Gramma Bella sucked air through her teeth.
“The child had started to work on him, but she’s left him now. I put a deck of tarot in front of him and he drew the woman with the wolf. I could see on his face that he knew what it meant, but he didn’t like it. With her so recently gone, who knows whether he’s regressed.”
“It’s our best contact with that community,” Bella said.
“The ticket is very expensive,” Gramma Bella said. “Wait a few days.”
Bella shook her head.
“We save for this,” she said. “I want you both on a plane yet tonight.”
“Bella,” Jackson said. “It’s too fast. Let it sit for a few more hours. Do it tomorrow. Let the three of you take more time with what you know. You may be able to send her with better information.”
“Call Lange,” Bella said, pointing. “Tell him he’s taking you to dinner tomorrow night.”
Becca felt ill.
Dawn was going to have a field day with this.
The three Bellas sat at the kitchen table for hours after that, poking this crystal or another and talking about what it meant. Eventually Jackson took Becca’s elbow and escorted her out.
“Go eat,” he said. “They’ll be at this all night.”
She’d let it go at that, since she’d stopped understanding them hours earlier, so she went out to sit in front of a fire someone had kindled. There was a pot hanging from a tripod and she picked a bowl out of a stack and dipped several ladles of stew into it, then went to sit again. The air was crisp and cold and the stars were out in their millions. She lost herself in her thoughts for a moment, coming back to herself as Dawn sat down next to her.
“Where have you been all day?” Becca asked.
“Working,” Dawn said with a yawn. “What time is it?”
Becca took out her phone.
“A little after eight.”
“Gets dark here early,” Dawn said. Becca nodded agreement.
“Mountains, I guess.”
Dawn nodded. Becca looked at her phone some more.
“What’s up?” Dawn asked. “I know that look.”
“Which one is that?” Becca asked, deflecting as subtly as she knew how.
“The ‘I don’t want to do it’ look,” Dawn said with a smile. “What are you supposed to do?”
“Call Lange,” Becca said. No hiding it. Might as well just say it. Dawn laughed.
“Why? Does Argo have more for us?”
“No,” Becca said. I’m supposed to go to New York. Bella says.”
Dawn shrugged.
“That’s not so bad,” she said. “I like New York.”
“On a plane,” Becca said. Dawn gave her a staged shiver.
“That won’t be fun.”
Becca shook her head. She’d never even thought about being on a plane, but now that she was actually looking at doing it, she really really didn’t want to. Dawn went to get herself a bowl of stew and they sat in the quiet, the hum of Mama Bella’s generator and the crack and sputter of the fire the only things breaking it. Becca heard Dozer snore once in the stable, and somewhere a hen clucked.
It was nice here.
Maybe this was how she wanted to live, someday.
But not today. Today she was a part of the tribe and Bella needed her to get to New York and meet with Lange and someone called Carter, to help save Bella’s life.
She would do it.
Even if it involved a plane.
After another hour, maybe, Jackson came out and sat across the fire from them.
“Everyone go to bed early?” he asked.
“Mostly doing chores,” Dawn said. “Or out walking. Feels right, here.”
He nodded.
“I know that one. Spent a lot of time waking here, myself.” He rubbed his hands together and drew a breath. “So there’s a story that needs told tonight, but it isn’t a story for the rest of the tribe. It needs a campfire and it needs a good, dark night like tonight, but it doesn’t want a big crowd. Okay?”
Dawn and Becca both nodded, sliding off of the plank and sitting in the grass, closer in against the fire. Jackson nodded again.
“Right,” he said.
“Some stories are big enough that they live on their own. They continue from generation to generation unbidden, because they tell us something important, something that we need to know and that our children need to know and that our children’s children need to know.
“Some stories are different. They don’t tell us big things. They tell us little things. Things that we need to know, but that would be best if they died with us, because they keep their subjects alive in ways that they might prefer to die.
“This is one of those stories.
“Not every queen is a good queen. Not many are great queens. There is too much that goes into a great queen for most Makkai women to ever aspire that high, and this is as it should be, for great queens come when they are needed rather than all the time. They must have a mastery of magic, both the magics they control and the ones that they are likely to face. They must have a mastery of people, both the ones they control and the ones that they are likely to face. They must have a mastery of tactics, both the ones that they control and the ones that they are likely to face. And they must have a mastery of resources, both the ones that they control and the ones that they are likely to face.
“A good queen can find men and women within her tribe who can do the things that she does not. Some have people skilled with crystal magic or with deep understanding of the magics of other people. Others have a man or woman who manages the people within the tribe, or who manage the tribe’s resources. There is nothing wrong with that, and the Makkai have long lived happily with such solutions. Good delegation is a mark of a good queen.
“Jasmine was a great queen. She was talented with crystal magic, and her father had traveled extensively to the major cities where magic forms a foundation of a large culture, so that she could see and spend time around others who use magic. She was well-loved by her tribe, and she loved them with an unswerving passion. She knew their desires almost as well as they did and while no one can eradicate conflict - we are Makkai after all - she gave it paths that were not destructive to the relationships of her people.
“She was a great queen in all of the ways that matter to a Makkai queen, and she stood to have a long, prosperous reign.
“At the beginning, her protector was a man named Paul. He was well-aged and ready for retirement after a long, successful career with the tribe, and he was good to her, and she to him. In good time, he did retire, and a man called Aaron took the role.
“Aaron was a good man. A strong man, willing and capable, who recognized the value that Jasmine represented to the tribe. He did not attempt to usurp her, as so many protectors do, but he supported her through a great many campaigns that are not important to history, as important as they were to the people involved at the time, and as important an impact as they may have had, for being completed.
“And he loved her.
“It begins, as it so often does, with a man who loves a woman.
“But what can we say for a man who loves a woman who is his superior in every way? Is there anything but despair for him? Will she love him? Can she?
“She did.
“We have no rules for such things because it is hardly uncommon for a man and a woman to find each other within a tribe and this is natural. A protector and his queen have an unusually close relationship, and it is hardly unheard of for them to find love in each other. But what can we say for these men?
“The Makkai have never held firm to the idea that a queen needs a protector, as she is a protector of her tribe and her person, unto herself. What do we say of disposable men?
“Woe.
“At this time, Jasmine’s little sister was a woman named Patricia, a sufficient healer and caretaker for the tribe, but the least of the three who led the tribe. She was filling with child, though she yet traveled
with the tribe, waiting until her seventh month to return home to deliver the child.
“And she came to Jasmine, asking who would take her role, while she was gone. She had a good heart and she saw that the tribe needed a healer and a caretaker, but she saw no easy substitute among those who would remain.
“’I don’t believe that you will return to us, after you have had your child,’ Jasmine told her. ‘It is your role to love, and when the midwife delivers your child into your arms, how could you possibly leave her to return to us?’
“’Many women do,’ Patricia said.
“’Yes, but few little sisters,’ Jasmine said. ‘I want you to have that decision before you freely, after you go. To know that the tribe holds no claim on you that you do not wish it to have.’
“’Who will care for you while I am gone?’ Patricia asked.
“’There is a young woman, only come of majority in recent months, who has skills with healing crystals and is said to have the sensitivity of a little sister. I would like to bring her to join us.’
“’You would replace me,’ Patricia said. ‘Because I will be gone.’
“’I wish to give you freedom,’ Jasmine told her. ‘The tribes always need little sisters. If you wish to come back to us, once your child is old enough, we will welcome you. Of course.’
“But Patricia did not believe Jasmine. She had long believed that she was too old to be little sister, and that Jasmine would find an excuse to replace her before her time, and so she started spreading a story that the child she carried was Aaron’s. That he had lain with her in secret because he felt like nothing, with Jasmine, and that he felt whole with her. Some speculate that she had harbored a hidden love for him, and others believe that she told the truth. None can know but she herself if she loved him, and only she and Aaron know the child’s true parentage.
“This divided the tribe, and Patricia left, returning to her husband and bearing a child that she loved dearly and would not leave.
“In the wake of this, though, Jasmine was left with a tribe divided. Some of them believed that Aaron had cheated with Patricia, and others believed that Jasmine had run the woman off because of it. Faced with internal schism and doubt in the fidelity of her lover, Jasmine redoubled her efforts to purify the tribe through work. They took dozens of tasks in the next few months, and they functioned with elite capability, but the doubts within the tribe had taken firm root and nothing Jasmine could do would shake them. The new little sister was qualified and well-liked, but Patricia still had friends within the tribe who stirred up controversy at every opportunity.
“And so Jasmine suffered. Aaron found a young Makkai woman at a festival whom he soon came to love. They were wed not much after. Speculation continued within the tribe whether or not he remained loyal to Jasmine or if his heart was destroyed by her judgment against him, and he was no longer fit to be protector.
“It was around this time that Jasmine’s mother’s barn burned to the ground. Her sister broke her arm. A box of rare crystals went missing. By the time Jasmine’s brother’s wife miscarried, the suspicions grew into open accusations. Many people blamed Patricia, saying she was bitter. Some blamed Aaron, claiming he was still in love with Jasmine and punishing her for scorning him. Some thought it was Paul, secretly angry at Jasmine for pushing him out because of his age. The rumors grew wild from there. They blamed the new little sister, believing she was embittered by the bad situation she had come into. They blamed Jasmine herself, saying that she thrived on the drama and the attention and that she couldn’t bear to be out of the spotlight any more.
“Under the weight of this, Jasmine could no longer find a way forward. It takes so little, sometimes, to ruin greatness, and she offered to resign, to go live out her life elsewhere as a traveling Makkai, perhaps to find happiness there if she could not, with the tribe. The process for this is long, because it is rare for a queen to leave her post so young and not leave a plan in place for a new queen, but the tribe was likely to accept her offer when, while the tribe was on yet another hunt and as Jasmine had stayed behind at the camp, herself, hoping to create fewer opportunities for conflict, a hellcat ambushed her. Much of the camp was lost in the fight, such a defense did Jasmine put up, but the hellcat was ultimately successful in killing her. They found it wounded not much distance away and they put it to death as well, but there was nothing the little sister could do for Jasmine.
“After Jasmine, there was Ermine. Ermine was perhaps placed into her role before she was ready, and she struggled to contain the unsettled tribe. She and Aaron fought for control of decision making and the tribe itself, and more suspicion came to rest on him, that he was not fit for his role. Enough of the tribe supported him, though, that it never came into open discussion. Ermine lost her finger to a ghost’s sword, and they say it pained her until the day she died, no matter what the little sister did to heal it. She was possessed by another ghost little after, and they say that she never recovered from living the ghost’s memories as it controlled her body. Shortly after that, she was bit by a rabid animal - some stories say a dog, others a raccoon and still others a bat - and while that type of healing is normally well within the capability of a little sister, they say that she had given up, too much in pain and too cold, and she died less than a year after taking the role of queen.
“After Ermine there was Carmen, a strong-willed woman who did not like the tribe and whom the tribe did not like. Some of the older members of the tribe retired at this time, deciding that the difficulty of staying was too great, and the little sister left, going to another tribe. Not many can do this, because a member of a tribe is considered a member for life, but Carmen was not doing as many hunts as most other tribes at this time, and the little sister was able to make a case that other tribes needed her more.
“Carmen did not do a good job looking for a new little sister, and so the tribe lacked one for a time. What had been gossip and rumor fueled by malice and mistrust became open rebellion, and the tribe fractured, actually having leaders for a time who were not queen or protector. They chased after things that struck them as important and for a period of about three months, they actually traveled in two separate groups.
“Other queens intervened, advocating on the side of tradition and unity, but no one spoke on Carmen’s behalf. She could not see that she had done wrong, and so when the tribe reunited, nothing changed.
“Even as all of this was going on, Carmen was plagued with a cough that would not go away. She hid it from most everyone, though Aaron knew of it by virtue of sharing a trailer with her, and through the winter it grew worse and worse. They say that, if a wild animal was crossing a road anywhere nearby, Carmen could not help but run it over, and strange things happened, like birds flying into her trailer windows and a dog dying under her truck one night.
“Then, in the spring just over three years after she took the role of queen, her disease progressed quickly. Aaron called in a little sister from another tribe, but Carmen was stubborn and persisted with a hunt of a herd of cattle they thought were possessed by demons. They were right, and they were in the process of exorcising the demons when Carmen fell into a fit of coughing and tripped over a ledge, tumbling some thirty feet. They say that she died instantly, but some of the darker reports say that that wasn’t actually the case.
“And so the tribe was left with no queen and no little sister, with just Aaron among the three leaders, and with his credibility damaged by Jasmine and Patricia and little repaired by the deaths of Ermine and Carmen. There was talk of simply disbanding it, but an old, retired queen came in just before it would have happened and reunited the tribe.
“Elenore was a good queen. She loved the Makkai and so she loved the tribe. She brought in a new little sister, one who had retired from a tribe a few years earlier, and she showed great faith in Aaron, which helped bring back his confidence in himself, as well as the confidence the tribe had in him. They became involved in the work that they had always done, as
well as in the community of Makkai travelers, and for a season they were happy again.
“Elenore’s son died in a car accident about six weeks after she became queen, and her husband died of a heart attack four months later. A herd of cattle that her daughter kept broke through a fence and most were killed by a tractor trailer that did not see them in time. The driver also died in that wreck. And then, one night, someone left a can of soda outside her trailer by mistake. When they got up the next morning, there was a solid line of ants stretching from the can to an anthill nearby, but every last one of them was dead.
“They tested the can, everything in it and everything on it, thinking it was poisoned and that someone had made an attempt on Elenore’s life, but they could find no reason that the ants should have died.
“That was when the persisting legends began. That the tribe was haunted or cursed, that they would never find peace until they disbanded, that their queens were all fated to be cloaked with death until it finally took them. Elenore was a strong, valiant woman, and she refused to believe it. Aaron redoubled his efforts to keep her and the tribe safe. The stories they tell of the things he did show true creativity and perseverance, for all the good it did him.
“One night as they were hunting a clutch of zombies, a branch fell off of a tree where Elenore was stooped, knocking her senseless. She muttered nonsense for days, and nothing the little sister did could reverse the damage, either to her mind or her broken body. Then, on her final night, she sat up in bed.
“’There are eyes in the darkness,’ she said. ‘Eyes watching and waiting, ever patient, hunting the hunters.’
“And she fell dead.
“The tribe mourned her for twelve weeks before they would take a new queen. In that time, there was again some question whether they would find one, for now the tribe had not just a reputation for being difficult, but also for being cursed. Elenore had brought in a number of young Makkai to fill the tribe back up to its correct size, so it was young, on balance, as well. A challenge for any queen, and it took all twelve weeks of mourning to find a woman who would volunteer.
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