CYCLES OF THE MOON

Meera did not know how long she had been lying there when her Amma found her bleeding on the bedroom floor. The sharp clang of her mother’s metal pot hitting the ground pierced through the heavy pounding of her heartbeat in her ears. She rushed to her daughter, ready to scoop her into her arms and press her to her chest, but stopped when she saw the dark red stain on her pants. 

“Stand up, Meeru.” She crouched next to the girl, clenching her fists to hide how they shook at the sight of her barely thirteen-year-old child shaking on the floor like a rabid animal.  

“Amma, call the doctor.” Meera croaked out, barely able to speak through her sobs. She believed she must be dying. There was no other explanation for the stabbing pain in the depths of her stomach, nor the thick clots of blood muddying her underwear and kurta bottoms. 

“You will be okay, beta. Please just stand, we have to go. You cannot be here when your Baba comes back from harvest.” 

Meera reached for her Amma, but her hands met only air as her mother stepped away. Her chest caved in on itself, heaving as her mother stepped into the other room to get a cloth. Rather than handing it to Meera, Amma placed the cloth on the floor and watched as her daughter wiped away her own tears from a distance.

“Where are we going, Amma?”

“You’re a woman now, Meera.” A sob ripped through the girl’s chest. “The core of your stomach will ache, your back will burn with the weight of your womanhood. This is what it means to grow up. Now come, we must be gone before your Baba returns.” Amma removed the chuni around her shoulders, a simple piece of cloth that she draped around her neck every day, and handed it to Meera to wrap around her waist. 

With bare feet, the two stepped out of their humble home and down the dirt path that ran through their village. The humid air wrapped around them, leaving their steps heavy as they walked past rows of small houses. The aunties squatting over flaming pots of tea quickly glanced away when they saw Meera’s distraught state. The uncles heading back home from work kept extra feet of distance as they walked past her, turning their heads to avoid eye contact. Meera moved through this town that had raised her like a shadow, darkening with every averted gaze. 

They continued trudging through the town until the bottoms of their feet turned black with collected dust and the dirt path under their feet dissipated, leaving damp earth in its wake. They had arrived at the large stream that ran adjacent to their village, where Meera had bathed every other day since she was a baby. She stepped onto the lush grass to make her way to the water, but her mother stopped her. Instead, they walked down the length of the river, venturing past the only area Meera had ever dared to go and into a thicket of trees. She ached to hold her Amma’s hand, but held herself back, trying instead to find comfort in the feeling of the cool leaves grazing over her body, unafraid to touch her like everyone else was. 

When they finally emerged past the trees, Meera found herself in front of a small mud hut. Though its door was made of thick bamboo slats, spaced far enough apart that one could peek in, the small room was shrouded in shadow. She could, however, hear soft weeping emanating from inside. Fear struck her nerves like lightning at the pained cries. These are the cries of the spirits. She had heard many tales of the ghosts that lived by the stream, whose wails rang far enough to be heard by the villagers through the night. Her shaking hands grabbed at her mother’s back, but Amma deftly stepped out of her grasp and pulled at the door.

“Amma, please!” Meera did not even know what she was asking for, just that she needed some sort of escape. Whether it was from the hut, the village, or her own body, she could not tell, at the sight of her mother’s eyes brimming with tears, she knew she would not get it. Her Amma hesitated for a moment and then cradled Meera’s clammy cheek in her hand. She was not supposed to touch her, but there was no one else around to see this. 

“I’m sorry beta, you will have to stay here until the bleeding is gone. I will bring you food at night.” With a soft brush of her lips on Meera’s sweaty forehead and a light push, Amma closed the door behind her and left her daughter behind. The mother only made it a few steps before calling out once again, her voice thick from the lump that had grown at the base of her throat, “I’m sorry, Meeru,” and with that, she slipped back into the trees and disappeared. 

Meera stared at the space her mother once was through the gaps between the door, her back turned away from the source of the weeping. But once she realized her mother would not return for her, she braced herself to face her fate. However, once she turned around, she realized there was no ghost at all. In the shadowed hut, Meera could barely make out a young girl from her school sitting against the thick mud wall, staring up at her with tired, tear-stained eyes. Her name was Lakshmi, and she had been alone inside the hut for three days. 

“Asha aunty was in here with me last month, but I think she’s having a baby now, so she doesn’t have to come here anymore.” Lakshmi’s voice was hoarse from misuse and thirst, cracking at every other word.

Meera was shocked to hear that Lakshmi had already been to the hut a few times prior. She could not fathom that Asha aunty, one of her mother’s friends, had been in this same space. Asha aunty, who was well-respected by the town for her delicious cooking, whose husband was rich enough to afford a small radio that her Amma went over to listen to daily. But she was most surprised to learn that a baby could stop this feeling, could free her from the clay barriers holding her away from the luxuries of her regularly programmed life. Suddenly, she found herself dreaming of the day her parents would find her a husband. 

Meera’s new friend taught her all that she knew. She showed her how to use scraps of cloth to stuff her underwear and stop blood from leaking through. She explained how their cycles of the moon had left the two of them doomed, dirty, and bleeding with so much sin that it was unsafe for anyone else to be around them until it stopped. Meera learned that she was not dying, that this would happen every month from now on. 

“Do you remember when Mithu aunty’s baby died?” Lakshmi conspiratorially whispered. 

Meera did remember. She remembered how years ago, she watched that tiny body get carried through the village on a bed of wood, raised above his father’s head as he marched his dead son through the village. The entire town had followed behind him, dressed in white, as they made their way to the end of the river where he was cremated. After the ceremony had finished, she peered out at the villagers from behind her Baba’s legs as they began to speculate. Such a small boy, taken so young by illness, it could only be the work of the devil. There is no other explanation. They were so sure of it, so driven by their grief that soon their pain birthed rage. 

Hours later, in the depths of the night, they threw stone after stone at the house teetering on the very edge of their village. It belonged to Nilani, a woman so peculiar, so wayward, there was no other explanation than that it was her doing. Meera remembered the villagers’ crazed howls as they demanded Nilani to come outside. She did not listen, and they could not fathom how she could dare to do so. Though she had locked her door shut, they shattered her windows and beat away at her walls. Even after they had tired themselves out in the early hours of the morning, she did not leave her house. She remained inside for the next several days, looking emaciated when she finally emerged. But she survived. The village never attacked her again after that night, but from that moment onwards, Meera knew that Nilani was a danger she had to avoid.

“Apparently, she was bleeding that day, but she did not hide. I heard my mother telling Mithu aunty that she used it for black magic.” Meera was struck with grief. How much evil could be contained inside one woman? Inside every woman, in the veins and blood of every one of them, begging for this hellish monthly escape? She had never known her body could betray her like this, that it was capable of something so sinister. She clung to Lakshmi then, fitting herself under the older girl’s chin and holding her tight. 

The two girls spoke in hushed tones for the rest of the night, even though there was no one around to hear them. When their mothers brought them food, slipping their tiffins through the gaps between the door’s bamboo slats, they stole bites from each other’s lukewarm dinner like old friends. They drank a few sips of the water they were given, and poured the rest of it on an old piece of cloth to carefully wipe their arms and faces clean. Lakshmi’s fingers worked deftly through Meera’s hair to tie it into a tight braid that extended down her spine, just like her mother did every night back home. Meera returned the favor and once they finally felt like people again, the two girls curled up together on the old mat to go to sleep.

Lakshmi dozed off quite quickly, but Meera stayed awake through the night. She missed the smell of menthol from the camphor her Amma burned every night, feeling overwhelmed by the stench of the woods and the slight metallic pang of aging blood in the hut. At home, her Baba’s light snoring would lure her to sleep, but here all she could hear was the buzz of the insects and the sound of the water rushing down the stream outside. Even the mat she slept on was far too thin, and as she tossed and turned, she was hyper-aware of the small pebbles in the ground digging into her back.

By the time the sun rose and Lakshmi awakened, Meera had given up on trying to sleep. She moved through the next day, and the next, and the next, in a daze of exhaustion. Once Lakshmi’s bleeding stopped, the girl was left alone in the hut, and she wept for the first time since she had arrived. For the next two nights, she attempted to tie her hair away in a neat braid like Lakshmi had, but found that her arms could not reach far enough behind her back and that her fingers lacked the precision that her dear friend had mastered. By the time she finally got to go back home three days later, her hair was so tangled it had started matting. 

Once Meera’s blood had finally stopped flowing and she was welcomed back home, her Amma came to pick her up, fresh clothes in hand. She melted into her mother’s arms and stayed there, unmoving, for as long as she could, letting her Amma soak up the exhaustion that had built up inside her. The two of them moved to the river to clean away the final traces of Meera’s awful past few days, stripping their outer layers, but keeping their undergarments on as they stepped into the water. Meera was struck by the river’s proximity to the hut, at how oblivious she had been to this entirely new side of life. When her mother would disappear for days at a time, she was always made to believe that she was tending to some secret “adult business.” Her chest ached at the thought of her mother sleeping on the dirty mat where she had spent the last several nights. Even the spirits that she had grown up fearing were not mystical at all. No, they were girls just like her, they always had been. Lost in her thoughts, she let the cold water run over her body, cleansing her of her sin. As her mother’s hands worked gently through her wet hair, undoing the knots that had accumulated, she finally felt whole again.

Back home, her Baba made no reference to her stay in the hut. He simply caressed her head and asked her to massage his aching feet, swollen from the long days he spent farming. It was as though her stay in the woods had never even happened. At school, Lakshmi now spoke to her, but never about their time in the hut. The older girls seemed to have noticed that she was gone, and while they did not speak to her of her disappearance, they invited her to sit with them at lunch and pressed portions of their food into her plate as though they were trying to fill out her chubby cheeks that had become gaunt from her time away. Within the span of a few days, it was as though everything and nothing had changed. 

In the next months, Meera’s hands still shook when she felt the tell-tale stabs of pain in her lower stomach. Her only comfort was in the knowledge that Lakshmi would be in the hut too, that she would not have to go through those painful days alone. Until one day Lakshmi approached her in school and pulled her away from the others. 

“My parents have found me a husband. I will probably have a baby soon.” Lakshmi’s wide, innocent eyes filled with tears that did not fall. Meera could not breathe and did not respond. It was common for the older girls to marry and stop attending school. Even some girls in Meera’s year had already taken their leave, but Lakshmi’s admission that she would be with child, that she would no longer stay in the hut with Meera, cut through her. A few days later, Lakshmi stopped attending school, and every night Meera lay awake imagining her friend laying next to a man she had never met before, still a child but now carrying a baby of her own. In her sleep, she dreamt of the two of them breaking down those clay walls, and running deep into the woods where no one could find them. When the time for her to return to the hut had come, this time alone, she had not heard from Lakshmi in weeks. 

Over the past few months, Meera had learned to love the sound of Lakshmi’s deep sleeping breaths, the soft scent of her hair, in the same way that she loved her home. Now without any source of comfort at all, she did not even attempt to sleep. She was filled with rage: at her body, at the ugliness it produced, at God for birthing her a woman. She cried and screamed until her lungs burned with the force of her fury until her fists were black and bloody from slamming against walls that refused to budge. She screamed until the sun rose, until she was sure the entire village could hear her, until her throat was so sore she could hardly breathe without feeling a raw pain. Her anger burned so harshly, so bright, that eventually, all that was left was a pile of ash, and she did not even realize it when she fell asleep.  

Meera woke in the early evening to the rhythm of a light hand carding through her hair. She was laying in someone’s lap, though she could not recognize her flowery scent. She relished in the feeling of a sari’s soft satin rubbing against her cheek, her head finally comfortable against the soft flesh of the woman’s thigh. In her dreamlike state, Meera turned to peer up and face the woman, but when she saw who it was, her blood ran cold. 

“Did you sleep well?” 

Meera was too afraid to answer. She stared up at Nilani’s face for a moment and then scrambled away. Why was she here? The villagers had already outcasted her and moved her to a house on the fringes of their town where the residents could remain as far away from her as possible. But then Meera remembered the story Lakshmi told her and realized that Nilani was likely too dangerous to be left to her own devices during her cycle. Despite their hatred for her, no one had been brave enough to banish her entirely, and so she was left in the same hut as a panicked Meera. 

In this enclosed space, the girl could do nothing but crawl a few feet away from her.  She stared at Nilani's face, which had already begun to erupt with wrinkles despite her being even younger than Amma. The roots of her hair were beginning to gray, but unlike the other women in the village, she had not covered them with henna. 

“You have quite a loud voice. Even I could hear you through the night, though now you seem to have no words.” Meera could do nothing but shake her head, though she did not know whether it was in agreement or dissent. Nilani pulled something wrapped in a handkerchief out from behind her. Inside was a roti, wrapped around spiced eggplant. She held it out to Meera. Though Meera was brought meals daily, they were typically only at the end of the day, and she had gone hours without eating. Reluctantly, she took the food, barely chewing before scarfing down the spicy vegetables and bread.

“Thank you.”

“You’re young. You must eat.”

With that, Nilani turned away, leaned against the cool mud wall, and closed her eyes. For the next several hours, they did not speak. Meera was still afraid of her, refusing to take her eyes off the older woman until she laid down on the mat and went to sleep. When Meera’s Amma dropped her dinner outside, she walked backwards towards the door to retrieve it so as to keep Nilani within her field of vision. She reached between gaps of the wooden rods that made up the door with her gaze still trained on Nilani. The woman chuckled but said nothing as she watched the young girl grasp aimlessly to grab her food.

“Do you plan on staying awake all night to keep an eye on me?” Meera had no answer for that. She supposed she could not do that, at least not every single night for the remaining days she had in the hut. Embarrassed, she turned around to pick up her food. She walked back to her spot on the floor, sitting as far away as she could from Nilani’s position on the mat.

“We can switch spots if you would like, so you can sit on the mat. You are dirtying your clothes.” Meera just shook her head once again and dug into her meal, confused. Why was someone who the village hated, who had been exiled away from them, being so kind? Then again, she supposed, she was here being exiled as well. 

“Why are you being so kind to me?” Meera was shocked at the sound of her own voice. 

“Well, I have no reason not to be.” Nilani smiled at Meera, the crow’s feet by her eyes deepening. Meera felt her own lips turn up and willed them back down to a neutral expression. 

“Are you really a witch?” Meera could not believe her own gall, but something about Nilani had made her far too comfortable. To her surprise, Nilani let out a loud, piercing laugh. 

“The only magic I possess is that which any other woman does.”

Silence washed over them once again, and Meera felt overwhelmed. She knew she was clueless before, but she believed these last few months had taught her all she needed to know about her body, about what it was capable of. She began to realize that perhaps she actually knew even less than she did before. She shyly laid Nilani’s handkerchief on the floor and emptied half of her dinner into it. Without words, Nilani watched as Meera wrapped the food in the cloth and passed it to her. Nilani’s face evolved into a grin, and they ate together in silence. Once they finished, he began her nightly preparations, expecting Nilani to do the same, but the woman stayed still. Nilani only moved when Meera struggled to tie her own hair back into a braid, weaving her expert fingers through the young girl’s dark hair and bringing it to a knot. Meera felt the knife in her chest dislodge, so grateful that she was not completely alone. 

By the time night fell, Meera’s eyes were growing heavy with sleep, but she shot back awake when Nilani stood and walked towards the door. Her frail arms reached through the gaps between the wood, her elbow hooking around one of the bars so she could reach the latch that kept the doors locked. With an experienced hand, she undid the latch and the door swung open. Meera’s heart dropped.

“Where are you going?” 

“To the river. I want to bathe.”

“We’re not allowed to leave.”

“That is why we waited until everyone went to sleep.”

“Is this not wrong?”

“What is wrong is that we are stuck here. You had the mind to scream all night, but did not think to walk out the door?” And with that, Nilani stepped outside.

Meera froze, her eyes glued to the open door and the shard of light it brought into the dark, cramped hut. Several moments passed, but Meera could not move from her seat on the floor. All she could hear was the sound of her blood rushing through her ears and the river running outside. Could it really be that simple? Despite everything in her mind telling her to stay put, she felt a tug in her chest, in her soul, beckoning her outside. She could not deny her desire to follow the older woman. Meera crept through the thicket of trees in front of the hut and to the river, moving slowly, with deliberate steps so as not to step on a branch or rustle any leaves. When she finally reached the river, Nilani was already bathing. From the appearance of Nilani’s bare shoulders over the water, Meera could tell she had stripped completely bare. Nilani did not even look at the young girl staring at her, her eyes focused on the sky.

“Come in. There is no one to judge us here but the moon.”

Meera carefully stepped out of her clothes, and into the water. Her skin erupted in goosebumps at the ice-cold sensation creeping up her legs, torso, and arms. Eventually, she stood next to Nilani in the river and looked up at the sky as well. The moon was full, its light just barely illuminating her surroundings and the silhouette of the woman next to her. Meera breathed in what felt like her first-ever breath and submerged her head under the water.