Half Face by Mara Li

Author:Mara Li [Li, Mara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-17T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

The Black

Dawn breaks early the next morning. When I wake, the Half Face has already left his sleeping bag and is standing on the hilltop outside, looking over the steppe with an unreadable expression on his black-and-white face.

I use this moment to dress hastily. The air chills my body before I slip into my warm sweater. I run my hands through the loose tresses of my hair, brushing them as well as I possibly can. Maybe I can ask Tsend to lend me a comb later.

They are waiting for us behind the ger. Tsend is wearing a wide, blue tunic that covers her feet, adorned with yellow and red ribbons. Her neck and arms are

wrapped with beaded strings, her head is crowned with feathers. Oyun is hardly recognizable behind a mask from which two cow’s horns protrude into the air. When she turns around, I notice two staring eyes embroidered on the mask. It is slightly disconcerting to behold.

Both Oyun and Tsend are holding a large, round drum in their arms.

Batzorig greets us with a weak smile. I don’t see Enkhbad anywhere, but maybe he is still sleeping in his tent. I wish I could go back and catch another hour of undisturbed rest myself, but at that moment, the Half Face slips his arm around my waist, pulling me close to him as we make the short descent from the hill to the low valley behind the ger, where the two shamans and our interpreter are waiting for us.

‘You must sit over there,’ Batzorig tells the Half Face. ‘Juliet, you can sit here with me.’

‘What do I have to do?’ the Half Face asks, as he sits down where the interpreter directed him. His fists rest in his lap; he is nervous, I realize.

‘Do nothing now. If something changes, I will tell you.’

He nods. ‘How long will it take?’

Batzorig shrugs. ‘As long as it takes. They can’t tell me – it may be an hour. May be a day.’

I shiver at the thought of having to be out here in the cold for an entire day, but I sit down on the ground all the same, my legs curled up beneath me.

The two shamans position themselves behind my captor. Tsend raises her drum and begins to beat a low, steady rhythm: thump. Thump-thump. Thump. Like the heartbeat of a sleeping person.

Batzorig takes his place next to me. He looks like he wants to say something, but then Oyun raises her voice to an eerie pitch, lifting her masked head to the cloud-hung sky. She is like a wounded creature shrieking out in pain, and I can’t help but shift back, the hairs on my arms and my neck standing up. Tsend begins to mutter something, her hands never resting as she beats her drum. The Half Face is starting to look scared.

Suddenly, Oyun grabs both sides of his head in her claw-like hands and says something in her normal voice, repeating it again and again.

‘What’s she saying?’ I whisper to Batzorig.

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