The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women

by Alex Dally MacFarlane

  They talked about the next step in the dyeing process, and then Temly said, looking off over the low stone wall of the yard to the huge purple slant of the Farren, “You know Enno, don’t you?”

  The question seemed innocent and Akal almost answered automatically with some kind of deceit – “The scholar that was here … ?”

  But there was no reason why Akal the fleecer should know Enno the scholar. And Temly had not asked, Do you remember Enno, or did you know Enno, but, “You know Enno, don’t you?” She knew the answer.

  “Yes.”

  Temly nodded, smiling a little. She said nothing more.

  Akal was amazed by her subtlety, her restraint. There was no difficulty in honoring so honorable a woman.

  “I lived alone for a long time,” Akal said. “Even on the farm where I grew up I was mostly alone. I never had a sister. I’m glad to have one at last.”

  “So am I,” said Temly.

  Their eyes met briefly, a flicker of recognition, a glance planting trust deep and silent as a tree-root.

  “She knows who I am, Shahes.”

  Shahes said nothing, trudging up the steep slope.

  “Now I wonder if she knew from the start. From the first water-sharing …”

  “Ask her if you like,” Shahes said, indifferent.

  “I can’t. The deceiver has no right to ask for the truth.”

  “Humbug!” Shahes said, turning on her, halting her in midstride. They were up on the Farren looking for an old beast that Asbi had reported missing from the herd. The keen autumn wind had blown Shahes’s cheeks red, and as she stood staring up at Akal she squinted her watering eyes so that they glinted like knife blades. “Quit preaching! Is that who you are? ‘The deceiver?’ I thought you were my wife!”

  “I am, and Otorra’s too, and you’re Temly’s – you can’t leave them out, Shahes!”

  “Are they complaining?”

  “Do you want them to complain?” Akal shouted, losing her temper. “Is that the kind of marriage you want? Look, there she is,” she added in a suddenly quiet voice, pointing up the great rocky mountainside. Farsighted, led by a bird’s circling, she had caught the movement of the yama’s head near an outcrop of boulders. The quarrel was postponed. They both set off at a cautious trot towards the boulders.

  The old yama had broken a leg in a slip from the rocks. She lay neatly collected, though the broken foreleg would not double under her white breast but stuck out forward, and her whole body had a lurch to that side. Her disdainful head was erect on the long neck, and she gazed at the women, watching her death approach, with clear, unfathomable, uninterested eyes.

  “Is she in pain?” Akal asked, daunted by that great serenity.

  “Of course,” Shahes said, sitting down several paces away from the yama to sharpen her knife on its emery-stone. “Wouldn’t you be?”

  She took a long time getting the knife as sharp as she could get it, patiently retesting and rewhetting the blade. At last she tested it again and then sat completely still. She stood up quietly, walked over to the yama, pressed its head up against her breast and cut its throat in one long fast slash. Blood leaped out in a brilliant arc. Shahes slowly lowered the head with its gazing eyes down to the ground.

  Akal found that she was speaking the words of the ceremony for the dead, Now all that was owed is repaid and all that was owned, returned. Now all that was lost is found and all that was bound, free. Shahes stood silent, listening till the end.

  Then came the work of skinning. They would leave the carcass to be cleaned by the scavengers of the mountain; it was a carrion-bird circling over the yama that had first caught Akal’s eye, and there were now three of them riding the wind. Skinning was fussy, dirty work, in the stink of meat and blood. Akal was inexpert, clumsy, cutting the hide more than once. In penance she insisted on carrying the pelt, rolled as best they could and strapped with their belts. She felt like a grave robber, carrying away the white-and-dun fleece, leaving the thin, broken corpse sprawled among the rocks in the indignity of its nakedness. Yet in her mind as she lugged the heavy fleece along was Shahes standing up and taking the yama’s beautiful head against her breast and slashing its throat, all one long movement, in which the woman and the animal were utterly one.

  It is need that answers need, Akal thought, as it is question that answers question. The pelt reeked of death and dung. Her hands were caked with blood, and ached, gripping the stiff belt, as she followed Shahes down the steep rocky path homeward.

  “I’m going down to the village,” Otorra said, getting up from the breakfast table.

  “When are you going to card those four sacks?” Shahes said.

  He ignored her, carrying his dishes to the washer-rack. “Any errands?” he asked of them all.

  “Everybody done?” Madu asked, and took the cheese out to the pantry.

  “No use going into town till you can take the carded fleece,” said Shahes.

  Otorra turned to her, stared at her, and said, “I’ll card it when I choose and take it when I choose and I don’t take orders at my own work, will you understand that?”

  Stop, stop now! Akal cried silently, for Shahes, stunned by the uprising of the meek, was listening to him. But he went on, firing grievance with grievance, blazing out in recriminations. “You can’t give all the orders, we’re your sedoretu, we’re your household, not a lot of hired hands. Yes, it’s your farm but it’s ours too; you married us, you can’t make all the decisions, and you can’t have it all your way either,” and at this point Shahes unhurriedly walked out of the room.

  “Shahes!” Akal called after her, loud and imperative. Though Otorra’s outburst was undignified it was completely justified, and his anger was both real and dangerous. He was a man who had been used, and he knew it. As he had let himself be used and had colluded in that misuse, so now his anger threatened destruction. Shahes could not run away from it.

  She did not come back. Madu had wisely disappeared. Akal told Shest to run out and see to the pack-beasts’ feed and water.

  The three remaining in the kitchen sat or stood silent. Temly looked at Otorra. He looked at Akal.

  “You’re right,” Akal said to him.

  He gave a kind of satisfied snarl. He looked handsome in his anger, flushed and reckless. “Damn right I’m right. I’ve let this go on for too long. Just because she owned the farmhold—”

  “And managed it since she was fourteen,” Akal cut in. “You think she can quit managing just like that? She’s always run things here. She had to. She never had anybody to share power with. Everybody has to learn how to be married.”

  “That’s right,” Otorra flashed back, “and a marriage isn’t two pairs. It’s four pairs!”

  That brought Akal up short. Instinctively she looked to Temly for help. Temly was sitting, quiet as usual, her elbows on the table, gathering up crumbs with one hand and pushing them into a little pyramid.

  “Temly and me, you and Shahes, Evening and Morning, fine,” Otorra said. “What about Temly and her? What about you and me?”

  Akal was now completely at a loss. “I thought … When we talked …”

  “I said I didn’t like sex with men,” said Otorra.

  She looked up and saw a gleam in his eye. Spite? Triumph? Laughter?

  “Yes. You did,” Akal said after a long pause. “And I said the same thing.”

  Another pause.

  “It’s a religious duty,” Otorra said.

  Enno suddenly said very loudly in Akal’s voice, “Don’t come onto me with your religious duty! I studied religious duty for twenty years and where did it get me? Here! With you! In this mess!”

  At this, Temly made a strange noise and put her face in her hands. Akal thought she had burst into tears, and then saw she was laughing, the painful, helpless, jolting laugh of a person who hasn’t had much practice at it.

  “There’s nothing to laugh about,” Otorra said fiercely, but then had no more to say; his anger had blown up leavin
g nothing but smoke. He groped for words for a while longer. He looked at Temly, who was indeed in tears now, tears of laughter. He made a despairing gesture. He sat down beside Temly and said, “I suppose it is funny if you look at it. It’s just that I feel like a chump.” He laughed, ruefully, and then, looking up at Akal, he laughed genuinely. “Who’s the biggest chump?” he asked her.

  “Not you,” she said. “How long …”

  “How long do you think?”

  It was what Shahes, standing in the passageway, heard: their laughter. The three of them laughing. She listened to it with dismay, fear, shame, and terrible envy. She hated them for laughing. She wanted to be with them, she wanted to laugh with them, she wanted to silence them. Akal, Akal was laughing at her.

  She went out to the workshed and stood in the dark behind the door and tried to cry and did not know how. She had not cried when her parents were killed; there had been too much to do. She thought the others were laughing at her for loving Akal, for wanting her, for needing her. She thought Akal was laughing at her for being such a fool, for loving her. She thought Akal would sleep with the man and they would laugh together at her. She drew her knife and tested its edge. She had made it very sharp yesterday on the Farren to kill the yama. She came back to the house, to the kitchen.

  They were all still there. Shest had come back and was pestering Otorra to take him into town and Otorra was saying, “Maybe, maybe,” in his soft lazy voice.

  Temly looked up, and Akal looked round at Shahes – the small head on the graceful neck, the clear eyes gazing.

  Nobody spoke.

  “I’ll walk down with you, then,” Shahes said to Otorra, and sheathed her knife. She looked at the women and the child. “We might as well all go,” she said sourly. “If you like.”

  TAN-TAN AND DRY BONE

  Nalo Hopkinson

  If you only see Dry Bone: one meager man, with arms and legs thin so like matches stick, and what a way the man face just a-hang down till it favour jackass when him sick!

  Duppy Dead Town is where people go when life boof them, when hope left them and happiness cut she eye ’pon them and strut away. Duppy Dead people drag them foot when them walk. The food them cook taste like burial ground ashes. Duppy Dead people have one foot in the world and the next one already crossing the threshold to where the real duppy-them living. In Duppy Dead Town them will tell you how it ain’t have no way to get away from Dry Bone the skin-and-bone man, for even if you lock you door on him, him body thin so like the hope of salvation, so fine him could slide through the crack and all to pass inside your house.

  Dry Bone sit down there on one little wooden crate in the open market in Duppy Dead Town. Him a-think about food. Him hungry so till him belly a-burn him, till it just a-prowl round inside him rib cage like angry bush cat, till it clamp on to him backbone, and a-crouch there so and a-growl.

  And all the time Dry Bone sitting down there in the market, him just a-watch the open sky above him, for Dry Bone nah like that endless blue. Him ’fraid him will just fall up into it and keep falling.

  Dry Bone feel say him could eat two-three of that market woman skinny little fowl-them, feathers and all, then wash them down with a dry-up breadfruit from the farmer cart across the way, raw and hard just so, and five-six of them wrinkle-up string mango from the fruit stand over there. Dry Bone coulda never get enough food, and right now, all like how him ain’t eat for days, even Duppy Dead people food looking good. But him nah have no money. The market people wouldn’t even prekkay ’pon him, only a-watch him like stray dog so him wouldn’t fast himself and thief away any of them goods. In Duppy Dead Town them had a way to say if you only start to feed Dry Bone, you can’t stop, and you pickney-them go starve, for him will eat up all your provisions. And then them would shrug and purse-up them mouth, for them know say hunger is only one of the crosses Duppy Dead pickney go have to bear.

  Duppy Dead ain’t know it waiting; waiting for the one name Tan-Tan.

  So – it had Dry Bone sitting there, listening to he belly bawl. And is so Tan-Tan find he, cotch-up on the wooden crate like one big black anansi-spider.

  Dry Bone watch the young woman dragging she sad self into the market like monkey riding she back. She nah have no right to look downpressed so; she body tall and straight like young cane, and she legs strong. But the look on she pretty face favour puppy what lose it mother, and she carrying she hand on she machète handle the way you does put your hand on your friend shoulder. Dry Bone sit up straight. He lick he lips. A stranger in Duppy Dead Town, one who ain’t know to avoid he. One who can’t see she joy for she sorrow; the favourite meat of the one name Dry Bone. He know she good. Dry Bone know all the souls that feed he. He recognize she so well, he discern she name in the curve of she spine. So Dry Bone laugh, a sound like the dust blowin’ down in the dry gully. “Girl pickney Tan-Tan,” he whisper, “I go make you take me on this day. And when you pick me up, you pick up trouble.”

  He call out to Tan-Tan, “My beautiful one; you enjoying the day?”

  Tan-Tan look at the little fine-foot man, so meager you could nearly see through he. “What you want, Grandpa?” she ask.

  Dry Bone smile when she say “Grandpa.” True, Duppy Dead townspeople have a way to say that Dry Bone older than Death it own self. “Well doux-doux darlin’, me wasn’t going to say nothing; but since you ask, beg you a copper to buy something to eat, nuh? I ain’t eat from mornin’.”

  Now, Tan-Tan heart soft. Too besides, she figure maybe if she help out this old man who look to be on he last legs, she go ease up the curse on she a little. For you must know the story ’bout she, how she kill Antonio she father, she only family on New Half-Way Tree. Guilt nearly breaking she heart in two, but to make it worse, the douen people nah put a curse on she when she do the deed? Yes, man: she couldn’t rest until she save two people life to make up for the one she did kill. Everywhere she go, she could hear the douen chant following she:

  It ain’t have no magic in do-feh-do,

  If you take one, you mus’ give back two.

  Tan-Tan reach into she pocket to fling the old man couple-three coppers. But she find it strange that he own people wasn’t feeding he. So she raise she voice to everyone in the marketplace: “How oonuh could let this old man sit here hungry so? Oonuh not shame?”

  “Lawd, missus,” say the woman selling the fowl, “you ain’t want to mix up with he. That is Dry Bone, and when you pick he up, you pick up trouble!”

  “What stupidness you talking, woman? Hot sun make you bassourdie, or what? How much trouble so one little old man could give you?”

  A man frying some hard johnnycake on a rusty piece of galvanized iron look up from he wares. “You should listen when people talk to you, girl pickney. Make I tell you: you even self touch Dry Bone, is like you touch Death. Don’t say nobody ain’t tell you!”

  Tan-Tan look down at the little old man, just holding he belly and waiting for somebody to take pity on he. Tan-Tan kiss she teeth steuups. “Oonuh too craven, you hear? Come, Daddy. I go buy you a meal, and I go take you where I staying and cook it up nice for you. All right?”

  Dry Bone get excited one time; he almost have she now! “Thank you, my darlin’. Granny Nanny bless you, doux-doux. I ain’t go be plenty trouble. Beg you though, sweetheart: pick me up. Me old bones so weak with hunger, I ain’t think I could make the walk back to your place. I is only a little man, half-way a duppy meself. You could lift me easy.”

  “You mean to say these people make you stay here and get hungry so till you can’t walk?” Tan-Tan know say she could pick he up; after he the smallest man she ever see.

  The market go quiet all of a sudden. Everybody only waiting to see what she go do. Tan-Tan bend down to take the old man in she arms. Dry Bone reach out and hold on to she. As he touch she, she feel a coldness wrap round she heart. She pick up the old man, and is like she pick up all the cares of the world. She make a joke of it, though: “Eh-eh, Pappy, you heavier than you look, you
know!”

  That is when she hear Dry Bone voice good, whispering inside she head, sht-sht-sht like dead leaf on a dead tree And she realize that all this time she been talking to he, she never see he lips move. “I name Dry Bone,” the old man say, “I old like Death, and when you pick me up, you pick up trouble. You ain’t go shake me loose until I suck out all your substance. Feed me, Tan-Tan.”

  And Tan-Tan feel Dry Bone getting heavier and heavier, but she couldn’t let he go. She feel the weight of all the buriens she carrying: alone, stranded on New Half-Way Tree with a curse on she head, a spiteful woman so ungrateful she kill she own daddy.

  “Feed me, Tan-Tan, or I go choke you.” He wrap he arms tight round she neck and cut off she wind. She stumble ever to the closest market stall. The lady selling the fowl back away, she eyes rolling with fright. Gasping for air, Tan-Tan stretch out she hind and feel two dead fowl. She pick them up off the woman stand. Dry Bone chuckle. He loosen up he arms just enough to let she get sone air. He grab one fowl and stuff it into he mouth, feathers and all. He chew, then he swallow. “More, Tan-Tan. Feed me.” He choke she again.

  She body crying for breath, Tan-Tan stagger from one market stall to the next. All the higglers fill up a market basket for she. Them had warn she, but she never listen. None of them would take she money. Dry Bone let she breathe again. “Now take me home, Tan-Tan.”

  Tan-Tan grab the little man round he waist and try to dash he off, but she hand stick to he like he was tar baby. He laugh in she mind, the way ground puppy does giggle when it see carrion. “You pick me up by your own free will. You can’t put me down. Take me home, Tan-Tan.”