by Gayle Greeno
Autumn sun pounded on his head, soaked the hair on the back of his neck into rat tails, his eyes stinging with sweat, dazzled by light reflecting off quartz and mica studding the sheer path carved into the stone. It was like climbing into an aerie when he reached the top, panting, hoping that a more serviceable—and level—road existed on the other side of the village. If this were the back door, so to speak, only the most hardy would attempt bringing supplies or trade goods up and down it.
Kharm had already reached the final rough-hewn step, fur glistening as she basked in the sun, her eyes level with a set of toes protruding from worn sandals. Shoulders hunched, head bent to watch his footing, Matty’s field of vision wasn’t much wider, only slightly extending the figure to include solid ankles, the coarse hem of a wheat-colored robe. Were the feet in scale to the rest of the body, he was about to meet a very formidable woman. He straightened, back aching, pushed damp hair off his forehead, blinked to make the glittering spots stop quivering, a bright blue sky outlining the figure shimmering in his vision.
“Excuse me, m’am. My name’s Matthias Vandersma, and I’m looking for Manuel Vandersma. I’ve heard he’s residing here in—” Strong arms bodily dragged him up the remaining steps, crushed him close.
“Matty,” a voice roared, a voice he’d never heard so strong and full of life before. “Oh, Matty!” His father’s face, but a face suffused with glowing purpose, dark blue eyes clear and peaceful, almost farseeing in their contentment. His skin was creased and lined, but as if he’d earned each mark, not passively let fate write its script on his face. Matty gulped in surprise, though, at the razor-nicked bald crown surrounded by neatly-trimmed hair. He clung to that oddity, desperate to incorporate it in his mind, a singular symbol of a totally new man.
But before he could assimilate it, the strong voice turned hesitant, faintly diffident. “By the Blessed Lady, Matty, why’s a larchcat sniffing my toes?” An intake of breath and the hands tightened on his arms, “It licked me! It’s tasting me!” Despite himself Matty began to giggle, giggles turning to teary hiccups. “That’s my Bondmate Kharm. She’s a ghatta. They don’t usually lick people, but when they do, their tongues are awfully rough. Say hello, or she’ll think you’re monopolizing me.”
The rest of the day whirled by Matty as he and Manuel shyly constructed a new relationship built on who they both were now or were in the process of becoming. Like every other structure in Canderis, some of the beams from the past had to be reused, even if weak, for they supported part of the original framework of kinship. As night fell, they walked to the low limestone building that Manuel called a Bethel which housed the eight-armed statue of a compassionate-looking woman set above a stone-slabbed altar.
Matty sat through the service his father had conducted, disquieted but curious, desperately taking his cues from the six women and three men who’d filed in and sat cross-legged in front of the altar. Solemn but with a gladsome anticipation—and he had no idea himself what to expect, squirming uneasily, the stone floor unyielding under his buttocks. Several of the people had looked back at him, smiled as if happy at his presence—he, a complete stranger, welcomed. He’d left Kharm outside, unsure of her welcome, but knew she followed in his mind.
A dawning realization that light came not simply from the setting sun’s rays through the long, narrow windows,. but from the gentle-faced, eight-armed Lady, a continuously burning lamp in the statue’s lap. Manuel entered and bowed to the statue, then to the people present. “Tonight is for the sixth Disciple’s welcome at its half-fullness.” They nodded approvingly as he addressed the statue. “As our lives wax and wane around us, so does Your love burn ever-brighter for us.”
“Ever-bright, never-changing, ever-changing,” his listeners intoned as he lit candles in six of the eight outstretched hands of the statue, forming a three-quarter arc of flickering light around the larger central lamp. The scent of warming beeswax trembled sweet on the air.
Manuel knelt in front of the altar, hands above his head, palms pressed together at right angles, thumbs interlocked and folded inward, his eight fingers spread. Not unlike the statue’s arms, Matty realized. “In Thy blessed firmament are many havens for us now and in times to come. Other ways, other lives, ever-changing to aspire to Thy never-changing glory.” Manuel continued, his listeners sometimes echoing a phrase or responding with a phrase of their own. It was strangely touching, moving, although Matty wasn’t sure why. As if everyone knew he or she belonged, had a place, the repetitions giving comfort and surety. The world might change around them, but this, this would not. Matty lost himself in the rest of the service, not always understanding but content to let its love and warmth, its acceptance embrace him.
“But I still don’t understand what you’ve become,” Matty linked arms with his father, pensive after the ceremony. “Though I like it, I think.” Five of the satellite moons around the unchanging moon hung full, the sixth half-visible. When the final two satellites reached ripeness, it would mark the change of another year, slightly over two years since he’d left Coventry, home. “What is a Shepherd? I saw what you did, heard what you said, but what does it mean? Why the robe, the half-shaved head?”
His father laughed, ran an unself-conscious hand over the shaved portion of his head. “I’m not clear on that part myself. But as a visible reminder of the humility we strive for, I think.”
Matty perched on a protruding tree root, picked at the bark. “But who’s we?”
“It’s a long story, Matty,” Manuel warned. “I’m not one of the very first, but I’m one of many who’ve come to believe, want to spread the word.” He held his hand in a shushing gesture, forestalling Matty’s questions. “Come to believe that the life I led was worthless—as you and your granther well know. And out of unbelief must come belief if you want to change your life.”
“But worshiping the moon and the satellite moons? Pretending your Lady is the moon, or the moon’s a lady, whichever. That’s not the truth.” For a moment a wave of censorious superiority swept over him, and it troubled him.
“Then don’t be so quick to judge.” Kharm strolled in and out of moonlight shadows, flickering silver and black and white.
“Yes and no. We all require something larger than ourselves—our own finite existence, the daily drudgery of staying alive—to believe in. The moon and her satellites are symbols, reminding us that some things are immutable, others not—change and changelessness. Why we’ve come to believe it’s a Lady in the moon and her eight Apostles instead of a man in the moon, I can’t say.
“So many things in Canderis are leftovers from a previous life, or at least our previous way of life. Our beliefs are leftovers of a sort as well, bits of various archaic religious beliefs that the spacers brought with them like so much excess baggage, but which comfort in times of need. We Shepherds represent an amalgam of beliefs so we can reach out to everyone. I guess what we believe most strongly is the need we have to better ourselves, improve ourselves and our world—though not at another’s expense. And betterment doesn’t necessarily mean material things. After all, if not in this life, perhaps in another. If you’ve tried your best and failed, you’ve still tried, perhaps improved one little thing. And that little thing, be it kindness, an act of mercy, or a better water system may be the stepping stone for someone else’s betterment.”
“But some swear the moon and its satellite phases cause the Plumbs to explode! If that’s true, how can you worship that?”
“According to your granther, that’s doubtful. And how arrogant of us to lay blame on some outside source, refuse to take responsibility for our own actions. Your granther and the other explorers sited each Plumb in good faith, but had no idea the components would finally react as they did in a strange soil. But the phases of the satellite moons, our Apostles, can change us, remind us that we wax and wane, while the Lady Moon reminds us we can be bigger, better than we are. That’s no mean accomplishment.” His smile was the one thing Matty truly remembere
d, and it broadened now. “Though perhaps we’ve incorporated a bit of destruction into our Lady Moon. Remember me saying we took the best of the leftovers? Well, certainly She includes a touch of the Catholic Virgin Mary and Her Son and his disciples, not to mention the Hindu Shiva with his eight arms of destruction, pieces of the Buddha, and more.”
Hands clasped around his knee, Matty stared up at the golden globed moons. The names were as exotic and alien to Matty as the ceremony had been. Perhaps not knowing what those names meant didn’t matter if he could pin down an overriding concept behind the names. “So you have to believe in something bigger than yourself?”
“Yes, but first you have to believe in yourself.” Manuel played with his hempen belt, finally laughed. “And I certainly had trouble with that! If you think you’re nothing, worthless, then how can something bigger than you sustain you without crushing what little spirit you have—that feeble part crying, ‘I am, aren’t I?’ But most of all, belief binds you into a community, a part of the whole, no matter how different you may feel or be in other ways, gives us a commonality and community of spirit and experience.” Yes, he’d seen it, felt it inside, Manuel and his listeners had been as one, the repetitions, the patterns, binding them together.
His words rushed like a suddenly undammed stream. “But I don’t belong. I don’t fit in anywhere! The only one who wants me is Kharm!” Self-pity swamped him, threatened to drown him. He was sinking, gasping for air, but didn’t know if he dared confess the worst. His father would cast him aside, deny him. “Kharm speaks in my mind, she mindspeaks me! She understands everything I think and can understand what other people think, what’s really the truth.” He flinched against the tree, waiting for denial, castigation.
“Truly? Then what does she think of me?” Manuel sounded curious. “I believe you, but I’d dearly love to meet someone or something, human or animal, who could judge the truth. And I suppose the question is, what do you do with the truth when you find it? Does truth always make things better or does it ever make things worse?”
Was his father mocking him, mocking his predicament? Or didn’t he—Matty—believe in himself strongly enough? Matty could no longer see Kharm, could barely discern his father’s face. Why had Kharm been so silent, so unsupportive, letting him grapple with this alone? The only confidence he had came from her. With shock he saw Manuel’s shadowy figure go rigid, face upcast to the moons and the stars, mouth open in quiet ecstasy. Communing with his Blessed Lady, no doubt.
“Well, I’m sorry, but I didn’t think he knew the rule about saying ‘Mindwalk if ye will.’ He’s nice, and most of what he says and believes is true. The few misguided parts are working their way toward truth, though he has a distance to go and knows it. But your father relishes a challenge.”
“Heavenly Lady, that’s a ticklish sensation!” Manuel’s smile beamed as broad as the moons. “But absolutely delightful, almost revelatory. You should have brought your friends Jaak and Tah’m up with you as well.”
Friends? They were his friends, he hadn’t really thought of them as that before, only as companions, the most he deserved. At least he belonged to Kharm, to them as well.
His father acted as if he, too, could read thoughts—or Kharm had revealed more than Matty had realized. “You have the nucleus of belonging, of making your own family. That’s assuming you’ve outgrown your granther and Henryk and me—or if you simply want to build on it. You have to make your community, seek it out, find others like-minded in their beliefs. Don’t just feel sorry for yourself as I did for so long.”
It struck him so hard the tree itself might have fallen on him. Seek out others, seek out the truth. Believe and give them something to believe in, a consistency, a dependable sameness. That was betterment. The search might be long and arduous, but profitable, and if so, he would belong at last.
The air hung thin and bracing, the sky pinking, reflecting off hoarfrost like spun sugar on the grass edging the worn path. Khar wreathing her ankles, anxious for the back door to be opened, Doyce took a deep breath, wrapped the shawl tight around her shoulders and rushed into the cold air. “Ah! she winced as she scurried along the path to the privy, ”almost makes you decide against it!” A sharpening breeze molded her nightdress against her bulging form, tented it behind her, the breeze trickling up the backs of her legs, making her buttock muscles clench.
“Not likely! Couldn’t have waited another moment.” Khar had veered off the path, unable to rush any farther than the edge of the frost-killed garden, digging industriously. “You’re not the only one suffering from overcrowding.” Her sides had ballooned, stripes expanding into wide ribbons. Dirt damp against her white paws, she waited for the subdued shriek that heralded Doyce’s enthronement on the cold seat, usually covered with a thin film of condensation this early in the morning. As usual, Doyce had forgotten to wipe it dry.
Their return more sedate than their leaving, Doyce busied herself reviving the coals in the stove, putting on the kettle while Khar completed her morning’s ablutions. This early, no one else in the little house stirred, although Khar judged Inez was wakeful. The old required less sleep and despite her recent illness, Inez didn’t appear the sort to linger in bed. Briefly Khar considered joining her there for the warmth, but at last the stove began to shed heat. Inez seemed to understand her younger daughter’s need for solitude, had ceded her kitchen during the early mornings when Doyce found herself too uncomfortable to sleep any longer. Last night had been a particularly awkward, uncomfortable one for them both until Doyce had finally stilled herself by mentally journeying to Alkmaar with Matty and Kharm.
“It’s humbling to see the beginnings of the Seeker ceremony, the Bethel service. They’re different now, but seeing their origins makes them seem even more powerful. Strange how much power rituals have over us. ” Too easy to let rituals become rote actions. “And I’m so glad Matty found his father, ” she smiled at Khar, “just as I’ve rediscovered my mother.” Spreading her papers on the table, Doyce set to work. The Seekers Veritas history filled the early dawns; she generally reserved her mental excursions with Matty and Kharm for later in the day when the closeness, both literal and figurative, of family life intruded. “Well, I didn’t have much choice last night. Wasn’t fair to Francie for me to keep tossing and turning.”
She opened Parse’s latest packet, scanned it to see what his research had unearthed, not to mention what gossip he’d heard. Parse had been amazing at winkling further tidbits out of Maize Bartolotti concerning Seeker Veritas life in the past, the sort of details that added color and flavor to the dry chronicling of history. And clearly Parse found her a delightful diversion. Funny, though, he hadn’t mentioned Sarrett in any letters lately, as if her very name were embargoed. The kettle whistled and she grabbed it before it could protest too much, wake Francie or her mother.
Letting the cha steep, she went back to his letter. An exuberant ink splash there, several punctures and rips in the edge of the paper. She held it to the light to see what’d been written beneath the blotch. Looked like a “Jen” slightly darker than the ink smear covering it, and then another word or two. No, couldn’t be, or Parse would simply have rewritten it and continued. Amazing how she could be so sure anything and everything pertained to Jenret. “Silly, aren’t I?” she asked, waiting for the familiar bantering.
“Absolutely,” Khar stretched uncomfortably, hoping to change the subject. “Nutter-butter? Cheese with nutter-butter? Please?” And as Doyce moved to the pantry, Khar snagged the letter, buried it under the other papers. Close, too close. Per‘la had warned through the mindnet about Parse’s absentminded mention of the Guardians still unsuccessfully searching for Jenret and Sarrett. Per’la had bumped the inkwell, snatched at the paper while chastising him for his stupidity.
Doyce shuffled her notes, integrating Parse’s new information into the proper chapters, scribbling in the margins. A bit more effort and this section could be fair copied. She mumbled, “Good morning,” as In
ez slipped into the kitchen, poured and sat at the window, rocking and staring out, sipping. Not much later Francie appeared, took up her embroidery as Inez quietly set about making breakfast. Against the backdrop of homey sounds Doyce finished the chapter and laid the pages in a folder with a pleased “There!” as Cady, rubbing her eyes, made her way toward the house from the workshop.
Cady stopped midway of the path and commenced a complex set of stretching and bending exercises that made Khar flinch, while F‘een essayed furious dashes punctuated by sharp turns, dissimulated changes in direction that revealed his intensity regarding his training. A zealous ghatt, anxious to shine at his assignment, overcompensating for his slight stature, F’een constantly harped on the textbook “rightness” of things until he set her teeth on edge. Too bad she’d flaunted his size in his face, but he’d deserved it.
Rosy-cheeked but not in the least breathless, Cady brought a gust of cold air in with her, sniffing appreciatively at the smell of baking biscuits. “All for me, I presume? I’ve worked up an appetite.” It had become a joke, despite marathon bouts of eating, Cady never gained weight.
Inez peered inside the oven. “No, Doyce and Francie and I’ve laid claim to this batch. You and Davvy’ll have to wait for the next pan since you’ve been such sleepyheads.” Reaching for a potholder to pull the tray out, “’Course I hope we don’t run out of honey by then.”
Cady snatched a biscuit. “Consider this a loan,” tossing it in the air to cool and asking, “Isn’t Davvy here? I overslept a bit, but he was up and out when I got up. Thought he was probably annoying you.”
“Wandering a bit before breakfast?” Francie hazarded as she laid her embroidery aside. “Probably poking around down by the pond. He does that sometimes.”