The others looked at each other nervously, even the woman, and he wondered if that was too much.
“We’ll get you back,” the man said. “What’s your name?”
“Jarl,” he said, and the man blinked in surprise.
“You’re the harvester,” he said, and Jarl nodded. He grinned. “Praise Earth. The president and the old timers were frantic when it was discovered you were gone. They were hoping you were just hiding somewhere but we were sent to check for you out here anyway. Four others escaped last night. It was a bad night. Do you think any of them survived?”
“I hope so,” he said, though his heart sank as he thought of the female creature. Had she left to find another victim? If any of the others had survived, he would have been told. They had all been killed. The creatures had killed all of them, and then had the gall to stand around him and talk about sending him back to the humans to die. He might love Arlen, but he despised the rest of them.
They headed back and Jarl’s body continued to ache. He had to pause at several points and worried what people would think. He would definitely be examined, he knew, and dreaded it. What was he supposed to say? What did he look like? What would people think?
As soon as they entered the colony gates, they were flooded by people and in minutes, the president and all of the old timers were at his side shouting questions at him. He shied away, unsure what to say and who to answer. There was just too much chaos. The president seemed to recognize how overwhelmed he felt and instructed the people escorting him to bring him to his house. She followed him in and the man helped him into his bed, pulling the blanket over him before taking the jacket back. The president and two old timers stood in his room, looking down at him in relief.
“What happened, Jarl?” asked the old timer who trained him, Doss.
“I was drawn to the woods and a creature appeared, but I looked at the moon and it felt like the moonlight protected me,” he said, still not entirely sure how to explain.
“You looked at the moon?” the president asked, puzzled. She looked at the old timers. “What would the moon have to do with anything?”
“Maybe there’s some lingering power from the peace,” Doss considered. “We know the moon is responsible for calming the creatures so we can leave during the peace. Maybe there was some of that energy left.”
“I’ll consult with the astronomers,” she said, then looked back at Jarl. “You’re injured. Were you attacked?”
“I don’t know,” he said, and she sighed.
“We’ll get someone to look at you. Try to recover. We’ll have guards on you from now on, so don’t worry. We’ll never let you get lured again.”
He inwardly winced. That was exactly what he didn’t want. But there was nothing he could do about it so he just nodded and they filed out. He shut his eyes. He did feel weak, and slightly nauseous. It wasn’t anything physical, he thought, but something was making him queasy. A doctor entered and the feeling strengthened, but he was too worried now about the exam to worry about a minor belly upset.
The doctor asked him what happened in a quiet voice and he repeated his story, then the doctor removed the blanket and his eyes widened.
“You were attacked,” he said, and Jarl looked down at himself. His arms were bruised where Arlen must have grabbed him, and the skin over his heart was bruised as well. As were his sides and legs, he realized. No wonder he ached so badly. He hadn’t realized it when they were making love, but Arlen had been brutal to him. He had invited it, he admitted. He had needed it. He hoped that when they did it again, it wouldn’t be so violent, and then he flushed. Would they do it again? He would have to get out of this colony first. Even if Arlen managed to sneak in, there was no way he was going to sleep with a creature here.
“Turn over,” the doctor said, and he winced but obeyed. He felt the doctor’s hands run over him, pausing on his hips. “Were you with someone last night?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Jarl said, feeling awkward. It was probably clear what had happened.
“Who were you with?” the doctor asked. “They might be in danger.”
He helped Jarl roll over and he puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“You must have been with them when you were drawn, or it was right after,” the doctor said. “They might have been drawn as well. We lost four last night. Who were you with?”
Jarl’s eyes widened. The doctor thought he had been with someone before he was lured into the woods. He thought that damage was from a human. He had to bite back his relief.
“Who died?” he asked. This was good, but who could he say? Should he say someone who died, or pretend it was someone else and just not name them?
“Another harvester,” the doctor said sadly, and Jarl gasped. “It was almost a very bad night for our colony. We almost lost two of you.”
“Who?” Jarl asked, heart pounding loudly. There were only twelve of them and he knew them better than anyone else. He squabbled with them sometimes and he and Terran had a friendly rivalry that sometimes spilled into genuine anger, but they were all dear to him. The doctor sighed.
“Kandor. Second longest route. We would have been lost if both of you had been killed.”
Jarl couldn’t move, couldn’t think. He had just seen Kandor. They had talked just yesterday. Kandor had asked him about what it was like to be drawn to the woods, and he had avoided answering. And now Kandor had been drawn to the woods and killed. He shut his eyes and felt a tear streak down his cheek. He imagined the cruel female creature, or one of the creatures who looked like a nightmare, finding his beloved friend. He imagined Kandor offering his flesh the way Jarl had tried to do at first. He had been driven to offer himself and been desperate to feed Arlen. Had Kandor felt the same? Had he felt completion when he was eaten alive? Jarl sobbed, turning in the bed to curl into a ball. Kandor was gone, eaten by the very creatures who had spoken to him and watched him and left him alive. He couldn’t bear it.
The doctor patted his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jarl.”
“Did… did you find his body? What happened to him?”
“Do you really want to know?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” Jarl whispered.
“He was eaten,” the doctor said. “I’m sorry.”
Jarl let out another sob and the doctor patted him again. “Get some rest,” he said gently. “I’ll be back in a little with some cream that will help those bruises, but the main thing you need is sleep.”
“I can’t sleep,” he said, thinking of the nightmares that would surely accompany it. He had avoided nightmares last night but now, with thoughts of Kandor so fresh in his mind, he knew his dreams would be excruciating.
“The dreams are better during the day,” the doctor said soothingly. “And you need rest. At least close your eyes.”
Jarl nodded and the doctor left, promising to return soon. Once he was alone, Jarl lay on his back and felt the gentle hum of the melody in his mind. He hated it. That melody had destroyed his friend. That melody had lured his friend out of safety into the jaws of a monster. There had to be some way to rid himself of that melody. He tried to think of other music that might drown it out, playing through the hymns and marches of the colony as loudly as he could in his mind, but the melody always remained, just under the surface. There was nothing he could do to rid himself of it and finally he let out a cry of rage and sorrow and sat up, clutching his head. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t bear the thought that he had survived but everyone else had died. Why was he the only survivor? How was he any better than his friend?
There was a pulse in the music and he felt reassurance. He rejected it, but the pulse came again, stronger, forcing his thoughts to quiet. He took a deep breath, almost against his will, and felt calm spread through him. If he taught the humans, then no one would ever die like that again. The message washed over him. That was his duty. To prevent more deaths. But what did it matter when Kandor was already dead?
The door opened an
d the doctor came in, seeming surprised that Jarl was sitting up. He clucked his tongue sympathetically and laid out a few jars before slathering thick cream on his bruises. They started healing immediately but the pain lingered, and the pain in his heart would never go away. He finally lay down and shut his eyes, just wanting to escape, even if it was into nightmares.
Chapter 10
Days and nights passed in a blur as he recovered from the shock of what had happened. He continued to feel nauseous but when he brought it up with the doctor, he hadn’t found anything to cause the feeling. He suggested, gently, that it might be because he was in mourning. Everyone treated him very gently and Doss stopped by every day. He didn’t leave his house, but a variety of people came to talk to him. The people who studied the moon quizzed him repeatedly but he wasn’t sure what to say except that you had to really look at the moon. Not analyze it through a telescope, as they did, but look at it in the sky and appreciate its beauty. They scoffed, saying there was no point looking at it with plain vision when the telescopes produced such clarity. Others came, too, and he urged them to look at the moon, but he wasn’t sure anyone was listening. He felt helpless. His body had recovered but he still felt weak and more than anything else, he missed Arlen.
A week passed before he felt a pull one night. There were guards stationed at his door, he knew, to keep the night from taking him a second time, so he went to the window. The moon was overhead and he let out a sigh of admiration. He sat down and stared up at it. Were any of the others humans looking at it right now? Had any of them listened to him? Or were they all huddled in their homes, terrified of the wind that was starting to pick up and that would inevitably bring some of them into the woods to their deaths? He gazed at the moon and felt the melody in his mind grow a little louder. He shut his eyes. He hadn’t been having nightmares, at least not the usual nightmares. He was still wracked with grief over Kandor’s death and the minutes before and after he fell asleep were filled with guilt and anger, but the sleep itself was neutral. As he leaned his head on his arms in the window under the light of the moon, he felt peace finally come over him. He sighed and relaxed into a deep, pleasant sleep, the kind of sleep the original colonists must have had. The kind of sleep that must have been possible on Earth.
When he woke, there was a commotion outside. For the first time since he had returned from the woods, he dressed and opened his door. The guard outside looked excited and without a word, brought him to the center of the commotion. He blanched as he saw a young woman bleeding in the center of the crowd. Her right arm and part of her shoulder had been bitten off and he recognized the signs of feeding left by the creatures. But then he blinked. She had been eaten but she was here, alive. Her arm was gone and she was covered in blood and other scratches, but she was alive. Her eyes met his and he recognized her as the woman who had helped him when he was first discovered in the woods. A weak smile crossed her lips and he pushed up to her. Everyone let him through. The doctors were already at her side and the president was there as well, but she gestured for Jarl to come closer and he knelt by the bleeding figure.
“I did what you said,” she whispered. “When the creature began eating me, I looked at the moon. It was so beautiful. So peaceful. Nothing hurt when I looked at the moon. The creature left and they found me this morning.”
“The moon?” the president asked, sounding urgent. “You’re sure it was the moon?”
Jarl’s eyes filled with tears. It had worked. Someone else had been spared.
“It was the moon,” she said weakly, then fell back, unconscious.
Jarl looked at the damage that had been done and the frantic way the doctors were trying to help her and realized she probably wouldn’t survive. But she had survived the night, and that was what mattered. They would listen to him now, and they had a chance of survival. The president stood and Jarl was escorted into the capital behind her, the old timers at his side. Jarl was pushed into one of the chairs and the others sat as well, then the guards left. When it was only him, the president, and the old timers, she leaned towards him intently.
“Others have been looking at the moon since you returned,” she said. “Why did it work for her and no one else?”
“You have to really look at the moon,” he said, as he had said before. “I don’t know how to explain it. You look at the moon and realize how beautiful it is, and then everything is calm. I didn’t even have nightmares after I looked at the moon.”
“Does it have to be at the attack itself?” she asked. “It’s a lot to ask someone to remember to look at the moon when they’re being eaten.”
“You can look at the moon and see its beauty anytime, but I think you have to do it during the attack as well,” he said. After all, it was only when he looked at the moon that he had snapped out of the siren’s call of offering himself to Arlen.
“We can train people,” Doss said, sounding excited. “We can teach them to look at the moon so that it’s instinct when they’re attacked.”
“No one has ever survived before,” another old timer said in awe. “And now two have. Is it really as simple as the moon?”
“There has to be something else going on,” said the oldest old timer with a scowl. “It’s still close to the peace. I doubt this will continue to happen as we get into the rest of the year.”
“We should still try,” Doss snapped. “It’s the first hope we’ve ever had on this damn planet.”
“This planet has laid traps before,” the oldest one said bitterly. Her great-grandmother had been one of the original colonists and she often reminded them of it. She had known her grandmother, the first generation of people raised entirely on this planet. She remembered the stories about when the planet had turned on them and was frequently telling them to the children so they wouldn’t be forgotten. She was over a hundred now but sharp as ever, and the fact that she had never been called to her death meant she was revered over everyone else here. All of the old timers were honored, but she was a good twenty years older than the second oldest of them and she never let anyone forget it. As far as Jarl was concerned, she would always be a part of the colony.
“Jarl and Issa survived,” Doss emphasized. “How is that a trap?”
“Maybe they’re being prepared for something worse later,” she said darkly, and Jarl shivered. “Maybe they’ll be called to the woods again someday, in weeks or months or years, and will face something far worse than being eaten.”
“That won’t happen,” Jarl said, because if she convinced the others that he was always in danger, then he would never get back to the woods to see Arlen. And if she thought the planet was going to hurt him more, then there would be almost no way to convince them that the creatures weren’t enemies. Or at least that Arlen wasn’t an enemy. If this old timer convinced them that Jarl couldn’t be trusted, then everything fell apart.
“Maybe we should train someone for both harvests,” the president said slowly. “We need those plants and if they are just waiting to take Jarl next year when he’s vulnerable, then we’ll lose that harvest.”
Jarl’s eyes widened. That was bad. He had counted on being able to go alone because then, even if he hadn’t seen Arlen in the year until the next peace, at least he would have five days with him.
“I’m not sure we have two people ready to take on both of our long harvests,” Doss said grimly. “I’ll start training them at once, of course. We can cover Kandor’s harvest but you know how difficult Jarl’s is.”
“I can still go,” he said quickly. “I won’t fail. The creatures can’t hurt us then. I’ll be able to bring the pods back safely. I have every year since I took the harvest. You can trust me.”
The president looked at Doss, who shrugged. “I’ll prepare someone, but it is safest to let him do it. Or we could send them out together so that at least one makes it back.”
“That would doom both of them to death,” the oldest one said. “If the planet has sentenced Jarl to a darker fate, then anyo
ne with him would be in danger.”
“I haven’t been sentenced to anything,” Jarl protested. This conversation was not going well. “I survived, and nothing else will happen to me. Others can survive, too.”
There was a knock at the door and one of the guards approached. “Issa died,” he said simply. “Blood loss.”
The president nodded and the guard left.
“You survived,” the president said. “And she survived at first, but we can’t expect people to remember to look at the moon, especially if they have to look at the moon a certain way. Maybe they’ll survive the night, like Issa did. But she still died.”
“We have to try,” Jarl said, not knowing what else to do. The president sighed.
“All right. We’ll talk to people and try to make them look at the moon. What do you have to do? Look at the moon and think it’s beautiful?”
“You can’t just think it, you have to feel it,” Jarl said. “But it is beautiful. It isn’t hard to do. I had never looked at the moon before, not really. When you do look at it, it’s hard not to think it’s beautiful.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever looked at the moon,” the president said thoughtfully. “Perhaps I’ll try tonight.”
Jarl smiled, grateful, and then the others let him leave for the day. A week had passed so he would be back to regular work, he knew. A week was all they ever gave people, no matter the cause. He was just grateful they had given him the entire week because he knew most people received far less when someone close to them died. He didn’t mind the work, though, he thought as he was brought to the kitchens were he was most of the time. It would help keep his mind of Arlen. He wondered as he worked, though. Had Arlen fed on other humans? Was he feeding on them even now? He wouldn’t be able to help it; Jarl understood that now. Arlen had been as helpless in feeding on him as Jarl was in offering himself. If Jarl had only offered his heart, he would have been fine, he thought with a blush. There had been no problems with that. It was only because he was also attracted to Arlen and had wanted to give his body that there was a problem. He wondered if other humans could learn to love the creatures. They only had five days a year when they could interact with the creatures safely, but that had been enough time to win his heart. He hoped the creatures tried again next year. Would he still be in this colony next year? He put his hand over his belly and thought of the nausea that never quite went away, and the fear and angst he felt around all of these disbelieving people. He hoped he wasn’t here, but he didn’t want to be with the creatures, either. He might be part of this world now and he heard the music clearly in the back of his mind, but he was still afraid of it.
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