Hawk-Eyed Girl

As he moved down the main village road, Len kept one wary eye on the girl sitting on the bench outside the butcher’s shop at the side of the street. She watched him back, cool and calm, with a slight smile playing around her lips. She knew he was afraid of her.

She was Mirgana, daughter of the butcher’s assistant, and a relatively new arrival in town. Her family had moved in just shy of a year past, though from where or for what reasons no one knew. The entire family- father, mother, son, and daughter- were quite evasive on the subject, though a rumor had started somewhere that their past had been considerably disreputable- banditry, or the like. Certainly, all four of them- even the mother, who was, in most other respects, quite like the other housewives in the quiet village- had an outlandish, almost dangerous aura about them. The mother sometimes grew impatient with the gossip of the other women; the father seemed to fit the job of assistant butcher almost too well; Mirgana’s elder brother, a young man of marriageable age, was so heavily brooding and sullen that he lived still at home; and as for Mirgana herself… Well, she was strange. She was a pretty girl of about eighteen, with rich, brown, haphazardly wavy hair past her shoulders and golden-brown eyes that reminded Len of a hawk’s- this impression was not aided by the predatory looks that she directed both at him and others. She was of basically average height but sturdy build; unlike most girls (somehow, Len got the impression that Mirgana thought of them as ‘common’) she habitually wore pants, as well as soft leather boots that reached up to her knee, though where she had gotten such a luxury no one knew. And, at least around him, she always seemed to be laughing at her own private joke.

As she did now. Len averted his eyes now rather than meet her gaze any longer and quickened his step. Especially since she had gotten into the argument with his mother she had been quite hostile to him, roughing him up for no apparent reason more often than usual. Len hurried on.

Mirgana watched him go with an inexplicable feeling of satisfaction. Really, there was no great victory in scaring a fifteen-year-old into walking faster down a street. The smile disappeared slowly from her lips. But he was Len. Almost everyone had harangued him at least once; after all, he was half-fai and the child of the madwoman who lived in the village, and it was thus expected that he should suffer more abuse than most people.

Mirgana just happened to terrorize him more than the others. This was partially because his mother- a crazed old lady, nonetheless!- had publicly humiliated her, and partially because he was just below her on the pecking order she had established in her mind. She couldn’t very well pick on the plain, dull girls who were below even the dogs, and most of the boys in the town would actually give her a real fight if she asked for one. But Len… oh, he was the perfect target for her aggressions.

She looked up as a shadow fell across her; her elder brother, Liam, stood there, tall and impressive. Mirgana grinned up at him and moved over on the bench. ‘Sit.’ He did so, letting out a small sigh as he leaned back against the wall. He did not look at her, but stared moodily ahead. Mirgana was used to this, however, and did not disturb him.

Finally, however, he spoke. ‘It’s quiet.’

Mirgana nodded; it certainly was, it being early morning yet. Only Len and a few goodwives had passed by. The sun peeked barely over the tops of the pines, muted further by the thick morning mist. But she did not think of the scene in the same way her brother obviously did. ‘And boring. I wish something would happen.’

Liam shot her a piercing look, blue eyes fierce. ‘Enough happens in the world- too much. Let things rest when they must.’

Mirgana decided against saying anything else, for Liam’s sake, though she deeply disagreed with him. Where he was resentful of the less-than-lawful past their father had dragged the family on, Mirgana had been quite content with life on the road. The repetitiveness of village life bored her. But it was best not to say so to Liam.

She sighed and closed her eyes. Maybe something would happen soon.