by Ann Denton
“Do you want me to radio her—”
Erinne cut her off with a sharp jab and a shake of the head.
“I'm sorry—we're not in safe radio distance I guess. But ...”
Sorgen's lips moved, but Mala couldn't hear. She risked a quick glance at his face. Tears soaked his cheeks and carved little paths into the congealed blood.
“I could go get Verrat,” Mala volunteered, but Erinne whipped her head up and flashed her eyes.
“He’s conscious,” she mouthed at her mom. “That could be a problem. I could—you know ...”
Erinne simply gave her the look.
I hate it when you do that! Mala wanted to yell, but she sighed. Her instincts were screaming but instead of leaving she unrolled some bandages and began to apply them to his face. Stay calm, she berated herself. Or you'll bring on an episode.
“They ... tell Bara ... they ... noooo,” Sorgen's words came out in a ragged hiss as she tightened a bandage around his forehead.
“They what, Sorgen?” Mala asked, in a polite attempt to distract him from the pain rather than any attempt to listen.
“Noooo.” He spit out blood that had trickled into his mouth. “Mala. You … don't go!”
“I'm not going anywhere,” Mala tried to soothe him. But pain was making him frantic.
“They, they ... nooo!” His words ended in a mangled scream. “Verrat ... she ...” He grabbed Mala's arm and pulled her close. They were nearly nose to nose. His fiery expression set Mala's teeth on edge. Her stomach clenched. She started to feel uncomfortably warm.
“Can't we give him something?” Mala breathed, praying her mother would hurry.
Erinne checked her collection of sedatives. Most jars were nearly empty. Injuries were common in Bara's northern river guard. Erinne spent a good deal of her time walking the banks and replenishing or raiding like they had been today.
As her mother pulled up a jar of skullcap, Mala saw that the leaves barely coated the bottom of the jar. There wasn't enough left to numb his pain. The thought made Mala tremble. One by one, she pried Sorgen's fingers off her arm. She slid back and stared hard at her mom. She willed the woman to let her go. But Erinne was stone.
Mala read the set, determined look on Erinne’s face. Muck. She's going to have to take the leg. She avoided eye contact with Sorgen, whose brown orbs flickered frantically between Mala and her mother, silently asking why they were so still. I’ve got to tell him. She swallowed.
“Sorgen—” Before she could get anything out, his jaw dropped. Mala turned to see her mother holding a large, vicious-looking axe.
Sorgen spluttered and thrashed, and finally got a coherent phrase out. “No! Please, no!” Though the plea was for Erinne, he directed his face towards Mala. “Please. I … just wanted to be Kreis,” he whispered. Mala tried to swallow the knot in her throat, and looked at her mother pleadingly.
Since he'd been eight, all Sorgen had ever dreamt about, all he'd ever talked about, was joining the elite guard. He wanted to wear the brand, be counted among the best Senebal warriors. He and his wife, Verrat, had trained every day, volunteered for the most dangerous assignments, both hoping one day they'd be chosen. Of all the soldiers in Bara's guard, Sorgen had worked hardest for that honor.
Mala felt ill. She had to count to three to calm herself before she could respond. “Sorgen, I'm sorry. It’s the only way.” She looked away, as his dream drowned in a messy pool of blood, spittle, and tears. Don't think, she told herself firmly. Just do as you're told.
At Erinne's gesture, Mala crawled forward and sat squarely on Sorgen's chest, knees pinning the man's arms to the deck. He was weak from the blood loss; she could feel the limpness in his limbs.
Mala made the mistake of glancing at Sorgen's dark brown eyes; they were full of anguish. She ripped her gaze away. Count. Now. She fought to keep her thoughts neutral. Fought the onslaught of another episode.
Mala had known Sorgen since she and her mother had joined the guard three years ago. She knew him as she knew everyone else in Bara's guard. But she had avoided him. She avoided everyone.
Mala the Ghost, they called her. They all knew something was wrong with her. That she was off. They had no idea how far. Mala made sure they didn't. She figured loneliness was better than insanity.
No one knew how much Mala feared seeing their faces contorted in grief. Because that kind of pain made her stomach burn and her insides turn to ash. It made her eyes feel like they would melt in their sockets. It made her hallucinate—feel as though she were burning alive. And sometimes, if she couldn't get away fast enough, she saw things.
Only her mother knew. Mala made sure it stayed that way. Because people hated a loner, but they’d lynch a psychopath.
She and Erinne had had to leave guards before this. People didn’t understand what it was like. How her ribs contracted. How it felt like a cigarette burn and morphed into a house fire in her chest.
Mala brawled with that burn now. She squeezed her eyes shut as Sorgen writhed beneath her. “Mom, please, can you do something?” she begged.
Erinne came and knelt beside Mala, staring for one second at Sorgen’s face. Then she gave a swift backhanded chop to his neck. His eyes rolled back in his head. He was out. Erinne stood and pushed back her graying hair. She returned to the leg.
Mala felt a surge of relief. And now he won’t feel it, she thought to herself. Will he?
Without warning, there was a sickening thud. Mala bit her lip. Sorgen’s face drained of color. So did hers. But she held fast to her position.
Erinne set to work, quickly tying off the stump and packing the wound with gauze and bandages. Mala climbed off Sorgen. She tried to breathe through her mouth to avoid the rancid scent of blood. It's almost over. You did it. You got through it and didn't freak out or hallucinate … and he's going to be fine.
But then her mother gave a gasp. Mala looked over and felt panic flare in her stomach. Erinne was never surprised.
A torrent of blood was issuing from Sorgen's leg. Everything Erinne had done to stop it had failed.
The older woman sat back with a look of shock on her face, and Mala crept over to her. She touched her mother's shoulder.
When Erinne lifted her head, there was a haunted, dead look in her eyes. It was a look Mala had seen before. Seen surrounding her, in every face on the night her father died ... Mala tried to count, to focus elsewhere, to block out the memories. But her mother's eyes locked her in, dragged her under.
The burning started. Mala could feel her face begin to melt and her stomach begin to twist in the heat. She felt the skin on her cheek bubble. She was on fire. Her vision blurred.
It was night. A man with a striped blue nose and a bullet hanging from his ear stalked across the deck toward her—
She felt rather than saw her mother push her to the edge of the boat. She was only half-conscious of her surroundings as she stripped to her underwear and climbed the rail. A blowtorch was ripping apart her stomach. She heard Sorgen moaning, but didn’t look back. She didn’t want to answer the question his eyes would ask.
Her mother pushed her, and she splashed feet first into the icy water. It froze the fire in its tracks. Mala dove deep into the river, desperate to escape her mother and Sorgen’s dead eyes.
Chapter Three
The sunset cast a dulled rainbow on the Gottermund's surface. Underneath the water, a shadow separated from the depths. Mala's head broke through orange waves.
She stared forlornly at the gathering patrol boats. She saw some people rowing, others trying to catch the light breeze in their improvised sails. Few boats were allocated gas anymore. Only those going on patrol or to battle. Or her mother's. To save the wounded.
Ach, don't think about that. Sorgen's face appeared in her mind and shame filled her. She'd left her mother alone. Again.
Her thoughts flickered back to the hour hand buttoned tight in the pocket of the pants she'd shed. Maybe ... she shook off hope before it could fully form. You
really are crazy, if you think something that mudding dumb could work, she scolded herself.
She swam on. She was calm now. It had taken several hours, but she was herself again.
She was not looking forward to the night’s party; she shuddered at the thought of all those people, the entire guard coming together. The thought of weaving through that crowd, with all their joy at the celebration mingled with sadness at Sorgen’s death, nearly made her ill. I'll have to be careful. Stick to the shadows.
She swam over to one of her regular lines. It was empty. She took off the hook, changing it for one of the many she wore strung around her neck. Maybe one with a red lure will attract more attention.
A raft floated past and Mala dove underneath it, heading for a small trap she'd tossed into the shallows yesterday. She crossed her fingers that she'd snagged a catfish or two. Otherwise, she and her mother would head to the celebration with empty stomachs. Not a good prospect for a night sure to be full of alcohol.
Luckily, Mala found a fat whiskered fish floating in her trap. She grabbed it by the gills and used her biggest hook to gut the wriggling fish. She used its innards to bait the trap. Hopefully that'll tempt an even better dinner in tomorrow. She swam briskly back to her mother's boat.
“Momma, I got a fish,” she called out, tossing it onto the counter in the cabin.
Her mother emerged from the single bedroom, dressed to the nines in a patchwork lilac gown. She grabbed Mala's arm and stared at her face intently.
“Ohhay?” Erinne asked.
“I'm fine. I'm ... sorry. I know you needed my help. I just couldn't ...” Mala began, but her mother swept her into a deep, wordless hug. Sorgen was the third soul lost this month. Life in northern Senebal territory wasn't particularly kind.
Squeezing her once more, Erinne stepped back and tried to lighten the mood. She swept into a deep curtsey, and pirouetted with her hands above her head to show off her dress.
It had gathers and poufs in odd places to hide the rips and rot of time. But it was a lovely shade of purple still and she knew exactly how to twist up her hair to compliment the dress. After thirty years wearing it, that was no surprise. The dress had belonged to Erinne's grandmother—a relic from before the bomb. It was her mother's treasure. And as Erinne wore it, she glowed. Her excitement filled the room until Mala could almost smell it. It was cloyingly sweet, almost childlike excitement, irresistible as a peach.
“Why didn’t you wear the new dress?” Mala asked. “You found it.”
At that, Erinne put her hands on her hips and gave Mala a no-nonsense look.
Mala bit her lip. No one else in the guard had had a new dress for as long as Mala could remember. The last thing she wanted was to garner extra attention from drunk, emotional soldiers.
But Erinne raised a single finger and pushed it against Mala’s lips. Mala sighed. It was impossible to argue with her mother. “Fine. Can you cook while I get dressed?”
Mala squeezed into the bedroom. She wiped her hands and face down with a towel to remove any last trace of fish before carefully slipping on the midnight-blue gown. As she ran her hands over the fabric and wondered at the way it felt like water, Mala debated the evening.
A niggling little thought entered her mind. She reached for the pants her mother had put in their dirty laundry. She undid the button. She pulled out the thin black piece of metal and traced the intricate paisley pattern that made up the arrow of the hour hand. What if she didn't have to dread every moment of celebrations like this?
What would that be like? she wondered. Before she could snicker at herself, she undid her necklace and slid the little hand onto her line full of hooks.
She rolled her eyes at herself. Idiot. Impulsively, she grabbed the trident dagger that had once been her father's. She used a length of cord to tie it to her thigh. One of Bara's rules: always have a weapon on you. Always.
As Mala finished her knot, she weighed her chances of being able to sneak off to a secluded bit of shore and go frog gigging. If she could ensure her mother was distracted, chances were pretty good. There. An escape plan.
The night proved muggy, though summer had lost her grip on the land. A cluster of blazing tamaracks spit bright yellow leaves onto a hidden lake, onto a little island, onto the hair of dancers galloping across a large floating platform anchored near the shore. The leaves glowed brighter than the stars, lit by bonfires lining the island.
A very drunk middle-aged man with no shirt and a red belly shouted, “Burn the heathens down!” The crowd took up the chant and stomped their feet.
On a shadowed bit of shore, Mala sat alone atop a keg, the dress helping her fade into the night. Her long locks tangled in the breeze and she swung her bare feet to keep the mosquitoes at bay.
She held an empty cup as she watched the dancers. Really, she watched her mother. Erinne waved her shawl in the air like a lasso. Mala gave a disapproving shake of her head. She always gets out of hand.
Erinne celebrated the fifteen-year-old victory against the Erlenders with a vengeful joy. It was something Mala couldn’t understand. Whenever she thought of the Erlenders herself, she only felt a slow panic seep into her stomach. The rest of the guard felt differently. They came together each year to renew their fiery hatred of the northerners—the river stealers.
A joyous gurgle escaped her mother’s throat and Mala cringed. Her eyes scanned the crowd. But no one else seemed to notice the choked yowl. Mala sighed in relief. Even if she wasn't accepted, she was glad everyone seemed to embrace her mother.
Mala glanced to her right as a giggling couple stumbled through the brush to a private setting. Her heart sank a little more than usual, probably because it was weighed down by three cups of moonshine. She glanced back at her mother, who was being twirled in circles by the Barde, the red-bellied ringleader of the rowdy. Her hand slid up to her necklace. She traced the hour hand.
Oh what the hell. What can it hurt? Mala turned her back on the party and retreated farther into the trees. She ducked under the legs of a giggling little boy perched on a branch; he threw an acorn at her. She ignored him and trudged deeper. Only when it was black and silent, when she was sure that no one would stumble upon her and see what she was doing, only then did Mala stop.
She took a moment to gather her thoughts and her courage. And then, haltingly, she began the ritual. She'd only seen it once before, so as she used the tip of the hour hand to prick her palm, she searched her memory to ensure she was doing everything right.
She recalled that the girls had huddled together under a tent, but they'd brought a lantern and their silhouettes made it easy to distinguish who was who. Sari, of course, was wearing the bridal hat.
Giggles floated up to the fireflies and to Mala, who sat in the gnarled old oak high above. The girls hadn't seen her, of course—she'd made sure they hadn't. She didn't want to scare them. It was just that she'd never seen a betrothal ceremony before and she was interested.
Or indulging in a bit of twist-the-knife self pity, her conscience berated her, since it’ll never happen for you. Nevertheless, Mala remained perched in the tree, listening to the gossip only teenage girls can share until she'd almost dozed off. She was startled awake when the knot of girls left the tent and one of them tripped over a tree root.
“Ah!” the girl cried as her friends shushed her.
“Come on,” Sari whispered. “Don't want to get caught.” Like little white ducklings, the girls in their shifts traipsed after the bride-to-be. Beautiful, with an elegant mane of black hair and crystalline skin, Sari flitted through the trees with an impish grin. “Tonight, girls, you'll see what magic can really do!”
Gasps of shock and laughter at her daring fluttered through the air.
“But that’s illegal!” one gasped. “We could be hanged.”
The other girls only shushed their friend, until she was shamed into silence.
Magic? Mala had climbed down slowly behind them, careful not to make a sound. She followed at a
distance until she saw Sari stop at a small cluster of boulders. Mala slid behind a tree.
“Okay now, circle up,” Sari commanded. “Grasp each other's elbows…” She waited until the girls were arranged to her liking, then Sari climbed up on one of the boulders. The blue-grey light of the stars and a waxing moon washed the color from her face. She looked like a statue as she surveyed them.
“We're told magic is evil, stupid, illegal. We're told it's the pathetic fantasy of Erlenders after the bomb. That's a lie. My grandmother told me. Magic is real.” She glared at Rasen as the other girl stifled a giggle.
“For four generations, the women in my family have all cast the same spell. And it's kept us safe for two hundred years. My grandmother wasn't even scratched during the bomb. Their house was blown to pieces. My great grandfather died. Her baby brother died. But my grandmother and her mom walked away, not a scratch on them. Tonight ladies, I'm going to show you that spell. And you can perform it on yourselves—if you dare.”
Mala could see Rasen and another girl rolling their eyes. But when Sari bade them bow their heads, every girl complied. And as the wind whipped around them, a few of the girls exchanged glances, clearly spooked.
Sari took a ring off of her finger. “This was my great grandmother's ring. It was a clock!”
Several of the girls gasped at the revelation. Mala lost her grip on the tree. She had to scramble to stay upright, as Sari displayed the gears on the innards of the broken ring. The clock face and glass were long gone, the hinge warped into a twisted spike. All the girls were riveted in silence, awed by her audacity to touch something so utterly forbidden.
Sari held her left hand up toward the moon. “Divine Spirit, split me open. Take what you need. In return, protect me, that no harm may look upon my face.”
With a howl, Sari used the mangled hinge to slash open her left palm along the lifeline. She held it toward the moon. And as she unfurled her fingers, the breeze suddenly died. Blood dripped from her hand. And a moonbeam encased Sari like a spotlight, making her gleam amid the shadows.