Beneath Ceaseless Skies #170

by Cat Rambo

  Now she was no longer part of the whole, no longer a simple thing in the forest but something outside it, alien to it. Now she was a weapon in Murga’s hand.

  And while he would use her for revenge, for justice, it would no longer be her revenge, her justice. She was just a thing now, a thing of cabinetry and magic, and would never be alive again.

  Copyright © 2015 Cat Rambo

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  Nebula and World Fantasy Award-nominated writer/editor Cat Rambo lives, writes, and teaches by the shores of an eagle-haunted lake in the Pacific Northwest. Her over one hundred fifty fiction publications include stories in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, and two previously in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Her debut novel, appearing in April from Wordfire Press, is Beasts of Tabat, in which more of the events of “Primaflora’s Journey” are explained, and which is book one of the Tabat Quartet. For more about Cat, as well as links to her fiction, see www.kittywumpus.net.

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  WILD THINGS GOT TO GO FREE

  by Heather Clitheroe

  In our village, some of the grown-ups went away and they didn’t come back. They said goodbye to the people they loved, and it was a sad thing. I never knew why they had to go away or where they went. All I knew was that we weren’t supposed to talk to strangers about it, and especially not the soldiers. Going away was a private thing. Like the quiet talking Mama and Da did at night, when Aisha and I were supposed to be in bed.

  One of Aisha’s friends had her father go away. He invited the people he knew to come and visit before he left, including Mama and Da. Aisha stayed home with me. She didn’t want to. “Why can’t I go?” she asked.

  “Leah’s not old enough to stay here,” Mama said. “Not by herself.”

  “I am too old enough,” I said, but Mama wasn’t listening to me.

  Aisha argued, but Da shook his head and said that was it. Aisha made me go to bed early because she was angry.

  Her friend missed school for days and days. When she came back, she didn’t want to talk at anybody. She started crying after lunch. The teacher let her go outside and Aisha sat with her until after school. I asked Aisha about it, but she wouldn’t tell me anything. “How come her Da went away? Where’d he go?”

  “You should be quiet,” Aisha said.

  “But she’s so sad... didn’t he care?”

  “You’re too little to understand,” Aisha said. My sister was fifteen. She got to know more about things than I did, even though it wasn’t fair—nine was more than enough. “Hurry up,” she said. “Stop walking in the mud.”

  “Couldn’t he just come back?” A couple of soldiers were outside the livery, leaning against the wall and talking to each other. One of them looked up as we passed. “If she’s so sad, why doesn’t he just come back? Why don’t any of them come back?”

  “Leah, be quiet.”

  “But why...”

  Aisha grabbed my hand like I was a baby. “Let go of me!” I said. But she kept dragging me along, right through a puddle. She wouldn’t let me go until we were almost all the way home. I didn’t think much about it until I noticed Mama was getting different. Her breath smelled a little like hot metal and her eyes sometimes lit up, like something was shining deep inside of her. She got short with people. Even me. I asked her about it. “It’s nothing, Leah,” she said. She picked me up like I was little, told me I was her special girl and not to worry.

  I tried not to. I really did.

  But late one night, I heard Mama and my Da doing their quiet night-time talking. I wasn’t exactly sneaking. I had to get up for a drink of water, and I heard them. They were sitting up together in front of the fire. Mama was sitting on Da’s lap in the big rocking chair, curled up with him as he rocked. I never saw her do anything like that. It was so strange that I stayed at the door, watching them.

  “I have to go soon,” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  “You knew I’d go away,” she said. I held my breath.

  “Some day,” he said. “Not for a long time.”

  “It’s almost time.” She sounded very sure.

  Da’s voice was funny. “How do you know?”

  It took her a long time to answer. “I’m not supposed to stay.”

  “Your life is here,” he snapped.

  “It was,” she said. “It’s always been inside of me, Pat. I feel it all the time now. It’s getting harder not to give in.”

  “Can’t you just try not to?”

  “Pat,” she said, in a firm voice. “Don’t.”

  “I just...” He shook his head. The chair rocked faster.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” she said softly, looking away from him and towards the window. “I want it. Gods, how I want it.”

  Her hair hung loose, flowing down her shoulders in waves. He put his hands in it and pulled her closer, turning her head back to him.

  “And there’s Leah,” she said quietly. “I have to take her with me.”

  He sucked in his breath like something hurt him. “What?”

  “I wasn’t sure before, but I am now.”

  “And...Aisha?”

  “Just Leah,” she said. “She needs to know.”

  Da’s shoulders shook. “I... I didn’t think either of them... I knew you would, but... she’s so little...” He couldn’t finish what he was going to say.

  “It’ll be a long time,” Mama said, touching his face. “You’ll see her grow up.”

  “I don’t want to lose you, Darla” he said.

  She shushed him, kissing his forehead, and he started to cry. I’d never seen him cry before in my life.

  “You knew when you married me,” she said. “You knew it would be like this. I’ve loved you so much, Pat. I’ve been so happy. I stayed this long because of you. All of you.” She stroked his hair. “Oh, my love.” He wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her chest.

  I shivered as I crept back to bed. Mama was going away. It felt like a hole had opened up inside of me, the edges growing wider and wider. I lay in the dark, listening to the roof creaking while the wind blew. I didn’t want my Mama to leave. She couldn’t.

  When she told us the next morning, I cried. Aisha stared at the floor. “Leah, you’ll come with me when I go.” Mama said, lifting me onto her lap.

  “I get to stay with you?” I asked. Suddenly I thought about how I would miss Da and Aisha. But it wouldn’t be so bad if I could be with Mama.

  “No, pet,” she said. “We’ll have a special, private talk, just the two of us, and we’ll say goodbye . And then you’ll come home. Your Da will come and meet you.”

  “What about me?” Aisha’s voice was very small.

  “No,” Mama said. Just that. Nothing more. Aisha held her hands to her mouth, but she didn’t look mad. She looked relieved. She took a deep breath, nodded her head. Da held her and rubbed her back.

  When he looked at me, though, it was like he was seeing something for the first time.

  * * *

  Mama didn’t tell everybody. The people she did tell asked with brittle voices about me and Aisha. I peeked around the heavy canvas curtain that divided the store from our back hallway and the kitchen, listening as Mama told old Mrs. Benaim she was taking me. “That poor girl,” Mrs. Benaim murmured. She asked when.

  “Soon,” Mama said. She looked out the window.

  Mrs. Benaim patted Mama’s hand. “Good luck, dear,” she said. She walked slowly to the door, leaning heavily on her cane.

  More people came to the store, taking a long time to buy their things, talking to Da quietly. Mama said less and less. If a soldier came into the shop, people left quickly or raised their voices and talked about the weather. The door opened and closed all day, the little copper bell tinkling sadly each time. I used to think it was a happy sound.

  The soldiers were in the village all the time now, stalking through the streets. Da made me stay in the back, wouldn’t let me come
out in the store. Mama stayed inside, too. When I woke up at night, afraid and crying, she got into bed beside me and rocked me back and forth. “I won’t go without you, Leah,” she whispered, over and over. “You’ll understand, when it’s time. You’re my special girl.” It just made the waiting worse, not knowing when it was coming.

  Then one night Mama came into my room in the middle of the night, waking me up with a gentle hand on my shoulder, leaning in close to speak to me. There was that funny light in her eyes again, shining out at me. The smell of metal was on her breath, like a hot frying pan left too long on the stove. “I have to go,” she said.

  “We’re going now?” I struggled to sit up, pushing hair out of my face.

  “You’re staying here,” she said. Her voice was rough. “It’s not safe.”

  “Is it time for our private talk?”

  The light in her eyes flickered as she blinked. “I can’t,” she said. I heard something outside, away in the distance. It sounded like somebody shouting. “I’m sorry, Leah. I can’t.”

  “But you can’t go yet,” I wailed, grabbing her arms. I tried to hang on to her.

  She stiffened, taking hold of my shoulders. “Don’t you want me to be free?” she said. Her voice wasn’t the Mama I knew. It was angry and snarly. “Well?” Her hands dug into me and she gave me a shake. “Don’t you?”

  “Y-yes,” I said, trying to talk around gulping sobs, but her fingers were squashing me. This was not like her at all. “Mama, that’s hurting me...”

  Her mouth opened in a soundless O. She let go of me, yanking her hands back. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, pet.” When she looked at me, her eyes were her own again.

  “It’s okay, Mama,” I said, shivering.

  “Listen to me,” she said. “You’ll have to be brave. Don’t be afraid when your time comes.”

  I was scared already. “My time for what?”

  “You’ll know, when it happens,” she said.

  “How will I know if you don’t tell me?”

  She hesitated. “It’s not just something to tell. It’s something private, to show.”

  “Then show me.”

  “I—it’s not time,” she said, licking her lips. “I can’t. Not here.”

  “But you said you wouldn’t go away without me,” I said, suddenly angry. “Why did you say it if it wasn’t true?”

  She didn’t have an answer. Just looked at me for a long moment. “You’re my special girl, Leah.” She bent quickly and hugged me. Her breath was hot, tickling my ear. “You’re different. Do you understand? Don’t tell anybody. You keep it secret until you meet somebody you love.”

  Da called her, told her to hurry. “They’re searching houses,” he said. He was out of breath, still wearing his boots and coat. He’d tracked mud inside. “Ren’s here. Quickly. You have to go.”

  I tried to ask her again, hoping she would take a moment, stay a little longer and tell me. But she couldn’t wait, she said. She had to go.

  She hugged Aisha, held her a long time, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “Be good,” she said to her. She kissed Da. He didn’t want to let her go. She had to give him a little push to make him let her go. Then she turned to me—I was standing in my nightgown, shivering. The floor was cold under my bare feet. She touched my face gently.

  “Leah, I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Will you... will you come back for me?” I said. Da made a noise, reached for me.

  She hesitated again, her eyes with that shine. “I’ll try,” she said.

  My cousin Ren was waiting for Mama in the kitchen, pacing. When he looked at me, I saw the flickering light in his eyes. He was going away, too. It looked like nobody would get to say goodbye to him properly, either. I hated the soldiers so much it hurt.

  When the back door closed, Aisha went silently upstairs. Da picked me up, carried me to the rocking chair. He still hadn’t taken his boots off. There was mud all over the floor. “You can’t hold her to it, Leah,” he said. “She can’t come back for you.”

  “She’s going to try. She told me so.”

  “That doesn’t mean she can.”

  I did not want to hear that. I pretended I hadn’t, as we sat and rocked together, staring at the empty fireplace. I was her special girl. Mama would come back for me.

  * * *

  Da made new rules. Stay away from the windows. All the curtains had to be drawn. No sitting where somebody might see us. No running in the house or making noise when the shop was open. Aisha and me had to go down to the cellar if we heard anything on the road and wait for Da to open the door and give the signal that we could come up: three knocks, one long, two short. It was just in case, Da said. Don’t be afraid, he said to me.

  But I heard him talking to my uncle Jos one night, when he came down to the village to have a pint with Da in the kitchen. Aisha was allowed to stay and read by the lamp, but they made me go to bed. I clumped up the stairs and then I tiptoed back down to listen to them. I could just see Da, sitting in a chair at the table. “You keep your kinder close,” Da told Jos. “Don’t let them go too far from the house. Keep them safe. Don’t let the soldiers see anything they can use.”

  “Now then,” said Jos. “They don’t even know who they’re looking for. They don’t know anything about us. Think we’re simple and stupid.”

  “They were going from house to house,” Da said. “Like they had a list.”

  Jos swore. Bad words that Aisha would be in trouble for saying, but Da didn’t tell him to watch his mouth in front of her.

  “It’ll be over soon,” Jos said. Maybe to her or Da, I don’t know. I couldn’t see.

  “Do you think that makes it any better?” Da said.

  * * *

  It was hard to be stuck inside, where everything made me think of Mama. I wanted to be in the fresh air. If I couldn’t be outside, I wanted to be in the store, lifting the lid on the pickle barrel to see them floating in brine, helping pour sultanas into twists of waxed paper. Measuring sugar and the flour, patting the top of the scoop to even it out. I wanted to be busy so I wouldn’t have to think about how much I was missing Mama.

  The next day it was nice outside, and I asked Da if I could go down the road and see Maren and her little brother, Niko. He said no.

  “I’ll run the whole way,” I said. “It’s not far.”

  “No,” he said again. “That’s all there is to it.”

  It wasn’t that far. I peeked out the window, and I didn’t see anybody. I snuck out, and I ran the whole way like I’d said. When I got there, though, Niko and Maren’s Da took me back right away. He held my hand so tight I couldn’t feel my fingers.

  Da shook me, his face angry and red. He told me not to be so stupid. “Why do you think your mother can’t be here?” he said. “What if you ran into the soldiers?” I couldn’t look him in the eyes. “I’m not going to spank you.” But he said something that made me feel even worse. “She would be so disappointed in you if she was here. Is that what you want? Is it?”

  I thought to myself that I would ask Mama when she came back, and I knew she wouldn’t be disappointed. She’d understand. I wondered where she was, and what she was doing. If she was thinking about me.

  * * *

  There were lots of new soldiers in the village, camped in a fallow field. They came to buy things from the store so often that Aisha and me had to spend most of the day in the cellar. They wanted pipe tobacco and sweets, and fresh eggs and milk, and the cured sausages that hung from the ceiling. Jos said something one night about how he wouldn’t take their money. Da said that theirs was good just like anybody else’s and besides, what choice did he have?

  “But if they knew,” Jos said. He was coming down to see Da almost every night now, to give him news and to hear what Da knew. If I stayed quiet on the stairs, I could listen to them. “If they find out your wife is one of them, they’ll burn you out. Kill you, and take your girls. Use them to find her.”

  “And if I refused the
m, don’t you think that would look like I had something to hide?”

  “You take such a risk,” Jos said, after a moment.

  “There’s no way they can find out,” Da said. “Darla’s safe with your son. They’re together. Almost everybody here knows someone who turns. You keep quiet. We all will.”

  Jos said that of course he had and he would.

  Then Da said, “Have you seen her?”

  “I have,” Jos said. My heart came up into my mouth, and I almost flew down the stairs to beg to know what Mama said, what Jos had heard from her. When she was coming back for me. “I saw them yesternight. She’s fine.”

  Da sighed. “ Tell her... I miss her. If you can.”

  “It’ll be over soon,” Jos said. “She’ll turn, and the others with her. Once they’re gone, the soldiers will leave. There’ll be nothing for them here for a long time.”

  “It has to be soon,” Da said. “I can’t take much more of this.” He sounded very sad. I guess he missed Mama as much as I did.

  “Wild things got to go free,” Jos said quietly. “You know that.”

  * * *

  The rains started that night. Cold, heavy downpours that drummed on the roof all night. I thought about the soldiers in their tents. I hoped they were cold and wet. Aisha and me put all of the summer linens in cedar chests, replaced them with heavy blankets. I got a hard lump in my throat when I patted the blanket over Mama’s pillow. She’ll come back, I knew. She would come back for me even if Da didn’t think so. I should have asked her how long it would be. This waiting was just as bad as the other kind.

  Da carried a mattress down to the cellar for us. “It’s better this way,” he said.

  “It’s cold down there,” Aisha said. I wanted to say that, too, but his eyebrows came together like a fat caterpillar and his cheeks went red.

  “You can take a hot brick to bed,” he said.

  “I don’t want to,” she said. “What if there’s mice?”

  “It’s not safe,” he snapped. “That’s all there is to it. Soldiers come in the middle of the night, I can’t be worrying about you. They haven’t found your mother and Ren yet, but they’re looking. They’re getting angry. That makes them more dangerous.” Aisha muttered, but she helped me carry my blankets and pillow down. That night, I slept snuggled into her back. She didn’t push me away.