Page 1 of Betrothed to the Yeti

Chapter 1

Jaya, Enceladus, Moon of Saturn, 2700 AD

My eldest sister, Nima, is either the dumbest person alive or a genius. The way she smirks at the Alpha Village Seer, there’s no mistaking how proud she is of herself. Her belly, rounded with child, is an embarrassment, but that’s the norm for my family. Our annual bridal ceremony is the social event of the year where families forge alliances, reunite across the four villages, and spread gossip like snow trapped in a squall. The same fading plastic flowers, tattered paper banners, and tarnished bells have hung in a circle every year I’ve been alive. I’d rather be in the circle of spectators watching the ceremony. But I’m trapped in the ring of betrothed brides, paying my father’s debts, and entertaining the crowd with shame written on my face.

Our Seer drones on about the colonization of Enceladus by the Earth-dwellers, their gift of our nuclear fusion reactor, and the hope of their return. This is the worst part of the ceremony in my opinion, but this is my first time as a participant—things may get worse after I’m led away from the group of brides. So far, the stories sting my heart more than being sold by Father. How can I be grateful to billions of people who live in an Earthly paradise because they abandoned us on a hunk of ice?

Through the generations, the Elders recite stories of Earth where our shared sun-star warms the planet. A home for people where they don’t have to dig through ice to reach soil for crops. Earth supposedly has trees to build warm huts instead of our huts made of mud and ice. The Earth-dwellers are so warm, they can swim in large bodies of liquid water for fun instead of hoarding the rare drops melted by the fusion labs.

“—and the gift of minerals from Epsilon Cave!” The Seer lifts her soprano voice in song, praising the rocks which fuel our fusion reactor. Yeah, the men sentenced to dig in the mines under the ice have the scariest stories. No one is too low in status for me to listen to them. Some of the miners work to fulfill loans, borrowed as far back as three generations, their lives sold by great-grandparents whose names they’ve forgotten. The mines freeze the men to the bone, slowly killing them, so our villages can have light. They stay underground, watching the cars of ore lift to the surface until they are called for ceremonies like this. If they can negotiate a bride and an apprenticeship, they can stay in a village—like the family who bought our hut.

“We claim our abundance like our ancestors on Earth!” she yells with a clap of her hands. The crowd repeats the statement and I have to conceal my eye roll.

Somehow, I never hear of people starving, disappearing, or sentenced to work in mines or brothels on Earth. Life on Earth sounds too good to be true. Why would the Earth-dwellers colonize this ice chunk if life was so easy and beautiful there? The Seer calls us a “discovery of the human spirit,” but I think we are the Earth dwellers’ forgotten garbage.

The Elders tell the real story when the Seer and Leaders are out of earshot. According to them, our original settlers contained a few brilliant, brave scientists to run the fusion reactor, but most of the “human spirit” had a criminal element. The Elders say many of our ancestors ran from Earthly death sentences to Enceladus. Maybe it’s true or maybe they were trying to justify the behavior within Alpha. In a village without a place for children to play, there is not one brothel filled with chained entertainers, but two. Sitting in itchy bridal furs that smell of age, waiting to find out who bought me, I push the brothel’s horrors from my mind. No use in worrying yet…

“They thought they could control me,” Nima bragged to us while we dressed in donated furs. The wedding story contains a bride dressed in blazing red to represent her pure heart full of love. The Seer’s dyed goat furs are aged to a dull coral color because of the number of brides to wear them over the years. After Nima sheds the Seer’s bridal furs, she will never be grouped with us again. “Father thought to chain me to an Elder, Leader, or the brothel. Well, I showed him!”

In a way, she’s right. I don’t know how she bedded Tenzin, Alpha’s Supreme Leader’s son, but in doing so, she arranged her betrothal. I marvel at her power. They moved the date of the annual ceremony up to accommodate the birth of her child. This is the one ceremony where we are all supposed to be equal—like the first colonists. However, the pendant Tenzin sent to Nima this morning twinkles like starlight to set her apart. Nima hid the gift under her furs until the ceremony so Father couldn’t steal it. He can’t help his behavior. After Mother died while working at the brothel, he drowned his sorrow in triticale ferments.

“Aren’t you worried about your safety?” Nima wouldn’t be the first woman to be “lost during childbirth” in our village. What could be more convenient for the Supreme Leader than to have Tenzin’s heir but not the daughter of a begging drunk and a prostitute as the baby’s mother? Nima laughed my cares away and told me to worry about myself.

I’m not surprised all three of us will be betrothed in the ceremony—even me as the youngest. The four villages wed ten to twenty women in one ceremony to conserve resources, and as the poorest family in Alpha, we depend on charity.

“The daughters may rise as they lift our colony to greatness,” declares the Seer as my focus snaps back to the ceremony.

I stand with the other brides but grab the hands of my sisters. Nima wears a smug smile and winks at Tenzin’s family in the crowd. Their expressions are colder than the ice under our feet. My other sister, Dronma, weeps silently. She’s cried since the Seer delivered the furs to our home. At first, I thought she cried because the next family to claim our hut was on the heels of the Seer. What we could fit under our furs is all we own. Father sold the rest of our belongings with our hut to pay for his debts. Now, she murmurs nonsense about ‘ugliness’ and ‘bad luck.’

“We will be fine,” I whisper before she ruins her chances at marriage by talking to herself in front of the entire village.

“Who looks at us, Jaya?” Dronma whispers into her fur handkerchief. “Who paid to look at my ugly face for the rest of our lives?”

“You aren’t ugly,” I whisper tersely, “and everyone is looking. We are the ceremony’s center spectacle.” Dronma has Father’s pointy features and beady eyes, but her scarring from a fusion reactor accident is what scares the children of our village. In a drunken rage, Father once told us even the brothel wouldn’t take her because of the angry vertical lines that blemish her skin like jail bars.

“There,” I whisper with a tug of our joined hands. “Nawang smiles our way.”

The butcher’s son, Nawang, makes up for his abundance of acne scars with his kindness. His family keeps a few billies, which he allows to mate with my nanny goat, Ku Huang. When my goat has kids, I give them to Nawang’s shop. His family allows the exchange to pay for the scraps we receive after Ku Huang’s milk runs dry and we can no longer live on cheese and yogurt. His family’s status is among the lowest in the colony because of their chosen profession, but they are better than beggars like us. A marriage to him would be wonderful, with a warm bed, daily food, and a husband with a tender heart.

“We both know he’s meant for you. His family will want you for your nanny goat and cheesemaking skills,” Dronma snivels. Her loud whisper and trumpeting nose blow earn us a glare from the Seer.

While Dronma’s healing skills almost guarantee she will deliver all the babies made tonight, I hope she’s right that I’m better wife material. The miners weren’t called from the Epsilon caves to claim brides this time. As a result, Nawang is the lowest caste member of our age. One of us will marry someone twice their age or worse—a plural wife to serve the man’s first wife. The Seer claps her hands three times to signal the brides to start the pantomime part of the ceremony. We walk in a circle to emulate the Earth custom, where the Seer escorts the bride to her future husband’s family.

With Dronma’s fears fresh in my ears, I can’t help but stare down every male face in the crowd. Will I be lucky enough to wed above my impoverished level? I’m not a great beauty, but I am the best cheese monger in the village. Anyone with ears can hear Ku Huang bleat from where I tied her behind the Seer’s altar. My new husband will receive a heavily pregnant goat in addition to me.

“Our village walls couldn’t defend us against the feral beasts of this planet until the rise of the Yeti,” the Seer announces our signal to stop walking. As if part of the ceremony, the wind kicks up and blows snow over the audience. Fat flakes sideswipe us and threaten to cut the nuptials short when I wish this horrid ceremony would last forever. From tales about a paradise we will never visit, to stories about beasts eating our ancestors, the Seer’s words will haunt my nightmares for days. They scare me every year. This year will my husband comfort me or punish me when I scream in my sleep?

“—Oh Yeti, Protector of the People, God of the Planet, let you live in harmony with us forever,” mumble my sisters in unison with the other brides. I missed the beginning due to my wandering thoughts, so I move my lips. I don’t want to mess up this close to the choosing. What if my future husband wants a pious wife above all other qualities? If an outburst frightens him away—then where will I end up?

The brides march again. The eligible bachelors hold arrows over their heads. A man will mark his new wife with his family’s colors by sticking the arrow tip in the pocket sewn between the shoulders of our furs. This simulates the arrow placed on the back of an Earthen bride in somewhere called ‘Asia.’ A smile pulls my cheeks when Nawang thrusts an arrow over his head and pumps his elbow. The fraying red ribbons of butchery swing down his forearm and brush against his curly black hair. Is his beaming smile for Dronma, for me, or just in excitement for his wedding?

Other males smile at blushing brides, but look to their feet when my sisters and I pass. Let them slight us. We need three husbands—not thirty—two husbands, if I consider Nima’s settled arrangement. Tenzin spins his arrow with golden tassels over his head. Showing off! The brides who pass him crane their necks, trying to catch his gaze. I glare at him. He better treat my sister well, or I will pray at the Seer’s temple every day that his dick falls off.

One pass completed. The brides’ steps collectively slow as the weight of our last day of freedom sits on our shoulders. Is every bride thinking what I am thinking—will my husband honor me, beat me, love me, or force me to work in the brothels?

Two passes completed. Nima crowds the girl in front of her. She’s the only one who wants to start the third pass. The rest of the brides weep, sniffle, or look to their families for a last-minute rescue. Fat chance. Those families stare at their feet, shuffling with guilt. Speaking of guilt, where’s Father?

On the third pass, the males lower their arrows to strike their chosen bride. Not all of them have a choice and if they did, negotiations ended days ago. Brides are the last to know of their matches. Marriages in the villages are mostly arranged by parents, but all of them are granted by the Seer. She knows every pairing at the beginning of the ceremony because she records the matches, dowry or bride price exchanging hands, and the new couples’ expected places of residency. A shiver creeps down my spine when the Seer positions herself beside Nima.

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