both to the ground.
The hut door swung open, and Carissa shrieked at the sight of her husband scrabbling in the dirt with Danae.
“I’m your sister, I’m your fucking sister,” she sobbed as she sank fist after fist into Calix’s ribs.
A hand grabbed her shoulder, and without looking she hurled her next blow upward. Carissa flew back, clutching her nose as blood dripped onto her dress.
Danae’s limbs sagged, horror spreading through her as Calix staggered to his pregnant wife.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to...is she all right?”
Carissa moaned, and Calix turned to her with hatred in his gaze.
“You are not my sister.”
Eyes burning, Danae turned and ran.
When Danae was a child, she was sometimes gripped by fits of anger so violent she would fall to the ground and beat the earth until her rage seeped away like rainwater.
One day her father took her to a rocky outcrop above the village. An old tree stood amongst the jagged stones, its long dead branches twisting into the azure sky.
“Don’t tell your mother. This is where I taught the boys to fight.”
Danae scowled, her little fingers tracing the grooves in the peeling gray bark. Her father took her hands and bound them in strips of cloth.
“Now, hold your fists like this, see?” He curled her fingers into her palm. “Make sure your thumb’s on top, if you tuck it in you’ll break it.”
She looked up at him, at the creases that ran down his cheeks into his beard.
“Who will I fight?”
He smiled at her, his eyes warmer than the sun. “No one, Danie. I’m teaching you this so you don’t end up fighting yourself.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said and turned to the tree. “I would only fight bad men.” She chewed her lip, picturing them. “Pirates and bandits and thieves and enemy soldiers and...”
Her father laughed. He smacked the tree with his palm. “Let’s start with old Graybeard here. We can pretend he’s a pirate if you like.”
Danae nodded enthusiastically and narrowed her eyes, her imagination morphing the tree into a fearsome pirate.
“Now—” her father came to stand behind her “—hold your hands up like this. Keep your gait loose, shoulders relaxed. Aim for where you want to hit and land the blow with the flat of your fingers.”
After that, her father brought her to the tree every day. Soon she was training with her brothers, until they grew too tall and strong to spar with.
Since that first day, she never had another episode. Her mother thought it a miracle and was so relieved she’d never asked Odell where he took their daughter for an hour each day.
Now Danae stood before the tree once more. Her chest heaved and her hands ached from fighting with Calix. Her eyes were raw with salt, but her tears had dried. She looked at the rivets their little fists had left in the dead wood, like they had been potters molding clay.
Her father hadn’t had much skill to pass on, save how to throw a punch and not break her hand. But sparring with her brothers had been the only time she felt truly in control. They were a team, their own little army.
Now it was just her.
She flinched at the cry of a bird soaring overhead. For a moment she thought it was an eagle silhouetted against the sun-bleached clouds. Her pulse quickened, but as she shielded her eyes against the glare, she realized it was just a falcon.
