Rosemary

This has been my name for 16 years now. I have been surviving in this cursed land for over a decade and I reached adulthood last winter.

Nobody knows the exact date of my birth; only that it happened when snow started to fall from the sky, covering the dry and infertile land in white. Mother says I was born in the darkest time, when the red moon disappeared from the sky, and clouds loaded with snow were obstructing the stars.

Sometimes I wonder if the dark was a blessing in disguise when I was born because, in this land where the night reigns eternal, nobody could properly see me with the red and orange light of the fire heating our small village house.

But maybe it was a curse disguised as a blessing, because only later did Mother and Father learn what I looked like. A disgusting baby with dark eyes and black hair - when every other person in this village has red eyes and red hair.

When Father saw me for the first time when the snow was thick and the red moon finally decided to illuminate the landscape in its reminiscent red glow he despised me, called Mother a practitioner of dark arts, and wanted to kill me.

But I am still alive.

Mother convinced Father I would not survive the winter, and that he should let nature take its course instead of painting his hands in red. Father agreed and thus, I was spared.

Moon cycle after Moon cycle the winter went by, and I was still there. Weak, tiny, and ugly, but still breathing. Still surviving.

It was unheard of for a baby born in the coldest season to survive even a single Moon cycle, but I did. It was never seen that a baby one and a half times the hand of their Father to live longer than even half a Moon cycle, and alas, I did not die.

And thus, winter went by and the snow started to melt with the heating winds coming from Up North. Nobody in the village thus far knew Mother had had her baby during the cold season because nobody would leave their houses when the floor turned into the snow; doing so was a death sentence.

As such, the dreadful day to show the village the new baby who had survived winter came. Father, who strongly believes in Lassori, the God of Fertility and Mother of Nature, could not defy his God's will which allowed me to survive the harsh condition.

I was presented to the village when I was so young I barely knew how to move. Everyone was shocked and many accused my family of partitioning dark arts and my Mother to conceive the Child of Oidih, the God of darkness who ruled the land when the red moon was not present to stop him and his evil powers.

The village disapproved of me and wanted me dead. But a single person, Brody, one of the oldest Shagart of the village, saved me. He also agreed that if Mother Lassori did not let nature consume my gealbhan, then, I should be let to live, and they would see for how long Lassori would let me live.

Another winter came and went, and I was still here.

Then another, and another, and another.

I am still here to this day.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

It didn't take me long to understand that life in this village is tough. In this barren world of eternal nights and red moons, the Ashen Village can only hope to survive on the few fish that can be found in the gigantic Dragan Loch we live by.

When we are extremely lucky the few hunters we have can find and kill one old or weak deer, giving us not only meat but some hide, bones, and horns which can be used to craft a variety of tools and commodities.

Which makes me believe humans are the most ingenious animals out there. To be able to live in such extreme conditions can be impressive, although I hate needing to live like this.

Everything can have its own beauty…

…

Generally speaking, the village is organized by gender, profession, and the importance of said profession. As one could imagine, the most important job in this village is the Isgair because they are the ones providing fish to everyone. According to them, the job is too harsh and a woman would never be able to do it, because the water is deep and cold, and there are monsters living at the bottom of the lake. Father is an Isgair, alongside around twenty other men in the village.

The second most important profession would be wood gathering - when there is no sun to heat up the land wood is used over time, and everyone needs to have heated houses if they wish to survive the harsh winters. There is a little over fifteen Iomái in the Village.

After them comes the Maintín as the third important job, which would be Mother's job. She tried endlessly to teach me how to sew holes, fix loosened strings, and even how make cotton string. But I failed in every attempt to do so. Alongside my black hair and blue eyes, my body was born with some kind of condition where my hands won't stop shaking, and sometimes I feel incredible pain in my shoulders and my arms, which makes me a useless Maitín. Today there are a little under ten Maintín in the village.

The fourth job would be the Shagarts, as they are responsible to appease the Gods so the night creatures wouldn't be sent to kill us all. But recently, there were only two Shagarts after Brody passed away when I was nine. And no one seemed too keen on getting a Shagart position anymore.

Aside from them, there is every other little odd job, like mine, of collecting cotton from our fields. I still don't understand why no one had ever tried to plant a seed of wheat or to have an apple tree grow in the village. According to Mother, it is because everything we eat from the Earth is contaminated and it will kill us, so we all need to keep on eating fish.

Honestly, at this point, I am unsure how we are all alive with only a fish and lake weed diet.

We also have very few iron and copper coins, meaning every trade we do inside the village is exclusively good for good. Only when wandering travelers and merchants come by that we use our precious little coins to buy and sell what we can.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

I have seen my fair share of death in the village during my sixteen years of survival.

Good people. Kind people. People who deserved better.

Death, as always, was uncaring, unmerciful, and did not discriminate. It would come for a newborn who had yet to know about the four seasons or a Father who supported an entire family; more often than not Death would knock on this door again in the first winter following his death, and the house would be left cold and empty.

And I almost couldn't bear it.

All the pain, suffering, and misery. It all felt like a neverending nightmare for my first ten years in this eternal night. The change of what I once had and now was too big for too long of a time. And the story of Rosemary almost ended in a quiet clearing.

The only witness to it was supposed to be me, a chair, and an Isgair's hope I stole from Father.

But alas, Lassai must have been looking out for me again, because there was someone else in there. There was the ugliest red-haired boy one could hope to see… The only one who managed to keep me sane over the years in this nightmarish land.

Honestly, a lot of people in the village thought we were great for each other, the ugly cursed girl and the ugly crooked smiling boy.

His white teeth and tears were reflecting the red light of the moon. It was one of the few memories I could vividly remember. One which I hoped to never forget. I can't make him suffer again. It was my promise to him at that time, and one I plan to keep as long as I can.

I also discovered another strange phenomenon in this place. One I have only seen once in my entire life when I was but nine. The red moon had disappeared from the sky leaving behind only the stars to shine upon us in its normal Moon cycle, but when the moon came back it wasn't red, but blue. A shiny blue that overtook everything.

I cried when I saw it. It was beautiful. That calming blue took over the aggressive reds I was so used to. The world seemed to be getting better for a split second and I was the happiest I could ever be,

At the time I was still an innocent kid hoping a knight in shiny armor would appear to take me away.

Away from this village.

Away from these people.

I hoped.

I Prayed.

My dream was for the male lead to finally come and save me from this hell. Like all those stories I have read back on Earth. Like all those happy endings I have imagined while holding a book.

But when that didn't happen, I started to hope for anyone, anything: a hero, a villain, a God, a demon. Whatever would come and take me away from here.

But alas, no one ever appeared. I was never saved. And I would be forever left to fend for myself. Because even if I retained the memories of my past life, no matter how much I hoped, and prayed even, nothing ever truly changed.

I just kept being a lowly village girl in a barren wasteland where my biggest dream was to hopefully die during my sleep instead of starving or freezing to death.

This is nothing like the novels I used to read.

There is no knight in shiny armor,

No duke waiting for me in his mansion,

And no prince searching the entire kingdom for the girl whose feet will fit the little glass shoe left behind.

If this is a novel, it is not a story about magical godmothers or men who come to my rescue. In this village, you are either a survivor or a dead body pretending to be alive.

And I have been surviving since the day of my birth when not even the snow and cold managed to strip me away from this world.

I have been a survivor since the day Rory found me in that clearing with a chair, a hope, and a three.

And I'm not about to give up.