The Ink In-Between: An Anthology (Dark Edition)

Eight Horns

PROMPT: Write a story about a spice. 

CW(s): Domestic abuse, forced marriage, implied marital rape, disturbing imagery, death.

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"one horn for the ghosts"

I live in a house full of ghosts. 

I can hear them sometimes.

The voices of women, young and old, whose shouts echo throughout empty rooms, waking everyone up to the first rays of the morning haze. The giggles and footsteps of children running barefoot across the warm stone courtyard in the afternoon. The sound of bamboo flutes from the tea garden, in the quiet, dying light of the evening.

The bronze war drums in the dead of the night.

All these sounds...

Are they memories?

And if so... are they my own? Or are they simply the lingering remains of the ghosts that used to live here, haunting me?

I feel like it doesn't really matter anymore.

A distinction without meaning.

We are all ghosts now.

"two horns for the family"

This house is much too big.

What was once a place built for many mothers and grandmothers, for their many children and the men chosen to father them, is now roof over only three.

Me, the man I call Husband, and his Mother.

Mother tells me that this is how it should be. That this is what a proper family looks like.

Not clans. A clan can never be a family, because the women of a clan did not serve the men, and the men did not serve the Emperor. They served no one, which goes against the proper order of things. And no country or its people can prosper without order.

The voice of my grandmother comes to me then, her words mingling with loud laughter as she spits and says, "clans are not families, because only families can be taxed."

But I do not dare repeat those words to Mother.

So, instead, I ask her if that means she serves her son. She says, "yes, of course".

I ask her who she would serve then, if he were to die.

She does not answer. Only stares at me for a very long time.

That night, I go to bed on an empty stomach.

For hours, I lay awake and stare up at the ceiling, with nothing but the growling beast in my belly and the loud snores of Mother in my ear.

"three horns for the seeds"

Husband has a very sensitive stomach.

It has been that way since he was a child, Mother tells me.

To soothe his pain, he drinks a special tea every night, right before he goes to bed. It is made by boiling water, adding three whole star anise pods and letting it steep for a long time.