Aerovoyant

by P L Tavormina

  My rock. I am rock.

  That afternoon, Alphonse took four practice climbs along four different routes. Every grip and hold came back; he shifted and pushed up with the memory of muscle. Afterward, he sat on top of his rock and looked westward, where the Prophets peeked over the ranges like two fingertips beckoning.

  * * *

  On the third day, the trail turned away from the stream and switched back and forth more steeply toward the first pass. A pair of courting raptorfowl screamed overhead, bounding and soaring, fierce and free.

  Alphonse was further into the ranges than he’d been before, and Turaset’s twin suns grew into points of heat as the day whiled away. The pack cut into Alphonse’s shoulders, sweat dripped from his hair, and old memories stirred with the breeze.

  * * *

  You’ll come tonight, Alphie. Tell Delsico’s donors about Marco leaving.

  Puzzled, he’d said, No, Mommy. I don’t want to talk about Daddy.

  They’ll have cakes. Come, you won’t need to say anything. I’ll tell them.

  I don’t want to!

  Oh Alphonse, don’t fuss.

  * * *

  He’d gone, and she’d told the industry donors that Marco didn’t want the burden of raising a son. The pain of that evening still stung, and he yelled into the slopes, “I was six. Why would you say that?”

  Hiking through the afternoon and into early evening, he lost count of the switchbacks. As the first sun dipped behind Mount Tura, Alphonse closed on the easternmost pass, huffing the last eighty feet to the saddle. The terrain beyond rose into view and he stopped.

  Awe. There was no other word. Before him lay a massive, virgin landscape. Peak after peak fell into the distance, with Mount Tura standing proud, centered in grandeur spanning the horizon. Snow on the higher slopes balanced the lush valley below, and the twinkling thread of the Turas River ran north to south as far as he could see.

  Starkly beautiful flinty outcrops peppered Mount Tura’s ridgeline. Alphonse sat suddenly on the trail and stared. His mother, she was like those great cliffs—hard and rimmed in cold, protruding into his world. Refusing to yield yet oddly fundamental to life.

  An ache started high in his chest and passed down, through his core and into the ground, and with it, Alphonse lost himself to the view. If he’d been different, if he’d stood up to her ideas sooner, things might be better now. Their lives might have gone differently if he’d shown more integrity, been a force, defined the landscape instead of allowing her to do so.

  It would have required him to be some other person long ago, during those chaotic years after his grandfather’s death. The awareness he would have needed then, to see the course she was laying—impossible. It was too much to expect of a child.

  Like those protruding granite fins, etched in time, the past was written.

  Wilderness. The thought offered itself. Endless ranges lay ahead, and the outfitter’s doubtful eyes sparked in Alphonse’s thoughts.

  He could die out there. No one would know.

  Tura’s Prophets wore mantles of cloud; they were dark, draped in white. They watched over the folding glory of syncline and anticline, over the layers of rock stacked like books in a library. The Prophets stood shoulder to shoulder, facing him, silent, like funereal deacons knowing what lay ahead for a child too small to understand.

  Light faded as second sun crept downward, and shadows from distant peaks stole across the valley. A cooling breeze swirled up, bringing new scents, pine and cedar.

  I could summit. I could stand with Arel.

  The thought pulled energy up through him, warming and immediate, at odds with the cool evening breeze turning suddenly chill.

  He stood. “I see you,” he yelled at the Prophets. “And I’m coming for you.”

  The words echoed.

  * * *

  1 The history of Turaset, including its colonization and regression to pre-industrial society, is described in Appendix 1. Appendices, world maps, and additional in-world stories are also available at pltavormina.com.

  Chapter Three

  Myrta de Terr hoisted a second pail of milk onto the table and thwacked Lavender’s rump, sending the nanny goat out of the shed. Nothing on all of Turaset could possibly be any more revolting than squeezing a dirty goat udder, one gripping fist at a time.

  Milk on her hands, her clogs, splatters of it on her clothing. There were even drops in her hair. She drowned in a vile, endless sea of the stuff. It was like a second skin. If she had to empty one more nanny, she’d probably up and turn into a kid herself.

  She arched her back. At least it was done for the morning.

  Outside the shed Terrence and Nate, Myrta’s papa and oldest brother, crouched in one of the nearer fields. Papa Terrence stabbed his field-blade into the ground and jerked it through the dirt.

  With conjunction over—Bel’letra having joined and split again—the men were ripping through the topsoil. That leathery crust from fierno’s breath was why her brother Nate said she wasn’t suited to fieldwork, but a sea of dirt would be just as bad as the milk anyway. Myrta pushed the milking stool to the wall and set the stack of empty pails on the table next to the full ones.

  Her mama, Celeste, came into the shed smelling of griddle cakes. She’d been boiling maple water. She handed a piece of candy over. “Is this all the milk?”

  Myrta nodded and sighed, half-expecting the sound to come out as a bleat.

  “Mm. I’d hoped for three pails anyway. We need more cheese for market.” Celeste pulled a broom from the corner and began sweeping.

  Working with Celeste—Myrta was supposed to address her parents by name now that she was of age to marry—was one of the nicer parts of the day. They could talk or not as suited their moods, which usually lined up like shadows. They finished cleaning and started toward the cheese house.

  “You’re very quiet this morning, Myrta.”

  She’d been thinking of the cheesemaking, or rather selling. “I hope there are more market days this year.”

  “We expect fewer.”

  Myrta pulled up short. Milk sloshed onto her clogs. “Fewer?”

  More grimly, Celeste said, “Well. There’s no point if there’s nothing to sell.”

  Yes there was—escaping the farm. Taking a break from chores. “Mama. The horses leave more often than me.”

  The dourness in Celeste’s eyes faded, and her tone softened. “Oh sweetheart, I know. If the droughts end, we’ll have more reason to go.”

  Myrta felt, quite suddenly, as though an endless line of udders pressed toward her, forcing her thoughts into the march of weeks and months ahead.

  “Managing the stead comes first.”

  Myrta blinked at the moisture in her eyes. Somehow or other, she would leave this farm one day. At times like this, it couldn’t come soon enough.

  Celeste began to walk, and Myrta followed, trying to imagine a summer with even fewer market days than last year.

  “Why don’t you join Terrence and the boys when they visit Reuben?”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “You’d be away from your chores. You might have fun.”

  Reuben was a logger. There’d be one family. One. Nothing to buy, nothing to sell, no music, no dancing.

  “I’ll ask Terrence to take you along. He hopes to find you a suitable match, and that’s easier to sort if you spend a little time on other steads. He asked again about the cotton grower’s son.”

  Myrta gripped the pail handle harder. She’d met that man twice, both times at market. He seemed much like Papa, tall and imposing, and he’d gotten her name wrong both times. “I don’t know, Mama.”

  Celeste smiled. “Exactly my point.”

  They entered the cheese house. Along one wall was a stove and a workbench with mounted drawers. The facing wall hel
d an icebox with rennet and cultures, and fresh rounds hung in a room off the back. Myrta put her pail on the workbench and pulled out a cheese press. “The press is warping.”

  Celeste brought finished curd from the back. “Work around it.” She went back to the adjoining room.

  Myrta tied her hair into a rough knot and got to work. She’d always thought finding her own path made more sense than matching, on the other hand her brother Nate had a match and would marry soon enough. He seemed content about it.

  But even if she stayed in the belt, claiming her own piece of land seemed better. Running a stead as she saw fit, coming and going as she chose. Yet again, things were easier with a second pair of hands, which marriage provided.

  She put the curd in the press. Maybe matching with the cotton grower’s son would be all right. She’d be somewhere new, and he might like for her to carve out her own place on his stead.

  Tightening one side of the press, she pictured him as she’d seen him last—carrying a book. She tried to remember what his voice sounded like and wondered how it might be to sit with him in the evenings and read. Possibly they enjoyed the same stories. She tightened the other side of the press, and whey trickled out between the boards, cool and pale on her hands. Cotton growers always dressed well. That seemed to be part of their business.

  As she tightened down, a pungent aroma—the sourness of curdling; the smell she loved because it was the very end of milk—drifted up. Myrta leaned forward and breathed deeply.

  Tightness shot through her temples. She dropped the press with a clatter.

  Not again.

  She put her hands to her face. Warmth circled her eyes and crawled behind them, back to her ears. The room began to spin; the stool tried to throw her off. Steadying against the bench, Myrta pushed on her temples and hummed a little tune.

  Her mama dashed in. “How bad? Does it hurt?”

  She gave a shake. There was never pain, just vertigo and this sensation, like hot, angry worms coiling under her skin. Her concentration narrowed.

  “Here.”

  Her mama’s shaking hands held chips of ice. Myrta pushed the ice against her forehead. The air around the curd—that swirled too. Ripple, ripple. She closed her eyes, breathed in, counted to three, then out.

  “Not just the breathing. Relax. Imagine you’re falling asleep.”

  Myrta kept her tone level. "It's a little hard with the ice."

  Celeste said more strongly, “Focus, Myrta.”

  She did as she was told. She imagined emptiness. An endless expanse of cold sky. No worms, no dizziness, just calm.

  After a few minutes the vertigo passed, and the rippling warmth too. She dropped the last bits of ice into the tray with a sigh.

  Celeste still gripped the edge of the workbench. “The exercises are important. Have you done them?”

  “Of course. Yes.” Myrta took a fresh cloth from a drawer and dried her face.

  “You need to do them. Every night. Every single night.” Celeste wiped the spilled whey, her hands still shaking. “At least you didn’t faint.”

  * * *

  That evening Myrta took a basket of eggs to the farmhouse and kicked her clogs off at the door. She stepped into the washroom to clean up, and as she did the side door squeaked open and back. “Teams’ll need extra grain.”

  That was Nate’s voice.

  “You got it.”

  And that was her other brother, Jack. As children, she and Jack would escape chores together and run off, pretend to be anything but farmers.

  She dried her hands. Evening contentment spread through the farmhouse with the smells of baking bread and vegetable stew. Myrta took the eggs to the kitchen, where Celeste was ladling up. Papa Terrence had a forkful from the pot. Celeste leaned onto him.

  Sometimes it puzzled Myrta, their affection, because she could easily count the number of long conversations the two had ever held. Celeste called Terrence’s silent acceptance a blessing. She’d grown up in the foothill town of Collimais and spent time at the central university in Narona City, a place so busy she said a person couldn’t think straight.2 Terrence had farmed from childhood out here in the belt. Their backgrounds were nothing alike, and yet somehow, they wound together like two plies of yarn.

  Celeste’s eyes fell on her. “Oh good, you’re in. Put these on the table.”

  Terrence went to the table’s head. “Lookin’ well, Myrta. Keepin’ up with chores?”

  “Yes.” She sat. He’d ask about the goats next.

  “How’re the goats? Are the kids thriving?”

  “Yes.” Every evening when he probed like this, she felt like a lump of butter forced into his idea for her future. Married off to the cotton grower’s son—What was his name? Everett? No, Emmett.

  Emmett, the cotton grower’s son, she reminded herself.

  Everyone had a role in the belt. Most everyone was matched. She could demand a different life—it happened sometimes.

  “And the nannies? Milk comin’ strong?”

  “Yes.” Talking chores, every day, with a man who looked like a farm, with eyebrows sprouting out of the furrowed acreage of his forehead, arms and legs like fenceposts, it felt like signing a lifetime agreement.

  There was no good reason not to claim her own piece of land.

  Nathan strode in with Jack right behind. Nate’s horse mane of hair was tied back in a thong, and he had a strong nose like Terrence. Jack was taller with high cheekbones, like Celeste. He kept his hair short, kept a folding razor handy, sometimes shaving himself bald. Anything to keep the dirt down, he said.

  He leaned over and whispered, “Stay strong. He gave it to me outside.”

  She resigned herself. “The nannies are fine. The younger mothers are giving more milk, but the older ones are gentler. We pressed cheese today. A lot. Enough to sell at market.”

  Celeste brought the pitcher over. “She works hard. It’s not always easy.”

  Terrence glanced at Myrta. “Nathan carries his load.”

  Well, so did she. And Nate had permission to leave. He went places all the time, talking with growers, planning out the crops.

  Celeste sat. “Nathan is Nathan. Jack is Jack. And Myrta’s Myrta.”

  Jack’s eyes twinkled. “Mama, your insight is inspiring.”

  Myrta ate without saying a word, neatly and quietly.

  After a few minutes Terrence said, “Good stew, Celeste.” The gravel in his voice was like a carriage rumbling down a washboard road, like he had somewhere to get to but couldn’t be rushed about it. “There’s only the five of us fall to spring. We have near a hundred acres. We all pitch in.”

  “Yes, and the children take more work every year. Five is more than it used to be.”

  Jack began to comment on the difficulty of five equaling any number other than five, but Celeste silenced him with a glance, took a warm roll, and handed half to him. Nate devoured his stew.

  Nate always ate like that. He was always hungry.

  Celeste set her fork down. “Terrence. About your plans to see Reuben’s irrigation system—”

  “Amount he paid for that thing. If it’s worth half what he laid out, it’s worth a look, but it’ll be a fool’s purchase when the drought ends.”

  Nate mopped up stew juices with a roll. “Could be useful after. We could grow corn. It’s a short season. We could double plant.”

  Papa grunted. “Half-baked idea, pullin’ water against gravity.”

  Celeste straightened her knife and fork, making parallel lines out of them, which meant she was building up to something. Myrta sat straight and popped a blueberry into her mouth. She glanced back and forth between her mama and papa.

  “Why don’t you take Myrta along?”

  Myrta held the blueberry on her tongue and sat perfectly still.

  Terrence stopped eat
ing and looked at Celeste. “D’you think that’s a good idea?”

  “I do.”

  He seemed to turn it over. “No. She has chores here. Makin’ the cheese.”

  Celeste set her spoon next to the fork, next to the knife. All three pointed straight across the table. “Terrence. Neither she nor I have been off the farm in half a year.”

  Myrta looked down into her lap. It was a common holding, here in the belt, that daughters were strong in ways that sons were not. Farm wives, they were the strongest of all.

  During the silence, Terrence worked through the rest of his stew. Then he lifted his eyes to her. “Myrta has naught to do with irrigation, and we’re countin’ on that cheese. Reuben’s stead is a half morning away. I’m sorry Myrta. Answer has to be no.”

  She exhaled. In truth, she did understand. His worth was all tied up in how the farm got on, and the droughts had taken such a terrible toll, the yields half what they’d been. The goats were more important than ever. Still, for him to decide so quickly hurt.

  She’d stay. They’d leave, see other people, and she’d stay. Jack was trying to catch her eye, but she ignored him.

  Celeste stood and began clearing dishes. “Myrta needs to learn more about other steads. She needs more time with children, too, before bearing her own.”

  Frowning, Myrta wondered why Celeste had gone there.

  “Irrigation’s got nothin’ to do with that.”

  Myrta kept her mouth shut. Her mama was still trying. She rose to help with the dishes, rolling the blueberry against the roof of her mouth.

  Celeste took a cobbler to the table and said with a smile so slight that Myrta thought she might be imagining it, “Reuben has babies. Take Myrta. She’ll keep them out of your way.”

  Myrta picked up a dirty bowl and scraped the last bits of food out. No one was talking anymore, but she didn’t dare look. She wasn’t nervous, she truly wasn’t, but the idea of nervous was ready to pounce if she let it. She bit into the blueberry, her teeth slicing into its meaty middle. She washed the bowl, set it in the drying rack, and reached for another. Why wasn’t anybody saying anything?