A Princess for the Witch Doctor (Legends of Rahasia Book 3)

Chapter Seventy-Four

I watch, bored, with Kaliya as we see the next few days speed by. Kaliya and I spend our free time, when we're not monitoring the to-be fairy tale princess, eating copious village leftovers and enjoying rainwater collected in jars. It's relaxing, existing outside of time. No obligations. No pressure.

At the same time, it's also incredibly boring. No wonder Kaliya hates it.

"I already know this part." I mutter, chewing lazily on some rambutan I'd filched from one of the baskets lying around. "The young sultan falls for the plain peasant girl, and he whisks her away to her happily ever after." I spit out one of the seeds. "I don't need endings, not unless you have one when it comes to this witch doctor debacle."

"Watch." She points just as the sultan arrives to flirt for the umpteenth time, bringing presents each time. He massages cream into her hands to keep them from bleeding from all the scrubbing she has to do. He gets rolls of bandages for the scrapes on her legs. He tends to her and allows her space when she feels like it, always ready with food when she looks particularly hungry from her lazy twin brother stealing all her meals.

"What? He's in love with her. She becomes queen. What else is new?" I fight an eyeroll. "You're right. Nenek Wulan was the inspiration for Bawang Putih. A village girl who charmed a sultan. Unless the witch doctor's name is Garlic, this isn't helping me."

"Every story has a name." Kaliya replies, picking at a thread on her cut-up pants.

"But does it have the name I'm looking for?" I shoot back, just as flatly.

The teenaged time goddess places a finger to her lips, pointing once more at Wulan as she scrapes up what's left of her meal, dumping the choicest bits of stewed beef and yellow coconut rice onto her brother's plate. He scarfs it down, and oddly enough, pauses to smile at her in the moonlight.

"You look happier lately." He swallows the disappointment. "You're always giving so much to this family, saudara perempuanku. My sister..."

What? I furrow my brow in all the confusion. He's being kind to her?

He leans closer, spooning food back onto her plate with his hands. "Please, eat. I like it when you're happy." He pauses, his hand halfway to scooping up more. "You wouldn't leave me, would you?" His voice has gone softer now, just like a little boy's.

Wait.

Something's off...

Wulan bites her lower lip, opening her lips to answer. "I'm getting married."

His eyes flash with emotion, running across his face all at once. Anger. Hurt. Betrayal. Fear. "But you... you can't...he'll be so much worse with me if..."

Just then, a middle-aged man and woman enter through the door. The man dresses in well-off clothes, freshly dyed shirts and pants rolled up over finely crafted sandals with imported soles. The woman, though dressed in fine clothing, is decked out in simpler styles: solid green cloth and a veil. She's a slip of a shadow at his side. Wulan runs to the woman who beams benevolently down at her. It's strange, to see Wulan so young and shouting with glee. "Ibu! Ibu!" Mother, mother!

"Ayahmu harus bicara sama saudara kamu, si kecil." Your father must talk with your brother, little one.

With that note, the patient mother shuffles Wulan outside, leaving the young man and his father alone in the house.

The father, most likely a merchant from the wares of foreign ink and cloth on his back, glares down upon Wulan's twin brother.

"Ingatan." He murmurs, fire in his eyes. "Ingatan, saya tahu."

Ingatan, Ingatan, I know.

Ingatan stares at his hands, pointedly avoiding eye contact. He's trembling, his lower lip quivering like he's keeping himself from throwing up. "Tahu apa, bapak?" Know what, father?

"Lihat aku ketika aku berbicara. Look at me when I speak."The father raises his hand and smacks his son across the cheek. "Bekerja lebih cepat. Bekerja lebih baik. Saudaramu sudah memiliki rumah, seorang istri. Anda tidak memiliki apa-apa. Kamu bukan apa-apa."

Work harder. Work better. Your brother already has a house, a wife. You have nothing. You are nothing.

Ingatan looks up, only to bow his head in deference to his father, his face red and the skin beneath his eye bruising. "Aku mencoba, ayah." I tried, father.

The father goes around the side of the table, eating what food remains on Ingatan's plate. "Adikmu bisa memiliki suami yang baik. Siapa yang mau orang bodoh sepertimu?" Your sister can find a good husband. Who will want a fool like you?

Ingatan looks up, lower lip quivering anew. "No one will hire me, father!" He cries out in despair. "They say I'm cursed, that the old village priests of Barong determined I was born on the wrong day."

"If you don't work," the father replies, staring with disgust on his dandy of a son, "then it would have been better you hadn't been born at all." He scoffs. "Kamu malas." He echoes the same words that Ingatan threw at his sister, Wulan. "You're lazy."

Kaliya pulls me away as the father leaves. Ingatan, unable to see us in this dreamscape, sobs as he believes he's entirely alone.

I wish he was, and I hadn't seen that at all.

***

Readers,

It's not your childhood fairy tale.

-Sophia