“Fisher?” I ignored Jonah’s distant shouts. I looked closer at the bone and saw that the place my blood had touched was steaming. Gods Whispers began again, soft this time, urgent.
As I watched, the Gods’ own writing began to appear across the insides of the bones, spreading from the place that my blood had touched. I swallowed bile as the words appeared on each rib, glowing faintly red before darkening to black.
“Fisher, where are you?”
“I’ll be right there,” I called. I didn’t move.
Betrayal. Salt. Deep. Cold. Good. Cold. Cold. Warmer. Warmer. Too warm, hot. Hot like fire. Far. Fear. Lost. Hot. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.
That was it. I read the bones ten times over, and that was the message.
“What is this?” I murmured. “Is this even for me?”
“Fisher! Fisher, where are you! Fisher!” A note of urgency had entered Jonah’s voice.
“Gods damn it,” I muttered. I swore to myself that I would find my way back to the bones to read them again, to read them right this time.
“Coming,” I shouted. I followed the sound of Jonah’s voice until I found him. He was beside another dinosaur skeleton, this one half-buried on its side. Its ribs arced up out of the soil like a monstrous hand, and in the shelter of its fingers, Jonah hovered over a little lump on the ground.
“Fisher,” Jonah said, “Fisher, it’s her. I found her.”
“What?”
“It’s Mischa.” He straightened, and the little lump in his arms resolved itself into a shape I almost recognized. Skeletal, unmoving, but unmistakable: Pinar’s little girl.
The Gods Whispers rustled at me and I laid a hand on the girl’s head. “She’s alive?” I asked Jonah.
“I think so, but… not by much,” he said.
“Gods preserve her,” I prayed. I didn’t stop praying until we had returned to the camp.
“Find Pinar,” I said to the first ten people I saw. “Find him and tell him to come to my tent immediately.”
By the time we arrived at my tent, a small crowd was trailing us. I held the tentflap open for Jonah, then turned to address the twenty people that stood in a semicircle around us.
“We need broth and…” I massaged my forehead. I’m not a damn healer.”Clove oil,” I finally said. “And an extra brazier. Now, go, go!”
They scattered — all save for one figure. A boy. I didn’t recognize him immediately, but after a moment the strange red highlights in his brown hair connected with a name.
“Samuel,” I said. The foundling boy. I glanced over my shoulder at the entrance to my tent, then crouched in front of the child. “She’ll be all right. You don’t have to worry.”
He wiped at his nose with one sleeve. “She’s my best friend. I wanna see her.”
I cursed myself for telling him that she would be all right: the girl had been wandering in the wilderness for weeks. She would almost certainly not be all right.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said. The boy stared at me with those strange, mottled-green eyes, and then broke away at a run. He shoved me as he passed, sending me sprawling. I pushed myself to my feet, but he was already inside the tent.
“Samuel, no— damn it,” I hissed, rubbing my raw palms on my thighs. Inside the tent, I heard Jonah echoing my exact words. Then, he cried out, louder and shrill.
“Samuel, what the— what are you doing, no, you can’t—”
I ran into the tent, then pulled up short.
“Samuel,” I said, speaking as softly as I could, “what are you doing?”
“I don’t care if I get in trouble again,” he answered. “She’s my friend. And… it’s my fault she’s sick.”
“What do you mean?”
“We were playing look-and-find and I told her that I bet she couldn’t hide longest,” he whispered, his face a mask of abject shame. “She hid so good that nobody could find her when it was time to break camp.”
She hid, and then she couldn’t find us, and she must have stumbled through the wilderness for weeks. It was a miracle she was still alive. I remembered the way that the dinosaur skeletons affected me — I wondered what impact they’d have on a child.
“It’s my fault she’s sick and I’m gonna help.” Samuel’s face was set into a stubborn knot of concentration. His hands hovered over Mischa, one over her face and one over her belly. Strands of black were flowing away from her, wrapping themselves around his wrists and arms and fingers like brambles. After a few seconds, he made a choked sound; then he ran outside, covered in black up to his elbows. As he ran, the black illness rose off his arms like mist. By the time he got to wherever he was running to, I knew, it would be as though it had never touched him.
In the bed, Mischa stirred.
“There’s no way,” Jonah said, looking up at me.
“Praise the Gods,” I said, staring at the pink-cheeked, healthy little girl that lay in my bed. “It looks like they’ve sent us a new healer.”
Chapter 7
Storm
What happened to Marc was my fault.
I was tired from a long night of counseling doubters and arbitrating quarrels, but that’s not the point. On the dawn of the day the Prophet died, he told me that it was my fault. “Here’s why you’re nervous, Ducky,” he had said, his voice thick and wet with the fluid that was collecting in his lungs. “You’re nervous because from now on, everything that happens to these people is your fault. You’re their prophet now. You’re the one in charge of guiding them and protecting them.”
He’d closed his eyes then and drawn a long, wincing breath. “You’re right to be nervous,” he’d said.
What happened to Marc was my fault.
I walked into our tent with my hands braced against my back. It felt like the baby was growing fast all of a sudden. It felt like everything that was happening was all of a sudden. Today, out of nowhere, an ache in my spine. What would it be tomorrow?
When I got into the tent, Marc was kneeling in front of the chest that held the sacred tablets. I didn’t interrupt his prayer. I took off the dripping scarf that I’d had wrapped over my hair to keep the rain off, hung it near the brazier to dry. I rubbed my hands together to warm them, listening to the thunder. After a few minutes, I settled onto our sleeping mat. Marc rose from his prayers and lay beside me, resting his palm on the crest of my belly.
“It’s late,” he said.
“Well, I had a lot to do,” I snapped. I lifted his hand from my belly and kissed his palm in immediate apology, our usual way of acknowledging an unwarranted sharp word. He didn’t kiss my knuckles in response. Instead, he pulled his hand back and frowned.
“You should be resting,” he said, propping himself up on one elbow.
I laughed. “I’ll rest in five months,” I said.
His forehead creased. “But the baby is due in two months.”
“…I’ll rest when we reach the Promised Land,” I said, staring at him. He didn’t meet my eyes. “Marc,” I said, and he shook his head, still not looking at me.
“Fisher,” he said quietly. He returned his hand to my belly. I groaned, rubbing my hands across my face.
“No, Marc, no,” I groaned. “I just spent four hours talking to people who don’t think it’s there. You can’t—”
“Well, I’m sorry that it’s hard to talk to your husband at the end of the day,” he said petulantly. The baby pressed a foot to his palm. I rolled away so that he couldn’t feel her reaching for him. It was petty, but it was satisfying.
“Marc, I can’t do this with you,” I said. “You’re my husband. You are the one person here who is supposed to believe in me no matter what.”
“I just think that we should have a backup plan,” he said. “We’re going to have a baby, Fisher—”
“I’m aware of that,” I said. “I’m the one who’s doing all the work—”
“What, I don’t do enough? Is that what you’re—”
“No,” I
said, my voice rising, “I just think that it’s a little funny that you’re telling me that we’re having a baby when I’m the one who—”
“No, it’s fine, I understand,” he said, standing. “I hear you loud and clear, Fisher. I have to be the obedient, silent husband, right? While you’re the big important Prophetess, I have to just—”
“Marc, come back to bed,” I said, sitting up and massaging my temples. He reached for the tent flap, ignoring me. “Marc, don’t go out there, the storm is crazy right now—”
“I can’t be here with you right now,” he said softly. “I can’t have this fight with you.”
“Marc,” I called to him — but he was already outside. I heaved myself upright and ran to the tentflap, peeling it open to look out into the storm. The rain fell in sheets, ran in rivulets across the muddy gravel of the rock flats. He was stalking away from the tent, coatless, with his arms wrapped around his middle. “Marc,” I called again. Thunder bellowed overhead, drowning me out. “Marc,” I called one more time — but then, the lightning.
It was my fault.
The light was beyond blinding. For a blessed, Gods-gifted minute, I floated in a numb haze of silence and darkness, like sleep but panicked. I didn’t realize that I was on my back until after the ringing in my ears faded. Then, my vision and my hearing returned, along with the ache in my spine, and I scrambled upright. “Marc!” I was screaming, and I raced outside. “Marc!”
He was flat on his back between my tent and Hanna’s. His head was tipped back, smoking; his mouth gaped wide enough that I could see the dark shadow where he was missing a molar. Hanna, the Huntress, came outside at the sound of my screams.
“What happened to him?” she asked, running to where I was crouched next to my husband’s lifeless, smoking body.
“Lightning,” I said. “We have to get him inside before there’s more, help, please help—” I was pulling on one of his arms, hot tears streaming down my cheeks. Hanna rested a hand on my wrist.
“There won’t be more, Fisher,” she said softly. “The rain’s stopped.”
I looked up. She was right — the clouds were already thinning, showing a few stars among the roiling mass of grey that was the sky.
“It’ll be OK,” she said, but her eyes said something different.
“Get the boy,” I whispered.
“What?”
“Samuel,” I said. “Get Samuel. Get the boy.”
“Samuel? But why—”
“Just do it,” I said. I crouched beside Marc, held his face in my hands, and prayed until footsteps slapped in the mud behind me. I whirled around to see the boy, Samuel, with his mottled-green eyes and strange, reddish hair. He was staring at Marc with wide, fearful eyes. I looked down at him, drawing myself up to my full height, trying to exude Prophetic authority. Hanna trailed behind the boy, watching me uncertainly.
“What happened to him?” Samuel asked.
“Lightning,” I said. “He was struck by lightning, Samuel. I need you to heal him.”
The boy started shaking his head, looking around as if someone would come and save him from this demand. “I can’t—”
“You can,” I said, “and you will.” I stared at him with my black eyes, and he stared back into them with unmistakable terror. A tear spilled over his cheek.
“Please don’t make me,” he said. “My mother will—” I grabbed his little shaking hands in mine, and he fell silent. He tried to pull away, but I gripped his fingers tight.
“Save him.”
• • • •
Maia burst into my tent, breathless. “Where’s my son?” she said, the fervent fury of a mother in her voice.
“I’m here, Mama,” he said, rising from his place beside the sleeping mat. His arms were covered in a thick coat of foul, sparking white.
“Oh, baby, no,” she whispered. “What have you done?”
“I helped him,” Samuel said, his eyes on the floor. Maia slapped him as fast and hard as the lightning strike that had flattened Marc.
“You know you can’t,” she hissed, gripping Samuel’s shoulder and shaking it. “You know you can’t, they’ll — don’t you remember that happened last time?” Samuel choked on a sob, and Maia turned to me with stark fear. “Please,” she said, “he won’t do it again, please don’t punish him—”
I shook my head, held my hands out to her without touching her. “No,” I said, “You don’t understand — I told him to do it. I made him.”
She blinked at me. “How did you — did he tell you that he could do this?”
“No,” I said quickly, “no, he did it once before — he saved Mischa’s life when we found her last month. I was going to wait until he was older and then find someone to train him as a healer, but tonight…”
All of the air went out of her. “So you’re not going to make us leave?”
I rested a hand on her shoulder, gentle as I could manage, and spoke softly. “Why would we make you leave?”
“Because of Samuel’s curse,” she said, her voice breaking as a shiver passed through her.
From behind her, a low voice rasped. “No. Not a curse.”
We all looked to Marc. Blood vessels in his eyes had burst, staining the whites red. “Not a curse,” he said again. “Never a curse.” He reached for Samuel, rested a hand on the boy’s calf. “The Gods give only gifts, Samuel. You are beloved of the Gods, and they have given you a great gift. Pray your thanks.”
I fell to my knees. I touched Marc’s face, his throat, his chest. I whispered his name, had no idea how to say what needed saying.
“Fisher,” he said, grasping one of my hands. Behind me, Maia was murmuring to Samuel, something low and firm. I knew I’d need to talk to both of them later, to plan how to develop the boy’s gift, but for now, there was only Marc, alive. Alive. “Prophetess,” he said. He coughed, and I tried not to weep.
“Marc, I’m sorry—”
He shook his head. “I saw them, Prophetess.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“I saw them,” he said. “I saw the Promised Land. I saw the Gods. It’s real, it’s all real.”
“You — what?” I said. “You saw the Promised Land?”
“Help me up,” he said. “I have to pray. I have to pray thanks. It was beautiful, Fisher. They’re — they’re amazing. Like clouds, like plums, like moons… like nothing you’ve ever seen. I have to pray thanks. Help.” He started trying to struggle upright. I rested a hand on his chest, pushed him down.
“Pray later,” I said. “Marc, you were struck by lightning. You need rest. You almost died.”
He shook his head. “The Gods send only gifts,” he murmured. “The Gods send only gifts.”
Chapter 8
Anticipation
My bones ached and spread as we crossed into the grassy flatlands, but I did not stop walking. I set my feet into the red-brown half-moon footprints that Naomi left on the earth in front of me, feeling almost at home in the soft sadness of missing my own monthly blood.
I would wonder later if that nostalgia is what brought on my own blood.
It wasn’t much — not enough to add to Naomi’s footprints. But it was enough to make me summon the healer-foundling once we stopped to rest.
“Sam, come here,” I said. The boy ran to me, his legs swinging coltishly underneath him. He was the human embodiment of a growth spurt, all awkward elbows and skinny ankles.
“Yes, Fisher?” He ducked his head and I frowned.
“Why are you doing that?”
“What?”
“Bowing,” I said. “People have been doing that lately, when they talk to me. Why? None of you ever bowed to me before.”
Sam rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I guess… ever since Marc got struck by lightning, he’s been going around telling everyone that it’s all real.”
I felt my frown deepen. “So?”
“So…” he shrugged. “So I guess it seems m
ore real now.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I muttered to myself.
“What?” Sam asked. I shook my head.
“Nothing. Sam, I need you to check on the baby. Go get Naomi so she can help tell you what you’re looking at.”
Ever the pliant boy, Sam raced off to find Naomi, my best friend and the woman in charge of our livestock. While he was gone, I breathed deeply and reminded myself that it didn’t matter why people were believing. All that mattered was that they believed. So what if the only thing that made them follow their Prophetess was the testimony of her newly pious husband? I prayed my thanks, although the Gods surely tasted the bitterness in my heart. I was still praying when Sam and Naomi returned.
“Are you all right?” Naomi asked in the same low voice I’d heard her use to calm anxious goats.
“I’m sure I’m fine,” I said, trying to sound calm. “It’s just… I started bleeding around midday, and it hasn’t stopped yet.”
“But she’s not supposed to bleed until after the baby comes,” Sam said, looking to Naomi for verification. Naomi nodded to him, and I looked between the two, wondering what lessons the boy had been learning from her.
“Let’s take a look,” Naomi said. She nodded to Sam, and he rested his palms on my belly. After a moment, I felt the questing, flickering warmth of his gift.
“Is it the same as with the goats?” Sam asked.
Naomi shook her head. “Not quite. Just tell me what you see and we’ll figure it out together, OK?”
Sam nodded slowly, then looked to Naomi with some alarm. “The baby is underwater,” he whispered.
“That’s good,” she said. “Those are the waters of the womb, remember?”
He didn’t answer, frowning. He described everything that he saw and felt. The speed of the baby’s heartbeat, which made Naomi frown. The quiet warmth of my womb, the softening of my joints. The push and pull of my pulse.
After nearly an hour of this, Naomi shook her head. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
“What don’t you know?” I asked. She closed her eyes.
“I don’t know what’s wrong. Maybe a tear in the placenta? I’m not sure.”
The Long List Anthology Volume 4 Page 19