“But,” I said. “But it must mean something.”
“Mean something?” His cheeks reddened. “Mean what? That you’re worthy of something? You’re something to be valued?”
I turned away and looked at Bendo. Tal’s words were hurtful.
“Maybe I’m special,” I said. My voice sounded small, alien.
“You’re still a youngling. You don’t know anything.” His words hit as one stroke of anger after another. I didn’t know jealousy then—I couldn’t understand such base and petty feelings. He was a stranger and I resented him for chiding me as he did. Without the veil, I’d little chance of hiding my emotions and the tears stung the corners of my eyes.
“You should go,” I said, as I reached out and snapped the cup from his hand and turned toward the shanty. He followed me inside.
“El,” he said with a voice more hoarse than before.
I kept my back to him. I was the angry one now and my tears burned my cheeks. I wiped them away but he knew I was crying. I couldn’t stop my shoulders from heaving and I dropped my head forward as I closed my arms around me. I would’ve given anything to feel Minosh’s hug. “Go,” I said, finally finding my strength.
I didn’t see the pain on Tal’s face, I didn’t know he lifted his hand to caress my shoulder, I didn’t hear the small whimper he made, knowing he’d hurt me.
“Go,” I said again more forcefully.
“Please,” he whispered. “El.”
His low plea made me shudder. I didn’t want to hurt him, I didn’t want him to feel bad but when I turned to make peace, I caught the back of him, as he rushed out of the shanty. He tore through the wheat field before I could reach the end of the yard. Bendo bleated as though voicing her disapproval. “I know,” I said to the goat, as I stroked her head. “He’ll be back.”
I fell asleep beside Bendo, watching the lanterns on the landscape until my eyes were so heavy I couldn’t keep them open any longer. The catcher of dreams came for me in my sleep, came to take me to another place. He picked me up in his arms and carried me to the ground in between rows of lavender. The scent tickled my nose and I stirred. The purple flowers were the same color as Onine’s eyes and their stems stood high above me, but I was one of them. Luna had planted me at the feet of the flowers and the wind told me to push my little roots deep into the soil. “Luna needs you,” the wind said. “She calls you hers, little Pchi.”
The ground beneath me softened and I began to sink. The soil engulfed me but I wasn’t scared. I didn’t cry. I felt her with me—Luna—guardian of our planet. Minosh was there too.
“Luna loves you,” the wind said. “Stay-y-y-y.”
I let the soil embrace me, warm and smooth like silk. Soon my skin and the soil became one and I melted into the ground. It wasn’t long before my entire body was consumed and only my head stood up from the patch among the rows of lavender. I couldn’t see myself, but I knew I was one of them. My neck and chin and cheeks and nose and eyes and ears and hair were one with the flowers. I was no longer sapient. I sprouted and stood as beautiful as any Kyprian, only I didn’t come from fire. I was born of dirt, made from clay.
I don’t know how long I stood among the lavender, my kin, my creators, my saplings. The breeze blew us back and forth in unison and our lovely scent filled the air. The bumbles came and made love to us, stealing our pollen, tickling us with their stingers, making us laugh with their buzzing. The blue sky was light now, as the eye rose well beyond its mid-point. We swayed peacefully until he came.
Down like lightning, he struck my row of kin. The lavender burst into flame, blazing at the sight of him. He didn’t speak but he touched. He touched them all and then he came to me. He stood in front of me and stared at me with his violet eyes. I saw his fire again, the goddess in him, and I knew he’d come for me. He reached out his empty hand, having dropped his stick on the ground. I tried to beg him not to touch me, I tried to speak but I had no voice. Please do not make me ash. For an instant, I thought he received my message, I thought he could hear my plea.
“I need to touch you,” he said. “I need to know.”
His gloves were off and I could see his elegant hands, his perfect sinewy fingers. His skin was bronze like the sisters of the Astros, a vision of dangerous beauty, tempting and frightening all at once. When I saw his hands, I longed for his embrace. I swayed in the breeze, bending toward the tips of his fingers, meeting his touch. It was gentle, it didn’t burn. His energy ran through me and I felt Kypria infecting every one of my sapient cells, making the tiny hairs on my stem stand on end.
If I went up in flames, I didn’t feel it. The sensation was nothing like fire. I felt a surge of liquid rush through me, drenching me in dew. Sticky and wet, ecstasy quickly turned to pain and I sensed a crushing in the part of me that once had a stomach. Agony tore through my lavender stem and I thought I was being ripped up from the ground. I toppled over in the wind and lay there trampled amidst the row of my singed siblings. He was gone, but I sensed his presence still.
I wept until I finally woke on the peat moss beside Bendo. I was a youngling once again. The pain in my stomach was with me still and I curled up on the grass to relieve the cramps that ripped through me. I’d been wrong, I was no longer a youngling. When I woke, I’d reached full sapience. My change had finally come.
***
If I could drop the stick, let it fall, then I could touch you. Then I would know you are like no other, that you are more than a mere sapient, that you are ethereal like me. Somehow, some way, I know. You possess the thing we do not, the beauty so raw it runs deep, deep within you, so deep it is invisible to us here in the dull light of your planet. Raw, fleshly beauty. That is you. No mere sapient, but a dirt-bound goddess in your own right, a surreal vision … a fleeting face … a fading skin … a dying beauty.
I should abhor your subpar, ephemeral frame. It is lower than that of the hexapod on Venus, more inferior to the four-eyed gnat that suckles the refuse from our basest beast — even it possesses more beauty than you, and in only one of its eyes!
But your inner peace … your inner strength blinds me and I cannot deny its splendor. I see it in those dark eyes every time I look at you, every time I am near you. Wonder, softness, salvation are there. I come for you when the eye sinks—I watch you, as you sleep—I lose myself in you—but I am denied the joy of knowing you.
I must touch you … just once. I cannot resist this desire, this need burns through me and bends my will. Soon it will break and I will touch you again. I cannot resist. I will drop my stick and touch you with my burning flesh. Do not move. Do not make a sound. I am coming for you.
***
By the time the eye graced the horizon, my cramps were gone. The discomfort of the change, however, was with me still. Minosh had prepared me for this, she’d told me everything I needed to know, though we’d always thought it would happen before she left.
“When it comes,” she’d said. “We will celebrate.”
She’d planned a small ceremony to mark the event. We’d light up the garden with jars of firebugs, just the two of us. She said they wouldn’t mind the confinement for my special night. We’d toast with a dandelion beer that she’d ferment with the wheat and some of Bendo’s milk—I didn’t question her ingenuity.
“You will blossom, my little Pchi,” she’d said. “From that moment you will see our planet in a whole new way.”
“How so?” I wasn’t a curious youngling. I’d never asked her about the world, about our existence, how we came to be. She told me most of what I knew because it was her responsibility to do so, but she never explained how I came from her.
“You will know what it is to be full sapient, a cultivator of seed,” she’d said. “And you will understand the gift that is this body.” She pointed to my bare belly. I was only in my fourth thó then and had just finished my evening bath. Ours was nothing like the Venusian—our baths were in cold water from the spring. She wrapped me in thick silk and tousled
my hair with its ends.
“When will it come?” I was eager then, impatient and unripe.
“Soon, my little Pchi.” She threw her arms around me and the silk clung to my wet body. I’d gotten a chill from the cold water, but her embrace put an end to it.
I draped that same silk around me now, willing it to cease my discomfort. I covered my face and headed out to meet Tiro. I daydreamed until the cart pulled up in front of the shanty, and then climbed up and into the back, forgetting to greet my master. The whips cracked and the zephyr neighed when it took off down the lane.
Em was anxious to speak and as soon as the cart rolled again she told me she’d finally been assigned. I wasn’t surprised she’d been selected. She was healthy and well balanced, better than most of the cultivators. I’d seen her without her veil and since she’d undergone the change, she wasn’t too wanting for a sapient. “That’s good news for you,” I said.
“You’ll never believe who she’s been assigned to.” Bee’s thick eyebrows rose with the octaves of her voice.
“A fire starter,” Em said.
“He’s in the Temple,” Bee said. “Your section.”
I didn’t need to ask who it was. I felt it in my gut.
“Tal,” Em said.
I’d assumed since I was reassigned to celibacy, he’d be too.
“When?” I asked, letting the sound of the en evaporate in my throat.
“They came for me at full eye,” Em said.
She meant those in charge of sapient selection, the council of three. The goddess relied on the council to dictate selection in her absence. The council had been the ones to tell Minosh I was no longer assigned to Tal—the goddess had chosen him for another.
“Tell her,” Bee said, as she nudged Em.
“The keeper came for me,” she said, “and told me I was to follow him. I thought I was in trouble until he took me to the hall of stones.”
“You saw the hall?” I asked.
“I know,” Bee said. “Can you believe it?”
The hall of stones was closed to sapients without a Kyprian escort. I’d dreamed of seeing the stones ever since I’d heard about them.
“I didn’t think I was getting an assignment,” she said. “I’d given up hope.”
“You must know Tal,” Bee said. “Or you’ve seen him at least.”
They didn’t know we were once assigned. It wasn’t something we shared openly since sapient selection was meant to be private, though you’d never believe it hearing them carry on as they were. Em was overzealous, and Bee her irritating echo.
“Yes, I’ve seen him in the fire pits.” I hoped she’d think I’d only seen him with his covering.
“What does he look like?” Em asked.
“I suppose like every other fire starter.” I hated the question and disliked lying even more. Tal didn’t look like every other fire starter. He is charming and strong too and has pretty dimples in both his cheeks when he smiles and his eyes are stormy and wicked. Though sapients aren’t physically beautiful like the Kyprian, Tal is pleasant to look at and easy to laugh with and I was happy we’d been assigned. I was eager to share myself with him even if I didn’t understand what that meant.
Bee and Em spoke in tandem, the one telling me what the other had forgotten. I only pretended to listen. My stomach ached again and the heaviness in my chest stilted my breath. I didn’t know what had come over me. I felt betrayed, like something was being taken away from me. But Tal had been taken from me more than a thó ago, and I hadn’t cared at the time. I guess I didn’t know what I’d lost until the moment he belonged to another. I couldn’t help feeling abandoned all over again.
“Are you all right?” Bee said.
I nodded and forced a smile beneath my veil so my eyes would at least look lit up.
“I can’t believe it,” Em said. “I just can’t—”
Em cut herself off before the cart stopped. If we knew anything, it was how long it took Tiro to reach the bathing grounds. When they were both gone, I let out a sigh that brought tears to my eyes. I couldn’t stand the heartache. I didn’t realize I’d wanted Tal, that I’d felt that way about him. It didn’t occur to me we were connected somehow, that I thought he was mine and I was jealous. My change had made me feel everything more intensely. I still mourned Minosh and reeled from my vision with Onine but the pain I felt over losing Tal broke me. I didn’t know it would pass.
I tucked my head in my hands and wept. When Tiro pulled in through the gate of the Bathing Temple, I was relieved he jumped off his zephyr and left me to myself. I got down from the cart without realizing I was moving. A wretched automaton, I pulled the gargantuan chains and filled the tubs without thinking. I ignored the pain too, and shoved the sting of the news deep into my belly. I rushed as fast as I could through my work, drifting in and out of my world until I felt the point of his stick in the small of my back.
“Where is your mind today?” Tiro snapped his cane down, this time whipping my left shoulder. The sting cured me of the melodrama I’d ingested in the cart. “Petulant sapient,” he said. “Distraction makes you even more displeasing than you already are.”
“Forgive me, master.”
Tiro held his stick out in front of me, threatening to use it again. He leaned in a little and I turned away from his gaze. I didn’t want to know what kind of sublimity was hidden in his onyx eyes.
“Saturnia’s sister awaits,” he said.
The Temple was quiet and I could see Saturnia’s sister addressing her entourage of cygnets. She kept a laced hemp satchel full of little porcelain figurines that came to life in the water. Her tub was supposed to be filled with gold leaves, but I hadn’t had the chance to get them yet. I walked as quickly as I could to the artificial marsh and plucked a bunch before heading to the great cylindrical pool. Saturnia’s sister lounged on its step, listening for me with all her little porcelains lined up on the rim of the tub. She smiled when she heard me approach but kept her gaze on the cygnets.
“Little one,” she said. “I have been waiting.”
Not an ounce of cruelty lived in her, and even when she chided me she did it lovingly. Saturnia’s sister was a caregiver. Minosh told me she was the Venusian healer.
“Why do they need healers?” I’d asked.
“They do not,” she’d said. “She heals sapients.” Minosh had learned things about her in the gold sediment but wouldn’t tell me what. I couldn’t believe a Venusian would have the gift to heal sapients. It didn’t make sense since we weren’t a compatible species.
“Forgive me,” I said to the healer, lowering my gaze. Like an elegant swan, she used her long limbs to coax her cygnets into the hot tub, dropping them in one at a time. It was nothing short of magic to see the tiny figurines come to life and triple in size. The miniature cygnets would swim around the tub fighting for the gold leaves and the Kyprian would laugh at them before slipping beneath the steamy water to join them.
“Why are you sad?” Saturnia’s sister was the only Venusian who spoke to me while she bathed. She’d often chat with me as if I were one of her porcelains, showing me a generous amount of concern, as well as admiration. It’s difficult to explain how I knew this, but it was reflected in her.
“I’m not sad,” I said.
She looked down at her golden skin, shedding in the scalding hot water of the bath, rejuvenating the layer of beauty beneath. “I am aging,” she said.
“You?” I said. “You’re as magnificent as ever.”
Her pouty lips lifted into a smile and she clapped her hands. “You are my favorite sapient,” she whispered.
I couldn’t return her smile because of my veil, but also because she rarely looked in my direction. Even when she spoke to me in a seemingly intimate fashion, she kept her eyes on her cygnets as if she spoke to them.
“Your change has come, little one,” she said.
“How’d you know?” I looked down at my frock.
She giggled and splashed water
at two of the cygnets fighting over a leaf. “The goddess is happy.”
She didn’t tell me how she knew my secret and I was too surprised to ask a second time. “The goddess?”
“Kypria has been waiting, little one.”
“For me?”
She smiled with her lovely perfect lips and teeth. She was fully submerged in the water, but her long locks were spread out on the rim of the tub, hanging over the edge like a veil of silk.
“You are special,” she said, and as if reading my mind, she mentioned Tiro. “The master is cruel to you. Do not let the master win, little one. The master does not know you.”
“But how …”
Saturnia’s sister smiled at her cygnets. “Sapient,” she said. “Free yourself from your chains, but do not let him take you. You do not want to disappoint Kypria. The goddess has chosen.”
I couldn’t tell if she was still speaking about Tiro.
“Let me call you little Pchi,” she said.
“How did you—”
“You, little Pchi.” She giggled and frolicked in the water, pushing herself across the tub and farther away from me. Her flirtatious manner was a part of her charm. I walked around the tub to be near her again.
“I miss her so much,” I said. “Have you seen Minosh?”
She smiled and pulled her head beneath the water and the gold sediment covered her up to her hairline. Confused by her musings, I hoped she’d reveal more but this was her way of letting me know she’d said all she wanted to say. I couldn’t put any of it together, for it was a puzzle with too many missing pieces.
When Saturnia’s sister came out of her bath, I held her satchel open for her and waited patiently, as she placed her cygnets inside. Her kiss made each one small again. After she draped herself in her linen robe, she picked up her diamond-encrusted stick and held it out to me.
“Come closer,” she whispered with a giggle.
I moved toward her, letting the tip of her stick touch my frock. She closed her amber eyes and lifted the stick onto my left shoulder. I kept my gaze on the rim of the tub, except when I snuck a glance at her face. It was absolutely radiant, rejuvenated by the scalding hot water and the magical sediment of her home planet. The renewed layer of skin made her look younger, if that was possible. She held the tip of her stick just above my shoulder, moving it in a circle ever so gently, as she gestured with her other hand. She let her fingers dance, as they made some kind of secret communication with her goddess, and the Venusian healer pulled Tiro’s sting out of my body. She destroyed the affliction in midair, making it evaporate like smoke in the eye’s light. “All better,” she said.
El and Onine Page 3