Watson, Ian - Black Current 02

by The Book Of The Stars (v1. 1)

  That was the least of the fuss; and I'm anticipating things, rather. That's because I want to tidy Edrick away quickly, since he has no further role to play in my story. So we'll put a speedy full stop to him right now, just as one of our good and kindly neighbours did that night with a blade. As the Godmind would say: "Finish!"

  Back to myself awaiting rescue. This was accomplished by one of the neighbours, Axal, husband of Merri. He fetched a ladder, brought me down to the ground and took me round to the kitchen, there to fix a hot spiced milk to distract my innocent mind; whilst upstairs the floor of my slaughtered sister's bedroom creaked underfoot. Merri also soon arrived, wrapped in a nightrobe.

  Every now and then concerned faces appeared in the kitchen doorway, calling Merri or Axal (mainly Axal) into the living room to confer; there where Gimmo's Songs of a Tramp still lay on the floor. Bustle, bustle.

  "Did you raise the alarm, Narya?" Axal knelt to enquire of me between whiles. I stared at him dumbly, clutching my cup for comfort.

  Sadly Merri shook her head. "It must have been Yaleen."

  "How did Narya get on the roof?" Axal asked his wife. This was a leading question.

  "Yaleen," I whimpered plaintively. "Yaleen!"

  "Hush, darling," Merri soothed me. "Your sister's gone away for a while."

  Oh yes indeed. Too true. Gone away for a while. (Fly away, Yaleen!)

  "You can sleep at our house tonight, darling."

  I scrambled to clutch the edge of the sink. "Home!" I insisted.

  "No, no, it's a good idea to visit our house till your Mum and Dad get back."

  "Home!"

  "The poor dear's had an awful shock."

  "Those sodding Sons," Axal swore. "Serves the swine right."

  "Shhh . . . ! Do you think there are any more about?"

  "Militia'll be here soon. Carlo's gone to rouse the 'jack captain and the quaymistress."

  "At least," whispered Merri, "Narya's too young to understand. That's a blessing. But we must get her over to our place. And you're coming as well! I should think so, with runaway Sons around."

  "Of course, of course." So what did Axal do but rush off into the living room to talk to someone instead? Excitement, danger, action! It was quite some time before we left the house; and Merri had more trouble prising Axal away than me.

  Mum and Dad arrived back late the following day. The neighbours knew where they'd gone to. (Just try to keep your business private in Pecawar! Well, Dad had always done his best, till recently. . . .) The riverguild had sent a messenger. Chataly's funeral rites had to be somewhat rudely abridged; Mum and Dad returned hastily to tuck me back under their wings, and to grieve and bury anew.

  To grieve; and not let me see how deeply they were grieving— blessing me the while with smiles and hugs and stray touches. But I saw. Oh all the grief!

  I'd minimized this aspect of Yaleen's murder. I'd hardly given it a thought, in fact! Because Yaleen had to die; and I was her, anyway. But Mum and Dad didn't know.

  I didn't—or rather, couldn't—console them. What a selfish shit I felt.

  Not least when they took me into Yaleen's room a few hours before the funeral to say goodbye to her. The body was lying on bedding in an open box laid across trestles. A blanket was pulled up to Yaleen's chin. A crown of green leaves, pulled from the same creeper that grew on the wall outside my bedroom, was bound round her brow. I was supposed to cover her mouth for a few moments with my fingers. 1 was to hide her closed eyes with my hands. (The eyeballs had sunk in; the lids were flaps.)

  Yaleen's bare arms were holding the blanket in place, her hands crossed above her breast. On her right hand, was my diamond ring. What a nerve! They were going to bury it with her.

  After I'd covered her mouth and her eyes—rather perfunctorily—I seized her cold and waxen hand.

  "I want this ring," I said. "It's mine. It belongs to me." I started to haul the ring off; or to try to.

  What a brat, what a brat.

  Though goodness, I was talking! And in real sentences! Consequently the pain I caused by this misbehaviour was shot through with surprise and delight, judging by the glances Mum and Dad exchanged.

  "No, Narya," Mum said gently, "you can't have it."

  "Oh but I must. Yaleen wanted me to have it. She was going to give it to me. She promised."

  Mum thought a moment. "You wouldn't be telling us a little fib, would you?"

  A little fib? Gosh no. I'd only been lying my arse off every day for the last two years; by omission if not by commission.

  "Yaleen said so, when you went away. When you left us." That should make them feel guilty. Insert one thorn of self-recrimination. How nice of me. But hell, I wanted that ring back. When all is explained, I told myself, all shall be forgiven.

  "I don't think she'd make such a thing up," murmured Dad.

  "Darling," said Mum, "Yaleen probably meant it for you when you were grown up, and when she was an old woman."

  "A promise is an oath," I said. (Dad raised an eyebrow.)

  "A diamond ring isn't suitable for a young child," Mum insisted.

  "You can keep it safe for me," I said. "In trust."

  This time they really did exchange glances.

  "Where did you hear that word?" asked Dad.

  "Yaleen said it. She said 'in twust'."

  "It must be true." Dad twisted the ring off Yaleen's finger. "We'll keep this somewhere very safe till you're a little older, Narya. But it's yours, I promise."

  Mum began to snivel, then turned to hug me. "Now there's only you! But you're talking to us! It's like a little miracle. It's as if we've lost Yaleen but. . . ." She choked.

  Sure. But gained a real little girl; fitted with a voice and vocabulary.

  "Perhaps," said Dad, "the shock has, well, made her bloom?"

  "You will go on talking to us, won't you?" begged Mum.

  What a question. I tried to look gaga and wide-eyed, and merely nodded.

  "Say you will! Please!"

  "My dear," said Dad imploringly.

  Maybe I ought to have let them bury the damn ring after all.

  "She might be able to say what happened on that terrible night!"

  Definitely it was high time for a bit of acting. "Oh, night!" I cried. "Bad man! Oh! Oh!"

  Dad shook his head sternly at Mum. "You shouldn't remind her of that. Let her think of the ring. The ring replaces Yaleen. Children are like that." He held up my diamond. "We'll put this somewhere safe, Narya. And soon we'll put your sister somewhere safe too, where she can sleep and dream of you."

  Sleep and dream, eh? Yaleen had told them a bit about the Ka- store of the Worm, but obviously it hadn't quite sunk .n . . . as yet.

  "Nice sister ring," said I. "Keep safe."

  So then it was time for the funeral; and quite a cortege hummed its way through the dusty streets. A lot of neighbours joined the procession. The local militia, led by their 'jack captain, paid their respects by carrying the death-box and by escorting it. The quaymis- tress—successor to the woman who had arranged my initiation—led a crew of riverwomen. Nice to know that I was missed!

  Out to the graveyard we hummed our way wordlessly, for death was a time when the talking stopped; when no more could be spoken. Of death itself, whatever personal fantasies or preferences one might have, nothing of value could be said in public. Or so these people all thought, for a wee while yet. Till The Book of the River came out; till they learned of the /f«-store of the Worm. . . .

  Meanwhile they hummed. They made a voiceless music to express love and sorrow; and by virtue of that hum, issuing from lungs which still breathed, the town breathed on, and everyone in it.

  As ever, no one knew how the hum would develop; whether it would be soft, or loud; what sort of tune if any it would carry. No one in particular began it or led it. It arose. It gathered. It was. Grief and painful thoughts would die away in the living hum. Then after the death-box had been dumped in a shallow hole inside our sandy, walled cemetery, and
after the "Rods" had filled in the hole, the humming would die away. (Of course deaths are viewed a little differently nowadays; but you still have to dispose of the corpse!)

  The death-hum at my funeral was a rich, loud plainsong. Presently it began to sound like the tune Under the Bright Blue Sun, no doubt thanks to the choir of riverwomen. I hummed along with glee till we arrived at our destination.

  It was years since I'd visited the graveyard, but it hadn't changed. Worn stone windbreak walls wandered around the perimeter in a series of silted bays. Despite these walls the wind when it blew carved dunes and troughs. A fire-blackened fused patch at the far end marked where the Rods burnt whichever old death-boxes worked their way back to the surface, or were uncovered by the breezes. . . .

  For the benefit of readers leagues away from Pecawar, with somewhat different customs, I should explain that the Rods took their name from the way they probed the sand to find space for new death-boxes. Maybe a corpse would lie in the ground for a hundred years, or only a couple of years, but sooner or later it would surface in its box. The Rods would haul it away, and up it would go in smoke. That day, as ever in the cemetery, a few wooden edges and comers were poking up here and there like sunken vessels. This arrangement would hardly have worked in steamy, reeky Tambi- matu! But it suited us in Pecawar. The dryness of the air and the sand soon turned bodies into leathery mummies. There was no smell.

  So when Yaleen had been sunk in the sand and covered, the humming ceased. The militia marched off. Neighbours shuffled away homeward—increasing their pace as soon as they were out of sight, I don't doubt. The riverwomen departed, all except for the quaymis- tress. She lingered around the stone archway of the graveyard, and as we three family mourners emerged she approached my parents.

  "Did Yaleen tell you that she left a memorial?"

  "What do you mean?" asked Mum. "A memorial? I don't follow you."

  "Yaleen wrote a book."

  "She never said!"

  "It'll soon be published in Ajelobo."

  "How soon?" I butted in. "My sister book, how soon?"

  The quaymistress smiled down ruefully at me. "Maybe twenty weeks." She ruffled my hair. "A long time for a little girl!"

  Not really. I had an actual deadline now; a schedule for coming fully alive, as me.

  "What sort of book is this?" asked Dad. "What's in it?"

  "Her life is in it. All of her life. I haven't read the manuscript myself, but that's the word on it."

  "And she never said!" exclaimed Mum. "Never!" She glanced back towards the grave as though a hand might break surface, waving the book at us.

  "Maybe when we read it," said Dad, "then we'll really know her."

  "Aye, when it's too late! First Capsi, now Yaleen. We're plagued." Mum clutched me close.

  "The Guild will see to it that you receive the very first copies." The quaymistress went on more crisply, "There'll likely be some income, too. Maybe a fair amount. Yaleen wrote the book for the Guild, but in the circumstances we'll remit you fifty per cent of any royalties accruing."

  This was really crass And what a cheek: there would "likely" be "some" income!

  "We don't need money," Dad said coldly.

  Oh, great!

  "Take money, Dad," I lisped. "Fish are for catching."

  He stared at me oddly. "We'll think about it," he said with dignity.

  "Do! Do! When you decide, just get in touch." The quaymistress beamed. Mentally I consigned this particular specimen to a deep pool cram-packed with stingers. Then I hauled her out again, because in due course I would have to do business with her.

  So we returned home. As soon as I reasonably could, and before Mum and Dad could nerve themselves to sort through Yaleen's few possessions, I slipped upstairs and into her room. I quickly found where I'd put my private afterword to The Book of the River and smuggled this into my own bedroom. Folding the papers up small, I stuffed them into a hole which I poked in the belly of my cat on wheels.

  My afterword. Yes, mine. Now that Yaleen was safely sunk in sand, my two "I"s had flowed back together. The two streams of my life had rejoined.

  Two years down, twenty weeks to go.

  The weeks went. Not without strain, not without problems. Now that I'd begun to talk I couldn't very well stop as if struck dumb; but I had to watch every word I said.

  What's more, Mum treasured me. Now more than ever. She acted as though I might suddenly succumb to ague, fever, paralysis, foodpoisoning, night-chills, simultaneously or in any combination thereof. And whilst treasuring, she grieved, nobly and tight-lipped.

  At last came the day when an advance copy of the book arrived by special messenger from the quaymistress's office. Mum didn't tell me what it was. She set it by in a safe place till Dad came home from work; she needed his company before she could tackle it. But 1 did catch a glimpse of the volume. It was bound in stiffened cloth, with a zigzag black and blue pattern suggesting waves, rivers, black currents. My name and the title were printed in silver lettering. The book looked handsome indeed. The Guild had taken pains.

  That evening I was packed off early to bed so that Mum could settle to read the story aloud to Dad—all evening along and what seemed like half the night.

  Upstairs, I stayed awake in the dark, latterly by pinching and slapping myself. Every so often I sneaked downstairs to check on progress. At long last I was in the belly of the Worm (in bookland). Mum's voice was sore and cracked. No doubt her eyes were giving out too. I settled silently on the stairs.

  Finally Mum read out, "That's what choices are for. To savour them while you can, and then to seize one. Or the other. . . . That's it: the end," she said.

  Before she could begin to weep, and soothe her eyes with tears, I ambled into the lamplit room.

  "Pretty good, eh?" I said. "Hullo, Mum, Dad. I wrote all that. I'm Yaleen. That's who I really am."

  What happened next wasn't quite what I'd expected.

  Dad spanked me.

  He delivered four thwacks across my backside—and though I can't pretend that this hurt me worse than being tortured by Edrick and his boys, it had, um, impact. Whilst he was spanking me, Mum turned her head away, her hands still fondling my book.

  Then Dad hauled me unceremoniously upstairs, stuck me back in bed and slammed the door.

  Bloody hell.

  At breakfast next morning I tried again. (Breakfast was spiced oats, nuts, bran and milk; the latest health fad for me.) Mum immediately looked fraught and remote.

  Dad quickly interrupted.

  "Narya! Last night you caused us a lot of sorrow, at a most precious moment. I realize you don't understand why, but I should have thought you learnt a lesson last night—much as I loathed having to teach you it. I'll do the same again if I have to."

  "Hang on, Dad! How do you explain I can suddenly talk like a grown-up?"

  "I know you've become wonderfully precocious of late, Narya. And we're delighted. Truly! It's marvellous. You were such a slow starter. But I must draw the line at this . . . this unkind pretence."

  "There is no Narya, Dad! There never was. I've been Yaleen all along—I had to make believe till now."

  "Make believe," he repeated tightly. "Exactly! Just so. Children often make believe. But children don't think things through. You could hardly be Yaleen, when Yaleen was in the same house as you. So let's have no more of it, understand?"

  Mum clasped Dad's hand. This at least stopped me from being thumped immediately. "Might this be more serious?" she whispered. "The shock of that night, do you think?"

  "I was Yaleen all the time," I insisted, "because after I was shot by that sod Edrick—yes, that's who it was!—"

  Dad shook his head at my foul language. Another symptom of my infantile brain-fever?

  "—after that, the black current sent me down the psylink to Eeden, and I was reborn as a baby there. Later on I died in an explosion and started to come back here. But things went wrong and I twisted backwards through time. . . ."

 
They listened. I think they were both trying to decide how ill I was.

  "Enough, enough!" Dad broke in as soon as I began to fill in more details. "Can it be that Yaleen's spirit has, well, taken possession?"

  Mum shuddered. "So where did our Narya go?"

  "Nowhere," I told her. "You must realize: she never was. She was me, pretending. I'm sorry, but I had no choice. Why do you think I wanted my ring? Look, Mum, there's more to The Book of the River; more upstairs. I wrote an afterword to it. I hid it in that toy cat. . . ."

  Mention of something as comically banal and homely as the toy cat had a curious effect on Dad. He rose.

  "I ... I have to go to work. Or I'll be late."

  "That's true," agreed Mum. Oh the comforts of the familiar, the balm of routine.

  "You can't go to work today!" I protested. "You have to take me to the quaymistress's office. Though I guess I could find my own way there. There has to be a conclave of the riverguild. And I need to contact the black current again. Because unless we can avoid it somehow, our world's going to come to an end!"

  Dad stared at me bleakly. "I think our world already came to an end."

  "No, no, don't you see? I'm back with you. This is a whole new start."

  "Of what? Of the end? What end? What are you talking about?"

  "Oh, I'll have to write another whole book to explain! And I need to drink of the black current again. I'll have to . . . oh, there are oodles of things! But I must talk to the Guild in conclave first."