A Plague of Angels

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Whatever her sexual status, Elrick-Ann was that impossibility among conks, a popular woman. She never flirted with any man, but she was sisterly toward them all. She listened to their troubles and offered good advice if they wanted it. She supervised the hags in the kitchen and made them produce food that was tasty and looked nice. Most gangers’ women stayed all their lives in the women’s quarters on the roof, but Elrick-Ann buzzed around Purple House like a bee, always busy with something. Even the other women liked her, and that was an unheard-of thing, for about all the amusement the women had besides going to the baths was fighting with each other.

  To Abasio, Elrick-Ann took the place of a ma, or maybe an older sister. He told her how he felt about IDDIs, and she told him being scared was real sensible if a man cared about living. Elrick-Ann suggested Abasio make it his business to find amusements for Kerf, because that would get him in good with Soniff and keep him away from the whoring and drugging, which was mostly where the IDDIs came from. When the young Chingero brothers, TeClar and CummyNup, were recruited for the gang, Elrick-Ann told Basio to look out for them and them to look out for him, because a man lived longer with somebody watching his back. When he told Elrick-Ann how much he liked books, how he’d brought books with him but couldn’t read them because the Purples didn’t respect people who read or who used unusual words, Elrick-Ann suggested he move out of Purple House and find a place of his own.

  “Purples don’ have to live in the house, Basio,” she whispered, looking around to be sure they weren’t overheard. “Not if they’ve got some other place. No reason you shouldn’ do stuff you like. I even got me this idea ’bout a place for you.”

  The place was a solid old shack on top of a tenement a few blocks away, where he could keep the books he bought secretly in the market and read the night away if he liked, or as much of it as he was able to find lantern fuel for. Kerosene was scarce, and torches were too smoky to read by.

  All the caring wasn’t one way. When Elrick-Ann confessed one lonely night that Kerf would probably never be a normal man, but that she wasn’t a normal woman, either, having been born without the right organs to make babies, so the doctors said, Abasio hugged her and told her he was sorry.

  “Is okay,” she whispered. “With Kerf, I’m safe. My daddy figured so Nobody’ll bother me so long as I belong to Kerf.”

  Abasio respected Elrick-Ann. When she told him, four years after he came to Fantis, that it was time he went home to tell his ma he was all right, that he owed his ma that much, he paid attention to what she said, borrowed a horse from the Patrol Post outside the city, and went.

  Ma wasn’t there. Somehow he’d never thought of her not being there.

  The old man, much thinner and grayer, wouldn’t say where she’d gone. When Abasio asked, he only shook his head, and he didn’t invite him to stay, not even for a visit In the end, Abasio came back to Fantis because it was the easiest thing to do.

  “I thought you might stay there,” whispered Elrick-Ann.

  He hadn’t intended to tell anyone about it, but he told Elrick-Ann, and he cried tears, and Elrick-Ann patted his shoulder and told him he’d just left it too long, she should have mentioned it to him sooner.

  “Don’t tell anybody about me going,” he begged. “She was always scared somebody from the city would come looking for her. If they knew about the farm, they might hunt for her.”

  Elrick-Ann said she wouldn’t tell. When she said it, she really meant to keep her word.

  In the archetypal village over the ridge from the Cermit Farm, she who had been old Cermit’s daughter and Abasio’s mother—though she no longer remembered that fact—dwelt in a cave beside the waterfall. Her new name was Drowned Woman, and she was visited, time and again, as today, by a girl-child about six years old who was known as Orphan.

  “Tell me a story,” the girl begged.

  “Come sit on my lap,” said Drowned Woman.

  “You’re all wet,” Orphan objected.

  “So I am,” Drowned Woman agreed. “I’ll put on something dry, how’s that.”

  Orphan put her thumb in her mouth to pass the time it would take Drowned Woman to find dry clothes. Oracle said Orphan was too old to suck her thumb, that six-year-olds were virtually grown up. Orphan didn’t suck it in front of Oracle, only with Drowned Woman, who didn’t care, or when she was in her own hovel, about to fall asleep. It was comforting. Sometimes she needed comforting.

  Drowned Woman found something reasonably dry, and when she sat down beside the fire, she patted her lap invitingly.

  Orphan took her thumb out of her mouth and crawled into the waiting lap. Drowned Woman’s lap was bony. Oracle’s lap was more cushiony, but Oracle was grumpier than Drowned Woman.

  “What story do you want? ‘Sleeping Beauty’? ‘Three Bears’?”

  “Not one of those. I want an Artemisia story.”

  Drowned Woman looked doubtful. “I don’t know many Artemisian stories. Only the ones I’ve heard from Oracle.”

  “The Bear Coyote one.”

  Drowned Woman settled herself. “I think I remember that one. Let’s see. Long and long ago.…”

  “How long ago?”

  “Before you were born, or I was born, or our parents or our grandparents. Way back then, Coyote and Bear were married once, you know, when Bear was a woman, but this story comes after that, after Bear changed into a furry thing, with big teeth. Well, Coyote and Bear were walking along in the woods, and they saw a whole bunch of men hiding in the trees, with bows and arrows and throwing sticks and ropes, waiting to kill Bear and Coyote when they came along.”

  “And Coyote said to Bear, ‘Way-oh.’ ”

  “Right. Coyote said to Bear, ‘Way-oh, there’s men in the trees and men in the rocks and men in the bushes and men in the reeds along the stream, and they want our hides to keep them warm, but we want our hides for ourselves!’ And Bear said, ‘Way-oh, let’s go up this rock and through that cave and go the long way round.’ ”

  “So they did!”

  “So they did. But the next day it was the same thing, and the day after that, and Bear and Coyote got tired of always having to go the long way round, just to keep their hides for themselves.

  “So, one day, Coyote said, ‘Let’s ask our big brother the Water Sprinkler to send a huge flood, to wash all the men away.’ ”

  Orphan said eagerly, “And Bear said, ‘If the flood washes all the men away, what’s to keep it from washing us?’ ”

  Drowned Woman agreed. “Exactly. So Coyote said, ‘Let’s go to the Sun and ask him to send a great fire to burn all the men up.’ ”

  “But Bear thought he might get burned too.”

  “Yes, he did And after that, Coyote said, ‘Let’s go to our sister, Cold Woman, and ask her to send ice and cold to freeze all the men to death.’ But Bear said, ‘I have to sleep through the winters now, and that’s cold enough What’s to keep me from freezing when the men freeze?’ ”

  “So, finally …” said Orphan, expectantly.

  “So, finally, Coyote said, ‘Let’s go to the Woman Who Changes Everything, and let’s ask her to make monsters to eat the men so they won’t bother us anymore.’ And Bear said, ‘But if the monsters eat all the men, they’ll still be hungry, and then they’ll probably start eating us.’

  “ ‘Not if the Changing Woman won’t let them,’ said Coyote.”

  Drowned Woman’s voice trailed away. “I’ve forgotten the rest,” she said fretfully. “It’s something about the monsters, but I’ve forgotten what it is.”

  Drowned Woman did forget things sometimes. Orphan snuggled more deeply into Drowned Woman’s lap, trying to think of a story Drowned Woman couldn’t forget.

  “Tell the story about when I got here,” she said. “You remember that one.”

  “Well, yes. It happened four years ago, one summer day when the villagers saw a little man coming down the mountain leading a donkey. And when he got to the market square, he opened one of the baskets on t
he donkey, and a guardian-angel came out and perched on the edge—”

  “But people didn’t know it was a guardian-angel,” Orphan interrupted.

  “No, none of the villagers had ever seen a guardian-angel, so they didn’t know, but there it was, on the basket And when the little man got down into the village, into the market square, he turned round and round and cried out in a loud, loud voice, ‘My name is Herkimer-Lurkimer, and I’ve brought you your Orphan.’ ”

  “So what did people do?” Orphan asked. She liked this part.

  “So Hero went down to the square, and Oracle went down to the square, and Poet went, and Bastard went—”

  “No, no!” cried Orphan, outraged. “Bastard didn’t go Bastard didn’t get here until later!”

  “Sorry. You’re quite right. Bastard didn’t go. And of course, I didn’t, either, because I didn’t come until a few days later. But Fool went, and Faithful Sidekick—”

  “Faithful Sidekick got eaten last year.”

  “Quite right. He got eaten last year by a monster—”

  “An ogre,” said Orphan with a shiver. She remembered a huge shagginess, with teeth, a thing that roared and smelled dreadful. She buried her face in Drowned Woman’s side. “Ogres are dreadful because they eat us up.” She shivered.

  Drowned Woman pulled her face away and kissed it. “But that ogre is gone now.”

  “And it won’t come back!”

  “No It won’t come back because Hero hunted it down and killed it. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Everyone who was in the village went down to the square, and the little man opened the other basket and took out—”

  “Me!” cried Orphan.

  “Exactly right You were two years old, more or less. Then Herkimer-Lurkimer handed you to Oracle, and Oracle almost dropped you because she had never had a baby and had no idea which end was up.”

  “But you did.”

  “When I got here, seemingly I did, though I don’t remember how I knew. Even Oracle knew you were hungry and wet and needed tending to. Even Herkimer-Lurkimer knew that, for the other pannier was full of food and diapers.”

  “And I stayed with you for a long time!”

  “Until you could go to the privies by yourself, exactly. Then I took you up to the Orphan’s Hovel, which is where the Orphan is supposed to live. And you’ve lived there ever since, among all of us villagers.”

  “But specially you and Oracle.”

  “Especially me and Oracle. And we look after you, seeing you get the things you need, and between the two of us, we feed you, and everything is—”

  “Just fine,” said Orphan, bringing the story to its customary close. “Except I’d rather live here than in the hovel.”

  Drowned Woman hugged the child, smiling. “Well, Bastards can live anywhere at all, but Oracles have to live in caverns and Heroes have to live out under the stars and Misers have to live in dirty old houses crammed full of stuff and Orphans have to live in hovels. That’s how things are.”

  “And Princesses in palaces and Virgins in bowers and Milkmaids among the cows,” chanted Orphan. “Because we’re archetypes. That’s what Oracle says.”

  “Oracle is quite right. We’re archetypes, and we have to act typically. Otherwise, we’d be sent back into the world that has no room for us.” Drowned Woman lifted Orphan out of her lap, set her on her feet, brushed the cloud of dark hair out of her eyes, and tugged her tattered smock down straight. “Now, pretty girl, you’re having supper with Oracle tonight, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then. You get along up to the cavern before Oracle eats it all up.”

  “All right.” Orphan yawned. She’d spent most of the day swimming with the Water Babies, and the rest of it climbing the rocky gorge along the stream above the pool, looking for wildflowers to make Drowned Woman a crown, so she was tired She smoothed down her smock, gave Drowned Woman a parting hug, and left the cave. As she came out, her guardian-angel flew down to her shoulder and nibbled on her ear with its long, sharp beak.

  Walking up the path from the pool, she admired the fall, like glass slivers falling, and the pool making little jiggles that were part water and part light. Sometimes things were so pretty, she got all shivery inside. As soon as she got to the cavern, she’d ask Oracle for a story, right away! If she did that, maybe Oracle would forget to put ashes on her face, and she could stay pretty too.

  No such luck. First thing in the cavern, there was Oracle coming with ashes on her fingers, swiping at Orphan’s cheeks and forehead, at her arms.

  “You’re clean, again,” she said in an annoyed voice. “Drowned Woman has a fire. She has ashes. Why doesn’t she dirty you?”

  “Because she likes me better when I’m clean!” cried Orphan rebelliously.

  “Orphans aren’t clean,” asserted Oracle “And I don’t know how many times I have to point that out. Every time I get you properly dirtied and your hair draggled, Drowned Woman washes you and combs you, and you don’t even remotely resemble an Orphan!”

  “My smock has a hole in it,” said Orphan, tears in her eyes. “I don’t have any shoes!”

  “There, there, child. I didn’t mean to yell. It’s just … you’re not typical.” Oracle turned her large self around and began stirring something in the pot over the fire, looking grumpy and dissatisfied, the way she usually did.

  Orphan sat down and watched the firelight through her tears. When she squinched her eyelids, it made a blurry brightness that danced across the piles of books at the back of the cavern and made slender licky shadows around the pillars and half pillars as it glanced way back into corners and reflected from lots of little twin moons glowing there. Squirrels’ eyes, maybe. Or bats. Or maybe something else, wandered in from outside. It had been gnomes once, because Orphan had seen the gnome-man and his wife and their baby, tiny as a peach pit, all warming themselves by the fire. But not monsters, because Oracle wouldn’t let them.

  When she got tired of making visions with her tears, Orphan wiped her eyes, sneaking a glance from under her lashes. Usually, if she cried right away, then Oracle was nice to her for the rest of the visit.

  “I asked Hero to teach me to fight,” she said.

  Oracle gave her a surprised look. “You’re not old enough.”

  “He says I am, but at first he said he wouldn’t teach a girl. He said it wasn’t—wasn’t becoming for women to fight.”

  “According to Hero’s lights, I’m sure that’s true. According to Hero, most of what he does is in defense of womanhood.” Oracle snorted a tiny snort and shook her head.

  “He said violence is unfeminine and women’s kinfolk should protect them, and I told him since I’m an Orphan, I don’t have any kinfolk, and he said he’d protect me, and I said he might not be around when I need protecting. He sort of grumped, but he said he’d teach me.”

  Oracle stared blindly at the wall. Orphan was too young to have reasoned this out so well. Orphan was too young to come up with a lot of the things she came up with. “That was kind of him. Will you need weapons?”

  “He says no. For the first years, it’s just exercises. Jumping and spinning and kicking, like that. He says I’m very well coordinated and have a good spatial sense. He says my feet are already nice and hard from going barefoot all the time. And I’m not a scaredy-cat.”

  Oracle humphed to herself and went on stirring. A rustling noise overhead ended in a plop on the sand, and there was Orphan’s squirrel, climbing onto Orphan’s knee. Oracle’s Pusscat saw him and came over to sit on the other side and lick his black whiskers. Pusscat had designs on the squirrel, so Oracle said, but Orphan protected him.

  “Bastard invited me to his house. He wants to read to me,” said Orphan.

  Oracle stopped stirring and gave her a serious look. “You stay away from Bastard. He can read to himself.”

  Orphan found a nut in her pocket and fished it out for Squirrel. “I told him you would say that because he’s dangerous, to females especiall
y, and he said a lot of dirty words.”

  Now there it was again. Oracle could not remember ever having said that particular thing about Bastard, and yet Orphan knew it was true.

  “That’s typical.” Oracle spooned the contents of the pot into two bowls, added a chunk of bread, and handed one such assemblage to Orphan.

  “Will you tell me a story tonight?” Orphan begged, seeing it as a propitious time.

  “What kind of story?” asked Oracle, her face softening “What story would you like, child?”

  “The end of the Artemisian story about Bear and Coyote. Drowned Woman started to tell me, but she forgot the ending.”

  “Which story about Bear and Coyote? The one where they get married?”

  “No. The one where they ask Changing Woman to make monsters, to kill the people, so they can keep their hides. Drowned Woman only got as far as Changing Woman crying because men were her children too.”

  “Oh. Well, Changing Woman told Coyote and Bear she didn’t need to make monsters to kill men, because when her sons, the Hero Twins, had killed most of the monsters, they’d left certain ones alive, and their names were Sa, that is Old Age, and Hakaz, that is Cold. But Coyote said men had become too clever for Sa and Hakaz, that worse monsters were needed.

  “ ‘But it was through me the worst monsters were slain,’ Changing Woman cried. ‘My sons slew the bad monsters so that man could live.’

  “ ‘Now men are killing everything! Don’t other things need to live too?’ cried Coyote.”

  “And Changing Woman was sad,” said Orphan.

  “Oh, indeed she was. For though Coyote and Bear were her children, men were her children too. And at last she said she would do another thing so Coyote and Bear could keep their hides. At the beginning of time on this world, men and animals had talked the same language, so Changing Woman said she would make them speak the same language again.”

  “And she did!” cried Orphan.

  “She did indeed. And Bear and Coyote told the hunters to leave them alone, and the hunters were so surprised, they did! You can still hear Coyote out on the prairie at night, telling all his family how clever he was to talk to man.”