by Meg Elison
Staggering, losing consciousness, he spotted a boat tied not too far from where he stood. He walked, then crawled, to get to it. His eye screwed shut, he banged into everything, thorns scraped him all over.
Into the water. Just like Estiel except this time no firelight. Can’t see. Won’t come up again. Go down and never come up again.
He fought to stay awake, grunting through ragged breaths. When he reached the boat, he lay for a moment in the cold river mud, face turned to the side, a terrible stitch in his ribs. After the swirling, falling feeling passed, he heaved himself over the side. The small craft rocked alarmingly, nearly dumping him into the deeper water on the other side. When it settled, he grayed out.
Hours later, the sun had risen and Eddy woke in a panic. He sat up and the gray crept into his peripheral vision again: a threat. He took a deep breath and came up slowly, peering over the edge of the deep yet narrow boat.
He saw nothing. Blinking a second, he realized fog was rolling down over the hillside.
He pulled at the boat’s line and the unambitious knot loosened until it slipped off the tree that held it. He found a paddle beneath his legs and used it to push off the bank, losing the paddle in the process. Groaning with frustration and cracked with thirst, he lay back again as the current began to move the wooden craft.
Eddy lost consciousness again.
The current drifted, then grew swift. The river carried him away.
CHAPTER 12
The boat was the room. The red room, the breathing room. The boat was the room, the mushroom. Etta was having her first blood again. Eddy was paddling wildly, laughing.
The boat was the chair. Eddy couldn’t get up because he was strapped into the chair. It wasn’t him laughing, it was the Lion’s men.
the claw the claw the claw they wore the claw
Eddy was born in the chair.
The Unnamed would have never ended up in the chair. She would have died first. Etta was only sixteen and the Unnamed would have known her for a child. She would have saved her.
But Etta had gone back to the place where she had found the moon-blood cups, with an animal’s cunning that the same place would provide again. She was in a closet when they found her.
They all wore the claw but she didn’t remember that. She only remembered the chair when her calves cramped in the night and woke her up. The chair with its rusty stirrups, its shrieking metal on metal. It had held her down while they came, one after the other.
the chair the chair the chair
the chair must have been made for this
Eddy was born in the chair; Etta pinned on her back with her feet splayed in rusty stirrups, blood everywhere out of her while the Lion’s men pawed her nearly to death. When the stirrup broke, it was luck that shoved the jagged corroded edge into the side of the man’s neck. It was both of their blood that helped her slip the other leg out. It was his gun that she had used to kill the rest of them in that blind hour. Her gun she took back from a corpse and never let go of again.
Eddy was what she carried out of there, naked and bloody as an infant, wordless as a staring-eyed newborn.
She hadn’t known they had a lookout. He missed her and shot a plastic gallon of something that stood close by the river. Oil or fuel, it exploded and ran everywhere, liquid fire. Etta was deaf from the sound and almost blinded by the light. She had dropped the gun. She dove into the river with fire floating on its surface. She swam like an otter, popping up to gasp for air and then slipping farther and farther with the current.
She didn’t remember that summer turning into autumn or the winter that followed. She didn’t remember finding clothes and boots, huddling by the fire in a gutted house, jumping at every small sound.
When it came she didn’t know what it was. It was as though she had swallowed a thunderstorm, a bag of broken glass, a live bird. It slipped out of her and hit the floor, the size of a fist and resembling nothing at all. Four days she walked in the snow, leaving a bloody trail behind her. Any predator might have tracked her, but nothing did. She remembered none of this.
Etta did not remember the day she had returned to Nowhere. She came to herself some time after that, knowing that she had shaved her head and nearly died of hunger. Her hands found her hollow belly, her fingers found the scars from the chair.
She awoke every night that year, both legs locked in cramps, screaming. When her blood returned, she waited for it to happen again. She waited for another thunderstorm with broken-glass rain, for another fist. It didn’t come.
At seventeen, she knew what had happened but she couldn’t remember why she knew or how. She learned to count her breath. She always knew where she was. She learned to carry Eddy strapped to her chest the way Mothers carried, the way Ina wore her wooden belly.
The boat was the chair. Eddy woke up with both legs locked in agony, his head throbbing. The motion of the small craft in the water was swift and keeling; he was going to capsize. He sat up, pulling at the toes on both feet, dizziness stealing his eyes.
Eight in, eight out.
Where are you right now?
The rapids poured over huge rocks, churning silver-white in the morning sunlight. When the cramp finally let go, Eddy held both sides of the boat and tried to look ahead. His vision was still slightly doubled and he shook his aching head, trying to see clearly. The river bumped him over a series of rises, and the last one pushed him roughly out into the water.
Choking, he went under. Sunlight on the churn became fire in the night in Estiel, but Eddy didn’t remember that and neither did Etta and the most important thing right now was that neither of them could breathe.
Eddy burst to the surface, but waves overtook him. He hit slick rock hard on his right side, feeling his ribs break. The water heaved him over a short fall and he hit his head again at the bottom. He inhaled water and everything began to go black.
it isn’t yours it isn’t yours it isn’t yours
the chair
it isn’t yours
the cup
isn’t yours
the book
isn’t yours
the Unnamed
What was Etta and what was Eddy winked out at the same moment and then they were none.
CHAPTER 13
The fish was inches from his eyes. It bulged, mouth gasping, eyes slick and searching for the way back to the water.
Eddy couldn’t breathe either. He and the fish were going to drown together. He closed his eyes and knew that the fish could not close its own.
Two broad hands came down on his ribs, on the broken side. Pain cracked out across his body and unconsciousness rolled back over him. Before he could slip sweetly out of the world again, weight came down on those hands and he vomited up river water in a hard, cold gush. It ran out of his nose and sprayed from his mouth as he coughed and struggled to breathe in. The crushing pressure came again and he got one deep, stinging breath before he passed out again.
Must be afternoon.
The light was orange and horizontal when his eyes opened again. Every breath stabbed him, so he took little sips of air. The ground was moving slowly beneath him, speeding smoothly by in a blur of grass. The motion made him retch and a thin stream of water and mucus played like a string from his mouth to the ground. Retching made his broken ribs stab him again and he brayed, curling into himself.
“She’s awake.”
Voices somewhere behind him. A hand on the back of his neck, warm and gentle. Eddy realized at the moment of contact that he was cold all over, drenched and shivering.
“Cover her up, we’re almost there.”
they know I’m they know
And darkness took him back.
Eddy awoke again in a dry, warm place. He was wearing a long gown, but everything else had been stripped off. He was deep in a warm bed, with quilts piled over him. He stirred and his side throbbed beneath a tight bandage. It held on to him the way his binding did, but his breasts were free.
He pulle
d his legs in and crossed his arms.
Not bound.
A candle burned in a brass holder at his bedside. The furniture in the room was wood, and all of it looked to be old world.
In great shape, though.
The room was clean and smelled like lavender. He sniffed deeply, looking for the way out.
One door, no windows.
He put his feet on the floor and found he could stand. His head was better, the double vision gone. But he felt vague and disoriented.
Where are you right now?
Across the room, a wooden chest of drawers shone. He padded to it, rolling the top drawer open. In it lay his gear, spread out on cotton toweling. His gun, his book, his knives. The book showed clear damage from the water, but it had been carefully dried. His clothes in the drawer below, washed and mended. His wooden box in the deep bottom drawer. He checked the contents and found them absolutely intact.
Where are you right now?
The door opened and a short, fat man walked in. He carried a washbasin and a handful of rags. He jumped at the sight of Eddy, who had his gun raised in no time.
“Oh! You’re awake. I didn’t think you’d ever wake.” He put the basin down and raised his hands. “You’re not in any danger from me, sister.”
Eddy pointed with the gun. “Sit down.”
The man moved obediently and sat on the bed, hands folded in his lap.
“My name is Neum, and I’ve been taking care of you for the last two days. Sister, this is a safe place. I don’t mind you feeling like you need your gun, but would you please not point it at me just now?” Neum had a quavering voice and a mouth like a fat baby, pursed and pink. He was pop-eyed, but calm.
Eddy’s head swam. He didn’t feel like he could keep the gun raised if he wanted to. Heavily, he sat at the foot of the bed.
“Where am I right now?”
“Adam on the Ommun. Ommun, for short. It’s a safe place, sister. You are welcome here.”
“Ommun? How did I get here?”
Neum grinned, turning to better face Eddy. “Well, I heard that two fishermen—Lehi and Samuel, that is—found you drowning in the Misery. They fished you out and pumped your lungs, then put you in the fish cart and brought you home. They didn’t know how you were drowning, though. They saw no boat. They thought you might be an angel.”
Angel?
“And Ommun . . . Where are we? Are we north of the Black Mountains?”
Neum looked perplexed. “We’re east of the Misery. I don’t know the Black Mountains.”
“The Odarks?” Eddy felt the first drips of panic.
“Oh, sure, the Odarks!” Neum brightened. “We’re far to the north of them.”
“How far?”
The round man shrugged. Eddy saw his wobbly chins move when he did it. “You’d have to ask the missionaries.”
They’re well fed here, at least. If he was tending me, he can’t be that important. But still well fed.
Neum stood up slowly, palms raised to Eddy again. “I have to tell Alma you’re awake. She wanted to know if there was any change.”
Eddy’s vision went gray at the edges. “Who’s Alma?” His voice sounded far away.
“Alma is our Mother. I’ll be back, don’t you worry. That water’s good and hot if you want a washing.”
He slipped out the door.
Eddy sagged to the bed, holding himself up on his weak arms.
How long was I down?
He felt empty all over, hungry and husked out and devoid of real thoughts.
Manhattan. I was in Manhattan. I saw them summoning. Lucky fucks.
The rock that hit him in the head. He touched the spot above his eye and felt the soft, fleshy ridge of a clean-healing wound on its way to becoming a scar, the divot in his skull.
The boat. The chair. The BOAT.
With sickening clarity he remembered his body bashing into the rocks. He put a hand against the ribs he knew were broken. The gentle pressure made him wince.
The swell of his breast above his hand felt obscene, but he doubted he could bind them well in his current condition.
The door opened again and a woman’s pregnant belly was the first thing to push through.
Eddy looked up and locked eyes with the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
She was roundly gravid, with huge, full breasts lying against her belly, free beneath her green dress. Eddy could see each nipple in high relief, as long and fat as those of a nursing bitch. Her face was oval and white; her cheeks like peaches grown in the shade. Her wide doe-brown eyes were starred with golden lashes, at once arresting and innocent. Her pink mouth was generous and merry, smiling already as Eddy looked her over.
Her hair was pure glory, there was no other word for it. It spilled over both shoulders and down her back, the ends trailing the floor. It fell in dips and waves, the colors of honey and wheat and sunshine, white in some places and glinting dull red in the candlelight.
Her arms were spread wide as if she had been waiting for Eddy her whole life. “Sister, we are so glad you are with us!”
She hugged Eddy where he sat, pressing his face into the soft, mountainous pillow of her chest.
Milk. She’s ready to pop, and full of milk.
When she pulled away, Eddy could see that her green shirt was damp where she had pressed him.
“We were so worried that you would never waken, and we would never even know your name.”
Neum sidled in behind her, grinning.
Eddy stared, saying nothing.
“What is your name, sister?”
“Etta.”
It had just slipped out. She had meant to say Eddy, but here she was. They knew her. Sister.
“Sister Etta.” The tall blonde woman strode forward and Etta was struck again by how stunning she was. “I’m Alma. This is Adam on the Ommun, and you are so welcome here.” She took Etta’s hands in hers and looked deeply into her eyes. “How are you feeling?”
Etta winced. “Not great. My ribs are broken, I think.”
“Three broken,” Neum piped up. “Very bruised. But the real trouble was the head injury. Yea, that was the thing that nearly killed you. But your spirit is strong.”
Alma nodded, face alight. “Yea, the spirit is strong. I dreamed of your coming.”
“What?” Etta frowned, dropping their handhold.
Alma was unperturbed. “Yea, I dreamed that an angel would come among us from the numberless concourses of God the Mother and spake unto us.”
“Spake?”
Honey waterfalls as Alma nodded. “Yea. Not as you speak now, but spake with authority. It will come.”
What.
“But not yet. Now you must rest and get your strength.” She stepped forward and laid a light hand on Etta’s shoulder. “You will be well.”
Etta felt a strange warmth flowing into her from Alma’s hand. It seemed to move to her most painful spots and settle there, soothing the ache.
The living hell?
She looked up at Alma’s serene face, her brown eyes giving away not a thing.
“The Aarons will bring you something to eat,” Neum said. “Unless you’d like to join the stake?”
Etta blinked, trying to get clear.
“Can I leave here?”
Neum looked at Alma. “Of course you can. We’ll not hold you. But you’re not in good health. Maybe you should rest awhile and leave when you feel better.”
“You were born free and you must live free,” Alma said, turning back around.
Etta squinted. Alma’s eyes seemed somehow brighter, as if a fire burned behind them.
“And every sister is made in the image of Heavenly Mother, thus you are God Herself. As I am. And so you are holy.” She nodded as if that meant something.
“So I’m free . . . So if I want to leave, I can leave?”
I can barely stand. But I want it said.
“Neum here can get you a new pack. Yours was shredded. And you can go with my bl
essing.”
Alma turned to leave again, but turned back, hands laid across her full-moon belly. “But if you stay, there are more blessings in store. This, I prophesy.”
She swept grandly out of the room, leaving her milky smell behind her.
Neum smiled, watching her. Turning back to Etta, he asked, “Shall I bring you that pack?”
Etta sighed, sagging to the bed. “No. Thank you.”
“Shall I have the Aarons bring you some food?”
“How can I trade for food? What can I offer?”
Neum’s bushy brows shot up. “No, you are our sister. No trade will be had. We want to share with you.”
“I . . . Thank you.”
His brows settled down. “Good. It’ll be here directly.”
When Neum was gone, Etta dressed slowly. Lifting her arms over her head hurt, and standing too long made her feel faint. When she was back in her own pants, she hung the cotton nightdress on a hook and fished out her journal. She sat in the chair beside the bed and put the pen to the paper.
The Book of Etta
Summer
Someplace called Ommun. Some woman called Alma. Manhattan was attacked by the Lion. Paws came and burned the town. I took some injury there, ended up on a river. Misery? Saved by fishermen from Ommun.
Going to stay here until I’m well enough to move on. So far seems safe.
She thought of Alice’s admonition that healing was hindered by the stoic suffering of those who would not take their medicine. Etta put a finger to the top of a som bottle and took a drop beneath her tongue. The milky smell of Alma and her hand on her gun took her into sleep.
When she woke there was a bowl of corn chowder beside her bed. It had gone cold, but she ate it ravenously. When she had finished, she picked up the wooden bowl and opened the door.
Outside her room, two young men were waiting.
“Good morning! My name is Jarod and this is Timothy. What can we do for you?”
She sized them both up.
Fourteen, maybe. No beards yet.
“I need to know where to take this. And where I can go to . . . go? Do you have an outhouse?”