Aeon Fourteen

by Aeon Authors

  When I made my choice, it wasn't for kinship. I didn't turn from the house and creep low and quiet under dusky skies towards the village or listen for troubled murmurings because I dreamed of a peaceful warren of two wild women. I went because of her hands—fluttering, fluttering, butterflies’ wings that spoke. It was for the hands I went seeking her husband—I doubted I alone could pluck her from the house unseen. They must have locked him away somewhere as well, for he hadn't looked shy to shield her from any kind of danger.

  The few village houses stood or leaned each apart against soft-lit sky. So high in the mountains, even villagers stayed each to his own plot, his own patch of garden and strip of grain field. It meant fewer would hear my movements.

  Near each house I crouched and listened to the sounds within. They came muffled, but after a time I could catch the timbre and rhythm of each voice, and when none were the man's I moved on to the next house. The thought came that perhaps he was kept from speaking. If so, I'd little chance of finding him short of asking at each house, and this I could not do. I dared not draw attention now.

  I was nearing the end of the village when movement caught my eye. At first I thought some strange smoke wavered by the house, but as I neared I saw it was the pony, splashed in stark patterns of white and black. Drawing close, I heard low voices, tense. One of them was the woman's husband.

  A shout then, and sharp bootsteps. The door flung open and a strange man crossed the bare street to a nearby house and went in.

  Once I'd listened for other noises from the house and heard none, I went up and opened the door. The man looked at me with astonishment, but I motioned him to silence and untied him. None seemed to be looking, and so we untied the pony as well. The man slapped the pony's hide and it trotted away, across the open prairie. Then I led the man back the way I'd come, to the house where she was.

  It took some moments of motioning for the man to understand what I wanted of him, but finally it seemed clear. I left him behind in the dark and rapped sharply at the door. After a moment a woman's face peered out, pale in the light of her lamp. I thrust my crimson hare's tail into the light. She hesitated, but I stamped my foot and made to walk past.

  “I guess she'll need you soon enough,” she said, and stepped aside. Across the room was a door barred by an immense traveler's chest. Glancing behind her, as though expecting someone to step from the shadows and hinder her, the woman helped me pull the chest far enough away from the door that I could slip inside.

  The girl-woman looked up. When she saw me, the tension in her curled position on the floor loosened somewhat. I saw the same fear in her face that I had before, but I no longer wondered at it. She surely had no lack of things to fear. Sitting on a pallet in the shadowed room, she looked even younger than her few years.

  “Shh,” I said, laying a hand on her shoulder. She took a shaky breath.

  The woman shuffled her feet behind me. When I turned, she said, “All right if I close the door here, midwife?” I huffed and thrust the room's single, unlit candle at her. She scurried away, and soon returned with a flame to light the room.

  “Call if you've need of anything,” said the woman, “or if she gets to overwhelming you.”

  I waved the woman away and knelt on the straw-stuffed pallet with the girl. She looked at me with dulled eyes. Lightly I rubbed her belly and smiled, and a trace of a smile lit her lips, too, for a moment.

  Then the knock came at the window. It startled us both, though I was waiting for it. I got up and pushed the shutters open. The man's face glowed in the flickering light of our candle flame, and the woman gave a little cry. I shushed her and helped her to her feet.

  There was nothing to climb on to get to the window, and in the end the man crawled inside and helped the woman up and out.

  “All right?” he whispered. I nodded. “See you soon, then.” He closed the window behind him, and then I was alone with a wavering candle.

  I stole as much straw as I dared from the pallet and bunched it between pallet-cover and my cloak in a shadow of a woman's form. I was careful, for much depended on the likeness. Then I sat near the door and waited.

  Seated there in a closed room with one sputtering candle, the urgency left me that had prodded me to find the man and bring him here. I could barely grasp the reason I'd had for staying. It might make the difference for the woman, unable to travel swiftly. Yet all I could feel was the slow closing of a hand around me, soon to crush me in its fist. Finally I turned my mind to the hare and lost myself in hare thoughts.

  The men came perhaps an hour later. I heard their impatient voices and the clumping of their boots to the inner door. Scraping sounds came from the door, and then it burst open.

  I was ready. I stood as tall as my form allowed into the bristly face of the man whose house I'd stolen the man from. Before he could speak I touched my finger to his mouth. He frowned and tried to shove past me, but I stood my ground and grasped his arm. I opened my mouth, and deep, croaking, the necessary word came: “Wild.”

  “I know she's wild, why do you think—”

  I hushed him again and shook my head. He stared hard at my figure of straw and cloth and then shrugged and backed away. “She's here, all right. Jess, I'd stay right here at the door, see he doesn't come after her. I'll send some of the others over to keep watch outside. Don't be afraid to bring him down, if you've need.”

  The door closed then, and I stood a moment, taking harsh breaths. Then I went to the window, pushed it quietly out, and waited. Their voices faded away in the direction of the village.

  It must have been the fright that pulled my weary body up over that window frame. I stumbled to the ground and began running low across the moonlit plain as fast as shaky legs could take me, towards the hills I'd pointed the man to. As I clumped across the second line of hills, the hare resting on my back spoke urgent thoughts to me. The time was come.

  I found them nestled at the back of a hillock, in sight of the stream that ran past their house. The woman was curled on the slope, breathing hard, and as I neared I felt her body's beginning spasms. The man was kneeling at her side. He started at the shadow of me, but once he saw it was I he settled back again. This time the woman didn't cringe or pull away when I drew up the skirt of her dress. I took a deep breath and laid my hands on her skin.

  All was constricted, already-pressing walls straining unbearably tight.

  I pulled my sight back, waiting, nudging the hare with a thought. Time unfolded, a map in my mind. Here, and here was pain, but not yet. I traced to the end. There was no great danger here. A long labor, but not strangely long for a first child. I pulled my hands away, opened my eyes, and smiled.

  A spasm coursed through her, and she clutched my arm.

  “Is she all right?” whispered the man urgently.

  I nodded. Then I took his arm and pointed him back the way I'd come, and held my hand first to his eye, then his ear. He must have understood, for he touched the woman for a moment, and then he was gone to watch for searchers.

  After a while the spasms came more often, and for a longer time. Progress came slow but certain and her muffled cries began to come higher through the cloth I'd put in her mouth.

  I wished for the other women usually attendant at these times, neighbors and relations to the mother. It was to them I usually left the encouragement and the bracing words. I rubbed at the girl's back and belly as her body pushed and waited, pushed and waited. The child would come in its own time, but it wouldn't be aided by her panic. She needed to calm.

  Afraid, said the hare with that tiny part of her mind not taken up in the birth.

  Of what?

  Alone, the hare replied. No man. No kin.

  The word was strange, not a hare word but something else. A feeling of some other mind ... The girl's. The hare had given me the girl's own thought.

  I'd too much else to consider then. She must calm, or she risked injury.

  Wild, she would know the minds of the butterflies
, such as they had. Or perhaps not—what did I know of wild ones? Only myself.

  Tell her to call them, I told the hare.

  For a moment the girl's cries stopped, but her face closed shut, eyes staring away.

  Tell her—

  Doesn't understand. Doesn't know hares.

  Some thought was getting through, then.

  The woman cried out against another spasm, and frenzy tinged the cry again.

  Waving my hand until I'd caught her glance, I traced the shape of butterfly in the air. Then, to make sure she understood, I held my hands together and made them flapping wings.

  Call them. I pointed towards the stream, where I'd seen them last.

  She shook her head, her eyes wide with fright. I nodded and patted her arm, smiling as warmly as I could.

  She stared at me for a moment more. Then, with a choking cry, she threw her arms out and closed her eyes. Then they came—dabs of sulfur and white and gray, a flock of light-winged spirits fluttering from the night to rest on every nearby surface.

  Still afraid? I asked the hare.

  No.

  Soon after, the real work of the birthing began, the infant girl forcing her graceless way to the welcoming free air. Finally she lay squirming in my hands, washed in moonlight. With my knife I cut the life-rope and rubbed her dry with a corner of my dress. Then I handed her to the girl-mother who, despite her other fears, seemed to have every instinct for how to feed a new child.

  I had begun to wonder if the man had found trouble, staying away so long, when he came to us leading the pony. His tread was weary but calm. At the sight of the mother and child, he gave a low cry and dropped beside them. As one cluster, the many-colored spirits left as they'd come—silently. They were soon lost in a sky lightening to dawn. As the three drifted to sleep, I settled beside the weary hare and tried to order my thoughts.

  The child had been safely born with no more than the usual trial. Traveling would be difficult, but I guessed from something in the man's face that at least one of the searchers would search no further. Others that came would likely meet similar disaster. In a few days the woman might be fit to ride, though not without pain. If the three traveled northeast, across the plain, they'd reach another place where they might begin again, some place more willing to leave folks to themselves.

  My work was finished.

  The wisest thing would be to leave while they slept. I had no wish to disrupt the warmth I saw between man and wife and new child, after such worry. Besides, I'd been among people too long. I needed space, and air unbreathed by my kind—didn't I? I reached for the familiar thirst, but its place was empty, the need for solitude unfairly gone. I shivered and pulled my cloak closer around me, feeling vaguely betrayed.

  I would wait until they awoke. They would perhaps not know the way unless I pointed them to it.

  * * * *

  The baby squalled a few hours later, waking me and reminding me of the watch I'd meant to keep. The girl woke, too, and moved to the other side of the hillock to feed the child. Side by side we sat, she gazing at the top of the child's head and I watching the skyline for searchers.

  I wondered if the daughter would be wild. Or was she, already? None of my midwife lore knew anything of this. Would it be better, or worse, to be wild among wild kin?

  Kin. The woman's own word.

  I touched her arm, and when she glanced at me, eyes questioning, I took my pack from my shoulders. The hare knew my mind, and wasn't surprised when I pulled her out and set her on the grass between the woman and me. She took a single stiff hop towards the woman and nudged at her knee.

  The woman smiled and stroked the side of the hare's face. The hare closed her eyes, content.

  Again I formed butterflies’ wings of my hands, and pointed to the woman. Then I dropped my hand to the hare and tapped my chest.

  She looked at my tapping finger, and then followed my arm to my shoulder, and that to my eyes. A rush of garbled feeling washed across her face. She pointed at me and motioned with an uncertain, wavering gesture. I nodded.

  Her eyes grew wide, and after a moment she stood up with the child in her arms and returned to the hollow where the man still slept. She did not look back.

  What had I expected? Not this. She would not send others after me, to bind me and protect their neighbors from my threat. She would not dare. Yet I had dreamed of some other answer than this.

  * * * *

  The man watched my motions closely as I tried to tell the important things—direction, number of days. That last shook him.

  “Is there nowhere nearer? Can she travel that far?” Behind him, the woman cradled the child and listened.

  I could only shake my head. I didn't know.

  Then I bowed to them both and turned to the far-off peaks. There was much barren sky above the distance to those peaks, and I hoped to lose myself beneath it.

  Before I took three steps, I felt a touch on my arm. I turned to find the woman behind me, the child left in the man's arms. The woman patted at my back, but I shook my head. I'd loosed the hare to her rest. The birthing had wearied her more than I'd thought, and I'd no need of a hare for a while.

  Her eyes still on me, the woman lifted her hand, and in a moment a butterfly flitted to her upraised finger. She cocked her head and tapped first her forehead, then mine.

  I raised a shoulder in a lopsided shrug.

  The woman reached out and took my hands, gazing into my face. For a strange moment, I was no longer her elder. She was no longer a frightened girl. She took a step northwestward, pulling me with her. And then she dropped my hand, walked another step, and looked at me, waiting.

  Behind me was open wildlands, unpeopled and undisturbed. Empty.

  I took the step to her side and nodded. She gave a laugh that sounded half-mixed with tears, but her eyes were glad as she took the child from the man again.

  The sky was high and blue before us as we made our way across the prairie. The man led the pony and we women walked behind, one of butterflies and one of hares.

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  Your Fairy Goth Mother

  by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff

  Hey, little girl, I see you hiding there, within the confines of your messy room, where death rock bands, and artfully draped spider webs almost conceal the pale pink paper on the walls.

  I see you crying streams of kohl-stained bitterness onto the white lace of your cuffs, and hear your whispered lusting after Death, a better fate, or so you think, than loneliness.

  Well, I'm not Death—he has too many other calls to answer, meeting times to keep, to pay attention to the varied heartaches of his fans, but here's an eight by ten of him he had me sign.

  And hey, maybe I'll stay awhile,—wipe away those thick black tears, then throw a cd on the box, and change your filthy brand-name shirt, for something I

  have conjured up from spidersilk and waking dreams.

  Perhaps we'll dance, just kick your fears beneath the bed, and let your body quicken to the beat—but watch out for my fragile wings, and maybe, since you're fragile too, be careful what you're wishing for.

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  Parallax Fourteen: Archaea and Alien Real Estate

  —or—

  Envelopes of Unusual Size

  Each of us lives inside an n-dimensional hypervolume, one delimited by ecologically important variables defined along boundaries of biological tolerance within which our bodies can function. This is not a physical structure of course, although it might as well be. If it gets too hot, we die. If it's too cold, we die. Too salty, we die. Too acid, alkaline, parched, pressured or rarified, we die. So we sit inside our hypervolume and press outward like an evolutionary Marcel Marceau, mas
ters within our constraints.

  Every individual species has limits in place, as does the more general conception of life as we know it. It's called a niche and every species has its own unique set of niche-defining variables. Whether you are a pumpkin, a sea anemone or an Iowan corn farmer, you need certain things such as water, sunlight and oxygen at fairly recognizable levels. This is life as we know it; a definition that has become more malleable as we learn.

  But life as we know it may not be enough to truly understand what life is. There's a lot of real estate out there, and for the most part it's not clustered around our comfortable triple point of water—a variable defined by conditions of temperature and pressure where water can be found existing as a solid, liquid and gas, somewhat like your backyard. Planets sitting not too far or not to close to their suns are said to be in the habitable zone and have these states of water found on their surfaces.

  Most celestial real estate exhibits extreme conditions that are not simply uninviting to us, but debilitating to the point of death. The Universe is around 13.7 billion years old and that is an awfully long time, filled with opportunity, for life to have used its powerful ability to adapt across a myriad of extreme conditions. Even ignoring the Big Empty, concentrating only on the scattered specks of solid stuff, there is still a veritable infinity of possibilities for life establishing a toehold. Once it shows up in one, the likelihood of it spreading all over is increased to an almost certitude. Given that the existence of life in the universe is a demonstrated certainty, we should expect it to show up in more places than the Spanish Inquisition.

  Life is patient. Life abides. Its ability to wait can be seen over a few days, terms observable on the annual cycles, or even longer-term, somewhat random arrival of suitable conditions. Duck eggs wait for the onset of incubation so that all eggs laid in a clutch over a period of time will hatch simultaneously. Seeds sit quietly for spring, warmth and rain. Long-term waiting is part of the arsenal of even complex metazoans such as lungfish or Triops desert shrimp that lay dormant until the drought breaks. But the superstars of waiting are not to be found among the duck embryos or Devonian crustaceans. They're bacteria.