Veera’s Twisted Ear
Story by Alison Quaid. Illustrations by Viktoria Lemeshevskaia.
Once upon a time, there was a valiant young woman named Veera who sprinted from sun-up to sun-down over the queen’s land, selling gold to fill her country’s coffers. As Queen Rosalie’s First Merchant, she traveled by boat and by horse to peddle the gold that snaked its way through its forested mountains and rivers.
She traded the gold for exotic spices, impeccable silks, and tools of amazing invention. Then she delivered them to the queen to use as she saw fit.
As she flew into the queen’s vaulted stone chambers to deliver the booty from the last voyage, her heavy furs trailed on the marble floor. Her dark brown hair barely covered an ugly scar on her right cheek. Red patches of light from the stained-glass windows colored her pale face. She bowed low and snapped her fingers, and her servants laid down baskets and chests full of treasures at the queen’s feet.
“Such a valiant effort,” said the kind queen, touching and examining each piece that was laid in her lap by her maidservants. “You have done well, Veera, but I urge you to take heed before traveling too soon. The hurricane season is upon us.” As her words struck Veera’s deformed right ear, the words were twisted, the tone deepened into a sinister threat. Veera heard, “Nice, but not good enough. You need to do more.”
Before the plush furs and golden rings ever adorned Veera’s skin, skin as thick as a rhino, Veera had grown up in a cave, without light and often without a crumb of bread. The cold, dank air had contorted her ear, folding it in on itself and it, in turn, twisting everything she heard. Those twisted words would swim around in her head and became louder than her own loving voice. At the tender age of twelve, her parents had sold her to work in a gold mine, telling her that she was worthless and her ugliness meant that she needed to kept underground.
“Yes, my queen, we will chart an ambitious sail with a thousand gold bars, but we shall leave the dock within a fortnight and be back in just a few months.”
“But Lady Merchant, you are risking the lives of the sailors, the gold bars, and your life,” countered one of the elder nobles.
“We will manage,” replied Veera firmly.
Back at home at her white stone manor, her head thumped like an over-heated iron pot. “Slow down,” pleaded her inner voice. But her right ear was twisted in as well as twisted out, and so what her inner ear shouted over her inner voice was, ‘Don’t slow down!’. Veera ate an old crust of bread and marched forward toward the docks to hurry things along for her trip.
She set sail with her crew a few days later. They traveled to undiscovered islands, buying, but more often forcing the sellers to exchange loads of luxurious goods for a measly ounce of gold. Once every nook and cranny in the boat was filled with treasures, set sail for home.
Within view of the snow-capped mountains of their homeland, tall waves welled-up on storm winds. Veera’s boat lunged side-to-side, the sail ripped, and the rudder was snapped in two. Unable to steer and at the mercy of the sea, Veera and the crew clung to the mast and railings for dear life as the boat careened this way and that. The crates of silks and ingenious tools slipped free of their strappings and were tossed into the sea before Veera’s eyes. Veera ran to the rails, ready to jump overboard and grab the last chest before it sank. She was tossed backward by the wind, saving her from following the chest to the sea’s bottom.
Veera knew Queen Rosalie would be furious about the forfeited treasures. She grimaced as she thought about the pink diamonds she had so skillfully negotiated for, and for which she wanted to gift the queen. For it was the queen who had taken her in and helped tutor her after she met Veera selling gold bracelets in a tiny market stall. She knew she had disappointed her.
“Forward!” shrieked Veera with the pitch of a scared hyeena, as she navigated over the rolling waves. A cold, biting wind blew towards them from the land. Veera shivered, icicles forming in heart.
She visited the queen the next day, her dread built and built until she’d bitten her nails to the quick. She explained what happened.
“I’m happy you and your fellow sailors are still alive,” said Queen Rosalie from her throne. “That is the most important thing. I trust you will recover the cost of the gold through your future trades.”
Veera’s ear added a layer of ice to the queen’s words, filling them with barely contained anger and a veiled threat. “She doesn’t believe in you at all – you will be kicked out into the streets once again if you don’t recover that gold – and quickly,” it added. Surely the queen would take revenge if the cost of the gold was not earned with haste. She would never again have the queen’s respect, and she might even lose her head at the gallows.
Veera told herself that she must work day and night to make good on the lost gold. She traveled the continent, pushing hard bargains, trying to earn a little extra with each trade. Her body withered, and her clothes gathered in baggy clumps around her waist. She sold her rings and finery, hoping to put a dent in the debt. Each time goods passed through her hands, her ear twisted her thoughts into ugly words of, “This will never do. It will take you a lifetime to earn back what you’ve lost. You are worth nothing to your queen. You are worth nothing to anyone.”
Veera trusted her inner ear. She believed what it heard, just as she always had. But sometimes she wondered why it was always harsh and never loving.
One day, as she scoured for buyers among the traveling caravans, walking over dirt roads and wheat fields, she met an old man on a horse who was carrying gold in his saddle-bags. His gentle eyes saw that she was cold, tired, and hungry.
“Can I offer you something to eat, my child?”
She shook her head. “My work is not done.”
“What is your work?” he asked.
“To recover the gold I have lost,” she replied. Her eyes darted to outline of the gold bars bulging in his bag, “Where did you find your riches?”
“At the bottom of the ocean. I was looking for fish, but by the grace of God, I found these bars of gold. I’m bringing this gold to my daughter and her family, so that they may have food to eat. The locusts have left them penniless and hungry.”
Veera looked from left to right to see if anyone was approaching. She said, “I … I am hungry. I would be grateful for some food.”
The old man nodded, dismounted, and gave her an apple.
“Where exactly did you find the bars of gold? Somewhere near here?” she asked.
“No, my dear, it was many years ago and many moons travel from here.”
Veera’s ear relayed, “Just a few weeks ago, while walking on the shore not far from here,” convinced he had found her gold bars.
As the stars poked through the night sky’s black blanket, the old man pulled out a metal pot, made a fire, and made them tea.
“I have an extra bedroll if you’d like to camp here for the night,” he said.
She nodded. They set up camp, and Veera pretended to be asleep. After a few hours, hearing the man snoring, she crept from her blankets. She threw the gold-laden saddlebag onto his horse, mounted, and galloped toward the sea in search of more.
In the light of the early morning sun, she threw her clothes off and ran from the sand into the ocean, diving as she dared into the depths of the ocean. After hours of searching, burnt from the sun and dried out from the salty-water, she crawled back onto the sand. She fell on her knees and pounded the sand with her fists.
She wailed with her head down until someone touched her shoulder. It was an old woman, her face shrouded by a red, fur-lined hood on a fine, embroidered cloak.
“Why are you crying, dear?” said the woman.“There was supposed to be gold here,” said Veera, wiping angrily at her tears. “There is nothing. I am ruined. And I don’t have enough to pay back the queen.”
“What you need isn’t gold,” said the old woman, her voice like tinkling bells.
“What do you know about it?” snapped Veera.
The woman pulled a painted round ceramic doll from the folds of her cloak and held it out to Veera.
“This is what you need.”
“Why would I want …” but Veera’s words trailed off as she realized the doll looked exactly like her: a strong, aquiline nose, rich brown eyes, and raven hair. The doll’s face was downturned in a nasty scowl.
She took the doll and turned it this way and that with curiosity. A line ran through the doll’s stomach. Veera pulled on the doll’s head, and the top came free. It was a Russian doll, with a smaller doll inside it. The second doll looked like Veera, too, but this one looked frightened and weak. Veera put the first doll back together, hiding the second, and looked back to the old woman, but she had vanished.
“Pah,” said Veera, frowning at the doll. “More valuable than gold? I think not.” But she took it with her all the same as she headed for home and bid the woman adieu.
The next day, she brought the gold bars to the queen.
“My dear queen, I have recovered some of the gold that you gave me,” she said as she laid it at the royal’s feet.
“You did not have to recover the gold, Veera. Where did you find all this?”
Veera, taken aback by the question, began to stammer.
“Veera, I hope you have not done something rash,” said the queen, a frown marring her lovely face. “I do not want this gold if it is tainted by some misdeed.”
“It’s not!” Veera’s ear hissed, “She knows you’re lying.” Veera’s face reddened with shame, “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I only wanted to pay you back. I know that is what you wanted.”
“Take this back from whence it came at once,” said the queen. “I am most disappointed with you, Veera. You have three days to make this right.”
Veera’s ear did not have to warp the words. They were horrible enough. I am ruined! Veera thought. How will I find the old man again? Even if I do, the queen will never respect me as she once did.
She ran out of the castle, tears stinging her scar and locked herself inside. She dropped her bags. The Russian doll rolled from her bag. She picked it up and took it apart. She placed the scowling outer doll on the floor and tried to pry open the second, frightened doll, but it was stuck. She picked up the larger doll and examined it closely. It looked like Veera, just like the second doll, but something about this one was different. It had a small mole under its left eye … just like Veera’s mother. She threw the outer doll in disgust, horrible memories flooding her brain. She started to pry open the second doll when the first began to spin and shake on the floor. Veera backed into the corner on her buttocks, frightened.
The doll tilted itself upright and whirled to face her, and the painted mouth opened, saying, “Look at you. Pathetic. You go to all the trouble to steal gold, and you still can’t even find enough to pay your debts.”
Veera screamed. The doll had the voice of her mother … it had the voice that her ear had always heard, ever since she was a child. The voice she had thought was simply another part of herself.
“And you practically admitted that you’d stolen it, you imbecile!” the doll continued, making Veera’s ear throb horribly. “She never would have been the wiser. It’s your fault, the state you’re in.”
Veera ground her teeth. All this time, she had trusted what she thought she heard…she had thought it was guiding her. Had thought it was her own voice of discernment. But it was a vicious outsider—a shell that kept her true self locked inside, frightened, small, and weak, like the doll she held in her hands.
“Shut up!” screamed Veera, and the doll choked off its nasty words as she stomped toward it. “All this time, you have been tormenting me, lying to me, and manipulating me. Get out of my house. Get out of my head!”
Veera brought her heel down on the doll and it shattered into a dozen pieces that skittered across the floor. Then she gasped and fell to the floor, clutching at her ear which had suddenly become searing hot. The pain eased to a gentle warmth as she massaged the skin, and the ear unfurled.
Veera sighed in relief. Perhaps now she could hear her real voice. She looked down at the second doll, and its painted face had morphed into a small smile. She tried once more to open the doll, and this time, the casing popped free to reveal a tiny golden Veera with rosy cheeks and a painted heart shining at her center. This golden Veera, though tiny, was strong.
Veera’s own face changed to match the third, innermost doll’s expression. She clutched the tiny Veera to her heart and said aloud, “I’m going to listen to you, golden child, to help me find my way home to my heart.”
The words rang clear through the home, and Veera’s ear accepted them as true and did nothing to change them.