The Wild Girls by Ursula K. Le Guin Read Free Book Online

better.”
    He carried Modh to their bedroom, sat with her till she pretended to sleep, then left her quietly.
    She knew that by her concern, by the nights she had spent with Mal, she had let her husband become jealous of her sister.
    It was for her sake I came to you! she cried to him in her heart.
    But there was nothing she could say now that would not cause more harm.
    When she got up she went to Mal’s room. Mal ran to her weeping, but Modh only held her, not speaking, till the girl grew quieter. Then she said, “Mal, there is nothing I can do. You must endure this. So must I.”
    Mal drew back a little and said nothing for a while. “It cannot happen,” she said then, with a kind of certainty. “It will not be allowed. The child will not allow it.”
    Modh was bewildered for a moment. She had for some days been fairly sure she was pregnant. Now she thought for a moment that Mal was pregnant. Then she understood.
    “You must not think about that child,” she said. “She was not yours or mine. She was not daughter or sister of ours. Her death was not our death.”
    “No. It is his,” Mal said, and almost smiled. She stroked Modh’s arms and turned away. “I will be good, Modh,” she said. “You must not let this trouble you—you and your husband. It’s not your trouble. Don’t worry. What must happen will happen.”
    Cowardly, Modh let herself accept Mal’s reassurance. More cowardly still, she let herself be glad that it was only a few days until the wedding. Then what must happen would have happened. It would be done, it would be over.
    She was pregnant; she told Hehum and Nata of the signs. They both smiled and said, “A boy.”
    There was a flurry of getting ready for the wedding. The ceremony was to be in Belen House, and the Belens refused to let the Bals provide food or dancers or musicians or any of the luxuries they offered. Tudju was to be the marriage priestess. She came a couple of days early to stay in her old home, and she and Modh played at sword-practice the way they had done as girls, while Mal looked on and applauded as she had used to do. Mal was thin and her eyes looked large, but she went through the days serenely. What her nights were, Modh did not know. Mal did not send for her. In the morning, she would smile at Modh’s questions about the night and say, “It passed.”
    But the night before the wedding, Modh woke in the deep night, hearing a baby cry.
    She felt Bela awake beside her.
    “Where is that child?” he said, his voice rough and deep in the darkness.
    She said nothing.
    “Nata should quiet her brat,” he said.
    “It is not Nata’s.”
    It was a thin, strange cry, not the bawling of Nata’s healthy boys. They heard it first to the left, as if in the hanan. Then after a silence the thin wail came from their right, in the public rooms of the house.
    “Maybe it’s my child,” Modh said.
    “What child?”
    “Yours.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I carry your child. Nata and Hehum say it’s a boy. I think it’s a girl, though.”
    “But why is it crying?” Bela whispered, holding her.
    She shuddered and held him. “It’s not our baby, it’s not our baby,” she cried.
    All night the baby wailed. People rose up and lighted lanterns and walked the halls and corridors of Belen House. They saw nothing but each other’s frightened faces. Sometimes the weak, sickly crying ceased for a long time, then it would begin again. Mostly it was faint, as if far away, even when it was heard in the next room. Nata’s little boys heard it, and shouted, “Make it stop!” Tudju burned incense in the prayer room and chanted all night long. To her the faint wailing seemed to be under the floor, under her feet.
    When the sun rose, the people of Belen House ceased to hear the ghost. They made ready for the wedding festival as best they could.
    The people of Bal House came. Mal was brought out from behind the yellow curtain, wearing voluminous unsewn brocaded silks and golden