Wash

by Naomi Fraser

  Too lethargic to answer back, she sinks against me, and I press another kiss to her cheek.

  The boy frowns and turns away, heading back to his own wagon ahead of ours.

  The wagon train starts again, ambling for the direction of the hills but stops just before nightfall, making a wide circle for safety. I go through the routine of laying out the coarse blankets over the front seat, but an idea comes to me so suddenly I freeze.

  Solutions, my master intones gravely, are everywhere. It is your job as a water healer to find them.

  The hard rest on my side doesn’t bother me; I prefer it rather than having my sister sleep elsewhere. I need to watch over her. In so many ways, I am her only anchor in this world, and she is mine. The Old Order followers must know this.

  I pull Maybelle over to my side. “Complain about sleeping here. Loudly enough so the others hear you. Say your back hurts,” I whisper furiously. “Don’t give up until we’re sleeping on the ground. I have an idea.”

  Maybelle stares at me, her large blue-grey eyes blank and confused.

  “Go on,” I whisper. “Be loud. Angry. Really angry, May. Let out that anger you have about what they did to you in jail. If you complain about sleeping here, we’ll drink. You’ll save them all.”

  Chapter Two

  Hydration ends in thirty minutes . . .

  “Okay, if that’s what you want,” Maybelle whispers, her brow furrowing.

  “It is. But we don’t have a lot of time . . .” I hold up a hand and then rub my upper arms. I can’t stop my nails from digging into my shoulders or catch my breath. The borrowed corset feels like giant hands squeezing my ribs. “Sweet universe, why did they have to give me these clothes? First, I need to refill your water flask. Hold on . . .” I mutter, lifting my long skirt and hurrying back over the dusty ground to retrieve her canister from the wagon.

  Maybelle won’t have enough energy if she doesn’t have more water to support essential cell function. Heart failure will be the result, rather than helping me save the Old Order followers in the wagon train from dehydration.

  The metal canister is so hot, the tin burns my fingers, but I don’t have the time to wait. I grasp it and shove my hand under the blanket, hoping no one notices the odd bulge. The pretence of brushing off dirt from the coarse blanket with my left hand gives me the opportunity to hook my index finger at the top of the opening, spilling the energy down. The release stings a little at first, and then pressure floods the tip of my finger, and my hand throbs.

  At the feel of liquid on my fingernail, I screw on the lid and then edge my pinkie out of the blanket, looking for more traces of blue on my skin. None. I sigh and pass Maybelle the drink. “Leave some for the boy,” I remind her. “He doesn’t have long.”

  She unscrews the cap, rests the lip against her mouth with trembling hands and then tips back her head. Her throat works convulsively with each swallow, and she wipes her mouth and then sighs with satisfaction. “That’s so good. Warm but wet.” She looks up, then her gaze flicks to the right of me. Her gaze slides back to mine in an unspoken message.

  I stiffen and nod, hoping the water gives her enough energy to walk over to the back of the wagon as though nothing is out of the ordinary. She places the flask in plain view. I close my eyes, wondering who stands there. The gap is intense, but the vibrations cover a smaller area. The boy. I smile.

  Maybelle’s x-ray image is all I can see on her return. Her thin, tiny bones and accelerated heartbeat. I swallow, tilting my head to look deeper, past bones and her kidneys to permeable cell membranes to gauge her plasma levels. The extracellular fluid is slowly being absorbed.

  Excellent, Astrakhan would say in his shrewd manner, ticking a box on the ever-present clipboard. Always rehydrate to ensure the patient’s cells accept the rate of absorption. If water rushes in, the cells swell and may burst.

  How many plants exploded before I learnt that?

  Hydration ends in six hours. Maybe just enough time.

  “What do you see?” she asks, brushing a hank of limp hair from her dusty face.

  Maybelle’s real image superimposes over the monochrome. But her sunburnt face is a frequency that doesn’t hold. I blink, and my tongue glues to the roof of my mouth. Heat plays around with my sight—making it extra sensitive; the more people around me who are thirsty, the more I see in x-ray. I need to drink if I want to avoid my body erupting into blue in the middle of an Oshiro desert. The government had never seen it before and thought an exclusion vessel in the middle of the river would be enough to stop the blue last time. They manufactured the cylindrical, clear walls to never break, but then the scientists never tested the structure against the weight of ice.

  “Tori?” My sister stands there, utterly still in her grimy dress. “What do you see?”

  The real May appears; knotty blonde hair, elfin features smeared with dust, and eyes shining like sad, hungry beams. I reach down and hold out my hand. She puts her little fingers in my palm, using her other hand to grasp my shoulder. I help her board the wagon. “Your body is rehydrating,” I whisper. “Now I need you to pretend like I said. Be angry. We have to move fast. You will help save them all, May.”

  She nods, shakes free of my grip, sits on the bench seat, and then stands. When she sits again and leans back, she cries out, “This seat is too hard and small, Tori!” Her voice carries across the dry air in a high shriek, and meagre tears well in her eyes. Her tiny hands ball into fists. “I don’t want to sleep here anymore, it’s terrible.”

  I stop organising the blanket, stand up, and stare at her. “This is—all we have, May.” I waggle my hand in front of my chest in a silent signal to add more.

  “No!” she protests in a childish scream, loud enough to shatter glass. She rises, stomps her foot and crosses her arms, her greasy hair in sweaty tangles. “I won’t do it. You can’t make me. My sides are too sore.”

  Several heads swing our way, and one of the older women ambles over to our wagon because that’s how people do most things when there isn’t enough water to keep their limbs functioning. She stops about a foot away from me. “Do you need help?” she asks. “The heat is difficult today. What with losing someone this afternoon.”

  I nod. “I think it’s okay, thanks.” I turn back to my sister. “It’s hard and hot, May.” My voice is low and sympathetic. “But we have no other choice here. The blankets help, don’t they? The back of the wagon is comfortable enough.”

  Her lower lip trembles, and real suffering reflects in her blue-grey eyes. She grabs the blanket, and in a fit of rage, she flings it over the side of the wagon and onto the dirt. Her chin tilts forward, and she growls low in her throat, menace firing across her gaze. “I said I won’t. That means no.”

  Oh, May, I think with pride. These people’s lives hang in your hands.

  The woman nears the wagon, but her dark, full skirts stop her from closing the distance to my sister. “There’s no softer place, sweetheart,” the woman says. “We have to make do. Everyone’s going crazy from this heat. Would you like something to eat? I can take you back to my wagon, and we’ll sit around the gas lamp.”

  “No!” May screams again, and the woman slaps hands over her ears at the sound. May leaps to the ground, hefts up her dress amongst the dust, and then bolts into the vast emptiness of the Oshiro desert in bare feet.

  “Hell.” I stare, raising my hand to shade my eyes. Where the heck is she heading? I cup my mouth in a mock loudspeaker. “May!” I scream into the distance. “Come back here.”

  “Get her, Lawrence!” the woman shouts to the wagon master. “She’ll die out there for sure. She’s just a little girl.”

  The wagon master turns his horse and gallops after her. It takes a few seconds for my legs to move. Shock, I guess. It’s a spot of genius for May to run. She will make a terrific actress if we ever make it to a planet where she can live a normal life without being used as pressure point for my compliance.

  The wagon master sweeps her up on
to his horse, but she beats at his shoulders, screaming she doesn’t want to sleep on the hard seat anymore, it hurts too much, and her bones ache. Then when he just grips her tighter, holding her still, she ceases her struggles and cries.

  Part of my heart bleeds. I suppress the tears heating my eyes because they will be a tell-tale sign I am not as parched as the rest. I can never die of thirst.

  “Anyone got a shovel?” I ask, turning around, unsurprised to see about ten people watching May throw a hissy fit. I don’t care what anyone thinks of us. My goal is to save them all from death—what I have trained to do, whatever it takes.

  “It’s not that bad, is it?” an old man jokes, but he winks and saunters over to his wagon then pulls out a shovel. “What you plannin’ on doin’?”

  “Softening the soil. It’s too compacted here.” I look up as the wagon master who holds Maybelle nears our wagon. “See, May, I’ll get this ground softer and then with the blanket it will be better than the seat or the back of the wagon. How does that sound?” I climb from the front, but rather than going to May, I head for the man with the shovel.

  I just hope they believe me, though some followers look at me oddly. How can laying on the dirt, in the wind, be more comfortable than the hard planks in the protection of the wagon? May is my reason. I do what she wants.

  May nods, pressing her face into the man’s shoulder. He awkwardly pats her back. A different man grabs another shovel. “I’ll help. What can I do?”

  “Help me dig up a six-by-four area, and mix up the dirt until it resembles a fine crumble,” I say.

  “Well, if you must. It’ll be better deeper into the ground,” the woman beside me says. “Remove the hard clumps. The child is tired anyway.”

  I set to work, my entire body dripping with sweat. My muscles burn, throat splintering like dried mud. An icy sensation chills my toes. “I have to stop,” I groan, rubbing the corner of my sleeve against my forehead. Before the blue aura envelopes my skin, revealing who I am. And who I’m not.

  If the Old Order followers find out what I am and decide to leave us in the desert without transportation, the officials will track them down and then come for us, as it will take forever to find a settlement. I can’t take the risk.

  “Let me,” another man offers, taking the shovel from my grasp. He jams the spade into the dirt and then plants a boot on the edge, leveraging through the compact ground.

  “Thank you so much.” I smile up at him in gratitude, mopping my brow as the two men dig an area, the exact size I need. They attack the larger clumps, crushing most to dust in their strong hands.

  “Is that far enough?” one of the men asks.

  I nod. “Yes.”

  The woman turns, calling out to my sister, “Have a look at this, May. Try out your new bed. Look how much trouble we’ve gone to.”

  I grab the blanket, shake off the loose dirt and then spread the cover flat across the ground. “We won’t exactly be out of the wind, but this is the best we can do. May, come and have a look.”

  Darkness falls to the point where everyone’s actions look filtered through a grey lens. Maybelle nods, and the wagon master sets her on the ground. She walks toward me, then holds my hand. Her skin is clammy and soft with the effort of our pretend argument. Some men trudge back to their wagons in preparation for the long night ahead where temperatures can drop close to freezing. I silently thank my lucky stars I met up with Old Order followers who are kind to strangers. Their kindness will help save their lives.

  I shake the wagon master’s hand; he touches the edge of his hat in response. Then I turn to the woman. “Thank you for helping,” I say. “You are too kind.”

  She smiles, but her eyes remain guarded. “No problem, love. Some children don’t live longer than a few years here,” she says. “Keep a close watch on her. Hopefully, we’ll soon find the settlement. My name’s Angie. If you need anything else, call out.”

  “I will. Thank you again.” I can’t help the twist in my heart as I wonder how many children she has lost to give such advice. I get the feeling she believes this will be May’s last night. It’s an inescapable truth that if you don’t have a strong constitution on the outskirts of Oshiro, you are here and gone faster than superluminal velocity.

  I’d been full of horror during my trips to tiny, barren communities, when the hovercraft would fly past quiet villages, looking for the best location for the construction of extraction wells. The dead were laid on the ground out the front of their mud brick homes, all the young and the old. The vulnerable. I wanted to save them, but the government wouldn’t let me, and May’s life rested on my ability to discover new water tables, influence the flow of water, and rebuild the river. It is no longer enough to be thankful my life isn’t like theirs—we are all in this together. Two years as a prisoner with the Oshiro government taught me that.

  You spill more when your emotions get involved, Astrakhan always warned. That needs to stop.

  As she ambles away in her one-piece dark dress and long sleeves, I hold a fist to my heart. Angie must be dying in this heat. My vision kicks into x-ray, but I don’t need it to, and it only emphasises how different I am to everyone else. I see a tall skeleton: white, grey, and black. The interplay of muscles, the perfection of human design. But these people need my help.

  I kneel onto the fibrous blanket, tug Maybelle down, hug her thin body, kiss her cheek, and then snuggle close to her back as we rest our heads on the lumpy ground. “You were wonderful, angel,” I whisper into her ear. “Go to sleep now. I have it from here on out.”

  “Love you, sis.” She ensures some part of her skin touches mine and inserts her thumb into her mouth.

  “Love you, too, bub.” I lie there, listening to everyone pack up for the night. No one is cooking—there is nothing left, and in Old Order tradition, they share everything anyway.

  Sleep claims my sister all at once, sweeping her away.

  The soft glow of gas lamps and the chatter of family groups intersperse the quiet. The night air grows cooler, and I wrap the edges of the blanket around our legs, pressing my body heat against Maybelle’s back.

  I wait until the sky above me is an inky black. Stars creep across the heavens, brilliant white dots in swirling constellations. I stare in silent amazement; eventually, the entire sky becomes a giant dome of sparkles—so magnificent and beautiful, it is a challenge to take it in all at once. I missed this in the Oshiro government’s underground self-sufficient city. May and I never saw the stars while locked away in the cargo hull of the mercenaries’ spaceship for one month, either. Learning the stars meant finding a way out.

  Some of the larger and brighter ones are planets that much I do know—Tachyon with its wealth of glamorous cities, and Civ 6, an interstellar trade planet with worse terrain than the planet I am already on.

  Detera is a rough planet with its vast empty spaces and little water, precisely the reason the government paid such a high price for my abduction.

  I don’t have to stay here and neither does May, but I can at least help these people find safety and shelter before we go. I lift my arm so my head rests on the curve of my shoulder, and my hand falls over the edge of the blanket.

  I automatically make a claw of my fingers, digging my hand into the rough soil, deep enough so no one will see the blue flash crawl across my skin.

  A memory plays in full colour of the times with Astrakhan on my lush home planet of Echyion. One of our trips outside the sterile facility, when the sun made his voice tinnier than usual, and I laughed as I reached deep into rich soil right beneath a dying flower. How young I’d been, pulling water closer to the surface, breaking through water tables until the roots grew damp. I feel a century has passed since then, when it’s only been over two years.

  In the facility, lines of potted plants would fill the multitudes of greenhouses. Tables upon tables of experiments, and each time my hand left the black soil, crumbs stuck to my fingers, but no one ever saw any blue. The energy grew un
der the soil, and Astrakhan would ask how long the plant might survive with no other help. My assessment noted, he would move me onto the next specimen, and the next, and the next.

  Wrist-deep in the soil in Oshiro Country on planet Detera, dirt fills my nails, and the tremble starts in my toes, as it always does when I call for higher amounts of energy. With my training, I can concentrate the power in my hand. Pain spikes beneath the surface of my skin until I shiver.

  May moans and shifts closer to me. Tremors shake my chest. I try to steady my breaths to keep up the pretence of sleep. Pins and needles roar in my head, but I direct the energy underground, not too far away. I drop everything from my mind, forcing the energy to move from my toes and into my hand. Then instead of looking for space, I search for a certain type of density and release the blue to scout for groundwater flow.

  The energy matrix is different to land. Water undulates, moves in a distinct way. Detera whispers to me the last time since it has rained. Even with the flood, she is so thirsty. Years and years of drought upon drought. Prickles explode under my skin, and my hand throbs with the energy tingling in my fingertips while I concentrate on finding the nearest water table.

  More energy coalesces in my ankles, moving up my legs and tingling past my hips to shoot up my arm. My fingertips buzz and pulse with pressure.

  There. I suck in a breath. Oh, it’s so beautiful.

  Water saturates the soil, filtering around fractures in rock formations, pushing for a way through and up. The knowledge of the water makes my skin explode with prickles.

  Hello, I found you. Come to me.

  I am about to lift my hand to scratch when the soft press of boots graze across the ground and crunch upon loose rocks. The footsteps close in where May and I sleep, then suddenly stop. I bottle off the energy. My hand aches, and I want to scratch the insane itch along my shoulders, but I set my teeth against the pain. My chest rises and falls too fast to be asleep. I just can’t get the breathing pattern right.