Okana's Lesson in Love

It was over for Okana: She had no home, no money, and no magic. With nothing left, she lay in the street, her clothes tattered and her face ashen. Beside her was a mud puddle, and she looked at her reflection in its dirty waters. She thought herself to look older than her years. “So this is what I have come to?” Lightly, she ran her fingers over the water's surface and watched the ripples disturb and distort her reflection. When the puddle settled again, she saw another face reflected behind her own. She gasped, flipped over, and looked up.

Over her towered a late-middle-aged man with salted hair; his face was deeply creased, but his eyes bright and youthful. He wore robes of fine linen and held in his hands a purse stuffed with coins. Cautiously, he held his hand out to her.

“It is not seemly that a woman with your talents should be lying in the streets,” he said, offering to help her up. She took his hand. It was strong.

“And where else am I to lay? I have no home anymore.” A single tear slid down her face, streaking the dirt and ash on her skin. She let the stranger bear the burden of her weight as he pulled her to her feet, but once she stood, she stood on her own, and backed away cautiously.

“I came looking for you, Okana.” Her eyes narrowed when he said her name; he knew who she was. The townspeople had burned down her house and taken away her land—there was nothing left to take except her own life.

“Leave me alone. Haven't I suffered enough?” She shook with anger and fear. “You people have ruined me. You have punished me for my witchcraft. You burned my house and stole my land. You banished me from the town of my birth. My wealth was stolen. You have taken away everything I had. I have nothing left except my life, and you will not take that!”

People in the streets stopped and stared. Someone whispered, “She's a witch?”

The stranger grabbed her firmly by her arm; he was middle-aged, but he was as strong as a youth, and he pulled her away from the slowly growing crowd. “My name is Salakó,” he said quickly. “Let us go somewhere else and talk.”

Together they ran through the streets, leaving behind the dumbfounded townspeople who could only wonder what the man would want with a ruined witch; when the crowd was far behind, they began to walk, and eventually came to a modest home on the outskirts of the village. “This is my home,” he said, opening the front door, “and the home of my father.”

It wasn't as nice as her home had been, but the house was clean and well-maintained. He led her to the back, and pushed on a door, then stopped. “Why am I here?” Okana asked.

Salakó put his hands by his side and looked at her. “You are right. I need to explain things to you.” He took a deep breath and sighed. “My father is in this room. He is an old man, and he is dying. He also has the pox, and no one will come to nurse him as he lays helpless. I've heard that you once fought off the pox; it is a disease that you have power over. I want you to help him.”

Salakó held the bag of coins out and gently put it into Okana's hands. “I can pay you well for your skills.”

She pushed past him, but gently, and opened the door. The room reeked of sickness and death. In the center of a bed that was much too large for the body it held lay a withered old man, breathing heavily and covered with sores. Cautiously, Okana walked to his side. The sheets were soiled.

“He is too sick. There is nothing I can do to heal him.”

“But can you care for him? Can you care for him without getting sick yourself?”

“I can. There are things I will need from town, herbs and salves and supplies.” She recited a list to him, careful to leave nothing out. “If you bring me these things, I can make him comfortable and pain-free, and I will stay with him until he passes.”

For many days and nights, Okana labored over the old man; she tended his sores and dressed his wounds. She turned him, and cleaned him when he soiled himself, and she made sweet-smelling potions that put him in a twilight place pain could not reach. Whenever he awoke, she offered him cool water to drink and food to eat if he would open his mouth, and then administered the medicines that would return him to that safe place free from worries.

Salakó watched as Okana cared for his father as if he were her own; he watched the wicked woman transform in the face of the old man's impending death. She had a kindness to her, and tenderness in her touch. When, finally, the old man passed and Salakó mourned, she took care of him as well, comforting him and offering him light potions that eased him through the darkness of a loved-one's death.

Through it all, Salakó fell in love with Okana.

Early one morning, he walked into the kitchen where she was cooking breakfast, and as he wiped the sleep from his eyes, Okana said, “It is time for me to go.”

“Go? Where will you go?”

“I don't know. But my work here is done.” Her back was to Salakó, and with her hand, she wiped away the tears that gathered in her eyes. “I need to go.”

Okana was surprised and let out a stifled scream when Salakó grabbed her fearfully from behind. He turned her on her heels and took her face in his own aged hands. “Do not leave, Okana. I love you. I need you to stay.”

Her body tingled and her face froze, and she stammered, “You . . . you love me? But I used no witchcraft. I used no charms.” Her voice trailed off.

“Love isn't about magic or potions or charms. Love just . . . is. It happens. It happens on its own, and all by itself. And I am hopelessly in love with you, Okana.”

The two of them were married that day, and lived happily as husband and wife. Together, they worked and built wealth equal to what Okana had known in her youth. They bore children together. Finally, when the day came that Salakó passed away from old age, Okana herself was still a middle-aged woman with many years ahead of her. She had children, and she had grandchildren, and she knew love.

She had everything she had ever wanted.