Through twelve evocative tales of longing and loss, Exiles Incorporated depicts a volatile world of hostile landscapes, where humans strive to belong amid the cruelty of conquest, the madness of desire and the transience of love. In the third story Nazca, set in the dry plains of first-century Peru, two teenage girls are commanded to ensure rainfall by completing one of the Nazca geoglyphs.

It was another dry morning and nothing much was happening in the sky. The community had buried its leader the night before, merrily watering the ground with fluids as his spirit soared. When dawn broke, younger folk expected to see his happy red face floating in the clouds, but the endless blue offered only wispy white. Men refused to emerge from their huts. The strongest claimed to be sick with grief. The weakest were too poorly to release anything but hot air.

Caya knew it was the shaman’s broth. The demented old fool seemed distracted when mixing the snake blood into the stewing pot and incantating to the Great Being. Only men could sup the maroon drink. Only men fell sick. As the sun rose over the plain, Caya noticed how her mother exchanged a knowing smile with other women as they fluttered through their chores like fledging birds.

One day I will be like them, thought Caya as she swept outside her family’s hut. She glanced down the track to see if Yavi was up, sunlight glinting on his broad shoulders. If he was curled in bed whimpering, she’d be disappointed. And angry with his parents for letting him touch the broth. He was a boy. One day he would be a man. She needed him strong, healthy and wise.

One day. When her chest was bigger, hips wider and the bleeding had begun. Caya was worryingly late. Her friend Mita became a woman last summer, welcomed into the bosom of those squawking ladies who flapped around the shaman. Caya turned the brush upside down and used the handle to draw a picture of herself and Yavi embracing. It looked silly, so she swept it away.

Last night was silly too. The broth had crippled father. Caya peered into her parents’ room and saw him face down with a damp cloth on his bald head. She could smell his insides. Above the bed was the wall hanging of the Great Being with its string of ugly heads, cavernous eyes and snake-like tongues. The colours were pretty, though. Woven into pretty patterns by pretty women’s hands. The ones who cooked, cleaned and swelled with new life. The real rainmakers.

Once when she was tiny, Caya experienced sky water. Infrequent taps on the roof during a sleepless night. A child then, far away from adulthood. Now she was neither. Unready to be a rainmaker, as her father kept telling her. She must bleed first so her insides could receive the male seed. On this morning’s evidence, she would be surprised if any men could summon the strength.

After finishing the cleaning, Caya walked past Yavi’s hut. Her heart quickened. She lingered for a while, drawing another picture of them both in the ground with her fingertips. Nobody emerged. Bored, she wandered to Mita’s hut. Her mother, a grumpy fat lady who shouted at people all day, said Mita was with the shaman learning the ways of the sky. Eventually the Great Being would flood the dry land with life. Not yet though. One day.

Drifting to the outermost huts, Caya saw the other settlement in the distance. There’d been another falling out, because they hadn’t sent anyone to mourn the leader. Caya wondered if their shaman was more capable. Surely it would be better if they all prayed together, so they could take flight as one to see beyond the air.

Exiles Incorporated is available to buy on Apple Books, Amazon and Google Play as an e-book, plus on Amazon and Barnes & Noble as a paperback.

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