"He's not breathing you useless child!" This was Sira's loud voice booming in the room.
Elowen was shaking now. On the inside, that is. Being calm because she was confident in what she did came easy for her. "We have to be still, madam Sira. He--"
The man began to convulse. Everyone started to panic, screaming. His wife was already wailing in tears by now.
"This is what happens when you trust a fool like this child, madam Sira!" Yelled Tally, one of the students of the great healer Sira.
Also Elowen's biggest enemy. Ming, the dead man's son flashed her an irritated look. "What's going to happen now. Did you really kill him?"
Elowen's face flustered. She didn't do this! "Something had happened..." She found herself muttering.
"That's enough. He's dead, I'm sorry everyone." Sira said, covering the man's face.
"You are better than this. Why did you rush forward if you knew you couldn't cure my father!" Ming pestered on. It was so painful to Elowen because her heart was out there for Ming. But somehow, it was as if jealous Tally had done something to...
"Tally, what did you do!" Elowen queried. "My nose can sniff it. Greenwood powder. Did you add this to the tonic I mixed for this man?"
Tally flinched, "What! Of course not." Her brown hair was wrapped in a bun, the same way all the women circle hair usually was. The men hunted and made provision of the meal the women would end up cooking, the women were in charge of healing and tending to wounds in Ettavile.
And where they had chief Woz, who was like the villager's king, they had Sira for the women circle. Those who were healers were never married. Those who cooked and tended to sewing of outfits and other minor jobs were housewives, and daughters of these housewives.
"You did this! It was you--" Tally was still saying but Elowen was not ready to give up like that. She had never been one to cry and just give up.
She began searching the table for proof. She could swear the smell of that powder, a deadly kind, was still somewhere in that room! But where?
"This is madness! Enough, Elowen!" Sira's voice was like thunder.
"Why? Why do you hate me so?" Elowen asked with curiosity in her eyes. "Madam Sira, you know this too. Tally hates me and for so long, you keep quiet about it. It's not fair!"
"My husband has just died, and you killed him. You did this to him!" The woman kept crying. Her son comforted her.
"Out. All of you," said Sira.
Once outside, Elowen didn't know a knife was already held out. It happened so fast.
Slash!
Aa a sharp knife it was, it slashed through the back of Elowen's bun and was chopped of at once.
Elowen did not even feel the pain she had thought she would feel. Nobody liked her. And Sira? Sira was a strange woman who always said Elowen was cursed and fated to give off ill luck.
She had been expecting her doom some day. But she didn't know it would be now!
People that watched gasped out. What that meant was that she had been stripped off of her right to belong to a community. Women's hair was very powerful. Housewives let their hair loose or styled in another way, healers? Theirs was a bun.
But now, Elowen's hair was short and didn't belong to any community at all. She had become a stranger in their land now...which could only mean one thing.
Her voice was loud as she made the announcement. "From this moment onward, Elowen Aeryn has been banished from the village. She now belongs to the the Mourningwoods after the murder of Mr Songh. Get lost, cursed child, and ever come back."
Elowen knew she had been expecting this kind of betrayal. No one among the women council liked her! They said she was cursed, but she didn't ask for any of this!
"My mother died during child birth, and two years later, my sweet father was lost in the Mourningwoods." She was supposed to be strong...yet, tears had soaked her eyes and had began to drop slowly.
She sniffed in, blinking uncontrollably as she tried to stop the tears from becoming heavy. "But you've all hated me. You say I am cursed, however, I have done nothing but love the people of this village. I've asked of nothing but your love and companionship towards me."
Tally spat in disgust,"love? You're a monster who is vowed to destroy us all with your bad luck. And you wish for us to love you? How daft of you to say."
"You're cursed, child. Go back to the Mourningwoods where you belong." Someone else said, Friya, someone else who was supposed to be her friend but had condemned her. Others supported her and not even one person cared to stand up for her.
"You all believed I killed that man? I did not!" She repeated again. She was right! They were lying on her.
"Everyone go back to your work. I will see to it that she is disposed off immediately." Sira said proudly in that her conformed voice. Her black shawl was spread neatly around her shoulders. Black eyes matched the shawl, and hair white as snow made her seem like the powerful healer she was.
She advanced closer and wiped the tears from Elowen. "Cry not, child. You won't make it there in the wild, your death will be quick and fast. Go be with your father."
"You did this on purpose, didn't you?" Elowen frowned,
"I am protecting my people."
"From me?"
"From the wrath of your bad lucks." She responded proudly.
Elowen vowed there right in that moment to stop crying. "My dreams, they've led me to this moment. I was expecting this. However, you are making a huge mistake because you will need my help. But I will no longer be there to help."
"Your presence is chaos to us. If you leave, we will be at peace." Sira replied, forcing Elowen to scoff.
"Is that so?" She said, "if you believe so, then so shall we say." She took one last look at the village, one last look at the faced of the villagers who did not believe in her. Ming too was watching, with pure hatred in his eyes. They were not allowed to marry, but it was no denial she was not insanely in love with the young man, and him, her.
Without any more moment wasting, she turned and took her first step, out into the woods. She had a mission out there in the wild. She had forseen this years ago. But what?
What laid ahead for her in that lonely and dangerous path?
With one step out of the magically barrier saving the small village from the dangerous wild, Elowen's other step led her down a dark path deep beneath the floor. Then came a thud as her feet met with the floor beneath her after a long fall, her eyes shut close as everywhere darkened around her.