When Yipp came to the village and took the five girls set to turn seventeen during that year’s River Harvest Ihmani found herself awoken by a sea of wails. Tumbling from her covers she hurried to the front door where she found her parents already outside amongst the gathering group of mothers and fathers. A scene that had become all too familiar to her. This was, after all, not the first time Yipp had taken daughters soon to be women wedded and certainly wouldn’t be the last.
Turning away from the mourners, Ihmani spotted a handful of girls off to the side. Their eyes were bright with unshed tears yet strangely optimistic as they gripped each other’s hands in comfort. She knew that look, having seen it three times now. These were the girls who’d take part in next year’s River Harvest and like those who’d come before them and had gone missing they were holding onto a hope that the village would do away with its long held tradition.
“You can’t just go about throwing away the old ways just because you’re scared. They’re there for a reason,” Nana Yabo had told Ihmani later that morning, her gaze in the direction of where the effigies constructed from wooden dowels, jute and clay resided in the village.
There were four unpainted structures in total, humanoid with four arms though each had heads distinctly animal in nature though more monstrous in design that made the younger children cry and many adults avert their gaze. Of the four towering figures it was the one which they only called Yipp that faced Ihmani’s house. Though meant to be fish-like she thought him more mystical beast than sea creature with the way the fins that sprouted from his head fanned out like a lion’s mane around two great curved horns. Then there was his wide mouth with too many teeth as he stood looming over her whenever she stepped outside.
This was the village’s god, the one that kept them safe and prosperous along with his three other forms. There was Yipp Lamut with his jungle-cat head and giant spear raised above his head. Yipp Sawu the frog-thing with his lolling tongue as he cradled a child in his three arms while the fourth held a sickle. And lastly there was Yipp Asaam, the one which appeared closest to a man with his large crown of antlers and third diamond shaped eye that sat between his brows.
“Yes but they’re talking about it,” Ihmani said from her perch on a flat stone that jutted from the river as she and the old woman continued their work. “I’ve heard that some of the parents want to petition the elders for a change. They’re scared Yipp has taken too many girls.”
At that the old woman snorted as she pushed and pulled dyed cloth across a soaped over stone.
“Yipp doesn’t take without reason,” Nana Yabo said then fixed Ihmani with a pointed look. “You’re still here aren’t you even with you now being well past marrying age. Those girls must have tried to play a trick and it cost them. It’s like I’ve always told you: don’t give him a reason to take you and you’ll stay well and safe. Play around and think yourself too clever then . . . ”
The old woman whipped the cloth over to the other side, sending a loud crack through the morning air. She didn’t need to finish her sentence, it was understood what she was getting at and Ihmani was smart enough to not press it. As Nana Yabo had said, she was still here. But as welcoming as the thought should have been, Ihmani couldn’t help her simmering resentment for the five girls Yipp had claimed.
There were, traditionally, only two outcomes when it came to the strange god visiting a girl who’d been lucky enough to reach marrying age. They either encountered Yipp and returned bearing some type of wound before they were whisked off into a marriage or they encountered Yipp and were never seen again. And then there was Ihmani who’d not seen the god. Ihmani who didn’t want a husband. To her, to be taken and even swallowed whole was a better fate than to be sold off to a husband all in the name of family and honor. Her parents and the village elders didn’t share her sentiment however. They thought it an ill omen she’d yet to face their god and in their village ill omens were sent up the mountain to Yipp Lamut.
As Ihmani had predicted upon the eve of the new year the village elders announced the names of the girls who’d take part in the next River Harvest. Like before her name was included and as the days passed and simwaka flowers came into full bloom encircling the square she saw the dreaded change in her parents that had always appeared around this time.
“We all have our own path we must navigate but as a woman your path should only take you to one place,” her mother repeated whenever she could.
There was a wariness on her face that came from the unending gossip she heard from her friends and the village aunties that always filled Ihmani’s heart with guilt. It was scandalous to have a daughter who was soon to be twenty and yet to receive neither the wrath nor blessing of Yipp.
“This year,” Mother said, “my girl will receive the mightiest of blessings from our watcher. You’ll all see.”
Ihmani’s father on the other hand didn’t share that enthusiasm. There’d been countless times where she’d caught him eyeing her with the type of disappointment one expected a father to only bestow on his son. It was a look specifically crafted for her and this year it was accompanied by a threat that was more of a promise than anything.
“Yipp Lamut eats the unworthy and the wicked, girl. Remember that,” he hissed at her as she wrangled the two youngest of her brothers from tracking dirt across the floors she’d just scrubbed.
It was after that Ihmani began to avoid staying too long beneath the man’s gaze.
Whenever she knew he was in the house she’d hurry by the open doorways pretending to be in a rush with one chore or another. Other times, if she managed to catch sight of him down the road she’d take wildly inappropriate detours around the village, weaving through the alleyways and crowded shops just to ensure he’d not be able to follow. And when she found herself unable to do either she endeavored herself to the type of work expected of a soon-to-be bride catching glimpses every now and again of her father and her uncles doing work on the shed that sat behind the house.
Today they were adding another heavy lock as if fearing she might attempt to escape once they put her in for five days.
“What do you think he looks like?” one of the girls asked, buzzing in excitement as they all sat in a circle shucking the petals off of coneflowers into painted bowls.
Funny how it had only been a year ago that they were trembling in fear at the prospect that their god would strike them down with the same unknown fate of their friends yet now here they were all dreamy eyed with hearts aflutter. It wasn’t that Ihmani felt disgust for her cohorts; she simply couldn’t bring herself to champion the idea of a man from one of the larger villages and towns coming to vie for her hand.
“I hear that he will take on the face of your husband,” someone said conspiratorially. “That way you know whether a man who comes for you is the one.”
One more spoke, guffawing in disdain. “Nonsense! If that was the truth my sister Tuwe would have known who to marry after the fifth suitor came calling. Instead she had to go and ask the old witch Nana Yabo for guidance.”
This type of talk had gone back and forth before the girls finally turned their attention towards Ihmani.
“You have sisters,” they said. “Surely they’ve told you what Yipp looks like.”
The truth was they hadn’t. It wasn’t exactly a secret that Ihmani’s sisters held her in a less than favorable light for as the saying went: one girl was lucky, two a blessing but three would take the luck from the first and turn a blessing into a curse. And how her sister’s took that to heart, always laying the blame for any and all perceived misfortune at her feet. No, the mountains would have to get up and walk before her sisters would ever tell her a thing about their encounter with Yipp if only because they’d be wary that if they told Ihmani anything then all their years of good fortune would go up in flames.
“My sisters now live in Kuura and Aul so we never speak,” Ihmani eventually said with a shrug.
There was no point in repeating the entire story of each of her sisters’ rites of passage into womanhood during the River Harvest as they were already widely known. Their run in with the four faced god had led them to a life of wealth and many children but of course with a sacrifice in turn.
Sister Jama had stepped outside of the shed after the fifth day weeping as a terrible bloody gash winded itself from the left of her forehead and down towards her chin. She’d always been a beautiful girl, the type that women and girls alike envied with her looser curls and golden chestnut skin, so to see her scarred as she was had been a shock to everyone. However, Jama wore the wound with pride, leaving it bare for all to see. The Mark of Yipp she called it. Her proof that he accepted her tribute.
Ihmani’s Sister Opakah had too bore a wound but not one that anyone could see as she dragged herself over the shed’s threshold grinning like a madwoman.
“No blessing shall ever overlook me,” she had cried with her hands waving above her head in praise not unlike how a dancer might move their legs, something Opakah was known for. It would take another month before anyone realized that she’d never dance again however.
Regardless of their gifts being taken Ihmani’s sisters had done well for themselves after all was said and done. Jama despite her disfigurement had men contending for her hand until a great fighter from Kuura who wore iron ore beads about his thick neck pledged his life to her. Opakah on the other hand had married a prominent medicine man in the sprawling mountain town of Aul.
There were similar stories that celebrated Yipp’s blessings though no one could agree upon what actually made for a satisfactory tribute, the very thing every girl needed in order to reappear after five days.
Another girl had eventually pointed this out.
“We won’t have husbands if we have nothing to offer. Why do you think the others didn’t come back?”
Her words as expected sent the group into a chorus of panic as they discussed options and speculated on what the girls of last year’s festivities had done wrong. All the while Ihmani watched and listened, inwardly recoiling as one of the girls warned them to ‘not get cheeky’ and how they were ‘to be real women soon’. It made her wonder if they even understood what they were saying. Perhaps if they did they’d be as repulsed as she if only because of the connotation behind it all. To get Yipp’s blessing was to end up in the same position as her sisters and mother, married and constantly swollen with babies. Just the thought alone filled her with dread and loathing. She didn’t want to be forced into such an endless cycle when she had dreams she couldn’t put into words. She didn’t want to push out screaming babies and dote on a husband who was all bust destined to grow resentful when she lost the little bit of looks she had.
These were things that Ihmani wanted to draw attention to but it wouldn’t have been proper and so she didn’t. Instead she reached out grasping the hand of the girl on either side of her and watched as they did the same until their ring of hands was complete.
“For the good of our families,” she began.
“For the good of our village,” the girls joined her in unison.
And as Ihmani led the circle she silently vowed to herself that she’d marry no man.
With the River Harvest upon them the first four days were filled with celebration as grilled meats and fruits wafted through the village along with the cheery intonation of hymns. Dressed in the traditional garbs that marked them as girls on the cusp of womanhood Ihmani and the other girls danced in circles throwing coneflower petals into the burning fires.
For each step she took Ihmani felt her parents’ eyes on her. She heard the murmurs of the aunties who’d seen her return for the past three River Harvest with nothing to show for her five nights in her family’s sacred shed. Their disapproving head shakes and her father’s hard eyes only made her dance harder, digging her bare feet into the soft earth and shouting up to the fish headed god as she once again led the other girls to speak, this time reciting the Ode to Yipp.
When the fires began to die down with the exception of the raging bonfire in the center of the square and bellies were full the girls were led through the trees down towards the riverbank. Here they did one final dance, a farewell to a girlhood that Ihmani had left some time ago but still she matched each step of the girl on either side of her before they submerged themselves up to the waist in the frigid water as their parents splashed them while beseeching Yipp’s blessing. There was joy in the eyes of all around her yet as Ihmani’s father cupped his hands and drenched her once more she only felt the chill stabbing down into her bone.
“Evil comes in threes,” he said. “May you show your worth, daughter lest the altar of Yipp Lamut be your resting place.”
The sacred shed was the final stop for each girl. Every family had one. A place for specific rituals to be held and sacrifices to be made. Ihmani’s family was the only one that had so many locks however. Truthfully one was enough as it was but with her luck or rather lack thereof there was a concern that the reason she hadn’t fulfilled her duty and entered into the stage of womanhood was because she’d somehow been getting out. So her uncles along with her father had fitted the door with four more, one heavy lock for each day of the River Harvest. This was where she found herself stepping into with a new change of clothes, not too dissimilar to that of a bride. Her mother, like every other mother, had picked and dyed the cloth herself adding beads and shells in an intricate design as to bring good fortune.
“This will attract Yipp’s eye,” she promised when she had dressed her. She had said the same for the last three dresses she’d sewn as well.
With a warm clay pot in hand Ihmani approached the trap door at the center of the one room shed and she sat the pot down to the side. It was customary to bring a meal to feed Yipp, specifically one you favorited. For the fourth year she chose the same thing she had the last three, grilled sweet potatoes smashed and wrapped in steamed cabbage leaves. For herself a wooden basket filled with smoked chicken jerky and peaches that would keep over the next five days she’d remain inside waited for her beside her bedroll.
Lifting the trap door she peered down into the still black water. Every sacred shed had one as if built upon a well though in truth they were not. This was where Yipp would appear. And this is where she would leave the spread of five rolls upon a grass woven mat.
As she worked Ihmani couldn’t help but stare down into the hole as a thought came to her. The dress she wore was more than heavy enough that if she were to fall in the ample fabric would easily tangle about her legs and sink her. She’d be no man’s wife then. Tempted, she reached out and allowed her fingertips to score the surface of the water before sinking her fingers. First to the cuticle, then to the first knuckle and then the second.
That’s when she felt it, something brush up against her fingertips. Surprised, Ihmani scrambled away from the trapdoor’s edge as her breath hissed from her teeth in both fear and excitement. So desperate for freedom she’d gone and scared herself.
Calming down she dried her hand off into her skirts before retreating back to her space she relaxed against one of the wide wooden columns and sighed. Now to play the waiting game.
The first three days yielded no visit, making Ihmani begin to worry herself sick, her already jagged nails receiving the brunt of her anxiety as she kept watch over the still water. On more than one occasion she thought to push her hand beneath the water with the idea she could attract the many faced god. Other times she considered submerging her head to see if she could make out anything but blackness before reason finally returned to her. According to Nana Yabo the god swam from the east to the north to the west and then settled in the south. Ihmani’s house was situated in the south of the village which meant she’d always be one of the last to be visited. Feeling relatively calmer she found she was able to sleep throughout the day undaunted until hunger stabbed at her belly.
Splitting a piece of jerky between her teeth she watched the open hole humming to herself as she pillowed her head on her arms. She had two more days. She also had yet to figure out what her offering would be though in her defense she possessed no great or enviable talent that she could barter with. Her face was plain aside from errant freckles and a few scars that crisscrossed over the left side of her chin. The things she knew weren’t impressive enough to have her parents brag about. And though muscle ran through her arms and legs she wasn’t especially fast though it took longer for her to be winded and her strength only rivaled other girls growing up because she wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty.
Tired of racking her brain for options, Ihmani finished her meal before she closed eyes to place her focus on the song that left her lips.
A bubbling sound roused her from her sleep on the fourth night and as she rolled to light the oil lamp Ihmani froze. Something was watching her from the trapdoor. Something large whose surface shimmered beneath the moonlight that shone from the single window that sat too close to the ceiling.
“Please. Don’t stop.”
A voice called out to her. Neither male nor female. Just hauntingly ephemeral.
“What?” Ihmani frowned, her hand falling back to the floor as she sat up. Was she dreaming?
“Your voice. You sing in your sleep and I like to listen. I’ve always listened.”
Water slapped against the wood as the thing emerged further. That’s when it dawned on Ihmani as to what exactly she was looking at. Who she was looking at.
“Yipp” Her breath caught in her lungs, her heart stammering. It wasn’t that she was afraid, on the contrary, she was relieved. Yes, she had nothing to give him but all the better because that meant he’d take her from here, freeing her. The realization had her smiling and perhaps it was wishful thinking but she thought beneath the light of the moonlight she caught the god returning it.
“You shouldn’t be awake, my dear. I didn’t come for your tribute but perhaps we shall meet again,” Yipp said as the water began to slosh as he started to retreat.
“Wait!” Ihmani shouted, finally lighting her lamp to illuminate the space between them. “Don’t leave me here.”
Her eyes adjusting, she fell silent as her eyes scanned over what had yet to fall beneath the water’s surface to find that the village’s god looked nothing like how he was depicted. Aside from scales that glittered with deep greens, golds and pinks there was hardly anything fish like about Yipp. He appeared more snakelike than anything with two large, golden eyes like discs that sat forward in his face facing her. Then there was the mane of fins free of any horns that reminded her more of fabric petals that waved and rippled as if disturbed by an invisible wind.
“Please,” her voice trembled. “Take me with you.”
The god shook his head at this, his fins moving like silk. “I cannot.”
“But you took those girls,” Ihmani recalled in distress. “You’ve taken countless over the years yet leave me here without a single visit.”
The floorboards rattled as Yipp seemingly laughed, more of his large body emerging from the water allowing her to see his wide mouth full of sharp teeth, each the size of her hand.
“And each one I’ve eaten. Torn asunder and flaying their flesh from their bones. Even now their beautiful gowns line my belly with their warmth.” Yipp clicked his teeth, his eyes glowing fiercely beneath the light of the burning flame. “That isn’t a fate meant for you. Not when your voice has soothed me these past years.”
His words left Ihmani confused, not about the girls as she had assumed their fates long ago but what he had said. She knew she often spoke in her sleep but singing? And good singing at that? As far as she was concerned she could hardly carry a proper tune, her parents often called it caterwauling. But here was the god of her village saying otherwise.
“So you’ve let me be because I would sing in my sleep?”
“Does that offend you? Would you rather I bless you?”
“Of course not.” Ihmani was quick to protest. “I don’t want to be the wife of some man but I also have no wish to be sacrificed to Yipp Lamut should I walk out of here with nothing to show for my stay. That’s why I want you to take me with you.”
The silence that followed her request had her reconsidering her words if only because she now feared that she had insulted him. That was however until a large mouth opened to speak once more.
“What will you offer me in return if I were to do this? And be careful with what you ask. I do not take kindly to trickery as the girls who came before you this season learned.”
So they had indeed thought themselves too clever for a god. Keeping the warning in mind Ihmani found she could only offer the very thing that Yipp seemed to cherish. Moving closer towards the center she met large, watching eyes.
“My voice. I’ll give you my voice.”
“No,” Yipp snapped, the water splashing up and over the edges of the opening in turbulent waves. “I will not take such a gift from you. Try again.”
Frowning, Ihmani felt deflated before a thought occurred to her. “Well what is it that you want?” she asked.
Again silence followed before Yipp finally answered.
“Freedom. I wish to be free of this place. Were you to achieve this I’d honor your wish and take you far from here. You’d be no man’s wife but a god’s.”
A god’s wife? Ihmani might have laughed at the absurdity of it all but she knew better. She also knew that she couldn’t just walk out through the front door, not with the five locks still in place, something she was quick to point out.
“I can take you to the river from here where you may return to your village on foot. Once there you must set fire to my effigy, damaging it beyond repair. Then and only then will I be free from the ones who have imprisoned me for centuries,” Yipp explained. “Will you do this?”
There was no way that Ihmani could say no. Of course she worried about the safety of her family but Yipp was like her, he was a prisoner who yearned for freedom and in exchange for his own he was willing to do the same for her. Agreeing, she stood back as he opened his cavernous mouth to her. Taking a final breath she climbed inside of the wet, fleshy chasm and allowed sharp teeth to shut behind her.
Swimming up to the riverbank after Yipp had broken the surface, Ihmani, surefooted and soaking wet, made her way through the trees and back into the heart of the village. There she found the towering effigies encircled by the night torches glared down upon the sleeping village.
Those would do. Grabbing the nearest one she looked back at her home, hesitating until remembering her father’s threat. Turning back in determination, Ihmani brought the flame to Yipp’s statue. It caught fire quickly and violently but it was the scream that emitted from the effigy itself that gave her a start. That fright had only lasted for a second before she felt something rush over and through her. Whatever it was left her gasping and in a state of elation she found herself rushing to the next statue until Lamu, Sawu and Asaam burned just furiously.
One by one each of the effigies screamed into the night filling the air with the thick scent of burning flesh and enraptured Ihmani watched on deaf to the commotion of the village waking and crying for water to be drawn.
“What have you done?” a village elder screamed and yanked her around, fear brimming in the old woman’s dark eyes.
Tilting her head back to see as Yipp’s head crumbled in on itself, Ihmani rolled her head to stare down into the dark weathered face and grinned. “Why aunty, I did what you all wanted of me. I’ve become a bride,” she said proudly then pulled herself from the hold.
Only once the first light of dawn had begun to bleed pink across the sky did Ihmani allow herself to stop her walking to rest on the side of the road. She didn’t know where she was going but figured the further away from the black smoke that billowed from her village the better.
Finding a song on her lips, she closed eyes taking in the sounds around her before eventually hearing the clattering of hooves when what she assumed to be a cart began to draw closer. It wasn’t uncommon for merchants to travel these roads so early in the day and so she didn’t worry too much despite being a woman dressed in bridal garb sitting on the side of the road. Only once the horses came to a stop and soft footsteps approached her did she silence herself.
“Come,” a familiar voice though more masculine in nature beckoned her. “We have a ways to go.”
Looking up, Ihmani regarded the man before her. Glittering gold eyes watched her from a smooth ebon face of strong cheekbones and a gentle jaw as loose black coils hung loose down broad shoulders covered in a fine robe fashioned from cobbled together bridal dresses.
“Where are we going?” she asked, feeling one too many hands latch onto her waist as she was hoisted up into the cart seat before she was joined.
Grabbing the reins in one hand Yipp offered her a smile of sharp teeth. “There are more villages like yours around these lands and I am hungry.”
