Chapter 2

Because Jax was going to the college in the town, Max didn’t force her into a marriage.

One of the few ways a Prol female of childbearing age could possibly escape being married off was for her to gain a profession. Most Prol men didn’t really approve of the wife working outside the home.

However, for a woman that most men didn’t want, to become a teacher, midwife, or doctor was acceptable. Typically, these women were widows who were past thirty, not sixteen-year-old girls.

Jax had screamed through school. Because she was a Prol, her teachers had no problem letting her progress faster. After all, her race tended to mature quicker than the other races.

The schools on Tara taught using achievable levels rather than years of age. Each term lasted for twelve weeks, with three weeks of breaks between them. If you did every term, you would do four terms a year. If you didn’t achieve a level, you repeated that term. You could even test out of a level and advance.

Because of the lengths of lives of the various races, two kids of the same chronological age but of different races may not be at the same mental or even physical level in their development.

Jax was incredibly bright, and Max was happy for her to achieve, as he wasn’t sure she would ever marry unless forced or she married outside the race. He knew most of his community wouldn’t be happy if she did, but he’d not had any offers for her. Hence, he couldn’t see why they should complain.

Max didn’t push her to leave home, as he did have a big soft spot for his unusual daughter.

A year after the discussion of marriage, the unthinkable happened.

Max was killed in a mine accident with his oldest son, Ron, when the tunnel they were mining had an explosive cave-in and flooded with water. This was terrible news for Hana and Jax as they no longer had a protector.

They were given three months to mourn, as per tradition.

Hana was still a healthy, good-looking woman at twenty-seven. For most men, she would make a fine second wife. Some were even considering her as a replacement wife, as women dying in childbirth was still common enough. The fact that she had born six healthy children was also a plus, even if her children weren’t.

With Hana’s two oldest kids being girls, they could be off the new husband’s hands in a few short years, or he could also marry them, so this wasn’t so bad. Because Hana was Max’s second wife, his sons had first rights to offer for her because her younger children were their siblings.

As it turned out, the third son, Marx, from the second set of twin boys, had recently lost his wife. She had fallen off a cliff into the sea when collecting eggs from the seabird nests. He also didn’t have any children.

Hence, it was simple for him to just move back home. Since Max’s possessions became his wife’s, another good reason not to leave Hana unmarried, this meant that Marx effectively inherited.

Jax’s second oldest brother, Ray, had already taken in Ron’s wife (whom he had always fancied) and her three children. Not that Ray’s first wife was happy about it, but so be it.

The law was the law.

Jax was a problem for the Prol community.

While a brother couldn’t marry a sister, he was honour bound to protect and support her if no one else wanted her. However, none of Jax’s elder brothers wanted her hanging around, even if she was a good housewife and a midwife.

Hana liked having a younger man in her bed, and she decided that she would rather have Marx than Jax when he made his opinion known to her. The problem was that Marx didn’t know how to ask Jax to leave, and he would lose face if he kicked her out.

Jax solved the dilemma by packing her bags and telling her family that she was moving to the town of Alpha Point. She was going to finish her studies and become a doctor.

She even showed her brothers a letter that Max had written for her. It gave her, her freedom, so they had to abide by it. They showed the letter to the Elders, who also agreed that Jax could do as she pleased.

If anything, they were all relieved that, as usual, Jax solved her own problems and theirs.

The women of the village would miss Jax’s midwifery skills.

Jax hadn’t lost a child or mother in the two years she had been practising, as long as she was called in time. Jax had finished her primary nursing qualifications and had her midwifery certification when she was fifteen. She was currently studying for her doctor’s requirements.

Since Jax was now seventeen, legally, she was an adult and could do as she damn well pleased as far as the Laws of the Land and her people went. As to whether she came back to the village or not after her training depended on her.

Most of the people in her village thought she was rather strange, and she had only been tolerated because of her father being a prominent leader. Jax didn’t look or act like a Prol woman should.

She was one of the few unmarried women that the men didn’t try to force into marrying one of them. The other men were as relieved as her brothers that none of them had to make an offer for her.

Not many men of her race liked their wife to look down on them, literally as well as figuratively. Jax stood at 155cm by that time, and she was often mistaken for a Burgis woman.

Plus, she talked about things that were way above their understanding as most Prols left school when they were fourteen. Her height and manner were also why many people in Alpha Point thought she was a Burgis, even though she was slim, even for their race.