Resurrection (Blood of the Lamb)

by Mandy Hager

  “Only a few moments,” Vanesse warned. “She is still a long way from being well.”

  “Of course,” Maryam agreed. “If it is too much…”

  “No. I am fine.” Lesuna rolled over onto her side and took Maryam's hand, a tear rolling down her cheek.

  Maryam knew, without even having to ask, just what Lesuna grieved. She was mourning for her own child, Sister Sarah—Tekeaa—who had died at the Apostles’ hands.

  “Safaila was everything Vanesse tells me about you.” She squeezed Maryam's hand as she paused for breath. Despite the promise of recovery, she still had far to go. “She was beautiful, and so, so brave. Everyone loved her and Natau most of all.”

  She stopped, coughing now. Maryam glanced back over her shoulder at Vanesse, checking whether she should leave Lesuna be.

  “One more minute,” Vanesse warned. “Then we must let her sleep.”

  “She never complained when you were Chosen,” Lesuna started up again. “But everyone could see how it destroyed her. She loved you so very much. Every day until she died she'd sit down by the sea at sunset and talk to you as if you could hear.” She smiled, her weariness a mask upon her kindly face. “She said you'd always recognise her love in the whisperings of the sea.”

  Maryam nodded. She couldn't speak. She seized up the discarded bandage and clumsily wrapped it around her head so she could flee the hut. She staggered through the busy village, oblivious to everything around her till she reached the sea. There, she threw herself into the water fully clothed and swam out from shore as far as she could. Floating on the buoyant skin of water, as though supported in her mother's arms, she mourned this cruel and pointless loss. Her mother had loved her. Had thought about her every day. This was what she'd longed to know. And yet, had she not always known it, deep in her heart? Had she not heard the soothing whispers of her mother's voice each time she sought out solace in the sea?

  High above her gulls reeled in the cloud-strafed sky and, eventually, she felt her pain alight upon the breeze with them and fly away. Never again would she have to doubt her mother's love. To hear of it from Lesuna's lips was like being handed back her past. Beneath her, there was a subtle shift in the undulations of the swell as a warm eddy of breeze nudged the sea, raising Maryam upward, toward the sun. I am always with you, Nanona. Always standing at your side. The words rolled through her, infusing her with warmth, and she recalled the tangible sense of potency and calm that had embraced her in times of great distress. So it was you, she whispered back, recognising now that her mother was the source of this precious gift of strength. It was going to be all right. She was home, her mother loved her, and Lesuna seemed to be responding to the cure. If only Lazarus had stayed to witness this momentous change…

  Where would he be now, on his trek back to Motirawa? She hoped his mood had lifted as he made his way. Why had she been so hard on him? If she was mourning Mother Deborah's loss then he must be feeling it twice over—Mother Deborah was more his true mother than Mother Lilith had ever been. A strange thought struck her: Lazarus was just like her—grieving for a loving mother figure while trying to shake off the cruelty inflicted by a father who fought to maintain his position of authority as if it were the only goal. She wished he was here now so they could talk this through.

  Maryam rolled over in the sea and began to swim back to the shore, also wishing she had shown Lazarus more understanding and kindness instead of driving him away. Next time she saw him, she vowed, she'd make it up to him.

  Two days on and Maryam walked toward her father's hut, carrying a bowl of steamed breadfruit and fish she'd prepared for him earlier that morning. Lesuna had continued to improve, her fever and the coughing completely gone. The ugly marks had begun to fade from her neck, and this morning she had taken her first wobbly steps outside. Already, those who had seen her rise from her supposed death-bed had spread the news of her miraculous recovery. At this very moment, Vanesse was swamped with villagers insisting that she reveal the secrets of the cure. Maryam smiled in sympathy. Poor Vanesse. They had discussed the possibility of just such a reaction and had decided to withhold the remedy until the upcoming Judgement day, when Maryam and Lazarus would announce the recipe to one and all. Meanwhile, she would see her father for the last time, then leave for Motirawa after the peak of the midday sun.

  She approached Natau's hut reluctantly. The last two visits had found him out of sorts, even though the antibiotics were starting to have some positive effects. The terrible swelling and redness had retreated and the pus was gone. The wound, however, was still far too fragile for him to put any substantial weight onto his leg, and frustration at this, she realised, was the main source of his anger.

  She obediently read to him from the Holy Book again, reciting the words automatically so as not to rail at almost every phrase. Where, once, its words had been a source of comfort, now they prickled at her like the burrs of the kakang weed, clinging to her consciousness long after she had escaped his hut. Most of the women in the Holy Book were treated poorly, she'd come to realise—ignored, abused or used as little more than breeding stock to sell or trade. How little had changed since those ancient words were first laid down. The same suspicions and fears were used to give legitimacy to Father Joshua's evil acts. Now, more than ever, she longed to bring him and all of his Apostles down.

  She closed the book at last and offered it back to Natau. “I leave for home today,” she told him, filled with regret that these past three days had brought them no closer: he was a stranger still.

  As he reached for the book he pointed to the mark on her arm where the doctors had pinned her broken bone. “What is this?”

  “Merely an old scar.” His sudden interest rattled her. Of all the things to ask of her, why this?

  “Tell me, where exactly do you come from?” He placed the Holy Book down on the edge of his bed and picked up the wood he was whittling into a small flying bird.

  She scrabbled for the answer, forgetting for a moment which village Vanesse had suggested should anyone ask. “Ah…Suvaku, near the northern side of the Baluuka Track.” A small village that was often overlooked in stopovers to and from the Holy City—Vanesse had assured her it was a safe choice.

  “Who is your sire?”

  “Sire?” She shook her head. “I'm sorry, Father, I don't know what you mean.” Oh Lord, did she just call him father? How could she make such a stupid slip?

  “Whose child are you?”

  Yours, she longed to spit. Can't you sense that I am yours?

  “My father and my mother died long ago,” she said. It was true, in a terrible way, and the act of saying it aloud to the man who'd made it so bruised her heart.

  Natau put down his whittling and stared past her, into space. “That is sad. A daughter needs her sire to teach her of the Holy Book and show her right from wrong.”

  The sincerity in his tone did little to appease her sudden anger. “I needed no father to teach me this.” Even with her voice lowered, she knew she still sounded strident and stubborn, and instantly regretted it. What was the point? Peace now, she counselled herself. Follow the breath. In…out…in…out…Her head, unbearably hot under its bandages, throbbed along in time, not helping at all.

  Her father, however, did not let the statement go. “Every girl needs to be taught her place. A father's job is to maintain—”

  “You raised a daughter?” she challenged him, all pretence of calm dropping away.

  “My daughter is dead,” Natau snapped back. As he turned his face from her, it was washed by a finger of light from the half-shuttered window and she realised his eyes were watering.

  She sprang to her feet. To have him deny her very existence and yet grieve the loss of it was too hard to take. She longed to shout at him, to shake him to his senses yelling: Look what I have done for you. I've saved your life! But what would this achieve besides alienating him further? “Forgive me, Brother Natau. I must go.”

  He didn't even answer her or turn t
o say goodbye, just waved a bony hand to shoo her from the hut. She stormed out, convinced this was the end of it, until the memory of Vanesse's advice stopped her in her tracks. For your own sake, child, I think that you should make your peace.

  Maryam teetered on the threshold of the hut, trying to collect herself before she turned. When, finally, she found a place of calm within herself, she spun around to face him one last time.

  “Whatever happens,” she told him now, addressing the back of his head as he refused to meet her gaze, “know this: your daughter Nanona loved you more than you will ever comprehend.” Loved. She couldn't say love, not now, even though for every one of her conscious years she'd wanted nothing more from him than to hear he loved her back.

  She left now, too upset to stay one minute longer. There was nothing left to do in Aneaba now, no reason to remain. Lesuna cured, her father on the mend…It was time to join Lazarus and finally—finally—front up to the Apostles and make her stand.

  It was dark, and the night was closing in cold around her when Maryam reached Motirawa. Summer was over and soon, she knew, the chilling rains would come in from the south. She skirted around the outside of the village, having first checked whether Lazarus was camping in Mother Deborah's empty hut, but he was not. Now she picked her way through the rough rocky terrain that led to the cave where the yacht was hidden.

  She could hear the restless shifting of the tide out on the reef and hoped she wouldn't have to swim into the darkened cave alone. Around her, the scraggly trees transformed to watchful sentries and she felt her senses sharpen to take note of every tiny sound. The idea of being caught now, with their plan so close to coming to fruition, filled her with dread, and every creaking and cracking of tree and stone grew to terrifying proportions inside her head, amplifying her nervousness about confronting Lazarus with the two new questions that had begun to plague her since she saw him last.

  Finally she came to the entrance of the cave. She stopped, peering in. The smell of wood smoke filled the air, and orange flickers of light from deep inside told her Lazarus was there. But, though the tide was low enough to reveal the narrow track etched into the cave wall, she wavered. There was little help from the waning moon and she wasn't sure her sight was good enough to make it safely through without his aid.

  “Lazarus,” she called, trying to keep her voice low and yet still project it deep into the earth's open mouth. She put four fingers between her lips and pressed them down over her folded tongue, blowing out to send a penetrating whistle into the gloom.

  After a few tense moments his equally shrill whistle answered her back. “Wait,” he called, and she heard the echo of crunching stones beneath his feet.

  Then she saw the wide arc of torchlight dancing toward her out of the darkness, driving before it a cloud of fruit bats disturbed by its unnatural glow. They wheeled in the sky above her like a flock of avenging angels before dispersing into the night.

  “You made it!” Lazarus stood before her now, his teeth flashing white in the torchlight's beam. “Come quickly, I have some hot food that should heat you up.”

  He took her hand, his fingers warm to her touch, and led her into the cave. Huge stalactites sliced the shadows, creating populations of monolithic ancestors who seemed to watch over them as they edged further into the cave's depths, drawn toward the small internal beach where a fire crackled beneath the series of sinkholes that formed a natural chimney in the roof.

  Only when Lazarus had settled her down beside the fire did he speak again. “So?” he said. “What is the news?”

  Maryam smiled, anticipating the pleasure her news would bring. “Lesuna is recovering. It seems old Filza's cure does work!”

  “It really does?” He scoured her face.

  “It really does!” Her stomach did a happy flip as Lazarus beamed out his delight. “And she and Vanesse are travelling to Kakaonimaki by longboat for the Judgement, to help back up our claims!”

  “Good news indeed!” He took a stick and hoisted a pot of fish stew off the embers, ladling her out a good portion into his empty bowl. “Here, you must be hungry.”

  She took it gratefully and hurried the welcome meal down, feeling how the heat spread right through her until the night chill seeped away. “And you?” she asked, when every scrap of food had gone. “What have you been doing here?”

  “I've reprovisioned Windstalker, thanks to old Koko, and caught up with all the latest news. It seems Father is insisting that everyone, young and old, attend the Judgement to cleanse them of their sins and to reinforce the threat of the so-called omen.”

  Once again Maryam pictured the strange flying machine that had circled Marawa Island, unsurprised that its sudden appearance here had caused such great unease. Its presence in Onewēre's skies had been one of the things preying on her mind as she'd walked the long miles from Aneaba. She had dreamed of it too, a nightmare vision of the villagers being rounded up like the luckless people of Marawa Island and killed by the Territorials, all in the Lord's good name. Now that Lazarus had referred to it, she figured she may as well press him on the niggling concerns that had ambushed her as she'd made her way. Better to get them over with than have them flare up when there were other dangers afoot.

  She turned from the hypnotising flames to search his face. “I have two questions but before you answer them, I want you to promise me you'll tell the truth.”

  Lazarus stiffened, his jaw twitching as he met her gaze. “You still don't trust me?”

  Truth, she realised too late, was a bad choice of word, guaranteed to rile him. “It's not that,” she deflected. “I just don't want you to get angry with me when I ask.”

  For a moment he said nothing more, but turned from her to glare into the fire. He wove his hands together and raised his two index fingers to a peak, tapping them as he thought through his response.

  “All right.” Now he pointed one of his fingers straight at her to press his next point home. “But never, ever ask me to promise this again. I've bent over backward for you. I've sailed for days on end. I've turned myself inside out trying to please you and to make amends. If you don't trust me by now, then just forget it all.”

  She felt heat rise to her face and shifted uncomfortably. Yet again, he was right. If he had demanded the same promise from her she'd have been furious, she saw that now. It was just that she didn't want what she had to say to anger him: his temper was just as fiery as hers.

  “I'm sorry,” she mumbled. “Please don't be cross, that's all I ask.” She waited for him to respond, but he merely sat there, his face stern. How long had she been here? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? Could they never meet without rancour breaking through?

  She sighed. So be it. The question she wanted to ask him first was not even about his actions, but her own. “Tell me,” she started, her throat suddenly so dry it nearly choked on the words. “The omen. Have I put everyone's life at risk by drawing the Territorials to our shores?” Her heart beat out a strident tattoo as she waited for his reply.

  To her surprise Lazarus laughed. “Well, I wasn't expecting that question.”

  “It's not funny. It's what you always warned me of. What you and Ruth always feared.”

  “I thought you didn't listen to a word I say?”

  “That's not true—or fair! All I want to know is this: what if they come back to enforce their will now they know we're here?”

  He shook his head. “I don't know,” he said. “But I'm guessing that, unless one of us turns up seeking entrance to their Territories again, they'll prefer to leave us be.”

  “You're sure?” She wanted to believe this.

  “No. But they're already fighting skirmishes on more than enough fronts.” He reached over and took hold of her hand, turning it over so that her palm lay open in his. He ran his thumb across her skin. “One step at a time, eh? Worrying won't help.”

  She stared down at their conjoined hands, her stomach contracting further with each stroke of his thumb. His nails were bit
ten right down to the quick, his knuckles scraped. The intimacy unnerved her—yet nothing in this gentle stroke could be construed as wrong. He was trying to allay her fears—her guilt—and she was thankful for his kindness, though it did little to relieve the churning in her gut.

  “All right,” he continued in the face of her silence. “That's question one out of the way. What's question two?”

  Maryam braced herself: this question would test their fragile alliance all the more. “The night we fled in Father Jonah's boat…” At her words he dropped her hand and she felt strangely bereft, forcing herself to continue but wishing she had never started down this dangerous route. “You told us you had warned the village chief.”

  “I did not.”

  “You did. And even Hushai's brother said they saw the boat. How could they have known if they hadn't been told?”

  “I implied that I'd told them, that was all. I knew they'd be coming—they were out hunting for wild pigs that night and I knew they'd heard me crashing through the jungle, so I guessed they'd not be far behind.”

  “This is the truth?”

  The door to his goodwill slammed shut. He made to rise. “You doubt it?”

  Maryam shot out a restraining hand, preventing him from stalking off. “No—listen…If you say this is so, I'll take your word.”

  “Damned right,” Lazarus muttered. He threw another log of driftwood onto the fire, watching as the sparks wafted up into the air to hang there for a second, like dying stars. “And now, since you've put me to the test, I've one for you.”

  Maryam drew herself a little tighter, waiting for him to pay her back. There was no guessing what he'd come up with, but she knew him well enough to steel herself for the next stoush.

  “What?”

  “Do you…like me…even just a little bit?”